Switching Browsers Because Chrome is Making Me Want to Hurt Myself

This afternoon I went looking for a new browser to use for my searching because Chrome is shit. Don't get me wrong; it used to be good. But lately it's been the one that blows up my RAM. Firefox sucks too. So after reading a shit ton of reviews I decided to go with Vivaldi. Pretty happy with it so far. The performance is solid and I'm not stuck with some DRM fucking with my shit.

I totally just used to abbreviations in my post without telling you what they were first. Aren't you proud?

No.

Fine.

Cancellation, Stagnation, Hell

Today I was going to play Dungeons & Dragons with some friends I haven't been able to see in too long. I say was because this morning I woke up at about 2:30 with acid reflux. Now normally I don't have this shit because I'm on a medicine that takes care of that shit. Like, my acid is normally locked the fuck down.

Last night, not so much.

So I wake up choking on fucking acid. I thought I could stop it with a bit of milk but instead I just started throwing up like crazy. Tore up my throat to the point where I could barely talk all day and had to cancel D&D. Fuck. this. day.

Somebody tell me something cool.

Campaign Titles My Wife Says I'm Not Allowed to Use

I tend to make up titles for my Dungeons & Dragons campaigns and like my blog they tend to be things that amuse me even if no one else gets the joke. Most of the time my wife doesn't look at the title and just plays. Then there are times when I run the titles I'm thinking about using across her. These are some of the ones she told me I'm not allowed to use (HA! Jokes on her. I've already used all of them!)

1.  Dickbags of the Underdark
2.  Murder Nights in Bangkok
3.  Grumbling Dwarves, Bloody Orks
4.  Mordenkainen and Two Hot Mummies
5.  You Should Have Stayed at the Inn
6.  Saving Dragons, One Kiss at a Time
7.  The Forgotten God Farts in the Dark
8.  Waiting for Bigby's Gently Caressing Hand
9.  The No Killing Club (Which None of You are Invited to Join)
10. Gnomes Gone Wild!!!!
11. Three Moons over Solace
12. Dragons and Kinder
13. I Make the Best Caverns. Everyone Knows.
14. The Damned Game
15. Three Brothers, a Gnome, and a Goat
16. One Hundred Years Chasing a God Damned Pixie and Not Doing a Fucking Thing
17. The Adventures of Three Chodes
18. You're All Criminals to Me
19. Wonderland is Kind of a Dump
20. The Barbarian's Fury
21. I Paid $49.95 for this Fucking Book the Least You Can Do is Follow the God-Damned Hook
22. Monte Cook Wrote This Shit
23. I'm Not Sure this is How Hentai Works!
24. To the Burnt Out Hovel!
25. Voodoo is Real

You Want Me to Think About How the Orc Feels Before I Kill Him? What Are You? A Pervert?

title unknown by Richard M. Powers

The other day I was reading reddit, as you do, when I ran across a thread that got my attention: Killing people is hard, but not in RPGs. The basic premise of the opening poster is that in life it's incredibly hard to kill people because reality is a complex bastard and that we should transpose this moral complexity over to our role-playing games and find a way to reflect that difficulty in how we play. 

This insistence on playing in a world of complex morality, where every decision should matter morally to me as a player has never appealed to me. Our real world is filled with that complexity and I deal with it every day so why should I deal with it in my game world too?

I don't and I won't. 

The real world that I live in is filled with moral complexity and I don't need to imagine what it feels like to deal with the fallout from terrible people doing terrible things and trying to keep my family safe with murderers, thieves, drug addicts, and criminals of all sorts living around me. I don't need to wonder how I would feel if I have to deal with rape survivors, the families of murder victims, or what it feels like to be robbed. I know all of those things too well and have no interest in replaying them in my games.

 

No, I would rather play in game worlds where things are morally simple. There are firm lines in what is good, and what is evil. We kill orcs because they would kill us, our families, and everyone we know or could ever hope to know. Why? Because they're evil. We don't worry about the moral repercussions of our actions because they're evil and fuck them. Role-playing games can be that simple, and for me they will be because I live with the complexity that some try to emulate every day. 

Using Morale in Dungeons & Dragons Without Bringing Dice Into It.

Since I first began running Dungeons & Dragons back in '04 I've had this notion that I like Morale rules in my games. I say notion because I've never actually read what the real Morale rules were in AD&D 2e but my beloved Monster Compendium showed what the morale for monsters were and so I wanted to use the damned thing. Only thing was I didn't have access to an AD&D 2e Dungeon Master Guide so I never actually read a solid explanation for the rule so playing with it was a bit of a hit or miss affair. After a while it simply went missing from my games altogether.

Last night, though, I was reading through a copy of the Sword Lords of the Eastern Regions that was given to me when I read this passage:

". . . USING THE UNIT MORALE CHART: Use this chart when a unit's morale is called for, such as facing up to a Demon. If the roll is missed on one die, the unit must withdraw from the action for one turn at half movement, and then check again. The facing of the unit is up to the player whose unit is affected. If the morale save is made, the unit will obey battle orders . . ." (Becker, 27)

It struck a cord and got me to thinking again about using a Morale Rule in my Dungeons & Dragons game - only this time I'm going to actually look up what the rule meant in AD&D 2e instead of just making it all up on the fly. So let's look at the explanation that David "Zeb" Cook wrote in 1993 edition.

". . . Monsters and NPCs are an entirely different matter . . . The DM makes their decisions, trying to think like each creature or non-player character, in turn. 

In combat, thinking like a creature mainly means deciding what actions it takes and how badly it wants to fight - the morale of the creature. 

As a general rule, monsters and NPCs are no more eager to die than player characters. Most withdraw when a fight starts to go badly. Some panic and flee, even casting their weapons aside. If they think they can get mercy, brighter foes might fall to their knees and surrender. A few bloodthirsty or brainless types might fight to the death - but this doesn't happen too often. These are the things that make up morale, things the DM must decide, either through role-playing or dice rolling . . ." (Cook, 69)

I really wish that I had read this passage from the AD&D 2e Dungeon Master Guide years ago because the line ". . . most withdraw when a fight starts to go badly . . ." is something that I could have used earlier to dramatically improve my games. Even with my bastardized morale rule too often I found myself pushing the monsters to stay in the fight until every last one of them had fought to the death. While that can be interesting on occasion having monsters run from the players can create its own sort of drama as the players can gain a real reputation in the world that feels more authentic.

Jeff Easley title unkown

It's also interesting that with the morale rule it seems that there are degrees of failure for the monsters and non-player characters that your players encounter in the world. Are there degrees of success as well?

Zeb continues:

". . . The first (and best) way to handle morale is to determine it without rolling any dice or consulting any tables. This gives the biggest range of choices an prevents illogical things from happening . . . To decide what a creature does, think about its goals and reasons for fighting . . ." (Cook, 69)

As I've been reading more of AD&D 2e in recent weeks I've noticed that there is a decided trend among the writers that as a Dungeon Master you should think about your monsters' and non-player characters' motivations behind what they're doing. This aspect of the game wasn't missing from my beloved D&D 3.5e but it wasn't as pronounced and as a result for a long time I didn't consider such things. Instead I tended to look at the Challenge Rating chart and pick monsters to throw at my players based on what lined up with their level. That was a mistake and it made my game less interesting as a result.

With that in mind let's talk about unintelligent creatures for a minute. Zeb writes:

". . . Unintelligent and animal intelligence creatures attack, most often for food or to protect their lairs. Few ever attack for the sheer joy of killing . . . A mountain lion, for example, doesn't hunt humans (as a rule) and doesn't stalk and attack humans as it would a deer . . . Such creatures normally allow a party of adventurers to pass by unhindered, without even revealing themselves. Only when the creature is close to the lair does the chance of attack increase . . . When they do become involved in combat, animals and other creatures rarely fight to the death . . . Their interest is in food . . ." (Cook, 69)

I find it interesting that while I have often had trouble remembering to get monsters to flee I almost never experience the same issue with wild animals. The difference tends to be that I am around animals both wild and domestic regularly so I've internalized their habits; while monsters, to my mind, tend to be nothing more than imaginary creatures bent on destroying the civilized world of man and demi-human alike. Even though I know what the monsters are doing in my game world and why they're doing it, it's rare that I've treated my monstrous encounters with the sort of complicated motivations that they deserve. Reading Cook's discussion of morale I can't help but feel he would be slightly disappointed in my handling of the monsters.

". . . Intelligent Creatures have more complicated motivations than the need for food and shelter . . . Greed, hatred, fear, self-defense, and hunger are all motivations, but they are not all worth dying for . . . As a guideline for intelligent creature and NPC motivation, consider the actions of the player characters. How often do they fight to the death? Why would they? At what point do they usually retreat . . ." (Cook, 69)

And here comes a point where I begin to understand why I might have simplified monsters' motivations. My players almost never retreat. Not once in the 13 years that I've been running have I had a group that fell back (though I have been a part of two groups who fell back as a player). Typically my players fight to the death every time the enter into an encounter. This begs the question, though: do they determine their notion on how to handle a fight from the way that my monsters interact with them, or do I take my lead from them?

I think that I will have to put Zeb's ideas into action to tell.

More later.


Works Cited
Becker, Michael, Keith Elliott an Wilfredo Aguilar. Sword Lords of the Eastern Regions. Archive Miniatures & Game Systems. 1981. Print. pg 27

Cook, David "Zeb." Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd Edition Dungeon Master Guide. Random House. USA, 1993. pg 69 - 72,

Black Mountain Burns, Part 2

Tuesday

I drove up to the Weekday Hotel where Tut was working nights and parked under the only light that worked in the parking lot ten minutes shy of eight o'clock only to find that the rest of the crew had already taken a lurking position in a darkened corner next to the pool. As I walked over to them I counted shadows and the flashes of light from cigarettes. Am I the last one to show, I asked, or are there more coming?

Step took my hand and shook it as he said, "Fucking World's Greatest Liar checked out on us, man."

That's no loss, I said as I looked towards the golden lights coming from the lobby door. We really playing in the Weekday Hotel? I thought Tut liked his job.

"He did," Icarus said, "but word just came down from the Home Office: they're closing at the end of the month."

Shit, that's a bad break. Is he going to be okay?

"Yeah," Biggboy's gravelly voice answered, "we already got him a job with my Uncle over in the Orchard."

"What's he going to be doing," Poot asked.

"I reckon my Uncle's going to be having him run the relay desk, sending the drivers out," Biggboy said.

Could be worse, I said as I watched Neverwas walking into the lobby. Now what's that fucker doing here?

"Ringer?" Step said as he lit another menthol.

"I invited him," Icarus said as we all turned to stare at him. "What? The World's Greatest Liar ducked out when he heard who was joining the table and we needed someone to cover his slot."

Has he stopped being a fucking martyr or are we going to have to watch his characters throughout this whole thing?

"No," the Master Planner said, "he's still God's only martyr and we'll have to watch him try to kill his character all night."

Fuck. Anyone want to end that early or should we let it play out?

"Let it play out," Poot said, "we'll just have to make it work for us."

Your call, I said as I raised my hands in the air. Anything else we need to worry about in this thing tonight. Any unwritten rules we need to be aware of? 

"Yeah, Ganymede's Prison is his baby so watch for him to be super protective of it," Poot said.

"That's if he actually let's us play in the damned thing," Icarus added. "He's been telling us about it for six months."

Cool. So we got a plan for tonight or are we just winging it?

"Yeah," Icarus said, "Step is raising us from the dead and She'rah is going to be recruiting you guys to help us stop Count Gambino from destroying Erfurt."

Gambino?

She'rah shrugged, "He likes Childish Gambino."

Fair enough.

"So what does the party need," the Master Planner asked as he ground his cigarette into the ashtray.

"Fighters and clerics," She'rah said. "We got our asses handed to us because we were heavy on magic but only had Poot for muscle."

"Fuck fighters," Biggboy said as he started walking towards the door, "they're just a bunch of whiny bitches hiding behind armor. Barbarians or get the fuck out."

Time to go in kids, I said following Biggboy's lead.

"Wait," She'rah said as she raced up beside me, "what are you and the Master Planner going to be playing?"

Master Planner?

"Ranger," he said with a wink. "I'm thinking it's time to renew an old rivalry."

Fighter it is then.

"So none of you are going to play a cleric," she said exasperated with us. "You just asked what we needed."

We've already got a cleric, I said as I opened the door for her.

"Oh," She'rah said as she gave me a look, "and just who the fuck is playing a cleric?"

"I am," Neverwas said behind her.

Called it.

Tut stood up from behind his counter as we entered and I was taken back again by the sheer size of the man. He stood nearly a head taller than me and yet he stooped his shoulders so far forward that we practically looked each other in the eye. "What did you call," he asked.

That Neverwas would be the cleric, I said as I took my seat. So how are we doing things tonight?

"Your call," Tut said as he took his seat. "I was going to run my Ganymede Prison adventure but since I've never played with you guys I thought it might be unfair to just jump into it."

"Unfair," Biggboy grumbled as he searched for a rogue d20 that had escaped under the table, "unfair for who? You? Or us?"

"Both," Tut said, "I haven't played with you guys before and I want to keep things right."

The Master Planner hit my leg, "That settles things as far as I'm concerned."

Oh? How we playing this?

"I'm Jim-Jim Wallace," he said as he pulled out his vape pipe, "My friends call me Jim-Jim. Anyway, I'm here with my family looking for a bit mischief in the form of treasure hunting."

Step smiled as he said, "Funny, I just remember that my rogue Alice's last name was Wallace. Seems I've just gotten back from a bad dungeon raid and am looking for some serious, family, backup."

"Well you've found it, little sister," Biggboy said with a little fake laugh he liked to use. "Cause your brothers Jim-Jim and Tiny Jim have just come into town looking for their favorite sister."

"I fucking hate when you guys pull this 'Jim' shit," Neverwas said as he snapped his Player's Handbook closed. 

"What's wrong with the 'Jim' stuff," Tut asked.

"It's there way of signalling that they're going to be fucking murder-hobos," Neverwas said in disgust.

"Oh," Tut said as he looked at Biggboy, Master Planner, and Step. "So what's your character's name, Neverwas."

"I'm glad you asked," He said with a huge grin, "I'm playing Timothy the Pious, devout cleric of Pelor and opponent of evil in all it's shapes and forms."

Tut's mouth hung open for a moment as everyone started first at Neverwas and then at him. If they hadn't looked away from Neverwas they would have seen him wink at Tut as he sat back in his seat. I saw it. I never look away.

"So what's your character's name," Tut said as he looked at me.

Jim Wallace. And I'm here to check on my kin folk. I certainly hope they're all alright or there will be Hell to pay for those responsible.

"I feel like this is going to go well," Tut said as he looked at Poot.

Well, I'm Just Left Clutching My Monstrous Boobies in Outrage!

A couple of weeks ago Kotaku published an article, Dungeons & Dragons’ Gradual Shift Away From Monster Boobs, that heralded the end of the naked, monstrous bosom. The article was re-tweeted by several members of the Wizards of the Coast design team and I noticed that a few of the people in my twitter feed were excited that there would be no naked breasts shown in the new edition. And it honestly read like these were the same sort of people who checked out art books from local libraries so they could take black magic markers and draw censor lines over all the naked breasts, crotches, and dongs.

I've never understood the people in this life who think that nudity is such a terrible thing that it must be censored from our lives at all times. No tits; no dicks. Then they want to tell you all about how open minded they are and how they're fighting for the rest of us when they restrict what we can view, create, and enjoy. 

Now I've got to get back to my paperwork so her's an awesome gif that makes me happy.

Update 1/17/2017 5:36 AM EST

Over on the Google Plus side of things +Gus L made a good point that I'd like to add over here so that it doesn't get lost.

"I think all they're suggesting is A) Sexy monsters will try to be sexy to people besides straight teen boys. B) Not all female monsters will be sexy or sexy in the same sort of Franzetta way that they were in the 1e Monster manual. C) D&D doesn't show nekkid boobs (or boob-like nipple free domes) anymore - presumably for the children and to head off the next satanic panic.  

I mean that's nothing to freak out about. Sounds a lot like the inclusivity bit in the 5e starter set - which to me seems pretty reasonable. Table top has always been a haven for folks that feel a bit outcast from the everyday world - and these days folks are starting to recognize that's a lot of people besides white teenage straight boys whose souls are melting form the conformity of the Mid-Western suburb." 

https://plus.google.com/115126071910531256568/posts/i5PyHhvdi85

I've Noticed an Odd Bug with Google+ and the Blog

This morning I was looking at a few of the posts I've shared since the new year and I noticed that the +1s don't match what I'm seeing on Google+. I'm sure that this is probably an old problem but has anyone else noticed this issue? 

Does anyone else care?

An Apology to All the People Who Have Tried to Contact Me in the Last Year (or so)

During the last year I've really fucked up in the whole keeping lines of communication open on the blog. I mean not only did I not update often but I also kind of stopped reading my e-mails and then when the link on the contact form stopped working I didn't notice until Friday night, of this year. So if you've contacted me during this last year and I didn't respond, I'm sorry. I checked out hardcore this last year and I shouldn't have but I did. Please forgive me for not responding when you asked me to review your stuff, add you to things, or just to do you the solid and let you know I was okay. 

I'll do better this year.

All I Wanted Was to Hit the Road with Some Friends and Murder the Hell Out of Monsters!

Last night I got an email from a reader who wanted me to discuss an older Tor article, A Modest Proposal For Increased Diversity in D&D, about diversity in the art of Dungeons & Dragons. For those of you that haven't clicked the link yet allow me to save you the tedium and aggravation of reading a guy excusing himself for being white, male, and calling for diversity to cut to the chase. The author of the article, Mordicai Knode, wants to have people who aren't white in the core books and not just in the oriental supplements. 

I'm in support that sort of thing. Having lots of people of different ethnicities beating the hell out of orcs and goblins; shitting down the throats of giants and slitting the scrots of ogres pleases me to no end. Of course I don't really give a shit whether the characters my players are playing are black, gay, or trans-gendered.  In my games we're not out to explore those themes; here we're all about killing some fucking monsters and looting the treasure so we can by better shit to kill more monsters with in the next dungeon.

I know that some of my readers would like for me to look at the game in a deeper way - one in which I force my players to confront their own feelings about race, sexuality, and gender - but that isn't what my players come to my table to explore. My players like combat, exploration of lost tombs, dungeons, and underground caverns. They like learning bits of lore and building a world together through our shared story where I set up the playground and they build marvelous stories through their choices. But hey, if your players would rather sit around a fire imagining what it's like to be hated because of their skin color have fun with that . . . I guess. 

Judge of Ages by John Harris

We'll be over here. Killing dragons on our floating island in the sky. And orcs, lots of orcs. And looting anything not nailed down. Strike that, the girls remembered their crowbars and sledgehammers! So we're looting everything!