Bryce said...

[squeen]

In Nod 36 review about hex crawls:

I don’t know how to run a hex crawl. I’ve been collecting links on my forum for a future book on how to write and run a hex crawl, but that doesn’t mean I understand it yet. It feels like there are three ways. First, it’s an adventure. You wander from place to place, there are little hooks and things in one hex that lead to another hex. Second, it could be a setting. It’s just a place and you have “normal” adventures in it that the DM comes up with and/or inserts. The hexes are just local color for the DM to use as fodder while traveling or downtime. Third might be Wanderers, where the party literally just wanders from hex to hex getting in to trouble as the DM riffs. This last one strikes me as having even more motivational issues for players than a normal D&D party or megadungeon. Maybe there’s some other way to run a hex crawl. I don’t know.

So in bullet form, a hex-crawl is played as follows:

• adventure mode: You wander from place to place, there are little hooks and things in one hex that lead to another hex.
• setting mode: It’s just a place and you have “normal” adventures in it that the DM comes up with and/or inserts.
• wander mode: the party literally just wanders from hex to hex getting in to trouble as the DM riffs.

Is this correct? I haven't a clue. I think I've only played "setting mode", i.e. I put hexes on my big campaign map, Greyhawk-style.

 

[The1True]

• adventure mode: You wander from place to place, there are little hooks and things in one hex that lead to another hex.
• setting mode: It’s just a place and you have “normal” adventures in it that the DM comes up with and/or inserts.
• wander mode: the party literally just wanders from hex to hex getting in to trouble as the DM riffs.

Adventure mode has hooks etc. that lead to things in THIS AND other hexes.

Is there a difference between Adventure and Wander mode? Maybe Wander is more Procedural or Improvisational whereas Adventure is more a Path or Point crawl?

I don't know if you can set out to run a Hex crawl, but I've definitely had a great time playing and running them. They usually occur spontaneously as a result of player curiosity in the campaign map. Throw out a cool campaign map with lots of blank hexes and run a regular introductory adventure in it and players are likely to want to wander off into the unknown without too much nudging.

 

[squeen]

I don't know if you can set out to run a Hex crawl, but I've definitely had a great time playing and running them. They usually occur spontaneously as a result of player curiosity in the campaign map. Throw out a cool campaign map with lots of blank hexes and run a regular introductory adventure in it and players are likely to want to wander off into the unknown without too much nudging.

So what makes it a hex-crawl to you? The procedural generation of content, or the thinking of movement on a per-hex basis?

 

[The1True]

The thinking of movement on a per-hex basis. Specifically clearing hexes/filling in the map. A lot of hex advice suggests hex maps should only be for the DM to which I disagree vehemently.

 

[Beoric]

I always thought of the major distinction being between travelling through hexes and clearing hexes. In fact, they are different and arguably unrelated sections in the 1e DMG.

 

[squeen]

I always thought of the major distinction being between travelling through hexes and clearing hexes. In fact, they are different and arguably unrelated sections in the 1e DMG.

That's a interesting distinction. Honestly, I have no preconceived notion of what it means to hex crawl. I never X1'd, even though I bought it when it originally came out---that was B/X and that whole edition never clicked with me.

 

[squeen]

Bryce's most in-depth and critical dissection posted to date in Sparkless.

 

[squeen]

From today's post. Couldn't be said any plainer.

It feels like every sentence, every phrase, every room is padded out. Every little thing needs the DMs hand held. “If the players search then they find …” we are told. This is the classic quantum padding I’ve referenced so many times in the past. An if/then statement that should be reworded to just explicitly state what is going on. Or “The treasure found is as follows …” This is just pure padding, having no use at all in making the adventure clearer. “If the players are not carrying illumination …” the adventure tells us, then they can’t see. Well no fucking shit. That IS how fucking D&D works, isn’t it? Or, rather, how LIGHT works? If there’s no light you can’t see? “If the players don’t breathe then they die of suffocation” is, thankfully left out of the room description for each room.

...

This leads to, of course, a wall of text issue where all of the text runs together and the DM can’t actually use the adventure for its main purpose: as a reference tool to run the adventure. This is, of course, one of the main conceits of this blog. The Adventure is a reference tool for the DM running it. The DM uses it to run the adventure, and thus it must be formatted, and the writing put down on the page, in such a way that facilitates the DM running it. Spending minutes reading a room description, and fumbling through it during play in order to pull out the details you need to run the room, is not a reference tool. It’s something to be read, perhaps. The greatest sin an adventure can make.

 

[squeen]

Consider Bryce's advice for adventure writing and its similarities to this wikipedia advice for editors:

Wikipedia:How to write a plot summary - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[squeen]

The whole review is filled with great advice. Bryce is being very explicit and articulate in it. Here's a sample.

In the Brycian model of adventure design we have Ease of Use, Evocative Writing and Interactivity … with hidden pillar four being “Design.” Ease of Use is not particularly difficult, once you know you need to do it. It’s mostly just following some guidelines. Interactivity that is formulaic can provide least middling results, enough that the adventure is not just one note anyway. The ability to throw away all of the tropes of all of the adventures ever seen and bring new life to things is an important skill. The imagining of a scene, and what it would really be like, getting past all of the imagination having been beaten out of you by life. The Evocative Writing then communicates this to the DM and the DM to players, painting a picture in their head, creating a mood and atmosphere. It allows the DMs imagination, and the players, to be leveraged in to something much greater than what was on the page, the negative space in the imagination being filled in by the players/DM’s own brains. This adventure hits on all three notes, successfully in all cases with some occasional bits that verge on brilliance.

 

[squeen]

from the review of Caught in the Webs of Past and Present

“If you want to be a gladiator then act like a gladiator” says the OD&D advice for responding to player who want to be a gladiator. New D&D would have a bunch ofmechanicssurrounding it. OD&D says “act like one.”

Preach it brother!

 

[Malrex]

from the review of Caught in the Webs of Past and Present
“If you want to be a gladiator then act like a gladiator” says the OD&D advice for responding to player who want to be a gladiator. New D&D would have a bunch ofmechanicssurrounding it. OD&D says “act like one.”
Preach it brother!

This only works if the DM is open to it or allows it.

I remember back in the day I would 'act like one' of whatever I wanted to play and was shut down or wasn't supported because 'it wasn't in the rules'...hence why I enjoyed 'new D&D' or 2e when it came out and provided options that allowed me to play my character how I wanted and allowed a tiny bit of control of the one thing I had control of--my character.

Could just be a case of a few shitty DMs though....and a few shitty players. Want to play a fighter that's a pirate? everyone boohooed it because they wanted your fighter to wear platemail, etc....2e brought options to circumvent some of those issues.

 

[TerribleSorcery]

Could just be a case of a few shitty DMs though....and a few shitty players. Want to play a fighter that's a pirate? everyone boohooed it because they wanted your fighter to wear platemail, etc....2e brought options to circumvent some of those issues.

This is actually a great example. I remember reading these 2e books back in the day, and they never made sense to me.

Please clear this up for me: what kind of game are we playing? We all know platemail is the strongest mundane protection available. So what does it mean for me, the DM, if one player's fighter wears a billowing, low-cut silk shirt instead? How far does my obligation to this notion extend? Must the silk shirt-wearer be a 'viable build'?

I submit this is backwards. If we're playing a seafaring-themed game, everyone is on the same page. If we're not, well, I have hopefully mentioned that to my players. A fighter who grew up at sea can act how he wants, and might start 1st level with a cutlass and no shoes - but since we all understand we're playing D&D, once the sailor gets a few bucks in his pocket one hopes he will buy better protection before the group decides to tackle G1!

This doesn't stop him from acting however he wants, but it preserves the 'laws of physics' of the game in their familiar shape. A game where the shirtless pirate and the plate-armoured knight are equally difficult to hurt - you want a different system for that, I think. A lot of the 2e complete handbooks tried to fit these square pegs into D&D's round hole.

 

[Beoric]

A lot of the issues with this specific example were mitigated by quite reasonable rules that removed the dex bonus if you were wearing heavy armor. It would be an easy houserule for early editions that would level the playing field for high dex, light armor combatants - as long as they are in a situation where they can rely on their dex bonus. Getting into a general battle where you can expect a lot of attacks on your flank and rear, and you will realize why Conan wore armor when possible.

But in general I have sympathy for @Malrex's experience. I had a lot of DMs back in the day who, if it wasn't expressly in the rules or on the character sheet, you couldn't do it no matter what your archetype appeared to be. "Acting like a gladiator" wasn't going to accomplish anything except for your character failing to do whatever you thought a gladiator should be able to do.

 

[The1True]

It's pretty gratifying to hear that I'm not alone in this. I didn't want to get into it with the grognards again but yeah, that's it in a nutshell:
Sure. Act like a gladiator, if your DM is a good guy. But in practice, in the majority of cases this doesn't work out. And an appreciable percent of the time, it didn't just not work out, but it was inconsistent and infuriating.

You'd say "My guy's a pit fighter, so I know a lot of tricks." The DM's like, "cool, I'll give you a +1 or something when you do a great job of describing your actions and we'll make it extra cool if you roll a 20. Plus we'll just call your chainmail 'gladiator armour'".

Fine. Not really what I'm looking for, but let's go with that. Sure, there could be rules for taunting my opponent, getting the 'crowd' riled up, tripping, sundering, disarming. I could have access to some awesome exotic weapons and armour like nets or chains or piecemeal armour... but whatever. The DM's made a ruling and I'm playing my guy.

And that's the majority of cases. But a lot of the time, the DM forgets his initial off the cuff ruling and decides later to introduce his own weird house-ruled net fighting mechanics, or he decides he hates the roll 20 thing and delves into the arcane grappling rules in the DMG (or wherever the hell it's hidden in 1e) etc. Now the player can't even depend on the rules staying the same. They waffle at the DM's whim.

Before this wanders back into the exhausting edition wars yet again. Let's say it, the resulting character builds from 2e+ got out of hand and I like to joke about it, but their truly is an astounding array of frivolous 'candy classes'. But pretending like you could just play it til you make it in 1e is a boo-hiss oversimplification. It required some real trust and a strong contract between players and DM that rarely existed.



And if I may be an insufferably pedantic asshole for a moment; without the addition of firearms in your game, the flamboyant swashbuckler shouldn't stand a snowflake's chance in hell against a man in full plate armour. There's a reason dudes wore those suits well into the 16th century. No amount of fancy 'luck' and 'finesse' mechanics should be able to stand up to a trained martial artist in a full suit of plates. I've been immersing myself in medieval history and historical fiction recently and it's frustrating the hell out of me that it is markedly better to go the Dex+Light Armour route in 3e. That is some revisionist, egalitarian bullshit. Knights were killing machines. Only the advent of firearms and organized units of professional soldiers could finally bring them to heal. Fuck your foofy rapier and fancy hat.

sorry, had to get that off my chest.

 

[squeen]

This only works if the DM is open to it or allows it.
...
Could just be a case of a few shitty DMs though....and a few shitty players. Want to play a fighter that's a pirate? everyone boohooed it because they wanted your fighter to wear platemail, etc....2e brought options to circumvent some of those issues.

It required some real trust and a strong contract between players and DM that rarely existed.

Sucks. But I don't think there's any easy/systematic way to cure that. Needing a high-caliber DM is a requirement for D&D.

I think it's a bit of "when in Rome" syndrome. Things make sense in a certain content. On a ship, wearing heavy armor makes little sense if there's a chance it would drag you to a watery grave. @The1True's point about firearms also applies. Even a gladiator only makes a certain amount of sense inside an arena (which did actually happen in the original Castle Greyhawk).

I think if you want to be a pirate, play a thief. I think "gladiator tricks" fall into the category of "things a trained fighter knows" so is abstracted in classic D&D combat and level advancement. To put it a delicately as possible, to mechanize "fighting techniques" is wanting to start out with special abilities. As a DM, I make it possible to acquire special abilities---but you have to earn them...like a magic-user finding a new spell on a scroll, or a cleric a magic mace. Baking them in at start-up is just a small bit of wish fulfillment. Wanting special class mechanics is the environment adapting to the character, rather than the character adapting to the environment (e.g. as @Beoric said: when Conan goes to war, he puts on armor...when he's breaking into a wizard's tower...probably not so much---but hell! He's still CONAN!)

Here's what I'm seeing in my game when I'm try to create new opponents to go up against a mid-level party:

• you/they can only take about three hits before you are toast
• armor only helps so much because level/HD neutralizes it
• magic "ends it" immediately, but it's a finite resource that needs to be carefully managed, because...

• numbers win (i.e. spread the pain!)
• smarts win (i.e. don't let them get those 2-4 attacks in!)

In the context of the last three, class differences melt away because if you don't cooperate you are all eventually toast. It's also why, at higher levels, it's the monster's special abilities that matter more than their AC & hit-points. As I read somewhere recently, D&D was never "hack & slash" as much as its critics tried to paint it as such (and then proceeded to make it so in later editions <-- their claim, I have no first-hand knowledge).

To stick my neck out even more:

1. If D&D is feeling repetitive, perhaps your DM is not doing enough to vary the environment. Like the pirate vs. the foot-soldier example, circumstances should change enough that different strategies are optimal at different times (i.e. what happens at character "build" can never be optimal and is of little importance). Tonal shifts in mood and situational mini-games help keep things fresh. (Through the Looking Glass, on Mars, swimming through underwater mazes, hacking through jungles, mass combat, court intrigue, switching bodies, etc.). That way, you get to wear many hats irrespective of class ("when in Rome..." again).
2. Melan hinted at this a long time ago but never spelled it out to me, but trying to play out a fantasy from a book or movie doesn't really work with D&D. There is a certain S&S/faux-Camelot aesthetic sweet-spot that it was built for (although here's an anti-EGG post by Gus L. arguing the opposite). Perhaps you should be looking at some other game rather than trying to shoe-horn it in. I haven't really played many himself, but I hear there are now TONS of them. LofFP was an example (I think) of trying to shift the D&D aesthetic towards Edwarian-era horror using a B/X chassis. I think success was limited, but it did open the door to some very alternative play-styles---hence the Artpunk. The whole TSR/WotC notion of "we changed D&D to try and please everyone" is wrong-headed IMO, and probably was driven by greed and/or ignorance. Why not just come up with a different game (ref: greed)?

 

[squeen]

A lot of the issues with this specific example were mitigated by quite reasonable rules that removed the dex bonus if you were wearing heavy armor. It would be an easy houserule for early editions that would level the playing field for high dex, light armor combatants - as long as they are in a situation where they can rely on their dex bonus.

I sort of hit upon this myself, back when I was rules tinker, but then rejected it. It made enough sense that a high-dex thief in leather has about the same AC as an orc in chain. Good enough. Besides, a) fighting is not the role he's choosen, and b) dex also gives initiative, surprise and missile bonuses---which should matter more than armor.

Ultimately, I decided that BtB AD&D had it covered and my house-ruling was not necessary. Let the front-line wear the armor and also enjoy their lucky dex roll.

Remember this bell curve?


Only 9% of fighter-PCs will ever get to enjoy that extra little AC bonus while in heavy armor...unless you've ALSO got you thumb on the scale and rules-tinkered roll-up.

Yeah. Just plain "hands off" AD&D works fine for me.

(This is where DP would have typically retorted "but it's fun...", to which I can now---thanks to @Osrnoob---refer him to Raggi's I Hate Fun essay!)

 

[The1True]

Don't get me started on that I Hate Fun rubbish. I don't sit down at the table with my bros for 3-8 hrs to not have fun. What utter drivel.

 

[squeen]

His point---that there is instant-gratification "fun" and a less immediate, but perhaps ultimately more satisfying, "other fun"---speaks to me at least.

 

[PrinceofNothing]

No it is the regular fun that I hate. Fun? Hate it. Can't stand fun.