Advanced Gaming & Theory: Miscellany

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GAMEMASTERING: Style or Evolution?

Youtuber Kevin Mason recently did a video on a subject that got me thinking, I encourage you to watch it, he identifies several styles of DMing and discusses the positive and the negative aspects of each. Here is the link so that you can go view it, Gamemaster Style: What Kind of Gamemaster are You?

Kevin Mason identifies four different styles:

Rules
Story
Fun
Balanced

It got me thinking, I have been all of these extremes at one point or another. When I first started out, I was very Fun. I catered to all of the player's desires and did whatever it took to get people to play at my table. That wasn't the only reason why I did it, there was also the fact that there was so much cool stuff in the DMG and I wanted to use it all at the same time! This, of course, got boring and convoluted. It did help me figure out how lots of things worked, just throwing everything out there and seeing how things function. Sure the game lacked challenge, but it was a stepping stone.

What if the game is teaching itself to us? We all see these examples floating around, we suggest to new gamemasters to avoid traps and perils, usually from our own experience, but what if that is exactly what we are supposed to do? We learn more from making mistakes than we do from somebody telling us anything . . . at least I do.

https://cathleentownsend.com/2015/11/30/14-stages-of-self-publishing/

My next evolution was one of story-telling. I wrote overly detailed notes and didn't realize that I was removing the players from the scenario. In essence, I was playing the game during prep. The story was great, and my players did enjoy this aspect of the game. Mastering this state is also one of trial and error. Spending 20-40 hours prepping an eight-hour session is a waste of energy. I learned by cutting back and experimenting with levels of story elements until I found one that satisfied the players, but was told not at the prep stage, but during play itself. If the players cannot interact with it, it isn't a game.

We buy modules, and we want a good collection of different styles. Sometimes we run them, sometimes we don't, but they are nice to have. They aren't all that practical though, by their very nature they are self-limiting, which forces the DM to either accept this limitation or start tinkering and molding modules to fit the style of the players, which eventually leads to writing your own material, and then cutting back until you are actually playing the game the way that it was originally designed to be played. At this point, I think that we start another evolution.

We discovered that the rules can either work against us, or for us. We become obsessed with them and say weird stuff like: If you aren't following all the rules to the letter, you aren't playing System X! We keep our story, but we force it to bend to the will of the rules. We become inflexible and this leads to predictability and stagnation. But, we have to know the rules before we can disobey them. This is a natural stage. Going back through the core handbooks and applying everything that we know thus far to the rules and seeing what complies and what doesn't.

We are building upon our knowledge base, and the trick is to find players who will put up with our learning the game until we decide that enough is enough. Once we get tired of looking up rules all the time, being controlled by the system, being interrupted by mechanics that we feel offer nothing to the game, we get a feel for how these specific rules function and can begin improvising our own mechanics quickly, and in a way that complies with the ruleset itself. We have mastered the rules and can once again return to the beginning, applying what we now know into the structure of a fun game that satisfies all elements in a style and is ours. Balanced! We've earned the title Gamemaster, and can now come up with our own designs.

I don't think that any of this is a mistake. Perhaps, just as a player's character advances in level, so does the DM. I remember my mother once asking me what level of DM I am, just wanting to connect with me, but maybe she wasn't all that far off base? Perhaps DM's do have levels, we do evolve, and I bet you that we all evolve the same way. This means that the system itself is teaching us how to play the game as if it were self-aware and completely independent of us. A natural progression that taps into the human mind, and maps it.

There are, no doubt, more evolutions than just the three before we hit the stage of balance, or perhaps we go through a short stage of balance prior to taking the next steps of evolution. Maybe if we can figure out what these specific evolutions are we can better understand how our minds function.

The problem with this line of thinking is that it may make the journey too easy. Are we better DM's because we took this evolution with no outside aid of any kind? We had to fight for each evolution without the knowledge that we were evolving? Or, on the other hand, if we spell it out for new users, can we as a whole benefit by them applying the established evolution faster and beginning evolutions that we will never know?

The time required before fully exploring an evolution is individual, there is no one size fits all. We can spend years on an evolution without achieving any groundbreaking success at it, or cycle through a phase fairly quickly, easily mastering it. Perhaps when we say things, such as, "My style of DMing is Character-driven" we are detailing the personal evolution which we are currently exploring?

Thoughts?

Gygax's Seven Principals of the DM's Function

There has been some online complaints made by dungeon masters who feel that they had already played their best game. This thought is one that I do not find acceptable; in fact, by entertaining thoughts like that we are allowing ourselves to become complacent. If this happens, than it is probably time to sit on the other side of the screen for a while. The DM has many many functions, and it is his duty to never stop working on improving his ability to become better; true mastery, I feel, is unattainable. If we lose the ability to critique our work, we cannot grow. We must be critical of ourselves, but what is it exactly that we actually do? According to the games co-creator, Gary Gygax, he identified seven principal functions which we are responsiblefor; while it is very easy to become good at each, a true level of mastery is not actually possible, we can always improve our skills.

BECOME A MOVING FORCE

This skill does not mean that you railroad the players: that is simply providing the function, but it is a very weak attempt at doing so. To become a proper mover one has to plant seeds as one goes. This does not mean that you go out and buy the latest and greatest module and force your players to sit through it. There are many layers of storytelling that we are seeding, small ones as well as large ones. Most of this can be provided by identifying plausible and unexpected consequences. As soon as the game starts, and the players are making decisions there are consequences for these decisions, some good, and some not so good. We must also seek to become unpredictable, we offer many options as the game flows and the players chose which options that they want to pursue, this alone probably removes most modules from play. Your players will also be unpredictable, but if they get stuck than it is our job to move them before this even happens. We have to be aware of what seeds we are planting, and what unresolved plots are doing; if the players chose to ignore something today, it could spiral out of control and we have to let it do this.

We still want the players in control of their own destinies, however they still need us to guide them. If we offer no options then we are offering too many options. Decisions must be made, but in order for the players to make decisions they must be offered questions. This isn’t as easy as it sounds, we don’t want to lead the party, but we also want to keep everybody engaged. The party moves as one, but they should also move as individuals as well, meaning that some of the seeds that we are planting are for specific players, they are the stars of the show, they are calling the shots.

If you had spent three weeks designing a mine, and the players decide to not go into this mine, we’ve got to figure out a way to either encourage them to enter through encounters, else put it away and save it for later. Under no circumstances should they be trusting you. A good rule of thumb for me is that if you feel that you are being railroaded into something, then you’d best get off the tracks because you are being manipulated. Becoming a proper moving force takes years of practice, you don’t want to get caughtdoing it, but you don’t want to leave your players unaware of what there is to do. They must feel that they are agents of free will, because they are, but there is a balance to doing it well that is not static in any way. Finding quiet and different ways to nudge the party along when they need it is a subtle skill, and one can always do it with more creativity and tact than we’d done previously. We must never allow something to become passé.

CREATOR

Even if we use a published setting, we are still responsible for creating everything in this world. We do so because of necessity, but we are also exploring creativity. This is more than just imagination; we must also be organized to properly catalog our world when it is required. This is a non-stop learning process, just because we have a map and a brief synopsis of what an area is like does not mean that we are ready to play there. We create on paper, as well as create at the table while playing the game; this goes back to adventure seeds and becoming a moving force. We must be inspired to create, and allow ourselves to enjoy doing it. Not only do we create basic necessities, we can always go just a little bit further, add just a little bit more detail. Create thoughtfully and with intent to move things along.

DESIGNER

Paying someone to design stuff for you is boring. While it is fine to steal and twist established ideas, if one does nothing but use the designs of others, what is it that you are really accomplishing here? Designing and Creating are linked together, but they aren’t the same thing. We create an orcish war party, but we must design how this war party will try and attack. We create a dungeon, but first we must design it.

I don’t care who you are, you aren’t an expert designer, things can always be tighter, we want everything different, there are also many play styles to try, and they all haven’t been invented yet. It is okay to open every game out with a goblin war, as long as you can design it to flow and function differently each time. Becoming repetitive and complacent go hand in hand, if an encounter falls apart, you’ve got to identify why and how you can design it better next time. Even if the design worked perfectly, it will never be repeated, no matter what, this is a major part of our job.

ARBITER

We must be aware of our rules; our chosen system represents the physics of our realm. Some people feel that they get bored of a system; this typically means that they are not focusing on the other principle functions. The rules are there to make our lives easier, and they allow us to do things consistently, that is all. One need not be an expert of the rules, but they do have to be aware of them. We depend upon our rules to help us design. We create new rules to either improve our base system or to speed up play. It doesn’t matter what this system is, you must master it and once you’ve got a system mastered do not switch systems. Have we ever got a system mastered? Probably not, and it would be a waste of time to try and memorize every chart and rule in it. Mastery, in this sense, is knowing your way around the books, being able to find something fast, or better yet, before play. The rules are tools which you can depend upon. They help us design by filling in all of the gaps so we can work on other elements of the design.

OVERSEER

We supervise and manage people. Managing people is a skill, even if these people get along, which hopefully they do, we must keep them productive. We pit players against each other, but we must also help them to resolve that issue. A role-playing session that goes on for too long leaves everybody not involved in it out in the cold, we’ve got to keep everybody engaged, and this is a dance that we are always learning and tinkering with. We make sure that the quiet people have a voice; that those who are following must lead; that those who have become complacent players in their own right must be challenged. DM’s are interactive with a group of people and we can’t forget this. If the players fail to accomplish their goals, this may be because of some fault of our own.

Many problems which happen at the table usually can be traced right to this source. A player who is a bully in an extreme situation, must be dealt with, but somebody who just gets excited, and tends to talk over everybody else probably isn’t doing it on purpose. Usually when a problem is happening it isn’t identified right away, not until it becomes an issue; thus, learning how to catch this stuff before it blows up is something that is learned over time though experience.

The Dungeon Master is the boss, and while it is our job to make the character’s lives miserable, the players depend upon us to be a good manager, to provide a safe and productive environment in which everybody can imagine and create and make something meaningful together.

DIRECTOR

Besides creating the world, we also bring it to life. Wemust be aware of our audience, what their expectations are and making sure that these expectations are being fulfilled. While we are all creating, it is our duty to bring the setting to life, and to do that we have to learn proper pacing. We seek to manipulate the emotions of the players, we speed up play, we slow it down, we don’t want to read giant text blocks to force a specific picture into the players heads, we have to draw simple and basic shapes and let their imaginations fill in the rest. This is a skill that is also learned over time. This is where your personal style and voice comes in. If you can discover these things, then you can offer your players an experience that they can’t get just anywhere.

Knowing when to break out the miniatures so that everybody is on the same page, but knowing when not to as well; knowing when to separate the party and when to keep them together, there are many tricks and formulas that you’ve got to use, and you are never going to master this, but if it isn’t there in any shape or form then everybody is going to get bored.

REFEREE

While a high degree of passion is required to be a Dungeon Master, we must also allow the dice to function. We have to blend rules with design. We have to make difficult calls, and we have to stick to plans. We have to bend rules, yet abide by them. We’ve got to have faith is our system to allow it to have its influence upon the game. If the dice decide to up and kill everybody because of miserable rolls, we have to say, “Well, that wasn’t very much fun. Let’s try that again, shall we?” However if somebody takes a risk, you also have to allow them to fail. We must be impartial, yet passionate. We must design but not become a slave to them. We are allowed to say “No.” But we are allowed to say yes too.

We must be fair, not just to the players, but to ourselves as well. If the monsters win, then they’ve won. If somebody at the table does nothing but make called shots, then you as the DM should be doing it as well. We must be able to interpret rules, and apply them as accurately as we can. We must invent rules on the fly to keep a pace going, but we must stop the game sometimes as well, just to refresh everybody on how a situation will be judged so that everybody is on the same page. Being a referee takes experience, and quick thinking. It involves making a decision and sticking to it. It involves being unpopular sometimes, keeping the players honest, allowing a system to function and knowing when it isn’t.

Successful Organizing & the Framework Principle

As a Dungeon Master, I like to work. I enjoy thinking of projects to do, love looking through maps and drawing my own. I enjoy research and writing . . . tons of reading and writing; I’m not afraid to sit down and just work for hours at a time gathering the tools to make my vision possible. I think that an inability to shut off the game is what makes a dedicated DM. How much work is too much work, though? We do have to keep focused, especially on adult games were time is limited, but there are some guidelines that I like to use, because I do want to get the most out of my prepwork.

Worldbuilding is a game all in itself, and no matter if you are using a campaign setting or you aren’t, you are going to have to do it. Published settings did do a lot of work for you already, most of them are written intentionally brief to allow you to have as much creative control as you can, and allow you to focus on what you and your group really want to do. This, I feel, allows for a greater variety of games that you can play; when the focus is only on worldbuilding, it is kind of limited.

The more help that one asks for while playing a setting, the less help one actually gets. You take a world like Forgotten Realms; it is bloated from too much information. Some of the products are incredibly helpful to a dungeon master, while many of the products will serve to only apply limits to what one feels that they can accomplish in a particular area

What we do is art! Be it our own settings or a published one, they are all our own settings. We are creating products for our players, and we want the players to enjoy our products. We are directors of epic tales; it is our personal visions of what is possible that is more important than anything that we have purchased. Our creative control is what sets us apart from all of the other DMs out there, if we run things core, what do you really accomplish? The satisfaction of running things as written by a professional is very short term, sure you can be a snob about it, but sooner or later it is going to dawn on you that this is somebody else’s vision, and you have accomplished nothing of any value except for showing your players how well you can read.

THE WORLD FRAME

This is important to be able to tell a verity of different stories. If you don’t have a proper frame in place, you can only play a few types of scenarios, and too much information is just that; it doesn’t matter if some novelist puts it there or you do yourself, the more information put into a project the more limiting it will be in the long term. You don’t want to be left hanging during prep, but you don’t want to have to read a catalog of set rules to follow either, both of these only serve to create a static world.

Frameworks provide inspiration, they are key elements that you throw other things at to form a proper structure, without a suitable frame in place, you might find yourself without direction which can be really bad, that, and it is the stuff that you don’t want to worry about during actual prep; after all, we’ve got enough to do as it is, and too much world-building will take away time that would probably be better spent on other things.

DMs are picky people, we all like doing different things and if anybody tries to intrude upon our turf, we tend to get upset. Some yahoo comes up with a crazy list of new stuff and the Grognards rip it to shreds, because that is what we do. Think about the things that you add to a game, consider the repercussions. It is always better to have stuff floating around in our heads then it is to actually write them down as core. Our notebooks get full quickly, and we don’t really want worthless junk in them, as the more facts that we collect; the harder it will be to research.

DM’S NOTEBOOKS

We all have them in some form or another, and I’m sure that we’ve all learned how nasty these things can be. Back in the old days, before the computer came along, we had to be very careful about what we wrote down, and where we put it. Organization is a great motivator to keep to the framework theory, and it might still be the superior method of handling information because it forces us to limit what we keep.

What is worthy of keeping? That depends on you, but it is always nice when we only have to do the work once. If we are designing a city, we’ll want to keep that around, but some things are better served by just letting them go. I know that I have way too many monstrous compendiums, and I don’t use any of them. It is just quicker for me to write up a new monster from scratch then it is for me to look through books trying to find a monster that may or may not be there.

Though, recycling is also helpful: Unique Spells, Magic Items, NPCs that your players liked, can all be kept on note-cards, and maps can be placed in folders and stored away.

World-building, in every degree, creates a different monster, it this case, the computer really does change the game. Gone are the hundreds of notebooks and loose leaf papers to be cataloged later, it can all be filed in digital form, but that should also be reeled in because you don’t want to get too much detail in there. Even our own worlds can get bloated and bogged down.

ABUSING YOUR GAME MATERIAL

I always find it surprising when I buy used and out of print material, how nice other DMs are to their stuff. I am not. My modules are full! I’ll cross stuff out, write crap all over the margins, and this goes for my Campaign Setting books too! While I am more careful with them, if something is a hard fact, I’ll write it in the margins. Even my PHB has stuff like errata written inside of it, as well as cross reference pages to other material. Sometimes just paper-clipping a note inside of a book works, but sometimes it is just easier to write it on the page. The material is mine! I hate glossy pages that won’t even accept the ink from a highlighter; I think that that annoys me more than publishers imposing timeline restrictions upon me.

I say BEAT IT UP! But be careful about it. A Core Manual is not as adaptable as a module, and modifying them is the equivalent of getting a tattoo, so you best really love something to add it in, but do add it in! Remember, the best cook books are the old ones where the previous user includes their thoughts and feelings about something in the margins and their modifications to the recipes inside which works better. Those cook books are considered GOLD! Gaming material is the same way.

Campaign Settings are never finished. Forgotten Realms, Greyhawk, they all are improved by your modifications. Once you find the need to add a road, if it is important to you, then it should be permanent; draw it right on your world map! Maybe the wealth that your players bring to the little hamlet you created east of Neverwinter is enough to make it just as important to trade as Neverwinter itself; add it to your world map! Who knows, in 100 years, Neverwinter could be a ruin and your hamlet is now a city-state all in itself, screw those TSR hacks.

What you are doing should always be more important than the stuff in the campaign guides, you are going to be developing your own timelines, your NPCs are more important then theirs are because yours are functional! Don’t be afraid to bend those established NPCs to your own personal will.

We don’t want a static world, which overly developing a setting creates, be mindful of the changes that you want to apply, but DO make them.

Four Old Castles

Castles, one of the great staples of Dungeons and Dragons! Entire books have been written about them. The blue Castle Guide has been a faithful friend for many years now, but coming up with floor plans can be difficult, especially for those of us that have never actually been to a castle. Typically I used old recycled ones that I acquired with modules.

Castles serve a function, some are built right off of the get-go, while others are just rooms that kept getting added on. Some castles protect, while other castles pamper, even if we do reuse floor plans, each castle should be unique. Lets examine four different styles and purposes of the castle.

MILITARY

Out in the wilderness, or on a kingdoms border things can get hairy. These kinds of castles are quickly built and then reinforced over time. The purpose of them is to protect the men inside from enemies outside. Much like a ship, these structures were not made for comfort, the best room was given to the man in charge of it while the ever changing soldiers sleep and eat together. All of the requirements of the warriors are kept within it, from stables to places where craftsmen can work. During sieges food is the weakness, so food is stockpiled. All of the nonmilitary staff serves a specific function.

COURT

This kind of a castle, while it may hold a king and his family, its primary purpose is to act as an office for government. A place of business, and that business is law and in making decisions for the kingdom. The fanciest room would be the Throne room where nobility and lords may address Royalty. While not as secure as a military outpost, this castle is strong enough to withstand most attacks, and is built slowly over the years to keep up with the demands put upon the people who work inside.

ROMANTIC

This kind of castle is very elaborate and as far as castles go, tactically weak. They are designed for beauty and grandeur, and while they are terrible at repelling enemy attacks, they do draw people. This kind of castle brags of great wealth and noble safety. These castles take artists, architects, and careful planning. People see this and have faith in your rule. A castle fit for a king is expensive to run and offers luxury to the people who must spend their lives in it. They require a huge number of staff to operate at its full potential, and last only as long as the money and prosperity of the empire does.

CATHEDRAL

These grand structures are homes for gods. They are built over centuries by many different rulers. They are built for faith, either public or private. They are awe inspiring and complex works of art that serve specific purposes such as housing powerful priests, paladins, and clerics. While beautiful on the outside as well as in, they are also strong enough to survive war. These grand structures are social symbols, perhaps a wealthy man begging for forgiveness. Much like any other kind of castle which serves a king, this castle does to. A Cathedral is much more then just an oversized church, it is a place to hold records, and make decisions which effect all of the faithful. Like the romantic castle, this is meant to be seen as a beacon of progress and safety.

This is just a short description, but I hope it helps those of us who’ll only visit these things in our mind’s eye. It might be something to think about when you are drawing your maps and writing your keys. What functions are held here? While our houses suit our own individual personalities, a castle, especially an old one, will be built upon many personalities of the past which have become tradition, how can we reflect this in our keys? What were the interests of other people who once lived here? What sorts of skeletons are walled up in hidden rooms? A simple castle can be a milieu all unto itself if we let it.

Ideas for Resolving Epic Issues Quickly

Because of the nature of Epic Gaming, the players have more control then the DM. My job is to just referee the scenarios and decide what the enemies are doing. Basically, I am no more powerful then the PCs. There is also way too many decisions to make in moving the games forward. This is going to be an epic battle that is much bigger than even the forces of the PC heroes. I have to think of a way to move armies around the world, and resolve hundreds of combat scenarios that we don’t have time to actually play.

WHAT ARE THE MAJOR NPCS DOING

This is an important question, and my wife came up with an excellent way to go about resolving it. She suggested playing short, non-combat council sessions where the PCs play the roles of the power brokers in the realm. It is during these discussions where the actions of nations are decided. Who is aiding who? Who is holding back for fear of retaliation? These short, dice-less sessions will last only as long as they have to, and whatever is decided at these sessions stands.

IN REGARDS TO MASS COMBAT

I know that mass combat is going to have to be dealt with, but it is too slow of a process to resolve all of the different battles taking place. I am leaning towards the RISK method of play to quickly determine the conflicts which take place else where.

I’ll have to create a board, and figure out a rough estimate of how much world time is taken per turn. I may also modify how the RISK combats are decided. That sounds reasonable; this stuff can even be resolved after the War Council Sessions.

So far, even though it hasn’t been play-tested, I am happy with these theories. I think that it would be exciting for a player to actually play a character that he has always heard about, but never gets to meet because I am such a stingy DM. It is also a decent way to get lots of help from everyone; the responsibility on the DMs shoulders during epic games is particularly harsh, and I have never seen a game go very fast without co-DMs. I remember hearing tales of two Dungeon Masters going at once, both with their own tables of PCs and sending notes back in forth between them. This kind of stuff can get pretty crazy! While I have a large gaming group, I still don’t have enough players to run duel games, so I just have to get inventive about things.

Do you have any ideas? Have you ever used the board game RISK to decide combat in your games? Do you see any holes in my theory? I will tell you that I have very mature Players, many who are great DMs in their own right, and I have faith that they will play the NPCs successfully. Is this a game that you yourself would enjoy playing? I haven’t decided if I want to sit on the council, or just watch and take notes. What would you do?