Dwarven SEAL Team Neutralizes Terrorist DM Threat: Film At 11
Yesterday, I returned from four days worth of DDXP 2012. As always, I return with many treasured memories. I got to rub elbows with lots of game designers, bloggers, and other cool people. I got to play some great games and playtest the new D&D. I even had the honor of being Patient Zero for the official con crud of DDXP 2012. The thing I’ll remember most, though, was running a table for the Battle Interactive on Saturday night.
Behind The Screen For Perfect Strangers
As some of you who read my column already know, I’m not big on 4e combat. The decision to run some games at DDXP was born from a strange mixture of wanting to help out and curiosity about what it would be like to run a table full of strangers who weren’t used to my crap. The idea didn’t scare me too bad at first. I couldn’t be worse than some of the judges I’d had at these things, I rationalized. I didn’t realize the idea made me anxious until it was far too late. I was to run my first game on Friday morning, and I was nervous enough about it by that point that I wanted out. I wasn’t about to shirk my duties, though. I familiarized myself with the module I was supposed to run the night before, and I reported to the marshaling area at 8am sharp as ordered.
It was about then one of the staff came around and said they needed another warm body for another table. I quickly volunteered, thinking this meant the table needed another player, and I would be able to get out of running the game. On the way to the table, I asked if I needed to go roll up a character. “No,” the staffer said. “You’re running.” No worse off than before, I smiled and reported to my table. They provided me with a printed copy of the module, but I brought the module up on my laptop anyway so I could see the monster stat blocks. I started to get confused, as the pages weren’t matching up between the paper and digital versions. Suddenly, it hit me.
This was a different module. I’d just volunteered to run a game completely cold.
The Island Of Misfit Christmas Article Ideas
It was my intention to write a funny Christmas article this week. It didn’t turn out so well.
The Ed-In-A-Box
‘Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the Realms
Not a creature was stirring, not even Ed Helms*
…
The dicebags were hung by the chimney with care
In hopes that Ed Greenwood soon would be there.
…
On, Mystra! On, Pelor! On, Oghma! On, Tempus!
On, Telos! On, Orcus! On, Selûne! On,Vecna!
* yes, this was my first clue something was amiss
At some point, the magical Christmas safeties were triggered, and my hands refused to type any more for the good of all mankind. [Read the rest of this article]
Improv Pushups: The Movie
A week ago today, in the wee hours of the morning, I bid farewell to one Dave Chalker (who I had been staying with for the week, and who had risen with me to get me to the airport before the coming of the dread Day Star).I came all the way to the East coast for one specific purpose: to game my face off. More specifically, DC Gameday was this weekend, and I wanted to game my face off as close to Congress as I possibly could. Somebody’s got to show those guys how to play nice together, right?
Pre-Con Festivities
Luxury accomodations!
After I landed Thursday night, Dave took me to Looney Labs for one of their weekly game nights. I’m not sure what I was expecting exactly, but my mental image of the place involved a sterile-looking office building. That proved to be wildly incorrect, as Dave stopped in the middle of a nice residential neighborhood and we walked into the Looney home. Immediately inside was a huge unfinished mural made out of woodcarvings that made up what I’m pretty sure is some Beatles album art. I also smelled baked goods. My expectations were thusly shattered.
Everybody was really nice there. We played Ascension and some MtG: Commander, and it was not unlike a game night with my own group, except with that totally different people part. There were others playing a few different games including Seven Wonders and some ridiculous game that had everyone drawing Dr. Who having sex with moon rocks or something. I’d get more context but I suspect it would make a lot more sense (and we can’t have that). I will have to find out more so I can play it with my group, I suppose.
Phil and I playtesting D&D 5e.
Friday, we picked up the Chattiest of Phils and brought him back to Fort Chalker, where poor Dave valiantly (and repeatedly) made his will save and continued doing Real Work while Phil and I gamed 10 feet away. It was like a summer day as a teenager. We played the old Mattel electronic D&D game, which I always wanted to try as a kid. It was horrible but TOTALLY WORTH IT. We played some more Ascension. We played lots of World of Warcraft TCG, and Phil was schooling me pretty hard with my own decks. (I think he might be a Shaman IRL.) We even played some oldschool NES games, including Kung Fu, Double Dragon 3, Q*Bert, and (best of all) Popeye. It was awesome.
Friday night, I played in a Magic booster draft. I took dead last, but I had a lot of fun. The new Innistrad set is pretty cool, and very dark and horrorlicious. Even the white cards make you want to hide under the bed, and the black ones make you want to hide in a hole under a bed that’s under a bed disguised as another bed. I played a monoblack deck with lots of regenerating creatures and stuff that could put Shroud on them, which wasn’t a bad plan until I discovered everybody else could fly. There was also one match when I realized my opponent was about to deliberately deck himself, and I was very confused until he pulled out his Mad Assistant to win. [Read the rest of this article]
Be Careful What You Wish For
One of my favorite things to do when I first realized the joys of roleplaying a character was to do a little something extra between sessions. A journal entry, battle haiku, drawings of creative taxidermy made from the corpses of random encounters — that sort of thing. As a DM, it never fails to bring a smile to my face when a player does something similar. Seeing a player’s investment in their character inspires me to make the same investment in that character’s story — and in turn, everyone’s story.
We have a new player joining our group, and her character debut is going a little differently than I’d seen before. I’ve seen detailed backstories written. I’ve never seen a player bring a list of demands that must be met if her character is ever to see the light of day. Of course, I accepted her terms. You see, she hadn’t played D&D before, and she never knew about the credo of the Evil DM — “be careful what you wish for, you just might get it!”
I also don’t think she remembered that, as a card-carrying RPG blogger, I have the ability to hang her pathetic dreams like a piñata above hordes of slavering evil DM’s willing to accept the bitter tears of demoralized players as payment.* It doesn’t matter if her demands were primarily tongue-in-cheek. She must be crushed just in case.
So it is that I ask you, my gentle readers, to help me…. shall we say, fulfill my player’s demands. What better return on investment could she ask for?
If You Want To See My Character In-Game You Will Meet These Demands
Here’s the list of demands my player gave me:
1. The character can shift perceptions, (i.e. if a bad guy sees someone from the group, I can make them think it is a rock instead, or make them think a rock is fire.) Limitations being I have to be within sight of the person.
Granted. Her character now has the power to make people of evil alignment within her field of vision think any member of the party is a rock, or that a rock is fire. I’m not quite sure what this gains her in the long run. Moving rocks are pretty suspicious. Rocks that look like fire just make sad children with unrealized s’mores.
2. The character must have the equipment, training, and financial cash flow of Batman, claws of adamantium like Wolverine, and a Spidey sense.
Granted! The PC has all of Batman’s stuff and training, which are totally awesome. She even has billions and billions of dollars that yield more interest in five minutes than I’ll make all year. Unfortunately, the establishments in the Forgotten Realms that accept U.S. currency are rare. That, and fuel and power to run all the cool gadgets. I’m sure a deal could be brokered with the right wizard (assuming they accepted dollars), so maybe this works out OK.
(Edit: I realized later a much better solution to this. The PC has all of Batman’s equipment and money AND HE WANTS IT BACK.)
The PC also has adamantium claws, just like Wolverine’s! However, the PC does not have Wolverine’s healing factor. Using those claws renders the PC’s hands useless for 3 weeks each time.
The PC’s Spidey sense activates every time she is about to extend her claws.
3. The character will enter the storyline by putting a knife to a character’s throat, however it must be done in a storytelling manner that will not end in my character’s demise.
Granted! The character enters the game with a knife to her own throat. I really don’t know why she would do that. Maybe she knows something she doesn’t. Either way, unless she trips or suffers a sudden muscle spasm, I’m guessing this won’t end with her untimely death.
4. The character will have a flying immortal tiger with its immortality tied to the moon of a planet many many many worlds and dimensions away.
(I made my new player a little scared when I told her this one was the easiest of the lot.)
Granted! However, the tiger is 2″ long and lives in her digestive tract. If the PC does not eat steak every three hours, the tiger begins to consume her from the inside out. Don’t worry. It can’t die.
5. The character will be able to read minds, and is a 1200 year old day walking vampire.
Granted! However, the nature of her telepathy translates everything she hears into Entish, and it takes four days of constant concentration just to hear three words.
I’m not really sure how the PC lived as a vampire for an entire 1200 years walking out in the daytime — but, if that’s what she wants to do, who am I to stop her? I may have the player preroll another character to bring to the next session. You know, just in case.
6. The character has the magical power of Meta, and thus can meta-game at any time.
Granted! Funny, all the other PCs in our campaign seem to have this power too, and they wield it frequently. Weird….
7. The character will be an expert swords(wo)man with a focus on short swords and daggers, although the can handle broadswords with stunning efficiency.
Granted! The character will gender-swap every time (s)he picks up a sword or dagger, and cannot do lethal damage with a broadsword (but critically hits on a 15-20).
8. The character does not worship a deity, deities worship her.
Granted! The gods themselves worship the PC. However, she has upon her the burden of listening to the prayers of the gods themselves, and the weight of their reality-shaping requests and prayers squishes her mortal mind like a grape.
Also, the Raven Queen wants the PC’s job, so she shows up with a crowbar and busts the windows out of the PC’s car.
9. The character is a seductress, and uses her own knowledge and noble standing to convince people to do what she wants.
Granted, on the provision that invisible wooden stakes always hover 1′ behind her character just waiting for an uncomfortable roleplaying situation to occur.
10. The character has the power to conjure Voldemort, although he is weak against “The boy who lived” so should not be conjured in the Potter dimension.
Granted! Voldemort might be hot stuff in J.K. Rowlingsville, but this is the Realms. You bring your pale, no-nose, can’t even get a wand to listen to you weak sauce in here and it won’t be 5 seconds before Bigby slaps you around with his Pimping Hand. Elminster wouldn’t even accept you as a cleaning lady. These are hardcore, mana-hittin’ wizards. Word to your Leomund.
Besides, I get to control him and he really hates seductress vampires. Especially ones who are rich in useless currencies, take strolls at noon, and have a tiger eating them alive from the inside.
Need Evil Input
Sadly, I’m new at this whole evil thing. I am certain that I was not even remotely as evil as was probably necessary for this job. So, as I said before, I need a little help crushing these dreams lest a tiny shard of hope survives – ruining an otherwise perfect day.
If you would like to lend an iron boot, please do so in the comments. Your utter lack of human decency is appreciated and will be rewarded in due time.
*I asked her permission before posting this, so nobody get your chainmail knickers in a twist. Also, anyone reporting me to the evil DM’s union for this gets to find out why my Twitter handle is @direflail.
I Was A Teenage Movie Magic-User
The comments on my article on DM Fiat took an interesting turn last week when people started talking about how much more “cinematic” 4e is than previous editions. This is a claim I’d heard applied several times to 4e, but I’ve never really understood why. The combat is faster! All the classes have cool powers now, not just the casters! I can’t confirm or deny these things, but I am calling Shenanigans on them making anything more action-movie awesome on their own. As a matter of fact, I am extending these same Shenanigans to claims that any game system can do this.
Fantasy Film School
I guess it is too late now after having called such broad, sweeping Shenanigans, but it’s probably worthwhile to consider what “cinematic” actually means to people seeking it in their tabletop gaming.
To some I’ve heard, it means nothing more than having a lot of things happen in battle that would later see its players recalling it using some form of “Dude… that was SO COOL”. To some, it’s special effects. Things blowing up, other things glowing with eldritch fire, that sort of thing. 4e is positively replete with flavor text for powers. I have previously established in these pages my opinion that special effects alone do not excitement make. I suppose it is technically true that cool powers and effects can make a gaming experience like a movie. Unfortunately, that movie is Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace. All style, little substance, and in some cases even the style speaks with a stupid accent.
The mark of a great action movie in my mind is that the crowd is on the edge of their seats. No matter how awesome something looks, no matter how many flips someone did to get atop an oliphant, no matter how big the guns are that are shooting a dinosaur, visuals alone cannot do the job. Drama is the gravitational force that draws us precariously toward the inglorious dark filled with long-forgotten stale popcorn and melted gummi bears. If a movie can get its audience invested in its characters, it will grab them by the face and do amazing things with their emotions.
Tension is one device used to do this. A writer can create tension by creating struggles between a character and another character, a character and some obstacle, or even some internal conflict in a character’s mind. Generally speaking, adventure stories tend to start with the tension low and dial it up as things progress toward to the exciting climax.
Interactivity (Now In Imaginary 3-D)
Roleplaying games provide a strange twist to this tool in that it’s no longer a single person writing the story. The players can introduce tension of their own, and they may not respond to the tension the DM provides in the intended way. (Which, I suppose, is its own kind of tension. Meta-tension?)
For me, tension is the catalyst for making “cinematic” happen. The DM has set up the story and a diabolical plot is in motion. A band of adventurers meets and gets to know each other as they overcome all manner of danger, eventually reaching the point where they come crashing headlong into their destiny and everything is riding on their success. For this, you need the DM to set the stage, control the pace, and put obstacles in the way of the PCs.
The players’ portion of this can come in with something as rolling a 20 at a do-or-die moment (which is made way better by the DM being awesomely descriptive of the results) — but my favorite is when a player gets a wild notion and tries something radical at a Dramatically Appropriate Time. I’ve been fortunate enough to have DMs that would not only let that sort of thing slide even if it was a little outside the rules, but to give bonuses for creativity and cool factor. This is what makes the game for me. This, cookies, and good company are the three reasons I show up at any given gaming table.
This is, in my opinion, what it means to be “cinematic” in a role-playing game. So-called movie magic is in all of us, not any particular game system, and it is far cooler than making someone’s forearms glow or something silly like that. (Unless you are really emotionally invested in those forearms, in which case you fill a very specific niche market.)
Photo Credit
Fudging The Grid
I prefer to keep an open mind about most things, not the least of which is gaming. That, coupled with my willingness to play devil’s advocate, occasionally finds me arguing for a position I don’t completely agree with. I experienced one such situation just last week, when talking to my old friend Kanati about his burning hatred of D&D 4th Edition. I’ll be honest – I still prefer 3rd Edition, but I have great fun with all this newfangled stuff. And so, in order to chip away at my friend’s resolve never to play 4e, I tried to reason with him. He didn’t like how everything is a little too balanced and suggested story was no longer WotC’s focus. I politely questioned his sanity, and he politely questioned my parentage in turn.
After we dueled with pistols, we continued our conversation and started talking about combat – specifically, how he didn’t like a battlemat being integral to 4e’s combat system. This shocked me, as the man has been into historical wargames and minatures combat for as long as I’ve known him. I was stunned for 4 rounds. Once I regained my senses, I asked him to explain himself. I thought he would appreciate the improved accuracy of combat. You never have questions in 4e like “Can my arrow reach that guy?” or “Did my fireball roast all seven lizardmen?”. It’s measurable. You can definitively state how much lizardman BBQ the party can take home. It takes out a lot of the ambiguity that I’ve seen cause fights at the gaming table. That’s a good thing, right?
The answer he gave me stunned me for another 6 rounds.
GRIDFUDGE! The Musical
“On a battle grid, I can’t finesse the game anymore.”
He went on to describe a combat scenario in which a battlegrid isn’t ideal. An enemy tries to flee the room to summon help. He’s just at the edge of the closest PC’s attack range. The DM has decided to advance the story somehow by what happens when the enemy successfully brings reinforcements.
With a battlegrid, it’s clear whether the PC could attack this enemy. If it’s a minion and the player uses a power that causes half damage on a miss, it’s an automatic kill. (EDIT: Several of you have pointed out that minions do not take damage on a miss. This is incorrect. They actually take quadruple damage.)
Without a battlegrid, the DM has much more power to handwave and say the enemy was too far away and managed to make it out, summoning the half-beholder tarrasquolich and thereby furthering the plot. “The battlegrid”, my partner-in-argument said, “is just another facet of players nowadays wanting die rolls to handle the game instead of actually roleplaying and letting story drive the game”.
At this point, it became clear to me that we weren’t talking about battlemats anymore. We were talking about DM fiat.
I Choose For You To Disbelieve
Earlier this year, I experienced the equivalent of finding out there was no Dungeon Mastery Santa Claus when I realized that DM’s cheat. All the time.
Since then, I have tried to avoid fudging the numbers whenever possible in combat. I want my players to feel like their actions do mean something, and not that I just artificially extended combat in order to create a Dramatically Appropriate Moment to introduce some other plot element. I wish I could just leave it at that, but my brain has to go and keep thinking about things and generally ruining everything. Should I take away tools that can be used responsibly to further an exciting story? Is keeping things real really doing the players a favor if what happens is boring or stupid?
I really don’t have a good answer for these questions, but it does strike me that a lot of this depends on what role the DM plays in the game. Am I just an arbiter of rules? Am I there simply to test the players, either by combat or puzzle? Am I just planting the seeds of a story and watching what sprouts forth, or do I take an active role in what happens?
I’m not sure that there is necessarily a deliberate trend to try to take control away from the DM in 4th edition, but I do think things are different now than they’ve been in years past. Searching a room used to mean telling the DM about everything you were searching. Now it’s a die roll. Admittedly, a good DM will assign bonuses or assist the player’s attempt if the roleplay was good, but some things traditionally associated with roleplay have been assigned game mechanics. I don’t see this as a bad thing. It helps separate the character’s abilities from the player’s, which especially helps if the player is not as smart or sharp-eyed as his character (or if the DM is lousy at giving clues). I suppose having roleplaying elements assigned game mechanics doesn’t completely eliminate the DM’s ability to arbitrarily decide what’s happening in the game, but it’s certainly a lot more obvious. That, too, was one of my friend’s complaints: “finessing” the game works better if nobody’s the wiser, and 4e combat makes it a lot more obvious when you fudge. Fights over rules when things are murky are already bad. If the player knows their position is Rules Correct, the DM just winds up looking like a jerk. That is not generally fun for any party, in several contexts.
Many times, I feel as if the DM’s job is that of an entertainer. I could execute the most efficient and well-balanced combats in the history of the game, and if my players didn’t have fun, then I still didn’t do my job right. I want everybody to go home excited and happy. I want to do this by making a story everybody can participate in. Is it bad if that goal was achieved but the player experience was shaped somewhat? Where’s the line where it goes from being OK to betraying the trust of my players?
I suspect the answer lies in the middle somewhere, and is not quantifiable in any way. Which, I suppose, means it’s not suitable for use with a battlemat or 4th Edition. I bet my friend loves it. We never finished the argument, by the way. I think one of us mentioned the new Thundercats series, and our attention quickly drifted elsewhere.
Cheetara beats battlemats beats Battlestar Galactica.
Photo Credit
Hints From Dire Heloise
This week, I decided to open up the floor to reader questions. I am committed to answering these in the most serious way that I can.
So, without further ado, your questions and my answers!
A pancake, made with halfling bacon.
How do you take plot points that have been scattered a bit too far out and gather them back up into a solid arc? - Jerry LeNeave
I’m glad you asked this question, because we hear this one all too often around the Critical Hits Hacienda. The trick to keeping plot points in line is not in fixing them once there’s a problem, but in proper preparation. And that, like most things, is rooted in good nutrition.
Straightforward plots generally can live on crickets and other small insects, but a really fast-moving plot will require the consumption of a weasel (or other mustelid) at least twice weekly. Particularly twisty plots need a lot of Vitamin E, as it is a natural depilatory. More exotic plots, like the European In Medias Res, will require specially processed plot foods as well as an hour every couple days under a UV light.
However, your question implies that you have an existing plot problem, and that should be addressed. You need to get your plot points back onto their nice, safe rail so they can heal before the players encounter them. There are several ways you can accomplish this. Plot points are attracted to anything shiny and new, and this is one of the reasons they go astray in the first place. Writing new characters is a good way to get the plot out in the open where you can capture it, then you can kill the character off. Be warned: sometimes this is too much for weaker plots, and they keel over and die. (Or explode.) A good, strong plot should be able to withstand the trauma of this, and you’ll have it back on its rail in no time. You can also spray yourself in the musk of a plot of the opposite sex, but this can lead to the creation of a lot of little side-plots that you probably don’t want to deal with. If everything fails – well, you need to be prepared to retcon the whole herd before they get Mad Plot disease.
With these simple tips, hard work, and a little luck, your plots will be happy through your entire campaign and the cuts of meat you get from them afterward will be tender and delicious. I don’t have time right now to go over grilling tips, but contact me privately for my backstory marinade recipe.
Non-gaming question, but how goes job hunting/full-time-dadding? - Jeff Dougan
Thanks for asking! I have a new job now with a company full of nice people. I feel like I got laid off from Mordor and now work in the Shire’s IT department.
Full-time dadding continues to be one of my favorite things to do, and I have been teaching my son the most important things in life. I believe he could disable a burglar with his foam rapier. He also wants to hear the theme to the A-Team on the way to daycare every single morning, and the theme to the Transformers movie (1986) every night on the way home. Based on this, I believe he will not be the President of the United States when he grows up. He will be the President’s direct manager.
What’s with you, ELFcookies and the color blue? - Philippe-Antoine Ménard
Back when I was still gaming with Dante and Stupid Ranger, we discovered that my brain would produce amazing ideas and my mouth would say amazing things (some of which were even intelligible) if I had eaten a large amount of sugar. At first, it was caramel filled Hershey’s kisses, which we called “shadow mana” or something else equally ridiculous. At one point, someone brought over a box of E.L. Fudge Double Stuf cookies. I disappeared half the box in the span of about an hour and found the salty taste of the cookies to be an excellent counter to the sweetness of the filling. That plus a lot of caffeine yielded some truly legendary exploits that I only partially remember. Poor Dante.
Sadly, my hardcore sugar days seem to be at an end. My current group has prohibited me from sugaring up while DMing. This is for good reason, as I simply cannot focus on anything long enough to run combat in that state. Also, it’s probably not good for me to eat 4000 calories in a 4 hour span before bedtime. After a hearty meal of pizza, of course.
As for the blue, well, it’s been my favorite color since I was little. Long before the Smurfs. Long before Avatar. Long before Dr. Manhattan or any specific portions of him thereof. You cannot blame anyone for finding that interesting. We are all like cats following a laser pointer, except the laser pointer is blue.
Why do you continue to suckle off the WotC teat when they are obviously ignorant of what gamers want in an RPG these days? - Kanati8869
First, let’s clear something up. A teat large enough to dispense hardcover books would be incredibly difficult for a human being to suckle from at all, much less safely.
You claim that WotC is “obviously” ignorant of what gamers want in an RPG. This is a very astute observation. When I attended the D&D Experience convention this past January, I had the chance to spend a lot of time with WotC’s community manager, who was very focused on making sure that every player’s needs were so thoroughly ignored that he wasn’t even allowed to carry a smartphone or writing utensils lest a concern gain any sense of permanence. I was even honored to give him his hourly head trauma so that he couldn’t remember anything.
I have several theories as to why this is.
1. WotC wants to hack into our bank accounts and convert all our money into in-game gold for D&D Online. Then it will impose economic sanctions on Activision/Blizzard, starting World of Warcraft War III. There is no reason to develop a good gaming system, all resources are devoted to brute-force-hacking passwords.
2. WotC is just the gaming division of the secret terrorist organization COBRA. Their current plot to defeat G.I. Joe involves a two-pronged plan. The first part consists of making a cruel mockery of anything Gary Gygax ever made. The second part is Fortune Cards.
3. WotC has been secretly sold to Apple, and Steve Jobs is convinced that getting people to stop playing D&D will boost App Store sales.
4. The entire R&D team at WotC has been replaced by robots who cannot love.
At this point, I cannot honestly see a reason why anybody would ever buy a WotC product, as clearly everyone hates everything about 4th edition, it is the diametric opposite of fun, and it is basically the gaming equivalent of The Situation from MTV’s “Jersey Shore”. However, the brain-implant I received when I came on staff here says I have to rescind that remark and remind everyone that the new Neverwinter sourcebook is available at friendly local gaming stores everywhere!
In the event of needing to consume a party member, which race and/or class would be the best choice (flavor, texture, longevity)? And conversely, which ones would be the worst? - Aaron R
I should say right up front that you shouldn’t expect the same kind of results when cooking adventurers as you get with normal folk. Your average person, especially a sedentary noble, will typically be well-fed and therefore fattier. Adventurers are always on the move (which burns a lot of calories) and they consume relatively little (especially the cheapskates that bought iron rations). Adventurer-meat is likely to be tougher and less flavorful. I recommend carrying several canteens filled with BBQ sauce on any quest longer than 48 hours.
Far and away the race with the best flavor is going to be Dragonborn. Some dislike having to remove the hard outer shell, but since you’re eating adventurers it shouldn’t be too hard to find something with which to crack it open. The meat is somewhat reminiscent of chicken but you can taste a spicy hint of dragon ancestry. The best cuts of dragonborn typically come from their clerics. Divine magic really brings out the flavor in dragonborn meat. You should be able to pick up a decent clerical rump roast at your local adventure-butcher for anywhere from a few silvers to 30-40gp (depending on level).
As for classes with the best flavor, it’s a little known fact that the reason arcane magic tends to make its practitioners weak and frail is because it slowly converts the wizard’s blood into teriyaki sauce. It is for this reason that Raistlin Majere of Krynn turned golden, and many an adventurer-foodie has fantasized about gnoshing on Raistlin-kebabs with a little pineapple. I know I sure have.
There’s a lot of adventure-meats that I don’t care for but a good meal can be salvaged from almost any race/class combination with the right attitude (and spices). There are, however, a few to avoid if you can help it. Elf-meat somehow finds a way even to taste pretentious, and gnomes barely have enough on each bone to be worth the trouble. Probably the worst of the lot, though, are dwarves. Don’t get me wrong. Dwarf meat can be delicious, but finding someone who can de-vein them properly is a miracle and it’s an absolute disaster if that goes wrong. It is certainly not something a hungry and desperate party of adventurers can pull off with a rusty shortsword in the dark bowels of a dungeon.
For a class that will ruin your dining experience, look no further than the Runepriest. Their meat is bitter and inexplicably full of tiny bones, no matter what race.
One of the big surprises of the season for me was revenant jerky. One would think the flesh of the undead would be vile and inedible, but it turns out vengeance truly is a dish best served cold, pressed, and salted to oblivion.
Until Next Time
Thanks for sending in your questions. I hope I’ve shed some light on these very important topics. I’ll be doing this from time to time, so if you’ve got a burning question, please feel free to contact me here, via the Twitternets, or via telepathy (best way).
P.S. my other top choice for naming this was “Dear Aboleth”.
Photo Credit
The Experience
This week, I am off work and at a training facility to go learn the C# programming language. And by that, I mean I am in a small bathroom-sized office where a man teaches us the secrets of computers via conference call and remote desktop connection where things happened eerily on the screen without anyone pushing buttons. There was somebody there to let me in, and then I didn’t see a soul all day. It is a strange experience, not unlike living in the Post-Apocalyptic Midwest and being taught the secrets of the Ancients by ghosts. Well, sort of. Based on today’s experiences, the last bastion of humanity lives in a Hardee’s. I hope that burger I ate was, in fact, cow.
The Learning Experience
All this got me thinking about how PCs level. In most of the games I play in, we just sort of level up as the campaign progresses. I can buy that. My years of martial arts training tell me that a boot to the head is a very powerful lesson. Combat is a great teacher, assuming one survives. However, the theory always sort of fell apart for me when it came to wizards. Certainly, the wizard would gain a lot of knowledge about what worked and what didn’t after a few battles, but that doesn’t explain why a few weeks into his travels he suddenly knows how to cast a Fireball. Wizards always got screwed anyway. After a hard day’s work maiming unspeakable creatures, the fighter chugs some ale and crashes on his bedroll. The cleric has a little more to do in that he has to say something to the effect of “Rub-A-Dub-Dub, Thanks For The Spells” to his deity before it’s lights out for him as well. The rogue might pick the cleric’s pocket if he’s having trouble sleeping, but by and large he can disappear into the shadows and escape off to dreamland once the party makes camp. Up until recently, though, the poor Wizard was stuck not only re-learning the spells that he forgot (due to the extremely poor memory management of the Vancian magic system, mercifully fixed in the last service pack) but was also expected to spend his nights researching new spells. It’s no wonder the Wizard is the most physically frail of the character classes. They’re never allowed to sleep!
Of course, there are those who think the best learning comes from being taught by one more experienced. I can buy this too. Repeated combats without directed instruction and practice tend to yield slower and more painful results. While having the PCs find a trainer to practice and break those training plateaus that only repeated kobold skull-crushings can give sounds like a fine idea, those who have played the old SSI Gold Box games like Pool of Radiance understand what a pleasure it is to finally get enough experience to level up — and then have to travel halfway across a continent to find a city big enough to have a trainer for their class before they can do anything about it. I’m sure the wizard in the party is going to be thrilled. More reading! At least now he’ll have good lighting and it probably won’t be raining on his spellbook.
Learning To The Hell With It
Actually, you know what? This isn’t an article about leveling up anymore. This is about wizards and how they should just incinerate everybody they meet. They’re just crapped on by some cosmic force their entire lives. High-level fighter? Strong, big muscles, gets all the chicks! High-level wizard? Creepy, lives in a tower, probably thinking about becoming undead. You know why wizards become liches? It’s because liches can’t feel anything. All a wizard wants out of life is some steak and the love of a good woman. But no, if he ever successfully manages to have a significant other, it’s always late in his career and nobody ever bothers to research any spells to combat ED and he always winds up with one of those psycho hose-beasts that gets off on the power and will eventually sneak into his lab and summon a demon to help her dispose of the poor guy, and it always goes wrong and a barbarian has to show up to clean up the mess and then all his gold his gone and also he’s probably been sucked into an alternate dimension where he’s being used as a Ring Pop by an aboleth. Is it any wonder most wizards want to gouge out their eye (and replace it with Vecna’s)?
Screw it. I’m done writing this article. I’m going to go play some Dragon Age 2 so I can calm down.
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Save Yourself: Vote For Critical Hits
As many of you are aware, Critical Hits is up for an Ennie this year. Dave has already given you all several good reasons to vote for us, but I’m here today to seal the deal. I put myself at great personal risk to reveal this information, but a win this year would shed a lot of light on the truth all gamers need to know.
Your Dice Are Alive – How Long Will You Be?
You heard it here first: your dice are alive. Don’t believe me? Think about all the times your dice have betrayed you, or that one time you inexplicably rolled 6 20′s in a row. It is the richest of irony that people use dice to simulate the generation of random numbers. They are grown on secret farms deep within blackest Ohio, and their eggs are harvested and stored in what appears to be grain silos but are actually special dice towers designed for polyhedral husbandry. The dice are then sterilized so that they do not continue to breed at gaming tables around the world. The sole exception to this rule is the barrel that gamers typically buy a “scoop” of dice from at conventions, never realizing that those dice were never manufactured. They put 4 dice in that barrel six months previous, sealed the lid, and cracked it open at the convention months later. This is also why you frequently find dice in your bag that you don’t remember buying after you’ve been to a convention.
Even worse, this dark secret kept from you by the evil gaming megaconglomerates hides an even deadlier sub-secret. As you may have guessed, the different breeds of polyhedral dice yield the various numerical denominations. However, the d12 (being the alpha of any given set of dice) has a set of natural defenses not found in any other polyhedral breed – including a deadly neurotoxin secreted through its 8 facet, known as d12xin. This poison is the primary reason very few epic-level monks were ever played in D&D 3e – their players had a penchant for mysterious death the day after a particularly combat-heavy game night.
We here at Critical Hits believe that all gamers have the right to continue breathing, and we’ve made it our personal mission both to prevent the tragedies caused by d12xin and to find a humane (and perhaps one day even synthetic) way to produce dice for tabletop gaming. Our own Chatty Phil is a microbiologist, and it is for this reason that we joined forces with him over a year ago. While he has not yet produced an antidote for d12xin, several useful byproducts have resulted from his research – including a cure for Pathfinder’s.
We can’t do this without your support. A vote for Critical Hits is a vote for life – both for your PC, and you.
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Communication Skills And Gaming: The Fundamental Truth About Fundamentals
These aren't faces. They're an anthropologist beholder's eyes.
There are few things I like more than complimentary skillsets. There’s the obvious reason, which is that you can take something you learned one place and apply it to another without having to start from scratch. Then, there’s the secondary reason, which is the ability to look at everything as a metaphor, which I frequently find myself doing when I tell a long, rambling karate tale to a bunch of programmers about something that is clearly not programming.
I Assumed There Would Be Toast
Today, I found myself giving a speech to a room of about 20 people. It was a voluntary situation that I inflicted upon myself, as the company I work for offers a Toastmasters club and I wanted to improve my communication skills. In addition to being able to convey information effectively to other humans at work, I decided it would be a great opportunity to up my karate instruction game. I’ve been teaching the occasional class for a little over 15 years, and I can get the job done but I’ve never really been able to command the room like Sensei (now a retired high school teacher) always could. I prepared what they call an “Icebreaker” speech, an autobiographical journey by oration 5-7 minutes in length. I wasn’t all that nervous until my name was called, and it took me by surprise. I’ve been in front of a room twice this size before. I yelled at them all, made them do pushups, and kicked one or two. Why would I possibly be nervous?
In the end, it turned out OK. And by “OK”, I mean:
- I completely blacked out about halfway through, didn’t see any of the nice big colorful cue cards that let me know my time was up, and my speech clocked in at 9 minutes 55 seconds.
- We count “um”s, “uh”s, and other quirks of language that are Not Words in order to eradicate them. I believe I hold the current company record at 86. People with previously-embarassing totals like 46 were coming up to me and telling me I made them feel much better by comparison. Amateurs.
- Apparently, I fidget when I speak. A lot. And my right foot taps.
- Everyone was entertained and appeared to enjoy my presentation! Woot!
Most of these weren’t a surprise. That is, after all, why I showed up. I’ve gotten better at the “entertaining people” and “keeping their attention” part over the years, but it feels like I just crashed an experimental aircraft almost every time (with varying degrees of success).
Communication At The Gaming Table
This is also (utterly devoid of coincidence) how I feel after running a D&D game. It wasn’t long before the little combination engine in my head beeped and informed me that good communication skills would make for a vastly improved D&D game. I recently heard it said that communication is 90% of being effective at anything, and I am reminded of my years of folly during college dreaming of being so excellent at coding that people wouldn’t even have to talk to me to point, wink, and offer me lots of money. That was dumb. Nobody understands anything unless it is communicated to them in a way they can understand. That’s how it works.
Therefore, it stands to reason that the players led by a Dungeon Master who has The Best Gaming Materials In The World are still going to have an awful time if that DM sucks at delivering game information to them in a way they can process. The game can have been perfectly balanced by robot hyper-brains from the 34th century who are never wrong and if the DM presents things in a confusing way, it’s still going to be terrible. Good communication means planning and having a framework in place to know what’s coming or at least what to do if something unexpected shows up. (This fact was permanently etched into my brain after last week’s…. experiment.)
Never mind the fact that the DM is frequently the de facto leader of the gaming group, and has to settle the sticky situations that arise from playing with other sentient beings. Differences of opinion causing neverending arguments? Someone’s severe analysis paralysis grinding the game to a halt? It takes communication – and a little courage – to speak to people directly to try to work through things.
Delivering Your Informational Payload
It strikes me that there are two main things to consider when trying to communicate something effectively:
- WHAT to communicate
- HOW to communicate it
Let’s look at “what” first. If there wasn’t something to talk about, you wouldn’t be communicating! If you can deliver the information to the target, you win! It also occurs to me that if the stuff you want someone to know is buried in a whole bunch of extraneous stuff, it might get lost.
In RPG-land, I find myself needing to worry about this when I’ve concocted what I think is a genius plot with lots of hooks and ways to throw the PCs off the scent. Then I find myself all frustrated because I have to hit them with the dreaded Clue Bat…. which upon further thought might occasionally get named the Effective Communication Bat. Does it ruin the surprise sometimes? Sure. But is it better than having a table full of frustrated, unhappy players wondering what their DM (who probably thinks he is smarter than them and is a big jerk) is thinking?
In Conclusion
- Crucial Conversations by Patterson et al.
- QBQ! The Question Behind The Question by John MIller
- Switch by Chip & Dan Heath
- Eat That Frog by Brian Tracy
- The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Steven Covey
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