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GM Theory: What is D&D supposed to be about?

What is D&D supposed to be about? It behooves every D&D DM to ask himself this all important question and give a thorough answer so as to provide a clear cut understanding of the premise of the game to the players. Now your typical good DM will say the most natural and simplest thing that rolls off the tongue of most good DM’s, its about story. Truer words have never been spoken, however this simple answer does not really lead one to a definitive statement of the premise behind D&D or ensures story is the outcome. Sure its about story, but how do you get that story to the table? How do worthwhile stories make an appearance in our games? How do you ensure the players participation and involvement in the story is ensured?

The answer is motivation. The motivation of players participation and the motivation of their alter egos, the characters are ultimately what drive the natural invention of story at the table. Before we get into this articles primary purpose, to discuss how stories sprout in our games and what methods DM’s can use to ensure that they do, lets discuss what does not.

Fake Storytelling

I have for many years been an advocate for the OSR (Old School Revival) and there is a primary and very good reason for that. I find modern DM’s really suck at bringing story to the game, they suck at creating motivations to care about stories in which our characters participate and they fail to give life to the worlds in which the stories are told. In essence they regulate the entire thing to cliche’s. While I can say that part of the blame goes to RPG culture, really it has been specifically the way gaming systems are designed that has caused the evolution of RPG culture to become so terribly derailed and unfocused.

This has happened because the practice of “storytelling” has evolved to become the domain of mechanics. Elements that were once the exclusively the work of our imaginations and constructs on which the premise of fantasy adventure was built have been washed away in exchange for tactical battle systems and rules oriented replacements.

Modern games no longer care who is at the helm of a player character as it is the character sheet and the mechanism that drive the systems that define the success and failure of a character and not the player driving him. Your choices in modern systems are reduced to die rolls rather then your imagination, your cleverness and your teamwork with your fellow players and note when I say “your” I mean the player, not his imaginary alter ego made up of attributes, skills, feats, special powers etc..

So what are we talking about here. Well to put it plainly with examples, we no longer define what our characters do, we activate mechanical actions to find out if we succeed or fail at our intention.

For example we don’t bargain for price of a sword with a merchant, we make a diplomacy check to see if our character manages to get a deal or not. We don’t decide if an NPC is lying to us, we roll an insight check to see if our character knows whether or not someone is lying to them. We don’t define how we search a room, where we look, how thorough we are, we make a search check to determine if our character finds something or not.

By the sheer act of mechanizing these many role-playing opportunities, we cease to tell a story about our characters and reduce the experience to a series of mechanized checks to see how our characters are doing.

In an environment like this it can be difficult, ney impossible for players to find their characters soul and purpose because the truth of role-playing is that it’s magic is hidden in the detailed and mundane activities of characterization. That interaction with a merchant is the opportunity to explore who our characters are and how they deal with people of the world in which they live. Believing whether or not someone is lying is a component of mystery to be debated among the players, is it truth or a lie, we must decide, not the dice. Whether or not we find treasure in a room should not be delegated to the randomness of a die roll, but rather our attention to the details of a room that must now be defined by the DM creating the atmosphere and imagery so desperately needed for the art of storytelling.

The point here is that in a fundamental way as you remove mechanics from the game, the central focus then instead becomes the story and the motivations of the characters and as such from that grows the responsibility and independence of the players to discover the concept of story. This is what the OSR and really old school games got right. They where simpler mechanics, vague mechanics and often existing in the absence of mechanics. These omissions aren’t an accident, they are a very intentional and purposeful decision to ensure the focus of the games is where it belongs, on the story, not the rules of the game. Oddly enough, the primary driver for DM’s everywhere, modern and past alike.

The morale of the story is that good storytelling and great stories are born in the absence of mechanics. I believe no truer statement can be made about role-playing

Creating Motivation Through Abstinence

It is here then that I make a case for slim, watered down systems that focus on the players and their intent instead of mechanics as is the case in versions of D&D like Basic/Expert, the full BECMI or various clones like Old School Essentials, Castles and Crusades etc..

These systems create a basic construction kit for story by alleviating the complexity of rules and defaulting to the premise of collaborative storytelling, imagination and core concepts. In the absence of rules, players have no choice but to use their imaginations to fill in the blanks, however that still does not provide players with the fundamental premise of the game. What are the things that actually motivate players to find and advance the story.

The Goals of the Game

You have to see D&D and role-playing as a construct in which their must be a primary driver with some secondary drivers that motivate the players, so that they can in turn invent fantasy oriented motivations for their characters. In a sense the players must know what the game is about, to know what sorts of characters to create. In the absence of this construct you end up with what I call “null motivation” characters.

A null motivation character is a result of a player creating a character without an understanding of the premise of the game.

For example. In Vampire The Masquerade, players are asked to create vampire characters in a world of darkness. Now a player who understands the premise of the game, that it is a game about political power in a gothic underground world of vampires, will understand that since this is the over arching concept of what the game is about, that in turn his character must fit into that world. He must answer questions like, how will this character pursue that power, what level of morality will he apply to his actions, will he pursue that power through intrigue, wealth, force or something else? If a player creates a character in pursuit of that premise, understanding that this is the meta goal of the game, he is likely to create a character that is ready for such a place narratively. This character will be attuned to the world around him, motivated to act in it in pursuit of the core premise.

However it is entirely possible to create a null motivation character if you fail to understand this fundamental premise of the game. If you create a character that is not going to engage in the loosely defined but fundamental meta objective of the game, he will likely enter it unprepared to participate in the gothic world of horror and be delegated to irrelevance as he does not pursue or engage in the world/setting built for that very purpose. A player like this might create a lone wolf, an outsider, who finds no logic in getting involved in the plots of vampires seeking higher positions/advancement, he will have no one he views as a competitor or a threat to his own power as he likely will have none. His world becomes one in which he exists as an empty placeholder with no real reason to actually be a member of the troupe.

The outcome however, when characters are built for the core premise is undeniably the story that will emerge from that interaction. When players are motivated to act, when they have their goals defined through a core premise in this way, they will both create and use their characters in that pursuit, ensuring that a story will most certainly emerge without any need for a GM to nudge anyone into action.

I used Vampire The Masquerade as an example here because unlike D&D, the premise of the game is very strictly defined as are the rules of this political game very explicitly defined in the kindred traditions. Your goal in this gothic world is to seek power and control, but you must abide by the rules of vampire society while doing it that very much force your hand into the world of intrigue and plots to achieve your goals.

Modern D&D’s premise, its core concept is not well defined at all, in fact, its really the absence of this fundamental definition that creates the most amount of problems as the players are asked to create “generic adventurers” in a game about “adventure” without any real definition of purpose. So vague is that premise that there really is not much on which to hang your hat. There is no core fundamentals on which to base a players motivations as such players create characters in the absence of any real direction about what the game is about other then the easy to say but hard to accomplish concept of “story”. Yes story, but what story? What is going to motivate the players into action?

Traditionally the answer is “whatever story the DM creates”, but this still lacks the true motivation because the story cannot be revealed to you in advance. You know it will be a fantasy adventure of some sort, but without a fundamental premise this becomes a rather vague catch all phrase and its very likely some players will create characters that simply don’t fit resulting in null motivation characters.

This is a very common problem for DM’s in modern D&D. A quick run through any D&D community forums you will discover just how common the DM complaint that his players “Waste Time”, are “unmotivated”, or are not “following along in the adventure” are. Its an epidemic in modern D&D culture so vast, I’ve personally gotten to the point where I don’t really like running or playing modern editions of D&D.

Old School Premise

Old School D&D, aka, 1st edition B/X, BECMI and 1st edition AD&D all actually had a core premise, just like most RPG’s of the time and really even today, just like Vampire The Masquerade.

The old school premise was fundamentally built on a simple mechanic that has been regulated to being an out dated concept, but was and continues to be in my opinion one of the most important and fundamental mechanics D&D needs to ensure it functions as a game that will ultimately create a story.

The mechanic I’m talking about is the Treasure is XP mechanic (1gp recovered = 1 XP earned). In classic D&D, the core (main) way that characters gained XP was through recovering treasure. This defined a core premise of the game. At the center of the D&D, all players knew that in the end, they where treasure hunters and this was the premise on which the motivation of the player rested. Their job as players, was to lead their alter egos to wealth. This wealth could take many shapes, just like in Vampire The Masquerade, the road to political power could vary dramatically. The important thing was that a premise for the game was established.

The Unfolding Story

From an absence of direction, to a clear cut goal, the very definition of what D&D is about is made crystal clear in the classic 1st edition D&D. However there will be skeptics and its important to remember that rules like this don’t exist in a vacuum. Just like in Vampire The Masquerade there are things that govern how you go about doing it, for example the Kindred Traditions is one such barrier to success. So it is too in classic D&D, there are other, widely misunderstood pieces of logic built into classic D&D that are important to understand and must be used for the premise to work.

First is that the game was deadly, this reputation is well deserved, but part of the core premise was that when you created a D&D character, he was a mundane nobody that was setting out on an adventure, now with a clear cut goal to write their story. They were vulnerable, they could easily perish and that was a barrier to success you had to overcome.

This is connected to the concept of “who is your character”, which gives directions to the players. Who are you? You are a nobody, the game is about finding out if you, the player, can turn this nobody, vulnerable weakling into somebody. That is the story, that is what you are writing when you are playing classic Dungeons and Dragons.

The fact that the game is deadly is to remind you further and really define to the player that the goal here is not to go out and seek your death by trying to fight monsters but to find wealth while avoiding danger. You must figure out how you are going to do that. Will you venture forth into the wilderness and seek your fortune in some ancient ruins of a long forgotten city or will you stay in the safety of town to scheme a way to rob the local nobles? Will you join the ranks of the local militia in hopes of making a name for yourself or start a local adventuring guild to get other adventures to do the dirty work for you as you claim a percentage. How you achieved your goals, was entirely up to you, the game is the story of how you do that.

This was further enforced by the fact that all other methods of earning XP, namely fighting monsters was the absolute worse way to do it. To prove that point consider that a 21 HD monster, the single most powerful in the world of D&D that would require a party of max level characters earned you a measily 2,500 XP, while a 1 HD monster that you would be an even match for at 1st level earned you 10 XP. The chances of you successfully fighting your way into success without dying was virtually ZERO.

Which puts the cliche that D&D is a game about fighting monsters and taking their stuff in a much different light. It is a cliche that is regulated to the OSR, that this is how “D&D used to be”, but the truth of the matter is that this is what D&D is today, in 5e, this is the core and fundamental motivation for players today, to fight monsters and take their stuff. In classic D&D this was the absolute worst thing that you could do and the entire system from low HP of characters, a complete absence of encounter balancing, to tiny XP rewards for fighting monsters and everything in between. The system did everything in its power to discourage fighting monsters. Which is true, as a player of the old school games I can assure you that we always avoided fights like it was the worst possible thing that could happen.

So how does the story evolve from this atmosphere. The answer should be obvious. The players have a clear directive, they know the premise of the game. When they sit down to create their characters, they do so with purpose. They understand their meta motivation and when the game starts, their purpose is also crystal clear. We are here to become rich, famous and powerful, now we need a plan. That plan, that adventure, those pursuits drive the story and players will seek out whatever opportunities you put in front of them with eager anticipation. You will never have unmotivated players again.

The Conclusion

It may not be as romantic, but having a clear cut goal for your players, something on which they can put their elbows is vital to the game. Players who create characters without a full understanding of exactly what the goal of the game is, will always struggle to create meaningful characters with meaningful motivations on their own, or worse, they will have misaligned motivations that will pull them in different directions.

The best thing you can do is to establish a core premise for your game, now you don’t necessarily have to adopt the classic Gold = XP premise of old school D&D, though I would argue this is an excellent logic to have in the game as a starting point. However in the absence of a premise, you will find that null motivation characters and mismatch is inevitable.

In my next article I will focus on creating other motivations (other premises) for D&D, Gold = XP is just one in a sea of possibilities and may indeed be better left to the past, though I encourage you to try it.

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D&D Theory: How to be a great DM

Without question one of the most controversial discussions you will ever have in the opinionated world of dungeons and dragons, or role-playing in general is about how to be a great DM.  In fact, if you google “how to be a great DM” you are going to find link after link after link of “politically correct” advice, always structured carefully as to not say something that might upset someone.  It’s a really strange thing among D&D gamers that this is such a sensitive subject, where opinions are criticized and people are quick to accuse you of being a Gronard or worse.  In fact, most advice you will find is so general, its too obvious to be of any use to a new DM or a DM having issues trying to get his head around a problem in his game.  The advice tends to be something along the lines of “there is no wrong way”, or “everything you’re doing is great”.

There are however fundamentals of good DMing, many of these fundamentals you will hear a lot of people speak out against because they are generally very… well lets just say, harsh.   DMing a game is both fun and a responsibility, at least if your intention is to ensure quality of the game.  The concept of “just have fun” is important, but games tend to derail even if you are just having fun when not approached with a firm hand and plan.  DM’s will defend this idea of this “all inclusive, there is no wrong way” approach, to which I always pose the question do you want to be right, or do you want to have a good game?

Before I start I do want to say one important thing here, perhaps the most controversial thing of all.  In my not so humble opinion there are many right ways and  many wrong ways to be a DM!  There I said it and I have 30+ years of DMing experience and the battle scars to prove it.    What are the right ways?  Well that is what today’s advice article is all about.  The gloves are coming off and we are going to do this straight up, honest and without the political correctness filter often associated with such advice.

Don’t take my word for it, there are plenty of other great unfiltered sources for D&D advice, Critical Role is among the best in my humble opinion.

The DM is ALWAYS right, the social contract

The basics of running a game as a DM is that you must establish the standard social contract between you, the DM and your players.  This social contract is sometimes made  to be complex, or not at all both very terrible approaches.  Its quite simple in reality and absolutely vital to establish before your first session to ensure you start off on the right foot, in particularly with a new group.

The basics here are this.  D&D and any other RPG is a game, but unlike board or card games, the boundaries for the rules are not clearly defined, in fact, they are very intentionally made vague and left up for interpretation in many places.  The reason for this is that in the course of an RPG session, player’s (aka characters) will come up with all sorts of crazy ideas about “stuff they want to do” and no rule set could ever efficiently cover every conceivable scenario and activity.   You won’t find answers to most questions posed by players in the book, such a ruleset would be thousands of pages long.  That said, as a DM it’s not your job to dictate what players can try or can’t try, its your job to give them the results.  Which means you must always find a way to rule over the game, no matter how nutty the scenario’s are, you simply cannot say “no” you can’t do that, the correct answer is always “ok, here is what happens”.

A good DM can turn what he imagines a game to be into reality, this is not a talent however but a developed and practiced skill.

The core of the social contract is that someone at the table must decide the results of these actions and that someone is the Dungeon Master, the nominated referee of the game, the translator of the rules and the manager of the game.

The social contract is basically an understanding and acceptance of the DM to be the authority on resolving the activities of the players.  Another words, they tell the DM what they “want to do” and the DM gives them “the result”.  That result is not up for debate, its not up for negotiation, its a ruling made by the DM and accepted by the players, this IS the social contract everyone must sign (figuratively speaking).  The social contract empowers the DM to be always right.

This social contract is something the players must go into willingly, another words, this isn’t about a player at the table taking power and being a tyrant, nor is it an assumption that he is the most qualified person to have this authority or that he is (actually) always right, but rather an understanding that someone has to decide what happens when a player says “I jump on his head and stab him in the eye”, and there is no space in the game to debate it.  There is no rule for that, someone must determine what happens, what rules might be used or what rolls might be used to determine the success  and someone must decide what actually happens narratively as a result of all that.

Consider that there may be potentially 6 players at the table with a wide range of opinions on what “should” happen, and they may even be more logical than what the DM proposes, they might even know the rules better than the DM.  You could spend time debating it, hell you could spend your entire day making arguments about it, debating it and discussing it.  The social contract empowering the DM to make the call is vital to ensuring you focus on the game, rather than debating its rules/mechanics/results endlessly piece by piece or the merits of the DM’s decision or narration.   Its a contract designed to prevent constant hard stops to the action of the game, but more than anything to keep the game moving forward without a lot of out of character discussion.

The social contract says “The DM decides and we accept whatever decision he makes”, aka, the DM is always right!

What will inevitably happen if you do not clearly define this social contract with your players is that you open your decisions, interpretations of the rules and narrations to debate and negotiation.  Each and every one of them.  You give an inch and they will take the whole arm.  Your players will become more and more challenging over time, in particular if they win negotiations and sway your decisions, setting the precedence that you can be swayed.  Before you know it, every-time you open your mouth, someone will have an opinion about what should come out of it.   It’s physically not possible to have a successful game in the long run without this social understanding between the players and their DM.  Do yourself, your players and your game a favor and establish this social contract firmly on day one of any campaign.

Always in the present, never allow the testing of waters

First, lets define what Testing the water means, in short, it works like this.

The player tells the DM what he wants to do, when you give him the results, he says “oh in that case I don’t do that”.

Alternatively and perhaps even more grievously is the DM version.

The players tells the DM what he wants to do, then the DM says “IF you do that, this will happen”, giving the player an opportunity to change his mind and back out of the action.

I can’t think of a more destructive thing a DM can do to a game than allow the testing of waters to become a precedent in his game.  This really is the shortest route to ruin that you can take.  What it really does to a game is that players will know the results of their actions before they take them, the exact opposite of what role-playing is.

As a DM you are doing your players a disservice and being firm and setting a precedence for running the game in real time is the most effective way to keep your game on track and in the present, putting the players in a position that they must listen, absorb the information and use it to make decisions knowing that whatever they decide, is now part of the game.  It really is one of those subtle keys to success.

The advice here is simple.  NEVER tell your players what is going to happen until its happening/happened.  Another words, don’t tell them the future, describe the present.  If a player poses a testing the water question, the answer is always the same.  “Tell me what you want to do and I will tell you what happens”.  A players action can’t be an inquiry to find out what would happen “if” he decides to do something.

Fear & Anticipation makes it real

There is a very common antidote in play writing and storytelling,  “tragedy makes the best story,  everything else is just noise”.  The reason this antidote exists is because as human beings we have a natural empathy for tragedy.  A tragedy is a motivation for hope, inspiration to rise from the darkness, a way to sympathize with our characters and a way to put ourselves in the shoes of the afflicted.  You cannot triumph unless you have something to triumph over.

This is why I always say that all good D&D adventures, are the stories of heroes who die tragically while saving the world.

I feel very strongly that as a good DM you must constantly present the players with challenges which if failed would result in their characters deaths.  The more tragic that death, the more memorable the story of it will be.  In short, don’t be afraid to kill characters and be merciless with their emotions when doing so, give them the tragedy.

This advice really pisses against the wind of D&D logic and design.  In a sense, the game mechanically is designed to ensure that the players always face balanced encounters and there are so many “save me” mechanics in the system that to die is really just a statistical anomaly.  This is a good thing, because you don’t want to kill characters by the mechanics, but rather by their decisions.  You want to make sure that when you kill a character, it can be traced back to a decision a player made.  A choice he had that lead him to his death, not a random encounter, die roll or some other form of “bad luck”.

Death should never be random, nor a concoction of the DM, but it should always be a surprise linked to choice and it should always be a heartbreaking event.  The design of a campaign should always include points at which characters lives are at risk, a risk they chose themselves,  the rest of the time events should be balanced in the favor of the players. The more of these events there are, the better.   Above all else however when the time comes, don’t hesitate, when a characters ends up in a situation where his death is inevitable, make it harsh, abrupt… make it tragic, dig into their emotions, give them no refuge or hope, force them into acceptance, give them the emotion their characters death deserves.

If you do this right you will create a permanent state of fear and anticipation for the rest of the players and all new characters that join the campaign.  Everyone will know that you don’t “save” characters, that death of characters is a real possibility, that it could come at any time and their actions and decisions drive that engine, not luck.  This is KEY to running a great D&D campaign, without it you will find your campaigns are always missing some intangible quality, this is what is missing!

Time is not an issue, unless it is an issue

One very common mistake DM’s make, or perhaps better to say, one common sentiment DM’s have is that “their players are taking too long” or “They are wasting time”.  Another words, you have written a adventure, campaign or story and you want to get to it, but your players seem to be doing everything but just that.  Frustrated you steer the session towards the story, skipping over less important scenes, railroading through parts of the story and events and driving the game to where you want it to be.

This is a terrible, habit that you must break.  The reality of an RPG session is that its the story of the characters.  Who they are, how they act, what they believe, what they think, who they know, how they interact with the world and what they love and hate.  Those attachments, emotions and drive does not appear in the story nor can it be artificially created, it happens outside of it and this is a really hard thing for DM’s to get their heads around.  You only fully understand it as a player.

The reality is that those half a session tavern crawls where the characters get drunk and make asses out of themselves are often even more important to the games story, than whatever grand scheme you have invented for the campaign.  They might be on a mission to stop a powerful necromancer from opening the gates to hell, but if you don’t make time to let them live in the world they are saving, the story of how they save it becomes less relevant.

Allowing the characters to become friends in character, allowing them to get to know the local tavern keeper, befriend the local blacksmith or marry the local milk maid may seem irrelevant, but it drives attachments to the world and to their characters, as a result are absolutely vital to the main plot, in most cases even more so than the main plot itself.

Allow your players to take the time from the session to role-play these moments with the same gusto you put into your main campaign events.  Make sure that they can explore the world and give them the time to do it.  Only when the players see it as a waste of time should you approach the game with more progress driven thinking.  Time is only an issue, if they make it an issue, but as a DM you should never “skip” anything the players want to take the time to get involved in.  Another words you are DMing a game at the pleasure of your players.  Your opinion about what they are and aren’t doing, frankly, has no relevance, you are the least important member of the adventuring party.  Make peace with that.

Prepare to be unprepared

Most veteran DM’s will spot this very general advice and nod their heads in sad agreement but the reality of DMing is that generally speaking, most preparation you do for a session will be wasted.  True preparation is about knowing the world and knowing it well, realizing that its the world not the adventure that you must have ready for whatever the players throw at it and that much of an actual adventure you will have to invent on the fly no matter how much you prepare.

While less controversial advice, perhaps not at all, one thing I can say about what I see in terms of preparation by most DM’s is a rather silly focus on trying to steer a session into a particular place, while being completely ill prepared for when the players inevitably derail the whole thing.  Don’t do this.  Its good to always have read (if you haven’t written) any material in preparation for a session but always know going into it that not only will the players likely completely skip over, avoid and derail it, but that its ok and you can’t give the appearance of not being ready for that, nor is it appropriate for you to steer them into it against their will.

From the perspective of the players, everything that happens should appear to be totally planned and expected.  Never let the players realize that they are off the rails, they should always feel like “they are onto something”.  Its in particularly important when they are dead wrong, when a decision is a horrible mistake that will cost them dearly.  If they think the idea is brilliant you should absolutely not steer them away from it.  Bad decisions are a key part of the game and you have to let them make these mistakes and suffer the consequences without them ever having any clue how far off they are from the material you intended for them.  This is a vital component of making the world feel real, vibrant and giving the players a sense of control over their own destiny’s, which notably will often lead them to tragedy, another key element of a good story.

Don’t take breaks from campaigns, make it a religion

This can be really tough advice to follow, real life is a pain and it’s not always possible to have a steady game going but the truth is that a successful campaign is reliant on the commitment of the DM and the players to play regularly with a established time and place.  Typically once a week is ideal, you can get away with once every other week but anything longer than that and people will be having trouble remembering events, people and places in-between session and you will not be able to maintain that “attachment” to the game that is necessary to run a solid, story that maintains cohesion over several sessions with built up personal attachments.

After 30 years of playing D&D, I have been involved in countless campaigns and the only successful ones I have ever been a part of have always been ones with a steady, weekly session with all participants being able to make the large majority of the games.  Everything else pretty much fell apart in relative short order.   I’m convinced steady, regular sessions are absolutely mandatory to the success of a D&D campaign.

When you are establishing your group and you are planning a D&D campaign, if you can’t get everyone to commit on this level my suggestion is that you create, shorter, unrelated 1 night adventure style games rather than trying to run a linked long term campaign.  D&D is always fun, even if sporadic, but as a DM you don’t want to put in a lot of effort if the end result is a campaign that flounders as a result of extended breaks between sessions.  It’s frustrating as a hell, and ultimately deflates your enthusiasm for future games with a sense of in-completion.  If at the end of a night, the story is done, even if you don’t revisit those characters again, their isn’t this looming sense of failure around the game, opening the doors to future stories with enthusiasm.

There is advantage to one shots to in that each time you do it, the players are treated to new plot twists, characters and locations which is always a fun piece of starting new campaigns.  In a sense with one shot you are starting a new campaign each time you play.

Tough DM’s are Good DM’s

I saved perhaps my most controversial advice for the last I’m going to leave you with but I firmly believe it to be the single most true statement about running games as a DM that applies to all groups everywhere.  The only good DM is a firm, tough DM that gives no quarter and is always in command of the game.

It takes a strong personality, good handle on the rules, effective philosophy and zero tolerance for bullshit to be a good DM. If that doesn’t describe you, my advice is either to develop those skills as quickly as possible, fake them if you have to or resign from the position and let someone else DM.

Players, even good ones, including friends and family, pretty much everyone you might expect or not expect to will try to pull the wool over your eyes during a D&D game.  Some will argue with you, try to rules lawyer you, manipulate you, whine, bitch and moan and everything in-between.  Some of it will be subtle, some of it not so subtle and truth be told, this is all very normal.  Chalk it off to human nature.

None the less you will have to deal with it all and as a DM it’s your responsibility to be the firm authority and handle every situation quickly and effectively, not only for the preservation of the game, but as a courtesy to the other players at the table.

In a D&D game there is no room for “issues” and really there shouldn’t be any, after all, everyone is there to have fun, its a social activity, this is not a competitive sport.  Still D&D is a game that will pull the emotion out of players, this is a good thing, but with that passion for the game and for the story, will sneak out bits and pieces of that human condition that can create uncomfortable situations and issues. Its here the DM’s authority and decisive action is vital to maintain a good game and keep things in a happy place.

The advice is simple.  Be firm, be an authority and nip the bullshit in the butt quickly and effectively.  Give no quarter, accept no compromise, be vigilant about growing problems in the group and don’t hesitate to make changes if things are not progressing in a way everyone at the table enjoys.  This is really less advice and more a responsibility every DM has and it is perhaps the toughest to follow given that every person at the table is going to be a friend or relative.  Be a strong, firm DM, that’s the best advice I can offer anyone.

Conclusion

Being a DM is a lot of fun, for many, its the only way to play D&D as some of us are simply bursting for an outlet for our creativity and the idea of just being a player is to stifling.  Despite all the creativity and joy being a host to a story brings, there are plenty of things that can go wrong and I believe unequivocally that having a strong philosophy and applying good methods is absolutely vital to success.  DM’s fail all the time at producing their visions but most of the time its not a lack of creativity that destroys their efforts, but rather the little meta details, that approach to the process of running a game that creates the most problems.

Every DM eventually develops their own methods, often they are unique but if you really research the success story’s, really listen to DM’s experiences you will find that there are definitive conclusions you can draw to certain pitfalls they are all trying to avoid.  Much of the advice offered here is really designed around those pitfalls and though I haven’t named them all by name, if you follow this advice you will find it easy to avoid the vast majority of problems that rise up as a DM hosting a game.

Above all other advice however I can say that the key is to make sure you are enjoying it.  A happy DM is a good DM, you can never be a successful DM if you don’t love doing it and its hard to imagine a DM failing if he loves what he does.    Surround yourself by friends, take your time with the creative process, be patient with your players and always keep an eye out for those subtle pitfalls by being prepared to deal with them long before they rear their ugly head and you will always find success as a DM.  Have fun out there!

Gaming Articles

Winter Hibernation Reviews

It’s been a while since I have written anything for the blog, which tends to happen around winter time.  Here in Sweden, winter is a cold, dark, bitter experience that leaves one lethargic and unmotivated.  It’s a kind of hibernation where bringing up the strength to do anything but eat and sleep is difficult.  By February however the light comes back, the snow fall makes everything bright and you start to get your energy back.

Now even though I have been in my winter hibernation that is not to say no gaming has taken place, in fact there has been quite a bit.  I thought it would be great just to do a single article to get myself caught up by doing some mini reviews and drop some tips for a few games my group and I have been playing.   This is going to be a real mixed bag however because while we played quite a few new boardgames, we actually rotated back into some miniature gaming and role-playing games as well.

Lets get right into it.

Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition

While there has been plenty of board gaming, this winter D&D 5th edition really took center stage for my gaming group as we put together a weekly wednesday night game that has become almost a religion for us.   Our campaign is set in the Forgotten Realms and has after over 20 sessions already reached many of those classic D&D heights like fighting dragons, giants, hobgoblins and much more all the while ranging the gambit from city life, dungeon crawling, wilderness adventures and everything in between.  It’s been an absolute blast.

Its new but feels classic, 5e got it just right!

For me personally D&D is a staple of role-playing, really my go to game for a great RPG experience and it has been so for nearly 30 years.  I have played every edition ever put out extensively, really you could say from a perspective of experience I’m about as veteran as you can get.   I was playing D&D when Gygax was a young man. That said however, despite 30 years of D&D I have rarely ever enjoyed the game as a player, which is why this particular campaign has been so much fun much for me.  Not being a GM not only gives you a very different perspective on the game, but allows you to appreciate the rule system in a very different, very personal way.

One thing I can say about 5th Edition D&D is that its probobly one of my favorite versions of the game from a strictly non-nostalgic perspective.  Meaning that I love it for what it is, a fun RPG, while being the fuel for what I consider a classic D&D experience.  It finds a kind of middle ground between classic/old school D&D and modern game design,  while simultaneously remaining rules light enough not to throw role-playing under the bus, but rule-sy enough to keep you interested in reading the books and exploring its nuances.  I still think 1st and 2nd edition offer the most in terms of the spirit of the game as Gygax intended it, not everyone would agree with me, but a fact doesn’t require you to believe it (burn!) but as a modern system, 5e is close enough to that old school method that in the hands of a good DM you can still get those nostalgia moments reminding you of your childhood.

The classics in their original form can still be enjoyed thanks to the Wizards of the Coast reprints.

For anyone who has never played a role-playing game before,  I highly recommend 5e as a place to start.  The rules are simple and streamlined, while the writing is done well enough to inspire your imagination.  If however you’re a 1st or 2nd edition player that has skipped all of the modern, post Gygax versions of the game, if there was one to try, it would be 5e.  Definitely a fantastic game, it gets my stamp of approval.

Twilight Imperium 4th Edition

When FFG announced that they would be putting out a new edition of one of my all time favorites after nearly 10 years of 3rd edition, my body was ready.  I certainly owe this blog a much closer and deeper review than what I’m about to do here, but suffice to say that like always Christian T. Peterson and his team do not disappoint.

This is the epic upgrade you have been looking for.

Twilight Imperium 4th edition takes the established formula of the 4x epic classic and brings it one step closer to perfection.  It remains the robust and dynamic experience we have come to expect while smoothing out some of the rough edges from the previous edition.  It still comes  with all the same flaws inherent to a game like this, namely its nearly unbearable length of play and rules weight.  I personally however accept and embrace it as is,  the depths of this games tactical and strategic lengths is well worth the 6+ hour investment you will need to make to play it.

I still believe that its a 6 player or nothing type game, you simply do not get the full experience with 3, 4 or 5 players, each suffering from various balance issues.   For the inducted veteran, 4e is well worth the coin for the upgrade and like always my suggestion to the uninitiated but interested is, tread carefully.  TI4 is not a board game, its a hobby and the price tag and time investment is too high to have the 5 kilo box sitting on your shelf collecting dust.  Be sure that you have the 6 man gaming group ready to dive in with you, if your twisting arms to get people to play, my suggestion is skip it. This is a game made for hardened veterans and fans of heavy science-fiction board gaming, everyone else is going to hate it.

All that said, for TI fans, this is another step towards that ultimate science-fiction gaming experiance.

New Angeles

By far this years smash hit for me is New Angeles.  I fell in love with this game after a single play as did my gaming group and for good reason, its fan-fucking-tastic.  Definitely a contender for game of the year, New Angeles is a negotiation, backstabbing joy ride that dare I say has effectively created a new genre of board gaming.

This is probably one of the best FFG board games since Twilight Imperium 3rd edition.

Its populated with some clever mechanics, it looks amazing on the table and its driven by a really cool science-fiction theme, all things that speak to me, in on itself enough to recommend it.  This however is really just the icing on the cake,  the real meat of this game is how it establishes the feel of a political drama that plays out in discussions and debates driven by the very difficult to predict motivations of the players.  This is almost a social experiment of sorts, where much of the fun of the game is trying to deduce what the hell people are really up to, what their goals really are and who they are actually playing against and for.

Absolutely love this one, I haven’t played something this fresh since the perfect Blood Rage.  This is one of those games that belongs on every gamers shelf.

I will be doing a full review of this one sometime in the future.

Star Wars Armada

My gaming group has a tendency to cycle in and out various types of gaming, we will go through board game, miniature game or role-playing game phases at unpredictable intervals.  When we go in however, we go big and hard like porn stars.  Star Wars Armada for quite a long time was THE game for us, in fact its one of the few games we have as a group participated in official tournaments, something that was entirely new to us.  We even have a store and regional champion in our midst.

Just as quickly however it fell out of favor, but not because we stopped liking it or anything, its more that we simply got into something else and like yesterdays news Armada got set aside.   Well recently Armada made a comeback and suddenly we are buying into the new wave 7 ships, building lists and planning events.   Why?  Because Armada remains without question one of the best miniature games on the market today.  Yes its a bit heavy and I totally understand why it doesn’t compete in popularity with the likes of X-Wing and 40k, but from a perspective of game design, mechanics and sheer epic size and feel, it is among the best there is.  This is the gamers miniature game, its far less about rolling dice, painting mini’s and list building and far more about planning and execution.

FFG has done a great job of keeping each wave relevant, but it’s far from perfect.

For me personally the fact that there is no fussing about with painting and assembly is a huge plus, but really of all the selling points of Armada, capital ship combat in the Star Wars universe has to be at the top of the list.  It shines thematically as much as it does competitively.  It’s a game of layers upon layers of depth, a game of strategic and tactical subtlety which results in an endless stream of lessons as you get better at the game and gain a higher understanding of its nuances.  There is already so much strategy to explore in this game with what has already been released and with each new wave they throw in the next curve ball that has everyone scrambling and re-assessing everything to find that new key strategy that brings them the wins.  Its a fantastic experience that no miniature game fan should miss.

Now it comes with a disclaimer label and I’m not going to sit on a pedestal and tell you everything is rosy, there are some issues.  Like all miniature games it kind of suffers at the hands of the competitive meta math mining where certain combinations one can say are at the very least stupid, if not outright broken.  In the case of Armada these combos are effective but not overwhelming, yet sufficiently irritating to kick of more than a handful of forum debates.  Combos often abused by the masses creates this effect of negativity that can let some of the steam out of the game.  Right now in Armada I’m a bit cranky about the activation spam lists and mechanics like Relay which I don’t think really fit the games core premise.  This sort of thing however is quite normal in miniature games and in local groups like mine its a none issue. In our group  people create clever lists, but they always maintain that the premise of the game is about capital ship combat and fun is always paramount.  So long as your gaming group adheres to some restraint, these mechanical loopholes are usually not a problem.

X-Wing remains the king of the hill for the general masses, its light nature, simple rules and quick gameplay is hard to compete with.

All and all I think Armada remains the best option for gamers looking for a proper miniature gaming challenge, but generally I tend to still recommend X-Wing for most gamers over Armada.  X-Wing is quick to play, easy to learn and maintains that fun spark, though like Armada is has a few rambunctious nuisance upgrades and ship that can really throw a wrench into the ferries wheel.  Armada I find is a bit too heavy for most as well, like I said, its a gamers game, even I burn out on it eventually as it requires a lot of thought and energy to stay competitive, but if you strand me on an island with one miniature game, I rather it be Armada over anything else.

Sid Meier’s Civilization: A New Dawn

I was really excited for this one, in fact I bought it kind of blind without really reading reviews or investigating the game much.  This was mainly because it was FFG at the helm and the game was from the same designer that brought us the amazing New Angeles.

It looked good from a far, but ended up being far from good.

I don’t want to say I was disappointed, it was a considerable improvement over FFG’s previous lackluster attempt at bringing us the classic PC game to board game form, but I was not blown away by it either.  Far more Euroish than is good for it, the game while streamlined and a fairly straightforward experience lacked that feel of building up a civilization you might be seeking in a game with the word Sid Meier in the title.  It lacked epicness if I can invent a word and for a game that takes you from the stone age to the future age, you think this would be the one focal point for the designers.

It’s kind of a typical Euro fair with rather obtuse mechanics and abstracted to the point where you realize it could just as easily had a different theme entirely.  You don’t really build much in the game, the differences  between nations and their strategic choices is quite benign and, like FFG’s previous attempt, they failed to produce a good combat system which is also a key feature of Sid Meiers game and it should be here as well.  Oh and I really hated the art style of the board game with as much disdain as I have for the art style of the new PC version.

It was an ok, one might say below average game. for me the search for the ultimate Twilight Imperium like epic for the civilization building genre continues, this was definitely not it.  It fell short of expectation and I don’t foresee it getting a whole lot of table time in the future.  Through The Ages and Nations remain the two reigning champions of this genre even though neither is played on a map.

18XX Series (1830 Railroads & Robber Barons)

One thing I got really into this winter is the 18XX series of games. These economic railroad and business management games really sparked my nostalgic love for classic PC games like Railroad Tycoon, Transport Tycoon and Capitalism.  Now I will say this up front, this is not a genre of games my local gaming buddies are into so I have to scratch this itch outside of my normal channels, hence it has hindered my efforts but I can say without reservation that there is real magic here.

If it looks complicated, its because it is. I would rate it at a 10 out of 10 in terms of complexity of rules, so be sure your up for it, there are far simpler train games out there for the less initiated.

The 18XX series has you running transportation empires, building them from scratch and over decades of time you slowly but surely develop your railroad business with a keen eye on the economic fluctuations of the stock-market and the cut throat competition of the other players.  This is definitely what I would call ”High Complexity” gaming, its rather slow and requires a general love for the genre and perhaps a bit of nostalgia seasoning.  Still it has this great attention to thematic detail giving you a really authentic sense of time and place.  I ended up picking up several of these games including 1830, which is among the first and perhaps most famous in the genre.

I recommend this title with a caution that there is nothing ”easy” about getting into these games, its definitely and absolutely for hardcore veteran gamers with a specific economic simulator itch to scratch.  You will read the rulebook several times before anything clicks and you need to play several games before the lights really come on, then you can spend a few years playing the virtually hundreds of titles in the genre each with its own take on the same premise.  But in the right group, games like this are truly a gamers greatest reward, a unique experience on a level of gaming most games never even come close to.  If you love railroad economic games, this is the final frontier in the genre, but be warned its not for the feint of heart.

Seven Wonder Duel

This is a game that I introduced to my 9 year old daughter in hopes that I might turn her into a proper gamer.  I failed with my son who went the cool route becoming a guitar jamming rockstar but my daughter is a lot more like me and took to Seven Wonders Duel like a moth to a flame.  Sometimes you love a game because you love the people that play it with you and Seven Wonders Duel definitely falls into that category for me.

There is strategy on many levels in this one with a lot of dynamics, it really has that infinite replay-ability thing going for it.

My daughter and I probably play this game at least 3 or 4 times each week and I give no quarter when I play her.  She beats me frequently, fair and square and that in itself makes me love this game even more. Its not complex by any stretch of the imagination, but far more complex than I would have expected a 9 year old to grasp.  True, my daughter is smarter than your average bear, but I actually believe this game to be quite kid friendly.  Its colorful, the rules are fairly simple to remember and because you don’t actually count up the score until the end, it keeps their attention as they ”hope for the win”.

I definitly like Duel better than the original, it has a quaint family game quality and the fact that its specifically designed for two players means my daughter and I never have to beg the none gamers in the family to join us.

Great game, highly recommend it, in particular if you are trying to induct one of your kids into the board gaming hobby or trying to turn your wife into a gamer.

Legend of the Five Rings

This FFG reboot of the classic CCG is born out of one of my favorite fantasy settings of all time, so upon its announcement I pre-ordered without hesitation.  It found its way on my most anticipated games of the year list and its one of the few that did not let me down.

In Legend of the Five Rings you take control of one of the many uniquely themed clans with different flavors of stereotypical medieval Japanese samurai from the world of Rokugan.  Its a very unique and rather specific setting that might not speak to everyone but in terms of a dueling card game it does a fantastic job of setting up a very engaging head to head match.  For me the theme is everything here however and I absolutely adore the art in this one.

Maybe its just my love for Japanese themed art, but Legend of the Five rings gets a 5 out of 5 stars for theme adaptation from me based on the art alone.

I can’t say for sure that I will become a collector, I may just stop at the core set, but I think this is a really thinky game that is easy enough to teach that you can just spring it on someone, yet has that almost expected depth we have grown accustomed to from FFG card games.  Its always my hope that I will show it to someone who falls for it giving me a chance to drive deeper into the game, but so far no one in my group has really taken the dive.  Its not surprising, among my gaming group most of us have our preferred go to card game, so its more common for one person to collect rather than everyone getting into it.  Among my gaming group we already have Star Wars The Card Game, Game of Thrones 2nd edition and Lord of the Rings.  In each case there is just that one collector that supports the game for everyone elses enjoyment and I think Legend of the Five Rings will fall into that same category.

All and all though, of all the FFG dueling card games that have been put out over the years, this one is right up their with Game of Thrones for me.  It has that tightness of gameplay that ensures every match is really close, while also producing that ”lets play again” feeling that you get from a great game.  So far everyone I have showed it to enjoyed the game, but it hasn’t exactly blown anyones doors of.

Sometimes it really does just come down to theme, if you like that medieval Samurai theme, this is definitely the game for you, it handles the material wonderfully.

Arkham Horror

My love for Lord of the Rings the card game goes quite deep, but unlike 99% of the games on my shelf, I have bought this one for entirely selfish reasons as I play predominantly solo and that’s the way I like it.

Arkham Horror is the new cooperative card game from FFG and offers that same solo opportunity as Lord of the Rings, so I very naturally jumped at the chance to explore it.

If your a fan of Lovecraft, this is an absolute must play. Easily one of the best games in this setting I have played and that includes all the board games.

Right out of the gate I was captivated by how richly the gameplay captured the pulp horror theme, between the locals, the types of cards the limitation and tightness of resource and the really imaginative scenario’s.  The one complaint I always had about Lord of the Rings was that the campaign mode was a bit lackluster and linear, I absolutely adore the handling of campaign mode in this game as you can effectively play through the entire story-line with the same characters.  Upgrading equipment and cards as you go, tracking stats between plays and experiencing different branching of the same story or repeat plays.

The card play itself is very good, I still prefer Lord of the Rings over this one, but that’s because I think Lord of the Rings is more of a deck builder.  Its more focused on strategies and overcoming obstacles through the act of preparation in constructing card combinations that are designed for a specific task.  In Arkham Horror deck building is kind of a afterthought really, there is some, but your mostly focused on playing the game and making clever use of the resources you have rather than trying to out smart the scenarios with clever deck building.

I also prefer this one more in a group as compared to Lord of the Rings which I play almost exclusively solo.  This one works well with 2, 3 or even 4 players and if you pick up the expansions you can really make a whole night out of it.  Still its actually quite fun and quite challenging solo, I have definitely burned quite a few evenings hunched over the table trying to unravel the mysterious of the underworld.

Great game, highly recommend it, another hit by FFG who are quickly gaining a reputation for producing some of the best collectible card games in existence.

Conclusion

And with that you are caught up.  That was more or less my winter.  We of coursed played many of the games I have covered in previous reviews, this certainly wasn’t everything but definitely among the most notable.  I have quite a few reviews to write and I definitely want to get back into some What Makes It Tick articles.   The hibernation is over, time to get back to some writing.

 

 

Gaming Articles

The Mystery Of A Classic

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1st edition AD&D, love it or hate it, is the definitive root from which the entire D&D franchise and quite possibly role-playing itself has sprouted. It sits on a pedestal of nostalgia, immortalized for all time more often by those who have barely played it or opened the dusty tome of secrets that is the core system than those that actually did.

Today we are going to explore the myth that is AD&D, in particular where this myth comes from and how it has affected our nostalgic sense of Gygax’s original work.

Before we get started however let’s speak frankly for a second first. For all its nostalgic qualities and happy memories it has provided over the years, when you actually read the rules of the game and hold them up against the 40 years of design experience AD&D is a really shitty game. Release AD&D today under a different name and it would be unlikely that anyone would ever publish it, let alone buy it or play it. Even for a nostalgic throwback game, there are better options available today. Even Gygax himself played Castles and Crusades over his own invention. AD&D’s claim to fame is based more on the timing of its release rather than the quality of its design. Gygax was a genius, but it wasn’t because he was a great designer or even a particularly good writer, he is a genius because he had a brilliant, original idea and the understanding that D&D’s appeal is its mystery, the great vale of fantasy. In another words he was a visionary and like all visionaries, it wasn’t that they were experts in their particular field but they created or discovered something original.

For years designers have been working on a way to live up to the nostalgic sense that AD&D induces in people but have been met with picket signs at every step by holistic purists who hold their 1st edition AD&D DMG up like the word of god. An odd sentiment given that from a design perspective the game is inferior to modern versions of the game. It’s been a difficult journey and it’s doubtful there is any circle among the D&D hobby where purists aren’t constantly holding back the franchises efforts for modern design, hell I count myself among them. Even in my previous article I set the standard of what to me qualifies as a great version of D&D and holding up tradition was among the short list of requirements. Every edition and sub edition over the years has tried to rise out of AD&D’s shadow in some way, but the truth is that we have made the shadow so big that the franchise is doomed to spend eternity in a time loop. No greater evidence can be presented than the rejection of 4th edition, a modern design and the creation of 5th edition, the latest edition, a clear throwback to old school thinking.

4th edition represents in every way that matters a rebellion against Gygaxian philosophy and design, a look into what the future of D&D could have been while 5th edition represents the apology and admission of a humble defeat postmortem, forever bowing to its master. In the end the purists won, 5th edition is nothing short of a throwback, an attempt to appease its fan base and bring the game back to familiar traditions. It’s an apology for 4th edition and in many ways an apology for not listening to its disgruntled fan base. The question is why? What is this holy fanaticism that is permanently etched into D&D player’s minds that has us constantly looking back? Is it really the design? Am I wrong here, was 1st edition AD&D really an ingenious game not just because it was an original but because THAC0 was in fact a better design?

Understanding why is the key to understanding both the present and the future of D&D and naturally, since it’s my blog, I have a theory.

I believe the secret sauce is that AD&D always has and continues to have a lot of mystery surrounding it. A sort of shadow that looms over the books, the rules themselves and the themes it presents and how it presents them. There is an intangible quality to its imperfections and indeed it’s the imperfections, the messiness of it that make it work. There is a sort of naïveté to the writing and to the design and a handing of the torch of creativity to the DM by an inexperienced creator and predecessor. It’s a game that’s up for interpretation, but that interpretation is assumed to be in the hands of the games Dungeon Master, god for all intense and purposes, which in turn creates mystery for both the narrative of the game, as well as what the rules of the game really are for the players. From a player’s perspective, role-playing under 1st edition AD&D was not just a discovery of the game world and the DM’s imaginative creations, but of the very boundaries and physical nature of how the game works. There is a built in social order to the work too, its presumptuous in its tone, written less as an instruction manual on how the mechanics of the game work and more a philosophy, a bible if you will, about how the mysterious art of role-playing works, which itself is filled with grey areas and omissions to be filled in by its god. Only the most basic outline of the game is provided to the players in the Players Handbook, the Dungeon Master Guide however is where the heart of the system exists, the bible of the game and one intended for DM eyes only.

This looming mystery creates mental pictures for the participants because there is little physical material to look at or hang your hat on. There are grey areas everywhere and without clarity we evolved a sense of imagination, the driving force of mystery and fantasy.

Perhaps I’m wrong, but for me, in a nutshell, 1st edition AD&D’s greatest asset as a game is that the rules of the game were largely unknown to the players. There is flexibility in this approach, in that, as players you aren’t expected to know how things work but rather expected to try things to see how they work. A process of discovery to which there was no conclusion thanks to the nearly infinite possibilities of a fantastically magical setting and the fact that the DMG was frankly very unclear about what the rules actually are.

Mysteries however are only mysteries until they are unveiled and in that is the hidden differentiation between 1st edition AD&D and everything that came afterwards. 1st edition AD&D was empowering because it did not define the rules clearly, it presumed the dungeon master would invent a great deal of it himself, forcing players to discover what those rules are during play. That’s the secret sauce of the mystery.

Once the mystery of D&D was solved, once the rules are known, made clear and once we understand what the rules are, the game is unmasked, its weaknesses exposed. This is the case in modern versions of the game where there are no mysteries to begin with, the rules are hard coded there is nothing left for interpretation, they are very clear. This is what modernization has done to D&D. It has unmasked the game, exposed it to scrutiny, we have handed over the DMG, the bible of the god who runs the game and asked for the player participant’s opinion, than outlined the process in a step by step instructional manual. It’s akin to revealing the odds of a slot machine, you might be better informed by knowing them, but the wonder of pulling the lever and hoping to win millions is broken by the reality of knowing you stand virtually no chance to do so.

You might argue (and you would be right) that AD&D’s mask was a thin veil at best to begin with. Clearly plenty of people read the DMG cover to cover even back then, but the reality was that the book was about empowerment of the DM because it understood that the DM is the storyteller, it understood that D&D wasn’t a game, but an experience. It understood that the game wasn’t about rules.

It must have been a disappointing experience to read the 1st edition AD&D DMG for players only to find out that the book really was nothing more than vague suggestions for the DM on how to run his games. What was really revealed is the fact that the Dungeon Master himself is the Wizard of Oz and his only power was the very thin veil he kept over your eyes, the one you just tore off by reading the book. There really where no secret rules, or unsolved mysteries revealed. The exploration of the rules through play was a fictitious game made up just like the story’s of the alter ego’s the players would go on in the game. The revelation was meaningless except for one thing, there was nothing left to reveal to you about the game afterwards. Simply reading and understanding how the magic trick was done, broke the spell.

Gygax persuaded players to avoid revealing the secrets of the DMG to themselves and those that adhered where treated to the wonders of it. Reading the DMG back than was the equivalent of reading the adventure before you joined it as a player.

This is at the heart of the problem of trying to re-invent the nostalgia of AD&D in modern versions of D&D and why the nostalgia exists in the first place. As a player who experienced that mystery and then became a god and watched others experience it, I know the desire of wishing there was a way to go back. There simply isn’t. For one modern gamers expect the rules to be clear, the game has evolved and a lack of clarity is seen as an obstacle rather than a mystery to be unveiled during play by the DM. Secondly, modern DMG’s have important rules that are clearly for the players, for example in 3rd edition you had prestige classes which clearly are player material infused into the DMG. In a sense, players had to read them.

I believe that modern role-playing hobbyist who did not experience the wonder and mystery of playing a game whose rules they did not know missed the golden age of the hobby. Their understanding of what D&D could be, or perhaps dare I say should be, can never be properly conveyed. I know that Gygax for years tried to break through to modern gamers and designers by example and I often wonder how many people got the message.

There is still mystery to be had in D&D, naturally the story the DM has prepared for you can have plenty of unexpected twists and turns which can result in plenty of fuel for the imagination, but there is a big distinction between the mystery of a story and the mystery of the game. 1st edition AD&D had both and it was thanks to the fact that the game was less defined, less refined and empowering. It gave the powers of creativity to the DM not just over the story, but the rules that governed it. The DMG was truly a guide, it lived up to its name, a place where modern versions of the same book do little more than provide clear and coherent rules with the expectation that both the DM and the players will read them.

I mourn the loss of this mystery, I think a piece of the game was lost when we set our focus on concepts like streamlining, clarity and transparency. The position of the DM in modern versions of D&D is more as an arbitrator of the rules and every DM today knows the feeling of having the rules quoted to them from a book that once was intended for his eyes only. In the end, this was the genius behind Gygax’s work, he understood that the draw, the thing that made his work special was that he empowered DM’s to keep that thin veil over the eyes of his audience and like a good magician, he expected a good DM would never reveal the secrets.

Gaming Articles

D&D 5e: The Advantage System

misc-6

When I first read 5th edition Dungeons and Dragons I didn’t pay much attention to new Advantage/Disadvantage mechanic, I thought it was interesting but really didn’t consider its implications to the game. After having played about 100 hours of 5th edition D&D I have discovered that not only is this a foundation mechanic for the system, but when used to its full effect creates one of the best role-playing experiences I have ever had D&D or otherwise. How does such a small, seemingly simple mechanic make such a huge difference? Well, its all about application and understanding its purpose as a narrative tool.

To really understand why the advantage system is such a piece of genius in D&D you have to understand the core problem with all editions of Dungeons and Dragons, one that each edition has tried and failed to fix. That problem is that as long as D&D has been around, the line between the story of the game (the narrative) and combat has always been very thick. It’s a massive gap really. The moment combat starts there is a subtle but noticeable shift from seeing the game as a role-playing game and seeing it as a tactical combat game.

Each edition has handled this differently. In AD&D, combat was very fast and swingy. One way or the other it would end in a short few rounds so in essence AD&D didn’t do anything about it other than just keep combat fast so the temporary lull in the narrative is, well very temporary. It worked well enough but combat wasn’t particularly narrative, in particular if you brought out miniatures.

3rd edition tried to make combat more simulationist and as such, the mechanic defined a lot of the narrative for us as players were able to perform a large amount of actions during their turn covered by a very detailed rule system. Combat was extended a great deal in 3rd edition, but it depicted the action in greater detail. Still it wasn’t narrative, it was mechanical and it was easy to lose yourself in the nuances of the rules rather than maintain the nuances of the story.

4e very aware of this effect if you consider how it was designed, tried to simplify the rules, but elaborate a great deal on depicting the action. It worked wonders, the tactical game really told us a story. The drawback of this system though was that your actions where narrow, defined by what was on your character sheet and combat was extended even more, taking so long in fact that it could swallow up entire sessions. One of the longest standing criticisms of 4e is “not enough role-playing”, but that isn’t a stab at the combat systems depiction of the action, but rather the fact that it took so long you never got to the role-playing part of the game.

It’s clear that since Gygax’s original vision, the designers of the game have been aware of this problem on some level. How do you maintain the narrative element of the game and still have an interesting, tactical combat system that D&D deserves? Their answer is the Advantage and Disadvantage system. In an amazingly simple way they have not only merged mechanics and narrative flawlessly, but created the motivation for players and DM’s alike to be more descriptive and involve themselves deeper in the narration of the story.

Now I can’t be certain if it was the designer’s intention to make the advantage system the solution to this issue, but whether intentional or not they have done it. The thing is that when we are not in combat, we are doing collaborative storytelling, acting and speaking on the behalf of our characters, describing their actions and rolling the dice to see how our intended actions fared. So why is this approach not used in combat? In a sense that’s what 5e asked and the 5e combat system in particular the advantage system answered with.

See D&D has a tactical element, it always had, but no edition in the past has ever really tried to infuse the same narrative approach we have to the rest of the game into combat, into this tactical element. Another words, combat was always about working out the math, rather than working out what happens narratively (as is the case at every other moment when playing the game.).

The advantage system represents a non-mathematical way to maintain a tactical element in the game and encourage players to think about combat in a narrative way. Players describe their actions and can gain advantages and disadvantages based on what it is they actually attempt in combat. Do you rush a guy and grab for his weapon? Do you try to use your sword to reflect the sun into the eyes of the archer in the tree? Do you slide under the Ogres feet and attempt to cut him where the sun don’t shine? It’s difficult to come up with mathematical formula for those things. You can guess or you could create a complex series of rules that attempt to account for every conceivable situation but really, for a DM the “pick a value that represents this action” game is a burden. The advantage and disadvantage system however makes this easy by allowing you to simply respond with a positive or negative effect on any given action when considering its impact and like a roll at any time, create a narrative resolution which notably is backed by a rather traditional D&D combat mechanic (HP, AC, To Hit etc..).

EXAMPLE: Player: “Ok I position my sword to reflect the sun, shining the sun into the eyes of the archer in the tree”. DM: Make an deception roll, if you succeed the archer gets a disadvantage on his next attack roll, if you fail, you are unfocused and the next attack against you gains an advantage”. Done. No math, no fuss, great narrative, the players are imbued with endless possibilities for tactical action limited only by their imagination and the game doesn’t skip a beat.. next player!

What’s great is that you can utilize other parts of the system to help ensure the actions are driven by character abilities. Skill check, attribute checks, saving throws etc. In this case I chose a deception check but it could have as well been a dexterity check, an intelligence check. The idea being, that you and the player can work together to come to a conclusion about what makes the most sense.

The advantage system is so much more than just a narrative level to pull on however. Its built into the system, so gaining advantages and disadvantages creates opportunities to use different abilities and make decisions about your actions. For example in the above example if the character failed, he might decide that he is going to use the dodge action this turn since he is at a disadvantage, or if he succeeds in gaining the advantage he might decide to climb the tree and assault the archer knowing he has a good chance of being missed as he makes his ascend and a better chance of hitting him.

These opportunities for interesting narratives unfold very naturally, once players get into the mind set of using them, the game becomes about them and in turn becomes about narrative play. Yet the tactical element, the core rules of combat are maintained.

It’s a wonderful system but it does take practice and naturally like any mechanic it can be abused, maturity and understanding of its purpose and the larger purpose of the game as a whole as always is required for it to work well. None the less, it’s a wonderful system when you get it working and it really breathes new life into dungeons and dragons.

Yet another wonderful element of Dungeons and Dragons 5th edition!