This is a review of Tracy and Curtis Hickman’s X-Treme Dungeon Mastery, done through the voice of 2 alter Egos of mine, Phil and Tony, see part 1 to learn more about it.
For part 2, let’s switch who gets to say what first.
The Theory of XDM
Tony:
All right, the section starts with a chapter about player types. While an already heavily threaded territory, the book presents 3 archetypes: The Warrior (I Kill Stuff), the Socialite (I talk to stuff) and the Thinker (I wanna win to get to the new stuff). It then explain how scenes should be designed to fit those types.
Having had Phil harping on an on and on about his mancrush on Robin Laws, I’m well acquainted with the theory. I agree that one of the surest way to fun is to get to know what players want. XDM’s approach has the advantage of being dead simple and would be a great model to ease in DMs who’ve never realized that what players want in a game actually matters. I just find that it might be too simple though. I’ll let Dr Nitpick go at it.
Moving on.
The next two chapters are, I think, the meatiest part of the whole book. Both talk about Story and explain in detail why a good adventure is always based on a good story.
The first chapter starts as a dissertation of something called the Campbellian Monomyth, which seems to me to be English Litt Jargon for ‘Kid gets quest, Kid whines a bit, Kid beats obstacles and becomes a Man, Man becomes a Hero, Hero gets the Prize, Hero returns home and finds it destroyed/changed/boring/paved into a parking lot, Hero moves on to Tome 2″ or as I like to call it “The Trilogy formula”.
I’m a Microbiology major who reads fantasy novels by the truckload, I don’t know the theory!
Then the book goes into the importance of surprise (i.e. lying), from a storytelling point of view, to maintain the illusion of mystery and keep players on their toes. Then it segues (not really, the change of subject is actually pretty brutal) into a random story generator.
Yeah.. what’s that about?
The next chapter describe 3 adventure structures (Linear, Open Matrix and Closed Matrix) and goes on to say how the Closed Matrix is the model of choice and gives an example of it. In fact, having played and then DMed the first 4 Dragonlance adventures, I recognize the structure (PCs are free to go where they please until they hit a boundary that pushes them back into the adventure matrix… like an advancing army).
Yeah, that’s cool, I guess.
The next chapter is about Riddles, including a good number of them for DMs to use… Yawn… I don’t like those and so do my player. Pass!
After that you get to the prepping the game. They mention the importance of a map, including drawing cross section of buildings (what am I, Picasso?) and how they must be internally consistent. Then follows some pretty cool tricks to writing your adventure notes (if you are the type to write the description of rooms and such).
All in all, I’d say that this section present a certain adventure design philosophy. That philosophy is, to my eyes, as valid as any, but I can’t help to think “Dude, we’re talking about DMing for a group of friends, not writing for the industry”
I’m just saying. You’re turn Nerd!
Phil
I see that you went to town and, as usual, took the wrong train, no wonder Ron Edwards calls your kind brain damaged.
This section of the book actually ended being my favorite, even though it didn’t actually follow up on the awesome bulleted lists at the end of the previous chapters . Not only did I get to see first hand the thinking that was behind some of the most entertaining A D&D modules I played/ran, but there’s useful stuff in there!
I’ll grant my special needs colleague that the player types aren’t up to par with those published in the later Dungeon Master Guides but the Story Cycle dissertation brings an interesting perspective to story design. Having never studied anything other than science, I didn’t know that the familiar pattern of Epic Fantasy tales were based on this.
Then the discussion about the importance of playing with facts, places and time gave me insights about the fact that the mystery of exploration and the emotional response to cognitive dissonance or genuine surprise are all important tools for the DM.
In fact, I found that the subject of playing with the truth to be sufficiently developed to satisfy my expectations. Sadly, the same can’t be said for much of the rest of the book.
The Random Story Generator is a good idea but it’s implementation is a bit too complicated… I wonder if there’s an automated version on their website.
The chapter about adventure design introduced me to the Open Matrix structure. While I had seen it in the first Dragonlance adventure, seeing it stripped to it’s bare component made me slap my forehead. It’s really an elegant way of doing a contained sandbox. Sadly, as with much of this book, the model gets barely 1 1/2 page of treatment, most of it describing the ‘Pushed by an army’ example .
The section on riddle was of limited interest to me. As a DM as well as a player, puzzles annoy me to no end. But I’m honest enough to say that people who like them (or have players who are problem solvers) will like that 12 riddles are not so common knowledge that players can solve them without sneaking off the table and google it while the DM is distracted by another player.
The Section also mentions how to turn a dungeon into a puzzle, taking the excellent “fake straight passages” example from the Pharaoh module. Finally, there’s a very short, but insightful discussions about traps.
Finally, the prepping section basically boils down to ‘Find an internally consistent way for everything in the story’ Once again, while most of what is discussed is interesting, it’s not integrated as a whole. There’s a bit about world building, a bit about maps, a bit about not taking easy shortcuts, another bit about Time and Space of an adventure and a series of short writing tips.
I expected something more focused, more organized. But by the time I had reached that point, my hopes weren’t really that high.
Being the XDM
Tony:
Man, I don’t know how come your mom didn’t drown you at birth. Well thank god for the good grace of our host, I get to say a few words about the next section.
Being the XDM is the section of the book that talks about what happens at the table. Like the previous section, this section is all business, no funny stuff (well some, but that’s not the focus).
I don’t have much to say here except to mention 2 parts that stood out for me. At the beginning of the section, it is suggested to find ways to avoid dumping too much info on players in order to prevent having the action grind to a halt. That’s capital. The book proposes to sprinkle such Info Dumps into props or by having the players play a Cutscene (to which you provide bits of info). Those are good starting points.
The other good bit is when they describe how a (X)DM is like an actor and should adopt acting skills (Clear Speech, and Reacting to events and players).
(High Screeching sound… like a record being scratched)
Chatty DM:
Sigh… sometime a joke stops being funny way before we expect it to. I now feel that I’m unfairly beating up on a Flawed book. So much so that I’m putting a stop to this before I get accused of being a prick. (I may be but I can live with that).
Writing this stopped being fun about one hour ago when I realized that there really was precious little I liked about the book apart the sections I discussed today.
For sake of completeness, the rest of the book discussed illusions you could use in your games to make people appear, disappear or create Ghostly apparitions. There was a whole section on mastering a few magician tricks like Juggling a big Glass Ball and card tricks. I really have no use for that… even in Tony mode.
Then there was a chapter where various instructions for playing with fire at the table and creating flash bombs (I kid you not) were actually censored so you can’t actually know what the trick is. Humorous (or not) footnotes about the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security doing some editing are peppered through the book.
Then you get a description of the Killer Breakfast, which seemed to be more a story about the actual event than clear instruction on running one. Again, no use for the average DM… even XDM ones.
Another chapter that is completely unrelated to everything else is the one about being an Xtreme player (and how to blow up ‘boring’ games). It relates a well known story about Tracy playing an instigator barbarian in an overly cautious party. That’s the story that had Monte Cook and Tracy fighting about in the Letters to Dragon (or Dungeon) magazine.
The core message basically is that an adventure game should be about adventure not about risk analysis. I’m glad I got to read Traci’s side of the story, and there some useful tips to help wake up a gaming group. I’m just not much of a fan of unbridled instigation.
Finally, the book ends with a XD20 roleplaying game, a minimalist 20 pages RPG. Again, something I also had no interest for.
So out of 158 pages, I found no more than 40 that met with my expectations.
Bottom line, the first half of the book has many gems of wisdom that scream to be expanded upon but usually aren’t. There’s some very important stuff in there. Given the second half’s content, I strongly believe that this book has limited appeal to anyone other than fans of the XDM phenomenon and new DMs looking to get better at their craft.
Maybe, just maybe, I just don’t get. But I somehow doubt it.
Tracy, I know you’ll eventually read this. Know that I could not in clear conscience review it otherwise and I apologize if the initial humorous approach turned sour.
@Chatty: “Maybe, just maybe, I just don’t get.”
I’m not sure why, but I also get that impression. That’s not a criticism; more a considered statement based on the fact that I don’t believe the book would have been published if your review was all there was to it.
Is it possible that the book is meant to be some sort of inside joke for the gaming community inspired by the (possibly overly-) serious approach taken to DMing lately? Or akin to the Daily Show (an American TV show lampooning current affairs journalism)?
Some of the examples you give strike me as terribly similar to the Deja Vu joke in the 3.5 DMG.
Either way, it doesn’t strike me as a book I’d pay money for, but I acknowledge there are probably others out there who would.
I’m utterly confused about this book honestly. It feels like a strange meme that I wasn’t around for the inception of and therefore don’t get, at least from the review. I’m sure if I read it, I would laugh a bit. But I also wonder why it didn’t go all the way and become a parody, if it’s that – or is it really meant in part to inform?
.-= Wyatt´s last blog ..Campaign Styles In Eden =-.
@Colmarr:
You know what this book reminds me of? An introductory book that you would get from a marketing campaign to sell you on XDMing. In hindsight, I would have used the same text, play with the order of things and sell it as ‘This is just a sample of the awesomeness of being a XDM, for more, subscribe to”
And then I’d have made their website have a premium membership where additional articles are available that tread the grounds of the book with more depth.
Hell… maybe that’s exactly what the book is. If it is… I would have said so on the can.
But I just don’t get the whole censored play with fire thing… why the hell did we recycle paper for this? It baffles me!
@Wyatt: I did chuckle quite often while reading the book but it wasn’t the book’s main focus… I’m at a loss to try to pinpoint it except to attribute the whole thing to an insider book.
Heck on the XDM website there’s a few post about a decoder ring this week… I’M telling you the whole thing is based on kid clubs Tropes. I’m baffled beyond belief.
I am so glad that you reviewed this book. I was looking for a review to know if it was worth buying. I believe you have answered that question. Thanks
It wasn’t entitled Savage Worlds, was it?
I picked up a copy of that rulebook the other day and love it. It’s like a stripped-down version of 3e with a good skill system, richer chargen, fast-n-loose combat, and no misplaced ‘simulationist’ pretension. All hail!
Out of curiosity, have you read anything by those first-generation RPG guys that’s anywhere near the state of the art in contemporary roleplaying? Every time I flip over to Grognardia or the like I realize that I don’t mind ‘OSR’ types rejecting the excesses of modern fantasy gaming, but Christ, as near as I can tell Gygax et al. saw none of the future of roleplaying in their wargaming-derived zeal. At least Hickman aspired to narrative seriousness with the Dragonlance stuff, but all that old D&D shit reads as very primitive, given what’s understood now about the medium itself…
Also, have you read Laws’s ‘See pg XX’ columns yet? You’ll like ’em.
.-= Wax Banks´s last blog ..Scattered, spoilery thoughts on Felix Gilman’s excellent novel Thunderer. =-.
@Youseph: I’m not going to ask you what was your decision… I think we call all guess.
@Wax: It really depends what you consider 1st Gen. If you mean Gygax, Arneson, St-Andre and their entourage (Blumes and others I don’t know) then I can’t say, I haven’t read anything they published post AD&D.
Having played S&W straight up, I can attest though that it delivers a gaming experience that, while far from modern games, remains highly enjoyable for an exploration based game.
Your argument of the progenitors of our hobby ‘not seeing the future’ is the same that could be made about Herbert and Tolkien. When you create a genre, you can’t be expected to make it evolve to what it will be 20 years later.
Heck, I dislike Tolkien, but love later High Fantasy epics so can I say that JRR saw none of the future?
I’d get freaking killed.
I’ll look up ‘See page XX’ thanks!
You tried. You obviously gave it more than a fair shake, and it didn’t work for you. Ok. Next project.
@Wax Banks, it matters when you look at their quotes. Ken St. Andre, in his 4th ed T&T intro, is clearly setting T&T as the ‘less-constrained’ rule system option in 1975.
As early as 1978, I’d say that Gary started to see some of the issues that the gamer culture is still grappling with, but not before that. Even then, the root issues of game design and target demographic were starting to rear their heads.
That demographic issue has a lot to do with where the different games went, and how they changed. Who were Gary and Dave writing for at first? Their peers, Grad students and other Wargamers, which is where Chatty’s excellent Literature analogy falls short. As I said, they were writing for Adult wargamers. Gary was 37, I think, in 1975. Herbert and Tolkien’s High Fantasy targeted a similar demographic when compared to today’s authors.
I really believe that the changes in the target deomgraphic blindsided any ability to predeict many of the changes the game would go through.
Much of the audience game systems are trying to include into their systems today are way under anything Gary, Dave, and the rest were looking at early on.
.-= LordVreeg´s last blog ..edited Game Schedule =-.
@LV: I did give it my best college try, didn’t work… moving on. I’m keeping the characters though. They might be useful/entertaining in a later project. Now I’m focusing on writing about creativity and the RPG mind. That should become a good series.
Nice analysis there. I’m not enough of a 70’s RPG scholar to add anything to it… I was born a few months before Gary published 0th edition 🙂
Creativity and the RPG mind? I’m in.
Wonder where the place of Age of acquisition comes in?
.-= LordVreeg´s last blog ..edited Igbar, Capital of Trabler =-.
@LV: Care to explain what Age of acquisition means? It’s a reference I don,t yet know about.
Just a overly complicated developmental psych term, looking at when skills are acquired, as well as developed and used. Language acquisition, etc. It was the place my head was at wehn I responded.
So basically, it was a reference as to when kids/adults start playing RPGs, and a curiousity as to how this affects the creative mindset of a roleplayer. It may sound basic, but order of acquistion has a lot to do with how we utilize our skillsets.
.-= LordVreeg´s last blog ..edited Basic History and Information of Igbar =-.
I’m making a narrower claim than that – I just haven’t read anything by old-school RPG guys, the ones responsible for the RPGs of the 70’s/early 80’s, that indicates any engagement with the narrative complexities that would arise from RPGs in the 90’s. Which is, sure, a bit like saying Jane Austen’s rubbish because she didn’t anticipate literary modernism. But then no Literary Grognards (ahem) are venerating Jane Austen as the One True Story Designer Whose Works Must Be Slavishly Emulated, y’know?
Admittedly I’m very, very biased. But to me, what’s interesting about roleplaying games is dramatic/narrative stuff that didn’t really enter into the hobby for a few years, and not just because the D&D audience got younger. Quite the contrary! The military-simulationist types who constituted early roleplaying circles just didn’t play games that way.
I’ve read way more than my share of Dragonlance books (and even some Death Gate…), and I think Hickman’s D&D work stands right at the border between cod-simulationist OD&D/AD&D material and the really good stuff. He had some good ideas about what D&D could be, narrativewise. But with all due respect to him, when it comes to actually pushing outward at the boundaries of what roleplaying games can accomplish, I would never expect those early D&D guys to be innovators. (And what little I’ve read on the XDM website fails to dispel that preconception.)
They were just making another kind of game entirely.
.-= Wax Banks´s last blog ..Scattered, spoilery thoughts on Felix Gilman’s excellent novel Thunderer. =-.
@Wax:
You don’t read much fan fic do you? 🙂
Have you read the posts on Arneson’s participation in Major Wesley’s Braunstein? From what I gather of the Ars Ludi post in the subject, Dave was very much the storytelling fiend.
Alas, I heard of him much later in my RPG career and never sought out his writing on RPGs.
Here, have a look.
http://arsludi.lamemage.com/index.php/104/braunstein-the-roots-of-roleplaying-games/
Oh and I also note your gameplay preferences. You know, should we ever play together in the next few months.
We have a comfortable futon. On the other hand, Montreal sounds like fun. My wife’s got precious little time for travel but…
Vis-a-vis fanfic, my self-preservation instinct is too strong for that nonsense! As a ‘professional writer’ I’m way too arrogant and disgust-prone to countenance that horrific shit.
Also drunk at moment.
Also: just finished winter-eladrin adventure from about 2/3 of way through Pyramid of Shadows. Excellent encounter! Roleplay light but flavour-heavy. Afterward one of the players complimented my story sense, admonished me to nail down the numerical (simulative) aspects in order to better engage the numbers-inclined players. I said RPGs had taught me more about classroom teaching than any reading in educational theory. He (a classroom teacher) lit up to think on it. If I’d picked up this hobby as a kid I’d be a completely different person; what a fucking shame to have played in my first campaign at age 29!
.-= Wax Banks´s last blog ..Scattered, spoilery thoughts on Felix Gilman’s excellent novel Thunderer. =-.
Really liked your alter-ego’s as it resonates with the way my games have changed over the short period of a week sometimes.
With the review i have no prior knowledge of the Hickman’s so i can’t really comment, however reading it didn’t come across as harsh or insulting. More informative and opinionated.
I know opinionated can sound insulting but if i meant it that way i wouldn’t be reading chatty’s blog, i come here for his opinion.
Thanks Chatty
Whit
@Wax: Ahhh writing drunk or, as I like to call it, touching Hemingway. I know that I wrote one blog post while roaring drunk once… Can’t seem to find it anymore 🙂
Yes, the peda/andragogical aspects of RPGs is phenomenal. Like you, had I not played RPGs I would have been a vastly different person, probably with underdeveloped social skills.
But that’s an entirely other subject… one that I mark for my future series on Kids and RPGs.
As for gaming together, I’m seriously planning a Boston gathering of friends later this year or early next one. You are on the invitee list for sure.
@WhitDnd: I think our perceptions shift all the time. My range of perception really lies from Phil to Tony (but then again, I’m a bit crazy)… so it wasn’t much of a stretch to write as either.
I don’t feel I was insulting… however, I feel that had I gone through with the Review as planned, it could have been construed as relentless bashing since after this post, my favorite one… in spite of my critics, everything else of the book had little to no relevance for me.
So my call wasn’t ‘This book is so bad I’ll stop reviewing’ but rather ‘I can’t find nice things to say about the rest so the comedy routine loses all it’s relevance”
Thanks for the kind words though…
@Chatty/Wax,
Ummm I don’t think I’ve GMed, Live or IRC, without a glass of wine in hand for…a while.
I’ve actually ended up posting Ipso Facto menus from some of the Igbarian Sessions, both wine and food, on the CBG site.
(example? Sure…
1996 whitehall lane reserve (floral Bottle)
My last bottle of this reserve.
Chappellet 2003 Cab and D’arenberg Ironstone rpessings also made the table.
Made a ribeye with volcanic sea-salt encrusting with a chipolte barbecue sauce for all. Clark brought fresh french loaves and Jenn made Sweet potato with cinnamon and butter.
Nice when I can say it was ungodly good (or unplanarly good, for those who have read through Celtricia)
The wine had lots of Cherry and currant in the middle, but evolved to add in vanilla and sandalwood. )
Now I’m hungry.
As another aside in terms of the RPG affect on developement…
http://thetorchonline.com/2009/05/25/everything-i-know-i-learned-from-dungeons-dragons/
This was a great article, and the responses may be even better. Wax, to bring it full circle, you’ll note one of those ‘First Generation guys’, Ken St. Andre, about half way down responding.
.-= LordVreeg´s last blog ..edited Igbar, Capital of Trabler =-.