It May Be Easy, But That Doesn't Mean I Can Do It Right

Time is easy. 

Just look down at the clock in the lower right of your screen and you'll see it marching on at a boring and steady pace. Yet if there is one problem in gaming that haunts my thoughts it's the problem of keeping time. Not the rhythm of how the players interact with the scenario I've laid out, or the way that I play off their momentum, but the actual tracking of time. I'm terrible at it. My notebooks are littered with inane numerical ephemera that look like I've been marking the measurements for impossible women. Then there are frantic scribblings that crowd near the numbers, as though in doing so their meaning might be found, that are no help at all. So I hand wave most of it and pretend that it isn't all that damned important after all. Only I know better. As a player and as a Game Master I know that there is a value in keeping track of how long a spell runs or the number of hours a torch has been lit. Such things have a meaning to the game that runs deeper than the little ticks I mark on the page. 

Why, then, do I have such trouble with keeping track of it all?

For a long time I would have told you that it's because things quickly become overly complicated when I'm running the game as I tend to run on a single page of notebook paper and drop the rest in off the top of my head - not the most advantageous way to run but it prevents me from wasting too much time in preparation. The truth though is that I lose track of time because it doesn't matter to me. As a player the only scales of time that really capture my attention tend to be on the larger side of things: nights, days, weeks, months, seasons, and years. This is because I favor combat classes. My history of characters is made up nearly exclusively of fighters, barbarians, and monks. With those classes I have a natural ability to visualize the terrible things I want to do my enemies. I am unapologetically brutal in combat and it is a lot of fun for me to put the Game Master on their heels by destroying every thing that's fool enough to stand against me. As a Game Master, though, that attitude changes; but my focus on time doesn't.

That's something that I've been working to overcome in recent years. Not the attitude change but rather my focus on time. I've been trying to figure out a way to better track things like torches and the passing of hours. One of my tricks that has been working really well of late is a series of boxes that I draw when some effect begins and I write above it what it's denoting. With torches and similar effects that are measured in hours it has really made things a lot easier for me to keep straight. For rounds though I have typically been so wrapped up in the million things going on that I've continued to have trouble - that is till I brought back in the Arneson Rule.

For those of you that weren't reading me back in 2013 I created the Arneson Rule based on things I had read Dave Arneson would do in his combats. I doubt that this rule is an exact emulation of what Dave did, but for my games it has worked beautifully regardless of the system, edition, or setting.

The Arneson Rule:

When combat occurs any player not involved in the encounter is given control of the monsters involved. If multiple players are not involved in the encounter than the monstrous group will be divided up among them as the Game Master decides. 

My players tend to split the party a lot so this rule comes to the fore far more than you'd ever imagine. The beauty for me is that by giving control of the monsters over to the missing players I'm freed up to keep track of everything that has always eluded me as a Game Master. Suddenly marking the number of rounds that a certain spell occurs or how long an effect lasts isn't such a chore. Now I still have issues when the players are all together but I'm getting better. 

So my question for you all is this: how do you manage to keep track of time in your games?

Using Guilds and Corporations in Dungeons and Dragons

Today I would like to talk about the differences between Guilds and Corporations, and which one is best to use in a Dungeons and Dragons game. 

Guilds

If you’re like me then you’ve probably used guilds in your games without giving much thought to their exact nature and only giving lip service to their vaguely imagined purposes. Luckily, Ed Greenwood has been thinking about them for years. 

 “. . . Many cities and city-states . . . have guilds, which are collectives of craft workers or merchants who seek to control local trade in their fields of endeavor. Guilds typically set standards (such as units of measurement, from sizes of garments to how much firewood is in a "cord" and what volume a particular sort of keg holds). They also seek to control or at least influence supplies of goods and services, both by restricting guild membership and seeking to control who can (typically guild members) and can't (usually non-members) engage in a trade, and by controlling imports and exports or influencing governments into doing so (by outright ban or stiff tariffs). Guilds are concerned first and foremost with the welfare of their members, so they tend to try to set prices, either formally or through their control over supply (scarcity driving "what the market will bear" prices up), and their presence results in higher—but more stable—prices. 

"Guilds are inherently useful to a Dungeon Master running a campaign because they can serve as an opposing force to government, and their members aren't necessarily identified by bloodright (as nobles and rival royal families are) and thus easily imprisoned or trained or both. Guilds also can more easily make contacts with outlanders and folk of all walks of life. They are also useful to anyone . . . trying to change any society, because their obvious interests and needs make them easy to manipulate or anticipate. It doesn't take bright wits to figure out how most guilds will react to, say, a scarcity of this raw material or an attempt to change that law governing what the guild does . . .” (Greenwood, The Feather Guilds) 

Guilds, then, are essentially unions on steroids. That gives us a lot of material to work with because now there is an attitude that we can draw on and a real life mindset that can be incorporated into our games without some imaginary framework that requires a preposterous amount of effort on our parts. We can look at films like Hoffa and Norma Rae for inspiration and can research actual modern unions such as the Teamsters Union and the AFL-CIO Union. 

I like this more complete view of guilds. Prior to this recent understanding of the guilds I had always treated them as trade businesses that were essentially meaningless in my games. As a result they were rarely a focus – hell, until the last couple of years my players hadn’t even asked about local guilds. But with this new understanding of guilds and how they behave I can now use them to my advantage pushing back against other non-player groups’ interests and my players’ interests. 

Corporations 

Corporations are defined by their organized approach to business and their ability to circumvent our individual ownership of the moral consequences of our actions by allow each individual in the corporation to blame their actions on the corporation as a whole; as though it were a living, sentient thing. That's a remarkably terrifying accomplishment for an institution that exists only because we have collectively agreed to believe that it's legitimately there. 

It's rare that corporations make an appearance in Dungeons and Dragons as they're usually associated with games like Paranoia and Shadowrun. However, in doing so many Dungeon Masters are dismissing a powerful tool in their arsenal. Corporations allow for the players to create an associated experience with a powerful non-player organization that will have a major impact on their characters’ financial lives. Corporations provide modern players – who have grown up with a deep seated, and well founded, mistrust of corporations – with a readily identifiable enemy. Non-player Adventuring Groups in league with the Corporation are immediately recognized as evil. The Corporation’s employees are often seen as either the down trodden little guy or as willing participants in an evil plot to undermine the government. And the Corporation’s upper echelon of employees are seen as vile overlords. 

It’s an opportunity that shouldn’t be passed over simply because they are a modern concept. 

Which Do I Use 

When it comes to determining which organization to use, guilds or corporations, the answer will depend more on the situation involved in your current setting and on the purpose you need for the organization to accomplish. If you’re looking for the organization to provide a foil to the most powerful non-player characters in the game and to become a relevant source of information for your players then you need to use the guild. By treating the guild as a modern union you’re more likely to provide the players with the sort of interactions that will elicit the sort of emotional investment in the well-being and plight of the non-player characters that is so difficult to create in game. On the other hand, if your goal is to provide the players with an organization that can be used to confront them and counter their own movements, without involving either a government or religious cult, then you’re going to want to use the corporation. 

That’s all for today, but later I’m going to be writing about the difference between a Complex Corporation and a Simple Corporation in your Dungeons and Dragons game. Hope to see you then.

Skill Checks: Climb

Climb (Str; Armor Check Penalty)

Check: With a successful Climb check, you can advance up, down, or across a slope, a wall, or some other steep incline (or even a ceiling with handholds) at one-quarter your normal speed. A slope is considered to be any incline at an angle measuring less than 60 degrees; a wall is any incline at an angle measuring 60 degrees or more.

A Climb check that fails by 4 or less means that you make no progress, and one that fails by 5 or more means that you fall from whatever height you have already attained.

A climber’s kit gives you a +2 circumstance bonus on Climb checks.

The DC of the check depends on the conditions of the climb . . .  (SRD, Skills I, Climb)

Using the Climb Skill is one of those happy little checks that just makes me excited. As a Dungeon Master it means that I have a player who is putting himself at risk which is fun beyond measure for me; and as a Player it means that I’ve got something important going on. Both situations mean that the game is moving forward.

When to Use this Skill

Now I don’t like the delineation marker between a wall and an incline being 60 degrees, so for my games I’ve always used the delineation as a wall being 90 degrees from the horizontal. It works better for the conceptualization of a wall. That demarcation might not sound like much since both an incline and a wall might require a Climb check, but it is important for determining a player character’s bonuses and penalties to the check.

Determining when to use the Climb check for a wall is pretty straightforward: do you want to climb the wall, then roll. So let’s talk about when to call for the check on the incline. According to OSHA guidelines (see Stairways and Ladders page 13) a stairwell has to be used at 30 degrees from the horizontal and can be used up to 50 degrees from horizontal. By using that as our guideline we can determine that things become difficult for our players’ characters starting at the 30 degree line. But do we call for a Check then?

No.

While the stairwell guideline is good for determining where things get difficult it does not indicate a point at which a check must be made. Steep Hills are well within the stairwell guidelines, and while the going is tough it would be foolish to call such a hike a climb. For our purposes it is best to use the danger zone as our indicator for when to call for a Climb check. This means that for an incline of 51 degrees to 90 degrees we can safely call for a Climb check without worrying that we’re needlessly wasting time.

In the description of the Climb Skill we’re given a chart that’s supposed to provide us with the appropriate difficulty class (DC) for the check. Here’s the original chart:

I don’t like that chart. Anything that is below a DC of ten should not have a check attached to it – because when you ascribe a value to that activity some asshole is going to make his players roll to beat it. Instead the example chart should look like this:

How to Use this Skill When Being Attacked

. . . You need both hands free to climb, but you may cling to a wall with one hand while you cast a spell or take some other action that requires only one hand. While climbing, you can’t move to avoid a blow, so you lose your Dexterity bonus to AC (if any). You also can’t use a shield while climbing . . . (SRD, Skills I, Climb)

I’ve never been a fan of the idea that you need to have two hands to climb as I’ve done it with only one hand and I’ve seen enough one armed folk climb to know that it can be done. Now is it more difficult? Absolutely, but it can be done.

Now let’s talk about fighting in this situation.

While it’s reasonable to assume that a character who has a one handed weapon can use it to fend off an aggressor. It’s also very hard to imagine that the character will have an easy time of hanging onto the incline or plane – unless he’s throwing something at an enemy. It is not only possible, but surprisingly easy to hang from a tree, a rocky outcropping, or even your neighbor’s roof and chuck rocks at your friends to get their attention without falling.

Modifying the Check

Unlike the Appraise Skill there isn’t a lot that other players can do to help your character in their climb attempts. Sure they can tie knots at one foot intervals on the rope providing your character with a circumstance bonus of 2 or you can use climbing which adds a circumstance bonus of 2; but other than those two actions there isn’t a lot that other characters can do to help you out as climbing is a one man activity.

By contrast, however, there is a lot that can be done that will negatively impact your character’s ability to climb; greasing the walls, heavy rain, loose rocks, ice, snow, fire, tar, moss, and the like all provide negative modifiers, and they all stack. So if you’re foolish enough to climb a frozen mountain side that’s on fire you have no one but yourself to blame for rolling at a - 6 modifier.

. . . Any time you take damage while climbing, make a Climb check against the DC of the slope or wall. Failure means you fall from your current height and sustain the appropriate falling damage . . . (SRD, Skills I, Climb)

I really cannot adequately express how much I dislike this rule.  Instead of wasting my time with remembering all the fucking modifiers that I’ve set up I handle this situation in the simplest fashion I know: 10 + damage = DC. This speeds up play and I’m all about that.

. . . Making Your Own Handholds and Footholds: You can make your own handholds and footholds by pounding pitons into a wall. Doing so takes 1 minute per piton, and one piton is needed per 3 feet of distance. As with any surface that offers handholds and footholds, a wall with pitons in it has a DC of 15. In the same way, a climber with a handaxe or similar implement can cut handholds in an ice wall . . . (SRD, Skills I, Climb)

From what I’ve been able to understand if you’re using pitons the distance isn’t really the main point because you can go 10, 20, or even 30 feet in between each use – cause they’re not really helping you climb as much as they are preventing you from hitting the ground when you fall. So realistically using a piton doesn’t help you climb, but it does help you aid another player in climbing as they’re used in aid climbing.

When Things Go Wrong

. . . Catching Yourself When Falling: It’s practically impossible to catch yourself on a wall while falling. Make a Climb check (DC = wall’s DC + 20) to do so. It’s much easier to catch yourself on a slope (DC = slope’s DC + 10).

Catching a Falling Character While Climbing: If someone climbing above you or adjacent to you falls, you can attempt to catch the falling character if he or she is within your reach. Doing so requires a successful melee touch attack against the falling character (though he or she can voluntarily forego any Dexterity bonus to AC if desired). If you hit, you must immediately attempt a Climb check (DC = wall’s DC + 10). Success indicates that you catch the falling character, but his or her total weight, including equipment, cannot exceed your heavy load limit or you automatically fall. If you fail your Climb check by 4 or less, you fail to stop the character’s fall but don’t lose your grip on the wall. If you fail by 5 or more, you fail to stop the character’s fall and begin falling as well . . . (SRD, Skills I, Climb)

When someone falls near me, and we’ve not used pitons and rope, his ass is hitting the ground. There is no reason for anyone to attempt to catch another player because you’re only going to get both of you killed. I know that sounds cruel, but if you’re climbing in the game you have to make the determination of survival over foolish acts of bravery.

Remember: discretion is the better part of valor. Besides, you can always loot the body on your way out.

. . . Action: Climbing is part of movement, so it’s generally part of a move action (and may be combined with other types of movement in a move action). Each move action that includes any climbing requires a separate Climb check. Catching yourself or another falling character doesn’t take an action.

Special: You can use a rope to haul a character upward (or lower a character) through sheer strength. You can lift double your maximum load in this manner . . . (SRD, Skills I, Climb)

The bad thing about that Special descriptor there is that it adds a greater emphasis to maintaining your character’s weight, including all their gear. And it never fails that when I call for that, that someone hasn’t been keeping up with it. My solution: I add – 2 to the check for each minute that we have to wait. 

If you’ve enjoyed this article you can find similar ones on the Skill Checks Page and can catch up with all my past thoughts on Third Edition Game Mechanics. As always, thank you for reading, Google pluses, commenting, sharing and linking to my articles. Hope to see you again when the next one comes out!