"Back when I used to play Basic"

Level 0: In 4th grade, during inside recess in snow-bound Erie, Pa., my friend brought out a maze drawn on a sheet of graph paper, pinned to the top of a cardboard box and explained that it was a game. Some of my other friends were familiar with the game. I was not, but I had made my own games before and appreciated that we weren’t just moving tokens in a line trying to get to the end. Besides that it was baffling. I did not understand that my friend had any special “DM” role beyond just being the guy who’d played before and knew the rules. I remember enough to know I played a cleric.

Dave Super: Skeletons! Ok, do you want to turn them?
Brian Cooper: Turn them into what?
Eric Buch: Just say yes.
BC: Ok, I’ll turn them—
DS: You’ll turn them? Ok . . . (Rolls dice.) you can’t turn them.


Level 1: I got the Moldvay B & X sets at my 11th birthday sleep-over and Eric Buch DMed. (Dave Super was not invited.) I had a understanding that D&D somehow let you be a wizard or a dwarf or a hobbit. For me, a wizard was the obvious choice because, you know I was smart and wizards were smart. (This sense of prime requisite must have predated D&D but I’m not sure how.) In my own mind, and sometimes out loud, I had been styling myself Racoop the Red when I played in the woods and he was my first character. Again, the experience was baffling, in some ways disappointing, maybe even chillingly disappointing. It was, I admitted to myself when I went upstairs (for pencils?) a luck game more like “SORRY!” than chess or stratego or dinosaur island. And the scenario—involving the kobolds lair in the caves of chaos—was about as heroic as digging through someone else's trash.

There's nothing wrong with you, a photo by Brayo on Flickr.

Level 2: Despite all that, I wanted to “do it” again. The mystery of figuring out how all the pieces went together was compelling. And maybe I sensed that Eric Buch was too self-conscious about it to actually do it right, and that it would be more fun if the DM didn’t refer to your wizard by the wrong color. Figuring out how to roll up a character the right way (rather than having Eric make up your scores) was really interesting. Concerns about luck weren’t there because I understood already, that everyone is different and is born with different things that they’re good at.

Level 3: My friends (minus Eric Buch, who lived in another neighborhood and was starting to move in higher circles) started playing frequently, often beginning by rolling characters and then proceeding to the Caves of Chaos to kill the same monsters that we’d killed the day before. Nowadays, there’s talk of how D&D has been ruined by video game mentality and to a degree I see that. But we were playing D&D in much the same way that we played Atari. Every time you turn on Space Invaders, you get the same first screen. And when you clear that screen, you move onto the same next screen.

Level 4: As an expert, you understand the importance of not only character continuity but character development. And you learn that there is a whole world beyond the Cave of Chaos. Level progression is one of the great innovations of D&D and it has the weird effect on anyone who has played at all seriously of mingling your own dreams about the future with those of your character. Or maybe ambitions for your character supersede your own. In 6th grade, I did not think about being a lawyer or a scientist or an athlete or a writer. I did think a lot about what my character would be able to do when he hit 9th level.
Or, maybe I was practicing being a writer and a lawyer. Unlike my friends whose parents bought them shrink-wrapped modules, I started writing my own (yes I was jealous). And, in the process, of designing an adventure, I started really mastering the rules, and how to apply them.

Level 3: There was a wight or wraith who lived in the neighbor, a high schooler with a Chaotic Neutral thief who chewed tobacco while he ran games in his basement. He had some high school friends, too, but he began luring my players away or, worse, corrupting them. It had never occurred to me to give people max. hit points (at every level, the munchkin). And it had never occurred to me that there was anything wrong with an evil three-headed lion that when you killed it turned into a golden statue that could turn into a normal, good lion that would be your friend and fight with you.

Level 4: For Christmas and my birthday in 6th grade (Was it really just a year since that birthday sleep-over?), I got the PHB and the DMG. I started playing at school with maybe the first DM I really respected (respected as a DM I mean. Chris MacGregor, you were a great friend). He maintained that proper wall between DM and players (no DMPCs) without being obnoxious (again, no DMPCs). At the end of 6th grade, my family moved to Georgia. It would take a long time to reach 5th . . .

NDT 17: Above Foamfire Falls

Trekking up the ravine, and following the Foam Fire River toward the falls, we heard the storm gathering behind us: drums, war cries, hundreds of stamping feet, the half-disciplned cadence of the gnoll horde. We cast aside the tapestry, covered ourselves with the magic invisibility powder and doubled our own pace until we reached the falls. There, we found a doorway carved into the rock, the dedicated work of a more long-sighted time. In crossing the river to reach the door, magic powder was washed off us by the the mist in the air, and our enemies, too, began to reach the pool. They saw us, washed of the powder and we saw them, washed of the cheap bravado of bloodlust. The sight of a expertly-carved stone and those who carry light into darkness left them awe-struck and we entered the halls under the mountain unharassed. We climbed up a stone staircase to the bridge and tower that spanned the top of the floors. Below, the impotent horde japed and howled-- but did nothing.


http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaign/bigharas-ndtb10/adventure-log/3rd-soladain-yarthmont-ac1000

Great Falls!, a photo by Brayo on Flickr.

Hommelet

If you've ever driven by a building site and thought that there seemed to be a lot of standing around as opposed to actual ditch-digging or what-have-you, it might be that the supposedly idle workers are on the lookout for advancing hordes of bloodthirsty frog cultists. Such watchfulness saved the lives of a team of laborers from Hommlet and the neighboring hamlet of Waledge who had gone to to clean up the river in the vicinity of the old moathouse. Gunthar, along with several militia members perished while protecting the laborers flight back to Hommlet.

the Moathouse, a photo by Brayo on Flickr.

NDT 16: wasting time in a dumpy fishing village outside an overgrown logging town

Resolved: What makes D&D awesome is that sometimes it's not awesome at all.

In our last Night's Dark Terror Session, the party arrived in Threshold, a walled logging town and jumping-off-point for expeditions into the mountains. Because of an attack by members of the Iron Ring while we were in Kelvin, we were cautious about how we should enter and argued about how to enter without attracting too much attention-- especially because of the dwarf. We decided that Martin should cast an illusion to make Olamris look like a human-- like a dressed-down version of Golthar (the weird wizard with the dragon bone bed) in particular. The guard was friendly but wanted us to give up our weapons. Pavel, hoping to cut the conversation short, asked the guard about his religious beliefs, but to no avail, and then Martin lost concentration on his illusion.

Who likes towns anyway? Not Pavel.

So we went to the little fishing village outside Threshold and found an inn there. We ate fish and we talked to Mischca, a crazy old lady with a crazy old cat who told us stories about the giants who live in the mountains and the lost valley beyond the firefoam waterfall. Or something. And on the one hand, I think all the players were wondering, "What are we doing? I could talk to a crazy old lady on my own time." But for me, at least, it was really great. It's the prosaic details that help distinguish D&D from pokemon.

fish, a photo by Brayo on Flickr.

The Block Game

Stuffed animals like kids. And kids like games. Here is a great game to play with kids.

I have a nice set of blocks—the Japanisches Haus from HABA’s Master Builder series. Unlike some of the other sets in the series, such as the Pyramid, many of the pieces have a distinct, in this case Asian, look about them, but you can put them together any way you want. That’s the only required trait for blocks used with this game—adaptability.

Besides blocks, you need a dice. Six-sided is probably best, although d8 can work.

And you need players. At least 2 and as many more as you can fit round your building area.

Play:
1. Roll the dice
2. Choose that many blocks and build something with them
3. Play passes to next player who rolls and adds blocks to the existing structure
4. Keep going until all the blocks are gone.
5. Add rubber lizard, take pictures, knock down, etc.

IMG_2246, a photo by Brayo on Flickr.

For me, this is much more engaging then just playing with blocks—in ways that suggest what I (and maybe other people) like about games in general.

There is an understated competitive element. Resources are limited and one of the other
players may get the block you want. Also, whatever vision you have for the overall structure will be “compromised” by the other players. On the other hand, if you do something that another player likes (for example, one in a series of arches), that player will likely follow your design on their turn.

It’s co-operative. This is more obvious than the competitive element, since you are all
working on the same structure. But beyond that, by following the rules (turn-taking, dice-rolling, adding blocks, but not taking them away) all players reinforce the sense of structure that governs
the project.

It creates two structures and structure creates comfort. Like I just said, there is the building and
there are the rules—both are a structure. Unlike two or more people just “sharing” blocks, there is no hitting or biting. Also there’s no hoarding. Some disappointment is to be expected. But it’s easier to accept because there’s no need to fight to protect what you think you deserve. Once you’ve built something, you know it cannot be taken away.

It alters one’s perception of time. Really. Time is marked by the turn. When
it’s your turn, there’s nothing rushing you, because nothing else can happen at
the same time that you are happening. And this is a very nice feeling.

It’s random. What’s the point of the dice? Why not let people take turns placing say three or four or whatever number of blocks on their turn. I haven’t tried it but it sounds less fun. It’s great when you roll a big number and can really do something major. But the lower number rolls result in more collaboration rather than a collection of semi-autonomous structures. Adapting to an unexpected situation is fun. When I roll a 1, I’ll choose one of the trees or another very distinct piece and place it somewhere that seems significant—either in a central place of prominence or, paradoxically, somewhere set off from the main structure.

It’s interactive.
Again, unlike “sharing” blocks, you really are building something together and responding to what each other does. There’s an unspoken rule that you don’t tell someone else where to place their blocks. At least not with words. The blocks themselves become a medium of communication.

NDT 15: Raise dead and continual light

On their way back to Kelvin from Xitaqa, the party suffered the misfortune of encountering a bad-tempered dragon with a poison-barbed tail. If it weren’t for Martin the Ineluctable and his skilled use of the magic wand we’d grabbed from the evil wizard, many more lives would have been lost rather than just tragically, ironically his. The party carried Martin’s body to Kelvin and went to see the priests who told us to come back in the morning and talk about whether there might be something they could do. They dropped him off at the temple morgue, and spent a quiet night at the tavern—not exactly somber, because they knew the priests would raise him and were just letting us stew a little so they could get more money. But the party weren’t in carousing mode either, because they didn’t know how much it would cost.

5,000 g.p. and a system shock roll, followed by two weeks of no-adventuring and no-spellcasting. Pavel spent the downtime casting Continual Light onto rocks. (And also finding deserving families to hold onto his share of the hoard before he went in search of the lost city of Hutakaa. (In Swahili, Hutakaa means “You will not stay.” Hmm. Prolly coincidence.))
We, the players, also talked about what a world changer continual light should be. Streets and houses should be lit up just like in our modern day real world. Dungeons might look more like shopping malls.

fire sale!, a photo by Brayo on Flickr.

One of the great luminaries of our hobby would chide me for being a DM who wants to "crock magical effects he's not competent to deal with" and there are plenty of people eager to agree with him. Here are some of the "reasons" why continual light rocks are not a world changer:

• They’re inconvenient to extinguish when you want to sleep (no bushels)
• They cost 500 g.p.! (The DMG says so!)
• The thieves’ guild likes things shadowy and so they steal them all and hire magic-users to extinguish them so that they go back later and pick people’s pockets. (This is why they all still live with their moms.)
• People stay up a little later, so what, they still need heat.
• It would be a sacrilege. (This one had a really nice description of a Greek Orthodox festival featuring special candles that “people don’t use in their privies.” )

The last two are ok, except that a world where every family who lives within a couple miles of a parish church should have a little niche in their home where they keep a little glowing icon. Of course they still need fire for cooking, and they don’t (necessarily) throw their glow sticks into holes to see whether they contain coins or snakes—but they are a prominent feature of life. And the village priests who won’t hand them out are as lonely as the adventuring-priest who won’t use his cure light wounds on party-members who torture goblins.

My thought. Magic is almost by definition something that cannot be predicted. Cleric magic (miracles!) maybe even more so. God(s) made the world in a particular way and don’t allow it to be futzed with except for particular reasons. Continual light works when a cleric is going into the dungeon because he or she is going to do battle against the forces of evil. It is both a practical and a spiritual aid. In the village or the city, people just need to huddle together around their fires and talk about how to invent electricity.

Minor wrinkles to figure out: can Pavel cast continual light on lots of rocks while safe in his room in anticipation of going into the dungeon? If Pavel creates a continual light rock while in the dungeon, can he bring it back and give it to someone to hang up over the bar? Major wrinkle: If people are getting murdered in a particular alley, isn’t that serious enough to warrant a continual light spell? Wait, is this theology class?

Ultimately, I guess whether we speak of the gods of tough-love or the thieves’ guild photophobia, it’s really just a matter of one's preferred flavor of DM-ex-machina. Right?

NDT 14: Area hermit, dwarf nearly bite it

After seeing one of his associates enveloped by a semi-intelligent mass of neurotoxin in the form of an eight-foot tall, transparent and gelatinous cube, Pavel, Bishop of the Thicket tentatively set about attempting a single-handed rescue only to stumble into the cube himself. According to an unidentified eye-witness, the cleric, who had recently assisted his fellow “adventurers” first in “defeating” that weird-guy-in-a-yellow-robe-who-actually-bought-one-of-those-dragon-beds-from-the-sharper-image-catalog-as-if-he-actually-expected-a-woman-would-want-to-look-at-that-while-well-let’s-not-even-go-there-he-was-living-in-a-TOWER-can-you-say-compensating-much . . . and then in “outsmarting” the weird guy’s pet steer, was perhaps burdened with excessive hubris beyond even that commonly associated with a holy scourge of law. According to witnesses, after standing there and watching the rest of his “party” (woo-hoo), put distance between themselves and the aberrations which had so no-handedly incapacitated their companion (who is an outlander), Pavel moved in the exact opposite direction and actually got closer to the cubes. Contrary to the expert opinion of sages who state that all cubes, regardless of their composition, have no means of locomotion and that the self-important and deluded fool must have been “seeing a vision” and just walked right into what by all rights should have been his final and complete demise, Pavel himself asserts that “The unnatural composition of deadliest poison so animated by the evil intelligence that labors in constant rebellion against the unchangeable and insurmountable precepts of law went aquivering and ajivering and slidng across the stone floor just as if it had slipped off a porcelain platter onto a lopsided buffet table.”

Gelatinous Cube (detail), a photo by Brayo on Flickr.

His quick thinking companions, following through what one explained “was the whole plan all along” assaulted their gelatinous foe with burning oil and magic fire. Stefan, an area horse-trader whom the adventurers had found tied to a chair on the third floor of the weird guy’s tower (Related story in Life, D5) explains that this wasn’t metagaming since, “It’s just common knowledge or even logic that a sword just isn’t going to do much to something that lacks a skeletal, circulatory, or nervous system. But fire—or heat of any kind— will affect most any substance, whether causing rapid oxidization or a state change. In this case, it was the latter, and the liquid form proved to be entirely inert. Again, I want to thank Pavel, the dwarf, and their thoroughly capable friends for extricating me from what was starting to look like an inextricable situation. Now if they can help me find my lost tapestry.”