Rebuilding Chesterton's Fence

 There's been a lot of discussion lately in various (mainly political/economic) news & commentary that I consume lately. If you don't know, Chesterton's Fence is the idea that you don't tear down a fence unless you understand why that fence was put up in the first place. I'll let you draw your own conclusions to what self-styled super-genius's actions the media I was consuming was referencing to (there's more than one, to be honest). 

In terms of D&D and other RPGs, this is solid advice. We often, especially those of us in the OSR and the weird confluence of OSR and indie/narrative/story-first gaming circles, tell new GMs to "homebrew to make it your own game" or roll out adages like "rulings over rules." But if you don't know why those rules were there in the first place, you're likely to do more damage than improvement. 

I watched this video about improving 5E play earlier today. I'm still involved in two play-by-post 5E games (same GM), but I don't have much interest in the game itself these days. Still haven't bothered to look at the 5.5E rules yet. But at the same time, it's good to have some idea of that play culture. Especially in light of the (now cancelled, unfortunately) GM workshop I was preparing for.  

If you don't want to watch, he's talking about how the 5E "long rest" mechanic takes away tension and resource management, and ways to bring those back by limiting or putting conditions on the long rests. No arguments, no notes. He's right. If you want to play 5E, those are good things to do. 

While watching the video, I couldn't stop thinking of how WotC tore down Chesterton's Fence when they made 3E D&D and their subsequent versions either because they just didn't know what they were doing, or because there was pressure from players to take out the "suck" from the game. Actually, this may have started with TSR people in the late 80s/early 90s, around the time of 2E AD&D now that I think of it. I guess there's just been an accumulation of Chesterton's Fences being kicked down in the game over the decades.

And now, the younger generation is rebuilding some of those fences. It makes me happy to see that. Gygax and Arneson, for all their faults, ended up designing a great little game. And a lot of the decisions they made way back in the early 70s were integral to good game play. Resource management (including rests) may be boring and sometimes tedious, and it may not be something that emulates the heroic fantasy fiction that inspires our games. But without it, where's the game? 

Lessons Learned Running West Marches

Long-time WaHNtHaC... readers will remember that from 2018 to 2022, I ran a West Marches campaign. The other day, some folks in the TTRPG Finder: Korea Edition group chat (KakaoTalk...it's like What'sApp for Koreans) were talking about West Marches, asking if anyone was currently running one. I of course mentioned that I had run one, but I don't have the time to start it up again. 

It did get me thinking about the campaign I did run, though. I've been going over what I did right, what I did wrong, what I did different than Mr. Robbins' original WM campaign that worked, and how I might do it again if I were to do it again. I'm sure a lot of this is in the various posts I made about the campaign over the years. I should probably read over those posts myself. I'm sure they'll jog a few memories. 

Well, I'll get what I'm thinking down now, and maybe edit in some insights if I find time to re-read those old posts. These are in no particular order, just as they come to mind. 

Change: I'm not a bachelor in my 20s working a McJob. I've got a wife, kids, and a sometimes demanding job. The original WM campaign happened when a group of players got together, picked a time that worked for them and the DM, and made it happen. Not so for my game. It happened on my schedule.  That meant bi-weekly in-person games (usually every other Sunday), and occasionally (regularly during the pandemic) online games using Roll20. This meant that the player planning aspect of the original game was lost, and I tended to have a stable core of players that attended most sessions, but it still worked out OK in the end. 

Mistake: Starting the campaign with 5E. Not that there's anything wrong with 5E per se (yeah, some people will argue that point), but I wasn't an expert on all the spells, monsters, etc. I picked it because it was the current edition and I knew I could get players for that. But in the end, all the feats, spells, class abilities, monster abilities, and whatnot that I couldn't recall from memory slowed down the game and made it a pain in the ass to prep for. 

Correction: Switching to Treasures, Serpents, & Ruins (basically BECMI with my house rules) made it something I was much more familiar with, easier to prep, and easier to run at the table. Yeah, I lost a few players, but gained a few players as well. And I enjoyed it a whole lot more that way. 

Lesson: Next time, start with a system I know well. With random encounter tables being a big part of the game, and a rotating cast of players/characters, I need to know the system much better. Yesterday, I was even considering using BECMI/RC (minus the weapon mastery rules) to make it even simpler for players to drop in, roll up a PC, and game.

Change: Ben Robbins would provide the players with the AC and hit points of creatures they were fighting. I didn't do that. Even with 5E rules, which are a bit more tactical, I kept those secret. And the game worked just fine. 

Mistake: Working inside out. Obviously, I started preparing content for stuff close to the starting town (mine is called Silverwood), and prepping areas further out as we went along. I'd try to stay at least a session's worth of play ahead of the players. The problem is, not knowing exactly what was further out made it hard to include clues to things farther on in the Marches. I was often dropping rumors when the PCs went back to town, rather than letting them discover clues within the locations they were exploring. 

Lesson: Work outside in, at least on the big picture. THEN work inside out to flesh things out. If I do this again, I'll create a map and note the dungeons and special locations throughout it FIRST. All I really need to know is their location and a general idea of what they're about. Then I can plant seeds in areas closer to home that lead the PCs to explore further. 

My abandoned plan for a East Marches (using TS&R Jade) was started this way. I've got a map with dungeons and special locations scattered all through it, all named and with a bit of description. Of course, I used some of them in my current campaign, so if I did restart that project, my current players might be bored going over dungeons they've already pillaged. 

Change: Safe Havens. Rather than enforce a return to Silverwood at the end of every session, I had certain areas that could be found (or converted) into safe havens, where a session could end outside of town.  The next session, different PCs might be in the party, but we didn't worry about "continuity errors" like that. It allowed the players more confidence to explore, knowing they would only have to retreat a short distance to the closest safe haven at the end of a session, rather than save time to get all the way back to town. 

Lesson: I dropped a lot of TSR modules in my West Marches. Quasqueton (B1), the Caves of Chaos (B2), the Moathouse (T1), Castle Ravenloft (I6), White Plume Mountain (S2), the Steading of the Hill Giant Chief (G1), Xak Tsaroth (DL1), and plans to use more (like placing the Tomb of Horrors somewhere!). I wouldn't say it was a mistake using these module dungeons. We had some great sessions exploring them. But at the same time, having these generally large dungeons meant multiple sessions would be spent on them. And the PCs didn't always want to get to a safe haven to continue their explorations. So I broke the rule of always ending a session in Silverwood or a safe haven several times. 

If I were doing this again, I'd skip the modules. Sure, they allowed me to get a lot of content in one hex, and the players did have fun exploring them. But smaller dungeons specific to the campaign are better and easier to implement.  

Improvement: In addition to XP for creatures slain and XP for treasure (at least after switching to TS&R), I included XP for exploration. Every new hex explored, every hex crossed (explored or otherwise), and each dungeon or special location found were all worth XP. And the XP awards scaled up the farther out the PCs went. What I could have done better, and will strive to do better if I run this gain, is telegraph these awards more. Often, I'd just tally all the XP for a session at the end and award it, rather than let the players know how much was from each of the three sources. I think if they'd known how much pure exploration gained them, they might have pressed deeper into the "white space" on the map. 

The 2025 Busan Tabletop Gaming Con Was a Success

Last Sunday, November 30, was our first game con. I picked up Justin around 9am, and we arrived at the cafe just a little before 9:30. Richard was already waiting, as well as Jonathan (Kojaq) who I only had interacted with online before this. We got everything set up, and most players, and Peter the other morning GM, made it there by 10am when we were scheduled to start. But Kurt, the cafe owner, didn't show up until around 11 so we had to make due with water or drinks people brought in from outside for a bit. Kurt had given me the door code so we could get in early, if you're wondering. 

In the morning session, I ran Classic D&D, using the same dungeon from the previous Online Summer Con arranged by Amae's Seoul group. This party followed the same route at first, but had a TPK in their first encounter. Four carrion crawlers took out a party of five 6th to 8th level PCs. As they can, especially if the party only has a cleric as a caster. The players got new PCs from the pre-gen pile and set out again in a different route. They didn't have time to make it to the dragon, but they had a great time anyway. 

Just before the thief misses on a backstab and everyone fails their saves (the Dwarf is already down).

Richard's Call of Cthulhu game only had one character death, but that PC died, was brought back, and died again. 

Richard brought his King in Yellow robes.

 

I didn't hear of any PC deaths in Peter's Black Sword Hack game, but everyone said they had a great game. 

Justin's BSH character sheet

We took a lunch break, and more people arrived for the afternoon games. A couple of people also went home (or elsewhere, anyway) after the morning games. I was a player in Keith's Cyberpunk Red game, which was a lot of fun. I got to play the Solo (combat character), which is always nice. But our new player David (who played his first RPG ever in my morning D&D game) was the star of the show. Of course, Richard's PC managed to shoot Peter's PC in the back...twice! None of us died, though several gang-bangers and scumbags died at our hands. 

The start of the game, in our gang's alley base, dealing with druggies

Jonathan's Mothership game was really good, too, from what I heard. There were definitely some PC deaths as well. 

An alien gestated inside one of the PCs. You'll never believe what happened next~!

Both Scott's 5E game and Elyse's Pathfinder game went over time, but this is something they'd planned for, and the players were aware of this. Scott did have one PC death. Elyse runs a more story-forward sort of game, so no PC deaths in her game. She did a think where players started with blank, or nearly blank character sheets, and had to discover who their PCs were as they played. 

Scott's got a lot of style when he runs a game. We could hear lots of laughing and some shouting from them.

Elyse's players were all really intent on the story that unfolded. 

Then it was the dinner break time. Most folks went home (or elsewhere), but a stalwart few soldiered on through into the night. Peter, Richard, Elyse, Jada, Justin, and I were there the whole day. Keith and his partner CC stayed for evening games, too, but they weren't here for the morning session. 
 

Justin had his group (Jada, CC, Elyse) play board games including Whitehall Mysteries. They also played a few smaller games. Justin had planned to play 1775, a tactical wargame of the Revolutionary War, but I guess they never broke that one out. 

London was scoured for clues.

 

My evening game was Gamma World. Richard, Keith and Peter chose their mutants and set off to explore a ruined tower. They dealt with crumbling infrastructure, hungry mutants, friendly mutants, and at the top of the tower androids intent on capturing Richard's mutated ape PC. Keith dropped to negative HP twice, and Peter once. At the end of the game, Richard escaped with his companions' bodies, evading the androids to survive the horrors of Gamma Terra. We had a blast. 

Peter's altered human scout is down thanks to poisonous two-headed bat mutants. The espers are about to meet the androids. 

It was a long day, but very much worth it. And we plan to do it again sometime soon. Scott wants to do the next event in May. I'll be back home for my son's high school graduation that weekend, but I'll probably help with the organizational side of things as best I can. 
 

 

 

Daegu One-Shot TTRPG Extravaganza

As I start to type this, the Daegu One-Shot TTRPG Extravaganza is just wrapping up (according to the schedule). I wasn't there today, but yesterday Flynn and I woke up early and drove up to Daegu for some gaming. It started Friday night with one game session slot, then three on Saturday (we were there for two), and then two more game slots today (Sunday). 

We arrived at Cafe Panoplie in central Daegu at around 8:45am, and they let us in at around 8:50. The first game session was scheduled from 9am to 1pm, but of course people were gathering, buying their first drinks, saying hi to old friends, meeting new people, and all of that. We probably didn't actually start to game until after 9:30. 

My first game was my 2nd choice game for that time slot, a whimsical heist adventure (5E D&D). The DM, Tabi, let us roll up some slightly overpowered 3rd level PCs before the game started. I made a Dwarf Fighter (Noble) who was gruff and a bit pompous. Another player, Rachel, had rolled up a Fairy Barbarian (Gladiator), who acted all nice and sweet until she started to kick ass. The third player, Kimberlee, was new to RPGs, but had played in a 5E game on Friday night. So she used her 1st level Halfling Rogue (unknown background) from the night before, and bumped up to 3rd level. The 4th player didn't show up. 

The adventure was to steal a magical gauntlet from the Magistrate. Using our various skills and backgrounds, and coming up with an intricate plan that we botched the most important part (we paid for a counterfeit gauntlet to be made, but forgot to pick it up before infiltrating the Magistrate's mansion), we bumbled through the mission and succeeded, just at the last minute (real time).

Flynn played a Traveller game called Death Station in the morning slot run by a GM named Nicole who I don't know (this was both of our #1 pick for the slot). He said it was a mission to explore a ship that had been wiped out by a contaminant and they had to science their way through the adventure. He enjoyed it, and was wondering if there is a computerized version of Traveller for solo play. I'll have to look that up. [Or someone in the comments, please give us a link!]

We had found an American style Chinese restaurant on the map and wanted to go there for lunch, but it was closed. Korean style Chinese food is very disappointing compared to the American fare (or Japanese style Chinese). Since it took about 15 minutes to walk there, and there was only a 1 hour lunch break, we ended up going to Lotteria (Korean fast food). 

When we got back, I chatted with my friend Scott a little about the organization of the event (he was an organizer), and he said he's willing to pitch in to help Justin and I if we organize something like this in Busan later. Nice. Then we went to our game tables. We were both in our #1 picks for the afternoon slot (2pm to 6pm), thanks to Scott. 

My afternoon game was Dragonbane, run by the GM Amae. I knew Amae online because he's the admin of the TTRPG in Korea Discord group. He had five pregens  for us. I got the Human Magician. Lem was the Wolfkin Warrior. Lexi was an Elf Archer. Abi was a Halfling Thief. And the fifth player, whose name is escaping me at the moment, was a Mallard Knight that we nicknamed Duck Tank. I didn't know any of these players before the game started. 

The adventure was called The Sinking Tower. We were after treasure, and the tower that rises out of the sea once every 20 years was slowly sinking back down. We managed to bumble our way through most of the puzzle/traps, and a couple of combats. We managed to loot a few small treasures and also got one of the great green emeralds from the top of the tower, with a tense last minute scramble by Lexi's archer. It was a blast, and I'd love to get a chance to play Dragonbane again. 

Flynn's afternoon game was Cyberpunk Red, run by a fellow Busan gamer named Keith. Flynn told me they were a low level street gang, running deliveries of drugs and bootleg chips for Razor, their boss. They got into a deal way over their heads, but somehow managed to charm one of the criminal syndicates, who helped them defeat the cyberninja that was pulling the rigged deals. Flynn's character was a street rapper, and Keith had him use ChatGPT to come up with lyrics for his rap songs during the game, which Flynn enjoyed. 

Keith running his game. Flynn is in the NASA shirt. I don't know the other players.

The Cyberpunk game went down to the wire (6pm). We went across the street to Shake Shack for dinner. Even though we had burgers for lunch, my Dragonbane group had gone there and invited me along. I waited for Flynn, so we showed up a little late and had to sit at another table because another gamer had joined them. 

After that, we headed back home. All in all, a really fun day. And we got to meet some cool new people, and play some games we probably never would have gotten a chance to play if we hadn't gone. I definitely want to run something like this here in Busan in the near future.  

Chintzy Magic Items (And a Game Con!)

 Tomorrow (Saturday, June 7th), Flynn and I are headed up to Daegu for their One-Shot Extravaganza TTRPG event. It actually starts this evening and goes through Sunday afternoon. But honestly, the games we wanted to get in the most were Saturday morning and afternoon. So we'll drive up tomorrow morning (about an hour's drive on the expressway) and come back tomorrow evening after the games. 

 Flynn prefers sci-fi to fantasy, so he's got a Traveller game in the morning (called "Death Station" and honestly, this was my first pick for this time slot as well), and in the afternoon will be playing Cyberpunk Red. He's been playing the Cyberpunk 2077 PC game, and loves it, so he's hyped for this game. 

In the morning, I'll be playing in what looks to be a sorta whimsical D&D 5E game. The DM seems much more focused on "telling a story" than running an adventure...but more on this in a bit. In the afternoon, I'll finally get a chance to try out Dragonbane (my first pick, Cyberpunk being my #2). I've been curious about it for a while now. The DM for this game sent a list of pre-gens, and I'm torn between the shifty human wizard and the wolf-man monster hunter. There's also a duck-man knight that could be interesting, but may be too similar to my morning character so I'll try to get one of the above two PCs. 

 For the 5E game, the DM has some pre-gens, but said we could also make characters and submit them for approval. I considered playing a Sorcerer, which along with the Warlock are the two classes in 5E that I've never tried to play. Or a Druid, which I did try once, and had fun with. But in the end, I went with a classic Dwarf Fighter, Level 3 (Battle Master archetype). Since it's a custom point-buy system, of course his physical abilities are really good (although I didn't go so far as to give myself a 20 in Strength...merely an 18). He's got the Noble background, and I had fun filling out a short list of titles he bears that would make Lwaxana Troi proud. And that's why I'll try to avoid the Sir Duck character in the Dragonbane game.

The DM said we each have 250gp to spend, so plenty of normal gear or a small magic item or two. But looking through 5E's selection, I was reminded of just how chintzy a lot of the magic is in 5E. Many of the cheap magic items listed online seem to be mostly cosmetic. And the few useful ones mostly refer to spells, which reminded me of just how unimpressive a lot of magic is in 5E. 

A potion of growth in old school D&D makes you giant and doubles your damage (I just checked 1E, though, and it only makes you big, no damage bonus...)! In 5E, it makes you giant and gives you +1d4 damage on your attacks. Helpful, but not impressive. 

A potion of climbing in old school D&D gives a 95% chance to climb sheer surfaces (99% in 1E!), but in 5E it only gives advantage on your climb checks and lets you move at full speed. 

And I'm sure I don't need to rehash how many magic effects that used to be instant effect (sleep), save-or-die, or at least save-or-be-out-of-combat in old school games are now make-a-save-each-round-until-you-escape-it. 

Old school magic users may not get as many spells, but it sure is a lot more fun to play one when the spells you do prepare pack a punch!  

Anyway, to end on a positive note: I'm looking forward to my first face-to-face game convention. And I'll be taking notes to see how easy it will be for me and a few friends to put on one here in Busan.