Tag: Dungeons and Dragons

Why Are We At This Table?

.Reading time 11 minutes.

I ran across this thread over on the /r/RPG board and it reignited some thoughts I’d been having on D&D when DMs ask how to engage their players at the table. Or more troubling when they have players who just don’t seem to care about the game itself, the story or their involvement. Like the thread I linked I’m sure this would mostly be considered an edge case that won’t apply to most RPG gaming groups. The part of the discussion that I want to address is I think the more important but less talked about portion: Player responsibility.

Anyone who has played D&D for any length of time can tell you that the list of responsibilities the Dungeon Masters have sometimes borders on the absurd. It can run the gamut of being a writer, amateur game designer, artist, sculptor, actor, referee, rules dictionary, god(s), judge, jury and everyone’s favorite, executioner. I’m sure there are more hats I’m forgetting but I think you probably get the idea. I know how this sounds coming from someone who is a DM but it does take a certain special kind of mentality to willingly take all of that on for no other reward than entertainment for you and a few friends. I’m also not writing this to bitch about how much work it is to be a DM, like I said it’s purely voluntary so the only person you have to blame for the work is yourself. The people who take up the mantle of DM or GM do it because they love it and no other reason is needed. What I think gets overlooked in all of this when it comes to discussions about why or how games can fall apart either because of bad DMs or bad players is the largely unspoken social contract between everyone at the table.

If you glanced through that thread up top I think you’ll immediately pick out a common theme regarding that DMs frustration, his players just don’t seem to care. About anything beyond as he said, “Checking the quest board for something to do.” He opines on several occasions that he just wants his players to get involved, to have goals and motivations to go out and do something in the world he has built. I think any DM can probably sympathize with that sentiment based on players they’ve had who don’t seem to really be invested in what is going on at the table, they just seem to be… there. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing either, passive players are definitely an archetype. They want to be there and participate in their own minimalist way, they’re happy to be swept along wherever the group or story takes them contributing where and when they feel up to it. I may never wish for a table full of those types but I certainly don’t mind having them join a game. Ultimately they are a neutral force at the table and occasionally a positive one but rarely are they a detriment or an outright obstacle to the other players or their DM.

The problem for our frustrated DM is in part I think an unwillingness by some of his players to live up to their end of the contract by being co-operative storytellers in a game like D&D. I’d liken it closely to reading a choose your own adventure book in so much as when you sit down and open up to that first page you have, for that moment, resolved to read it through till the end. For better or worse as a metaphor we DMs are that book, when you sit down at our table with your character you have resolved to see our story and your part in it through to whatever conclusion it comes to. If you don’t care to keep turning pages and instead just stay where you are then the experience grinds to a halt for everyone including your DM. You have choices to make along the way certainly, you can affect what path you take to get there, your chances at success and consequences for your failures but ultimately you are there to participate. If you don’t enjoy the book or its main plot points you can certainly choose to put it down and never pick it up again. If players at your table aren’t having fun then its in their and the rest of the groups best interest that they speak with their DM or just politely quit. Not every group, setting or character will be a good match and letting it fester will just ensure problems down the road. If you do stay then you share in the responsibility of finding avenues to invest yourself in the story and help it move forward. In the same vein DMs are also responsible for providing players those same opportunities to engage with a good story tying it together. Players can disagree about how they proceed but ultimately they must proceed, think of it like the improv comedy concept of, “Yes and…” or maybe more appropriately, “Yes, but…” if you wish to propose an alternative. If enough people at the table aren’t willing to play along then realistically the game will just end.

I will take just a moment here to acknowledge that I think the DM in that thread did make a few of his own mistakes when putting the group together by not catching these red flags to begin with but for now I’m giving him the benefit of the doubt. No one is perfect, in the end this whole debacle will be a learning experience for him and his players.

A lot of these issues can be ironed out prior to actually starting a game by having a discussion with your players about the kind of game they are hoping to participate in. The players described in the post do not seem to be purposefully malicious in their disinterest merely that they have decided individually or as a group to play without regard for the overall narrative. West Marches style games operate this way and maybe have been more their style, where it is essentially built upon the act of checking a bounty board and choosing a quest or just setting out into the wilderness to see what you find for an evening. There is very little or no narrative at all tying the separate sessions together, it’s just a way to hack ‘n slash your way through the dark places of the world for loot and experience. The responsibility of ironing out what kind of game the group is looking for does fall pretty squarely in the lap of the DM but once the players agree to sit at the table they shouldn’t need to be forced to take part in the game.

There is an old adage I think that fits well here, “You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink.”

Unless explicitly stated otherwise by players it’s pretty universally agreed that forcing your party to do the things you want them to do is bad form for a DM and will usually implode your game. In my view it is equally bad form as a player to sit at a table and then refuse to engage or even attempt to investigate any plot hooks that your DM lays out for you unless that was the agreement prior to starting. There are bad DMs out there just like players. This puts everyone in an awkward position as the DM may feel that they have no other choice but to railroad their players into the main plot or trick them by changing an unrelated side quest to intersect with their BBEG. Naturally if the players didn’t engage with the plot prior to this then there is little to no chance they’re going to be willing to do it now. In the end no one in this scenario is happy or having any fun.

Bottom line is that most if not all of these problems can be fixed by keeping open communication lines between players and DM. That reality however shouldn’t overshadow the fact that if you as player take a seat at the table you should make an effort to engage with the world that your DM has created for you.

Happy rolling!

  • Non-Washable

Dungeons, Dragons and, Beginnings

.Reading time 11 minutes.

Since I started this blog or overall the idea for writing anything its always been in the back of my mind to write about one of my all time favorite hobbies, D&D. Just today Gabe (Mike Krahulik) from Penny Arcade posted a write-up about his ten year anniversary since he was paid to play in his first session. Reading it over it brought back my own memories of following along in his journey as I was also at the time reacquainting myself with the hobby after a long hiatus. For people who were familiar with Mike and his feelings on D&D prior to this game we got what we mostly expected from that first episodes, he seemed to treat the whole thing largely as a joke via naming his character Jim Darkmagic, of the New Hampshire Darkmagics. Tycho (Jerry Holkins) and Scott Kurtz definitely approached their characters with a somewhat more serious attitude as they already had a long history with the game at this point. The difference in the approaches I think illustrates something important about the game itself wherein a variety of personalities and viewpoints can occupy the same table without it being an unplayable mess. Real life groups of friends or colleagues share this dynamic of conflicting but also complimentary views on life and how to approach it. I’ve often told my players when they are making their characters or deciding on their party’s overall goals that while keeping everything homogeneous might be easy it can also be somewhat boring. Personality conflicts can help characters grow and change over time as they come to understand the world from different viewpoints.

At roughly 26:45 in that first episode we reach the point where Mike rolls his first ever d20 in a tabletop roleplaying game and I have to say the results of it are one of my favorite things in all of the recorded D&D I have listened to since. They’re looking for an Orc they know only as “Irontooth” which is about as classic a first quest for D&D as you can get, which is great. On the stairs as they descend their DM Chris Perkins tells them that they are stepping on small animal bones to which Mike quips, “Maybe we should check to see if any of them have iron teeth.”. As a side tip for DMs pay close attention to how Chris handles this joke, instead of laughing and just letting them continue he turns it into a moment where he can introduce Mike to one of the subtle joys of this game by asking him for a perception check. After some back and forth Mike says the following:

“So I’m actually rolling because I said I wanted to look and see if they have iron teeth?”

Everyone confirms that is whats happening and he goes through the process of learning to do the math for the first time. Scott even points out what Chris did by turning Mike’s joke into a teachable moment as well which I deeply appreciated. As the dice gods are want to do they gifted Mike with an impressive 19 on his first roll modified to 20 with his perception. Mike then continues:

“Okay so what? I’m like able to look and see…”

Chris then explains what the result of the roll it,

“You’re able to take a look at the bones and you are able to see, you don’t see an iron tooth, but you’re pretty sure that these scattered bones were kinda left here deliberately and that they have been gnawed on. That something lives down here and it basically feeds on animals and scatters their bones on these stairs. And you also notice as you’re going down the stairs that you’re stepping on a few of them and making soft crunching noises.”

Jerry chimes in with his interpretation that it seems to be an alarm system of sorts for whatever lives down below. He then wants to roll his dungeoneering skill to see if his character can glean any additional information from their surroundings. His roll reveals that most likely the creatures who live here that are clever enough to make this type of alarm system are goblins. What follows is a Mike connecting the dots from how his offhand observation and joke led to them gaining some actually helpful intel on what they faced below.

Mike, “Okay so we saw the bones..

Jerry, “You saw the bones.”

Mike, “I saw the bones and I investigated them and was able to determine that they’re some sort of alarm, they crack when I walk on them. Then you (Jerry) were able to deduce what ate them.”

While its only voice and we can’t actually see the look on Mike’s face I have to imagine that it was at this point that he became actually interested in the game before him as something more than a reason to sit around with his friends for a couple hours. It reminded me so much of my fathers first interaction with the game years ago where at each step he would ask if he could do something and I told him, “You can do whatever you want to.” Each time he heard that there was a small blip of surprise when he wasn’t limited by some mechanical barrier or me just simply saying, “No.” Like every time he reached towards some preconceived barrier it would simply fall away revealing some new horizon to explore. Watching new players realize that the only limit to what they can do is their imagination is fascinating and rewarding every single time. Sure it leads to some ridiculous things like crazy acrobatics or attempting literally impossible feats but if not in D&D then where? What Mike learned in that moment is I think what eventually hooks people into playing at all beyond that first session, the sheer possibilities. From then on everything he did he knew had consequences, good and bad, which instantly makes the things you do matter. The worst thing a game can do when one of its central pillars is freedom of choice is make you feel like the things you say and do ultimately don’t matter. From the smallest character quirk up to life and death decisions, all of it can significantly affect and inform you and your characters journey through an adventure.

Its hard to quantify exactly why D&D has exploded so incredibly in popularity over the last decade especially after its tumultuous early life with controversy. What Mike experienced in that moment though I think is an important example of at least one of the major reasons. The depth of a given experience can be as important as the overall quality or uniqueness of it. Movies and books allow us to experience other places and events through the imagination and prose of their creators. Choose Your Own Adventure books and text based games like Zork took the concept and added the depth of interactivity where beyond interpretation your experience could also be distinct from someone else. Video games have done the same thing for visual mediums by placing you the player as the central actor and narrative driving force in a story that reacts and chances to the things you do within it. The limitations of both mediums are apparently even though they are slowly being done away with. The surprising thing is that some 47 years ago a game was created which did all of the above with little more than a pencil, some paper, a handful dice and a combined 112 pages describing how to use them.

I was watching Moneyball the other day and Brad Pitt’s character Billy Beane had a line after watching tape of an unlikely minor league player hitting a home run, “How can you not be romantic about baseball?” I’m not a huge fan of baseball but I still love that and several other movies about the sport. In the end I can’t help but agree with Billy. Looking at the breadth of experiences, joy and creativity that D&D has provided over nearly five decades, even if you aren’t a fan or just don’t actively participate, I ask, how can you not be romantic about it?

  • Non-Washable

Stay a While and Listen…

.Reading time 19 minutes.

I’m working on a post right now about some of the various issues facing the gaming industry, naturally the first one is going to be talking about lootboxes. The conclusion I come to I don’t think will surprise anyone nor do I think most gamers would really disagree with it but it’s always nice to get your thoughts down somewhere to make room for stuff like a gif I saw yesterday of a phallus shaped paper rocket. I know most people are probably sick of hearing about it but unfortunately it’s going to keep coming up until we find a reasonable solution where the customers get their way.

At any rate what I wanted to talk about today was a phone call that I got today from my brother in law who a couple weeks back asked me if I played D&D. I laughed before I even thought about it, not because the question was dumb or even unreasonable but because it continually fascinates me when it gets asked because it’s so so different from when I was a kid. That was a question you really only asked good friends or people you literally witnessed playing the game because you knew for sure what the answer was. If you asked the wrong people it usually led to endless ridicule especially if you weren’t leaving that school for a year or more so you could have some different classmates. We didn’t advertise our love for computers, video games and, things like roleplaying back then. It and we were not what you would call classically popular. Of course as we grew up it became easier because we cared less what people thought and we had some friends and friends of friends who we knew it was safe to discuss our nerdy pursuits with. We played Magic: The Gathering after school in the lunch room and even if we were bothered we just shrugged it off and went back to having fun. Occasionally people who weren’t part of our group would sit and watch, sometimes they’d play if we asked them to join but that was as close as we ever really got to “acceptance”.

I’ve played D&D on and off since middle school along with a few other weird systems we picked up along the way. I did fall out of it for a while around the time 3.5 was in full swing and spent some time playing the Star Wars RPG. I only got back into D&D around the time 4th edition came out because I was working at a bookstore so when I started putting those out for sale I couldn’t help but flip through the pages admiring the art which then lead to reading. That of course turned into me reading them on break and then buying them shortly after; this was the first time that I had any inclination that the world had changed a little. After i’d bought them I sat back in our break room reading through the Dungeon Masters Guide when a fellow co-worker walked by and then peeked back in to stare at what I was doing. He was roughly ten years older than I was and by all accounts a good guy but never in a million years would I have pegged him for someone who spent his free time scouring dungeons and killing goblins. He asked if I played and I confessed I hadn’t for quite a while but this new edition had kind of sparked my interest again. He sat down and we started talking about the new game and then quickly transitioned into swapping stories about old and now forgotten campaign escapades then he hit me with the real surprise of my day. He still played. He and his friends still had a weekly or semi-weekly game that they had been playing in for over five years. I couldn’t believe it since we had worked together for almost two years at that point and somehow it had never come up but after that interaction we soon found out we shared a lot of similar geeky pursuits including a passion for video games. The first 3DS I ever played was one he picked up on release with a copy of Pilotwings and Street Fighter, if I remember right. Nearly every day from then on we talked D&D and it seemed to just cascade throughout the store as we found out several more of our co-workers including an ex-Marine also played. A few of them hadn’t played in a decade or more but had always wanted to get back into it if they could find a regular group. Suffice it to say before long we had people together that we could play with although no one had ever been a Dungeon Master before besides me. I had wanted to play a character but as a lot of DMs out there know sometimes if you want to play you have to be the one to run the game. It’s extremely rewarding to run a campaign with a good group so it’s not a complaint just more of a reality we as a community struggle with. I wrote up a fairly basic adventure to get us started and we got together as often as we could re-learning as we went and it was exactly like being home again, the rules may have been different but the feeling was the same. As is bound to happen with D&D as adults eventually our schedule conflicts got to the point that playing regularly became nearly impossible and eventually we stopped. From that seed though grew several other temporary groups including an ill-advised attempt to run a game of 7-9 people most of whom were new, I should have known better but it was just so amazing at the time to have that much interest in a hobby I’d only recently rediscovered. That massive game lasted through half a year and eventually it was so hard to get everyone together at once we gave it up, while it was disappointing to stop it was fantastic that we’d even gotten that far in the first place.

More groups came and went and eventually I started to hear that people who were only tangentially related with those games had started playing or running their own outside of it which in itself was great to hear. I was back in and consuming every bit of D&D news I could find when eventually rumors of a new edition started making the rounds and soon we found out that D&D Next was on it’s way to being tested and released. In the interim though I had begun to find out that while I had been away D&D had started coming back with a real vengeance including a new thing I hadn’t seen before, D&D Podcasts. In 2008 WoTC partnered with Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik from Penny Arcade to make a series of podcasts that started in 4e and the show still continues even today. It even spun off a franchise show called The “C” Team. While it was difficult for me to put together a steady 4e group these podcasts and others did the job of scratching my itch to play. During this time my girlfriend and I put together a weekly board game group with a few close friends and that has been a fairly regular thing for going on at least five years however I have a sneaking suspicion that I’m low-balling that by a bit. At some point during all this I finally managed to convince my girlfriend that she might like being a Dungeon Master so she set out to write up a one shot for our weekly group. It actually ended up lasting several sessions because we like to take our time but it was incredibly fun and she did a masterful job designing our characters. We were given our character sheets and a folded letter we were to read before starting to play which described a few relevant details about our relationship to the other party members including a secret or two. I was given the pleasure of revealing at the end of the one-shot that one of our fellow party members who had taken a shine to my character was actually my daughter. Suffice it to say we all had great laugh over that when it was finally brought into the open.

I won’t bore you with the entire interlude of what we did before finally putting together a regular group that could meet bi-weekly but I can promise you that D&D was never not on my mind in some fashion or another. One of my best friends who is a regular in my current campaign also wanted to try his hand running a game of his own with us as his guinea pigs and we were happy to oblige, me especially when he told me he wanted to run a game of Dark Heresy. I was immediately into it while the rest of the unwitting victims at our weekly board-game night had no idea what they had just agreed to but it was Sci-fi and that was enough to pique their interest. Once we explained what it was it was decided that we were going to have to get them all up to speed on this universe and it’s lore. A couple weeks later we both compiled a stack of notes and with the liberal application of some alcohol we taught a class on the universe of Warhammer 40,000 to prep them for a future where there was only war. They were good sports and asked a bunch of insightful and relevant questions during the couple hours we were there and at the end everyone was excited to give it a shot. That campaign lasted for a fantastic half a year until it got interrupted by life and responsibility. We’ve meant to get back to it ever since and yesterday I think we finally managed to talk our GM into picking it back up or he convinced us, either way in the end it was mutual.

In the midst of all of this several of our friends have taken to running one shots of their own for family and friends or participated in our occasional games. Once 5e came out I began looking around again for a regular group to run with and for the past year or more we’ve had a weekly/bi-weekly game of D&D which I have enjoyed immensely. Not the least bit as a result of the fact that one of my players is my father who I think has read more fantasy fiction than anyone I’ve ever met in my entire life. When I finally had the thought to ask him I felt like such an idiot for not having considered it before that moment which brings me back to where I started with all of this. He didn’t need any convincing and said yes immediately to giving it a try. Thus far through all of the myriad tries to get regular games going he’s been one of the few where absolutely no cajoling was required. Currently he plays a Dwarven Alchemist Entrepreneur who is in the process of setting up his own shop in a town that the group played an important part in saving early on in their campaign. He also found a Rust Colored Bag of Tricks which he’s used to great effect so far in spite of the fact that the two goats he has a chance of pulling are either of the fainting or screaming variety. He also inquired as to whether or not they remember what happens to them each time they are pulled from the bag, I hadn’t considered it myself but you can safely assume it’s come up since then.

Anyways, not to get too far off on a tangent lets wrap this up. In all my years of being involved in D&D simultaneously the most and least surprising thing was my fathers willingness to play this silly game with my friends and I.  At this point I don’t think theres a single one of my siblings that hasn’t played or doesn’t currently play and I’ve gotten questions about the game from friends of theirs who want to learn but need some direction on where to start. That call from my brother in law got me thinking again about the sort of surreal feeling that I get when I look around at the tabletop roleplaying community and realize what a truly special phenomenon it really is. The game itself is nearly without barriers that appeals to seemingly anyone with some spare time and a willingness to escape into a co-operative fantasy for a few hours. What’s more is that we as a community have somehow kept that eagerness to share it with anyone who even shows the slightest hint of interest and I hope that’s something we never lose.

In the end if you’re thinking about playing or asking people if they’d be interested in playing then i’d encourage you to take that leap because you never know just who might be waiting for an invitation or who may not even know they want one. Barring that check out the event schedule for your local game store and see if they host an Adventurers League, those are a fantastic way to dip your toes in and see what the fuss is all about. And if the only thing thats keeping you from playing is not having a DM then I’d also encourage you to give it a shot. I wont lie and say that it’s easy or that you’re guaranteed to love it but if you do end up enjoying it I can promise that you and your players will create some of your best memories around that table.

If you stuck around to the end, good job! That’ll be 100xp and whatever is in the chest over there. Roll a percentile die and I’ll get back to you with what you find. Until then I hope you had a fantastic weekend and I’ll be back soon.

  • Non-Washable