Bryce said...

[The1True]

Yeah, PF 2e is inspired by a lot of what 4e tried to solve about 3.x, and borrows some of 4e's strongest ideas, but also has the benefit of 11 years of reflection on what people loved and hated about 4e. It's a solid system if you don't mind crunch.

Destined to disappear into obscurity unfortunately. The system that no one asked for...

 

[squeen]

Recent comment over at Grognardia. I don't know 4e well enough to speak to it's validity, but I found it interesting largely because I didn't understand it.

If I had to venture at answering "what makes D&D, D&D", I would say it is that the game mechanics always have a credible connection to the fictional narrative. When you start to have abilities and actions that aren't explicable via the narrative, that's when you start to get complaints that it feels like a video game, not D&D. Some writers referred to these as "dissociated mechanics", and the one edition (4e) that leaned into dissociating the mechanics from the narrative is the only edition of D&D to date that had a significant proportion of players say, "This doesn't feel like D&D anymore", even if they were still enjoying the game on its own merits.

You can change the specifics of the rules around a lot (although I agree, things like hit points, classes, armor class, saving throws, etc., are fundamental to what I think of as D&D) but if the rules frequently break the suspension of the disbelief or immersion in the narrative, I think that's when it becomes a different game entirely.

 

[Beoric]

Recent comment over at Grognardia. I don't know 4e well enough to speak to it's validity, but I found it interesting largely because I didn't understand it.

The dissociated mechanics issue is a fair criticism, mostly pushed by The Alexandrian. It refers to the degree to which the mechanic is removed from the character's experience of the world. The most prominent example is, why can fighters only use their big move once per day? WotC eventually addressed the issue by introducing fighters and other "martial" classes that didn't have daily abilities, but by then most of the critics had already left the game.

People also complained about moves that a fighter could also use only once per encounter, but I actually don't have an issue with that. I remember from playing high school sports that your best moves tend to be a bit harder to pull off, and pretty much impossible once your opponent had seen the move and was ready for it. Some moves you just can't spam. Having encounter maneuvers isn't a bad proxy for that, although applying a heavy penalty for multiple attempts to use a maneuver would probably model it more closely.

 

[squeen]

Thank you. Makes sense why that would be labeled "video gamey" too. Agree on the second paragraph. Similarly in AD&D, a "charge" is once per turn---which is usually longer than the encounter lasts.

 

[Beoric]

Makes sense why that would be labeled "video gamey" too.

Some maneuvers are, but many are not. The Rain of Blows maneuver just lets you make one or two extra (but less powerful) strikes in a round, depending on the weapon you are using and your Dex. Shield Bash lets you force an opponent to stumble back a few feet and fall to the ground. Spinning Sweep lets you trip an opponent. Various maneuvers just push the opponent back, or draw him in, or force him out of position.

A lot of them are not unlike real life wrestling, fencing and martial arts moves and techniques. Others can get a bit wuxia (but no more so than a 1e monk's abilities), and still others have me wondering just exactly how am I expected to narrate them.

EDIT: There are a lot of moves where the issue isn't "why can your character do this thing" so much as it is "why can't everybody do this thing". My response has been that everybody can, they just aren't as good at it if they haven't practiced it, so I apply a penalty if someone wants to try a move that isn't their specialty. Interestingly, I have floated this idea on the 4e boards, and the response has been that if they have to take a -2 penalty they are going to try something else instead, so the practical outcome is identical i.e. players only use maneuvers their characters are practiced at. At which point the mechanic isn't dissociated at all.

 

[Pseudoephedrine]

Destined to disappear into obscurity unfortunately. The system that no one asked for...

Looking forward to it. I love lots of other out-of-print and obscure games too. I am an ardent advocate for Openquest, the really good Runequest version that all of a hundred people seem to play. Once PF 2e's an obscure, dead game, it'll be a nice treat to pull out every once in a while and teach some new players to enjoy.

 

[The1True]

Looking forward to it. I love lots of other out-of-print and obscure games too. I am an ardent advocate for Openquest, the really good Runequest version that all of a hundred people seem to play. Once PF 2e's an obscure, dead game, it'll be a nice treat to pull out every once in a while and teach some new players to enjoy.

I feel for these guys. I mean I used to be a big Warhamster munchkin. Just POURING my hard earned cash into that doomed and grievously undersupported Epic 40k game. My buddy collected White Dwarf and bit by bit I saw how GW would overburden the latest edition of whatever they were promoting with more and more supplemental rules until it was completely broken and then BAM brand new edition. Nothing you own is acceptable down at the tournament table anymore.
But what are they supposed to do? They're a business; they've got to keep pumping out product so they can pay they're employees. You can't hate them for that. Similarly, you can't hate WOTC for keeping D&D a living and relevant game. I can see how they were in a bind with 3.5; third parties were making more off their game than they were. They needed to sell books. 4e didn't work out for a lot of people. Pathfinder stepped into that vacuum and killed it. Love it or hate it, you have to admit it is a truly polished product.
What I think they should have done is wait out 5e. Maybe go with some big campaign-world products to keep things afloat or whatever and then put out a Pathfinder second edition that's like a 5.5e the way their first edition is a 3.7e. There's going to be a ton of people who want to stick with 5 when WOTC inevitably moves on, whereas no one I know playing PF was clamouring for a new edition.
Ah, armchair RPG CEOing. so easy.

 

[squeen]

I think this blog post about Narrative arc is pertinent to much of what Bryce is suggesting a good written adventure does:

Exposition
The de-facto introduction to your book, the exposition is Act One of the story arc. You’re setting the table in the exposition: starting the story, bringing out your characters, setting up the seeds of conflict, and imparting just enough background information to keep the reader clued in on what’s occurring in the story.

Here’s a brief overview of what else the reader should be able to extract from the exposition of your story (which, incidentally, ties neatly into the 5 Ws):

• The characters. Who’s in the cast of characters? How can you differentiate among them?
• The setting. Where does your story take place? Don’t forget that setting includes time — when does your story take place? What time period?
• The mood. How will you set the tone of the novel in the exposition? A romance that suddenly goes sideways due to an alien invasion is going to confuse readers and cloud your book's genre classification.

In today's review, of The Place of Unquiet Repose, Bryce is suggesting Prince has nailed these 3 elements particularly well.

Regular writers (and not just D&D writers) are also appearently pointed to Tolkien for guidance:

A word of caution: remember Show, Don't Tell — and don’t mistake “exposition” for “info dump.” Even while Tolkien is busy introducing the reader to an enormous cast of dwarves in The Hobbit, there’s a booming party going on and poor Bilbo’s scrambling to serve tea! Readers will be interested in background information only when it doesn’t distract or detract from the plot. You must balance action and information if you want them to continue flipping the pages.

Here we see one of Byrce's "go-to's" of Show-Don't-Tell being expounded.

The article then goes on from Exposition to the other story elements: Rising Action, Climax, Falling Action

However!! In D&D adventures (as opposed to novels) those later elements don't exist. That's the game you play...the characters participate in the creation of those elements. The "bad DM", or the where-D&D-goes-wrong-Railroad is symptomatic of the author not knowing when to stop being an author and start being a DM---which is a whole other art, right? (...and like brain surgery, it's one that the majority of the world is quite bad at---at least at first.)

I think there's a few other dissimilarities between novels and adventures...and those fall under the category of "technical document" or "data management" because an adventure has to eventually relinquish control of the story to the players and transition into a tool for real-time DMing (i.e. info-manipulation). Most of data management is best done with maps, lists, and tables---as oppose to prose. Only the Exposition works well in paragraph form (not the if-then results or combat mechanics), and that's also exactly where (and only where) Show-Don't-Tell applies as a universal tip to good writing.

I think this proves that Bryce, at heart, is a literary critc and neat freak. ;P

 

[bryce0lynch]

But of course. Hence the Paris Review, my chiffon dressing gown, and whiskey cocktails made with english mustard.

The good mixer: Must Skye Remind You scotch whisky cocktail recipe

Hawksmoor Spitalfields’ bar manager shows why he’s the newly crowned UK bartender of the year 2015 with a clever, bracing whisky-based cocktail

www.theguardian.com

 

[squeen]

...my chiffon dressing gown

Bad ass.

 

[Beoric]

However!! In D&D adventures (as opposed to novels) those later elements don't exist.

Minor quibble - and you allude to this but I don't think strongly enough - but I think the elements do exist, they just don't exist where or in the manner that the module writer declares them to exist. Rising action, climax and falling action are determined by the events of the game, and the DM has only limited influence over them.

If the party reduces your precious boss monster to paste in the first round, or finds a shortcut an encounters it early in the dungeon, that's ok, because as it turns out, that wasn't the climax. The climax was some other monster or event, that ended up having more significance to the players. It was that random ghoul who got lucky and paralyzed almost the whole party, leaving the thief and the wizard to figure out how to protect their helpless comrades who lie in the open corridor, not knowing how long the paralytic will last, while the DM ticks off wandering monster rolls...

In fact, I think regular inclusion of a boss monster weakens your game overall; players who expect a tough boss monster at the end tend to hoard resources, and unload everything they have on the obvious boss monster fight, which makes it all too likely that he will be paste after the first round. And if you are committed to making him the boss, then there is incentive to start modifying the encounter on the fly to make it "more challenging" - a phenomenon I like to call "punishing your players for being smart and resourceful".

 

[squeen]

I totally agree. The point I was making was solely about That Which is Written. I put it in this thread because I am hoping it in some small way helps Bryce with his writing-aide book.

Those other elements do occur, but none of that should be penned because---as you say---you cannot/should-not predict them.

I frequently remind myself during games what EOTB tagged as "Let the players win" and you likewise call "punishing your players for being smart and resourceful". His phrase is terser...so it wins out in my brain.

 

[The1True]

In fact, I think regular inclusion of a boss monster weakens your game overall; players who expect a tough boss monster at the end tend to hoard resources, and unload everything they have on the obvious boss monster fight, which makes it all too likely that he will be paste after the first round. And if you are committed to making him the boss, then there is incentive to start modifying the encounter on the fly to make it "more challenging" - a phenomenon I like to call "punishing your players for being smart and resourceful".

Agree except for this part. I <3 Boss monsters as a player and as a DM. But the boss doesn't necessarily have to be at the end and false-bosses can wheeze the PC's of their horded spells and powers...
But BIG set-pieces are key to an adventure imsho.

 

[squeen]

Some good, boilerplate stuff, from today's:

The adventure is clearly meant to go a certain way. You have the plot [imagined] in your head and, the final fight/encounter with the dragon, reinforces that. You have these cool moments in your head, both with the setup and with the conclusion of the adventure. That is wrong. This indicates an over-investment in the adventure on your part. You’re trying to force outcomes. Instead of this just write it in such a way that an
adventure can flow from it, rather than trying to force an outcome to the adventure that you think will be cool, or result in a cool moment, etc.

It continues, but I am forcing a paragraph break by writing this very sentence...

The DM text is too long also. It shouldn’t take a column to explain a room. You don’t need to tell us that the +1 Gallant Longsword is described later on in the adventure in the appendix. You don’t need to tell us that the +1 shield is undamaged. That’s like saying that the air in your house right now is breathable. Yes, of course, we assume that. This pads out your word count and a padded DM text makes it harder for the DM to find the information that IS important to running the room.

My favorite part of the whole thing:

...I’m not gonna shit on someone else's fun. I mean, drinking pretzels and eating beer with a little escapism is the ultimate point of it all, right?

Err...right, boss (if you are Mork from Ork).

 

[squeen]

Three Little Words

Today's post contains a nice trick for NPC descriptions

And that room description is a pretty good example of what this an above average adventure, even given it’s “one map page and one page of room keys” design. Humid. Little. Packed with bodies of mules, women, and children. No doubt very loud, chaotic, and smelly, is what that description says to me, as the DM. That’s what happens when you’ve written a good description. The DMs mind leads to other things. Implications are explored. The brain fills things in. The description is more than the sum of the words presented on the page. You automatically fill things in. Less is more. Plus, it’s easier to scan and run at the table! Amazing! The NPC descriptions are the same, using that little “three keywords” trick I like so much (sometimes two keywords.) Villagers are scared, Angry. Elder Folga is despairing, confused and resigned. Elder Wystle is Gruff, ashamed, and aggressive. You get a sense on how to run them, and run them WELL, with just a couple of words. No need for an entire paragraph to have to dig the fuck through while running it at the table. It’s all you need, right there. And it’s oriented towards play. Not just some bullshit words, but words that will lead to interesting play. Again, the DM’s mind leaps to fill in things and contort it to make some play.

 

[Beoric]

I have suggested something similar here before. Actually is was "alignment and two keywords".

 

[squeen]

From today's review:

Tonally, its got 5e down flat. You’re hired by “a goblin scholar called Dr. Otho Ambitriax, who studies ancient history at a local university called the Academy of Systematic Wisdom.” Yup, that’s 5e all right. It’s easy enough to ignore these elements, which I find off-putting,

I find this interesting, but I (of course) am one of those who find it off-putting like Bryce. Let me state up front that this is just a matter of taste---there is no right or wrong here, and I'm not climbing up on a morale high-horse about "this ain't D&D". Still I think it worth examining a bit.

Two questions, then:
(1) Why is it off-putting?
(2) Why should an author care.

Q1: Off-putting?
I don't really know the answer to the first question. One could just say that it's not the classic D&D medieval setting --- that it doesn't align with 1930-1950's pulp fiction or early TSR publications or Tolkien. But I'm not sure that's true. Vance's Dying Earth had a lot of elements like this. Unlike Gygax and many other, I am not a bit fan of Dying Earth, so maybe it just personal taste.

I am going to put this down as "normalization of the fantastic" and/or "anachronistic modernization", and claim that's the source of my dislike. I also generally prefer the civilized elements of my campaign world to be a bit less "establishment"---more hard scrabble, if you will. I open the floor up to debate, and hope Byrce will elaborate too.

Q2: Why care?
This second question is really a thinly disguised effort to dovetail in a video from the art-guys at Proko.com that they just sent out. Ostensibly it was a quasi book-review of the text, "Hit Makers" by Derek Thompson. I have not read the book, but it is subtitled "The Science of Popularity in an Age of Distraction". The Proko video is targeting artists, but I think applies to Adventure Writers too. It take awhile to get rolling, so jump to 2:16 to skip the intro junk.

Here's my distillation and some time-tags:

• success = what is people want + how they get it
• quality is a factor in "hits", but it's not the most important factor, more important is exposure (10:30)
• The MAYA Principle (Most Advanced. Yet Acceptable) i.e. people want new, but not too new (14:00)
• the benign violation --- hits are a little new, and arouse curiosity (17:30)
• generational branding (23:00) --- not my parents (D&D)
• researching your target demographic --- understanding your audiences likes & desire and understanding what is behind what they say they want...means becoming a part of that target audience/subculture (24:00)
• coming up with things that scratch an unknown itch, i.e. "I didn't know I wanted that until you showed it to me." (the antidote for tired derivative work---e.g. grumpy dwarves, ninja warriors, etc.)
• perseverance --- creative people who succeed have tenacity so that failure does not stop them (31:00)
• John Boyd's OODA Loop -- Observation, Orientation, Decision, Action: developing the habit of being able to change strategy quickly (33:45 )
• Viral Myth/broadcast diffusion -- the notion of "going viral" (person-to-person) is not well supported by research. Usually it's single [dark] broadcast source i.e. a community foci. Popularity leads to more popularity. (40:20)
• Economic of Prophecy (44:00) -- when others zag...zig. Find the unexploited niche. Going against the grain.
• Investing in developing talent. (47:00)
• Empire Building (55:30) --- one success feeding others vs. narrow-casting (keeping in touch with your core audience)

What are some common missteps folks make? One I'll suggest is "trying to please everyone".


In what may seem like a non-sequitur, here's me practicing sketching AD&D Trolls.
Do you detect any of the principles at work?

 

[Beoric]

It is off-putting in an adventure that is intended to be a generic, drop-into-any-game module because it isn't really generic, but It implies a setting that isn't consistent with the faux-medieval settings that many people run, especially older players. It isn't just the goblin, it's the university (which people assume is a modern creation even though Oxford was around by at least the 12th century).

And while it isn't generic enough to be used by anyone, it also doesn't seem specific enough to make the differences matter. I'm assuming that the scholar's goblinness has no impact on the actual adventure. Are the PC's lives made more difficult because of prejudice against their employer? Do his connections to the goblin community, or attempts to distance himself from it, have any impact on the adventure? Is goblin history or culture relevant in any way? I'm guessing not, or Bryce would have called it out.

Now, give the university a plausibly medieval flavour, and give the goblin scholar a backstory similar the Native Americans who were shipped back to England, dressed up up in English fashion, and trotted around high society there and you may be on to something. His colleagues don't take him seriously and treat him with a slightly amused, polite condescension; he tries to conceal his resentment of the human PCs, who get treated better than him no matter who they are; the expedition is poorly funded because the department won't back him; there is a rival expedition by a less competent human colleague, who is little more than a tomb robber, but it is backed by the university, and the goblin wants to get there first before his rival makes a mess of things; the local goblin population might be convinced to help, but need to be made to trust the "humanized" goblin scholar; and you might have something to work with.

Maybe, as a twist on most modules, the party is hired to protect him while he works and to prevent the plundering of the tomb by the rival party, possibly without telegraphing the goblin's hand in the interference with his rival's party. The module includes an overland map and tomb complex, and the job is to get there first, prevent or at least impede the rival party's progress through the wilderness, explore the tomb while keeping any guardians and traps intact, and extract the historical artifacts in order to protect them. The goblin will reluctantly allow some looting of treasure with low historical value, because he has no other way to pay them; but if the party shows respect and restraint and befriends the local goblin tribe, the tribe rewards them handsomely with valuable trade goods and other items, and provides a token allowing the party a reasonable shot at befriending any goblinoids they meet. Interaction with members of the tribes provides rumors/hints to help deal with the challenges in the tomb. The party then has to get the goblin and the artifacts back to human lands safely (since the goblin's career hinges on studying them).

Is that better?

 

[squeen]

Yes. I do like the way you worked with the concept. Nice.

If that same level of craftsmanship is absent from the adventure as-written, then there is just an implied 5e setting which is generally difficult for me to work with.

 

[squeen]

An older quote from Praise the Fallen, on toys

There are both good and bad things that can happen to the party, which is good design. If only bad things ever happen when you play with the dungeons toys then you will no longer play with the toys, which doesn’t make ANYONE happy.

and on art

I will mention also, the art style, something I usually don’t care about. Most adventure art doesn’t really contribute to the adventure. It’s just a picture. In rare cases it can really contribute to the vibe the adventure is going for or help communicate something like the horror of a monster. The art here is all a kind of black and white, maybe with negative images? (I don’t know shit about art.) What I DO know is that it does a great job in helping set the mood for the DM on the starkness of the VOID imagery that runs throughout the adventure.

I finally read through Graphite Prime's blog entry on orcs. Made me give this adventure a second look.