There's the scene in Interview with a Vampire (and I'm thinking the film here) where Louis has become terrible hungry and so he goes down to a part of town where lots of people are sick so he can have a bite out. The why of the scene is less what I'm getting at than the visual of the shanties huddled close to one another each with huge X's on the doors to warn others that this is a house that disease has touched. I feel like I should be putting an X up on our doors. I wonder what Peoria would look like if we had to mark the spread of the flu this season. It's been pretty bad. When there is snow on the ground we're supposed to clear a path for the postal carrier, but being as sick as we are neither Carson or I have felt well enough to do more than just the basic housekeeping (shoveling snow falls outside of that list).
I usually am able to muster through times of sickness with little or no consequence, but this year I have been knocked squarely on my butt. Carson and I have been little petri dishes -- microbial wonderlands. We've managed to pick up and share whatever is going on here. I still have a cough and the remnants of one of the worst ear infections I can remember.
All I can say is, buy Walgreen's stock...I alone have boosted their profits for this quarter.
Wednesday, March 5, 2008
DMing the Bible: Languages Known
Introduction:
The story of the tower of Babel occupies just a few verses in chapter 11 of Genesis; which is pretty short when compared to the Noah saga we just finished with or the story of Joseph which is practically a novella. However when people think back about the Hebrew Scriptures I would be surprised if this story wasn't on most people's lists. There is something cinematic about the whole thing, and that visual component helps it stay in our memories. In this DMing the Bible we'll take a look at this puzzling story, talk some about PC's, NPC's and languages known, and make a few suggestions on using language as a plot device.
The Text:
For years, Christian scholars working with this text were content with the same interpretation you would find in children's Sunday School material. In this interpretation, the people of the world get together to make a tower to reach into heaven. God, looking on, becomes threatened by humanity's creativity and ensures that people will have trouble speaking with each other. The conclusions drawn from the story suggest that the people's sin was hubris.
This surface reading presents some problems, however. If, as I asserted earlier, God created humanity as creative, striking people done for being what they are, what they were created to be, is monstrous. This is not the only interpretation available so let's for a moment consider one that was offered in part by Josephus, a first century Jewish apologist. It suggest that humanity was created for diversity and that the sin of Babel (if there was one) was the stifling of diversity. This would mean that the scattering of the people was not punishment as much it was the opening of new opportunity for growth.
Chapter 11 opens with all of humanity living in the same place sharing one language and one vocabulary. The repeats of the word "one" emphasizes the homogeneity present in the human community. Fearing being spread all over the earth, the people get together and build a city with a tower. The tower is not the emphasis of the project -- the phrase city and tower was used in the Hebrew Scriptures to describe a certain kind of settlement. In verse 5 God arrives and sees what's going on. Verse 6 contains what can only described as an aside. But how should it be translated -- if the people are not in open rebellion against God and God is not threatened by humanity's creative abilities, is not the typical translation ("And the Lord said, 'Look, they are one people, and they have all one language; and this is only the beginning of what they will do; nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them.'") lacking? A better reading is, "And Yahweh said, 'From what they have accomplished already, it looks like their plans to remain one people with one language in one place will succeed." (Hiebert, T. JBL 126 no 1, p 45) This translation has an almost regretful note and suggests that humanity being all the same is less that what we were intended to be.
Now God takes action. God mixes up their language so that people have lots of differences. The people form little groups of different people speaking different languages and living in different places all over the face of the earth. God's commandment to be fruitful and multiply can be carried out; as Azeem answered the little girl in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves "Because Allah loves wondrous variety."
The Game:
In D&D language is based in a character's intelligence as much as it is based in the culture from whence the character came. "All characters know how to speak Common. A dwarf, elf, gnome, half-elf, half-orc, or halfling also speaks a racial language, as appropriate. A smart character (one who had an Intelligence bonus at 1st level) speaks other languages as well, one extra language per point of Intelligence bonus as a starting character." (PHB p12). The existence of Common is super handy for players and DM. The party never needs to worry about walking into a village where absolutely nobody understands them. The DM never need fear not landing an important message or plot point for want of a translator. Many PCs have at least one bonus point in INT (probably for no other reason than because it influences skill points); for non-human PC's this means at least three languages. Languages known, I think, is one of the most "min/maxed" aspects of character creation. Rather than referring to their back-stories players try and consolidate power in the party trying to cover common monster language groups and provide a language that the party can converse in other than common.
It all makes me think of that song by the Refreshments, "Banditos." In the refrain one of the characters tells the border guard that he is Jean Luc Picard of the United Federation of Planets. I had thought for years that the next line was "they speak English everywhere" rather than "he won't speak English anyway." Sure the universal translator was nice, but some of my favorite episodes were the ones when, for what ever reason, the translator wasn't working. So here are some suggestions for using language in play:
The story of the tower of Babel occupies just a few verses in chapter 11 of Genesis; which is pretty short when compared to the Noah saga we just finished with or the story of Joseph which is practically a novella. However when people think back about the Hebrew Scriptures I would be surprised if this story wasn't on most people's lists. There is something cinematic about the whole thing, and that visual component helps it stay in our memories. In this DMing the Bible we'll take a look at this puzzling story, talk some about PC's, NPC's and languages known, and make a few suggestions on using language as a plot device.
The Text:
For years, Christian scholars working with this text were content with the same interpretation you would find in children's Sunday School material. In this interpretation, the people of the world get together to make a tower to reach into heaven. God, looking on, becomes threatened by humanity's creativity and ensures that people will have trouble speaking with each other. The conclusions drawn from the story suggest that the people's sin was hubris.
This surface reading presents some problems, however. If, as I asserted earlier, God created humanity as creative, striking people done for being what they are, what they were created to be, is monstrous. This is not the only interpretation available so let's for a moment consider one that was offered in part by Josephus, a first century Jewish apologist. It suggest that humanity was created for diversity and that the sin of Babel (if there was one) was the stifling of diversity. This would mean that the scattering of the people was not punishment as much it was the opening of new opportunity for growth.
Chapter 11 opens with all of humanity living in the same place sharing one language and one vocabulary. The repeats of the word "one" emphasizes the homogeneity present in the human community. Fearing being spread all over the earth, the people get together and build a city with a tower. The tower is not the emphasis of the project -- the phrase city and tower was used in the Hebrew Scriptures to describe a certain kind of settlement. In verse 5 God arrives and sees what's going on. Verse 6 contains what can only described as an aside. But how should it be translated -- if the people are not in open rebellion against God and God is not threatened by humanity's creative abilities, is not the typical translation ("And the Lord said, 'Look, they are one people, and they have all one language; and this is only the beginning of what they will do; nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them.'") lacking? A better reading is, "And Yahweh said, 'From what they have accomplished already, it looks like their plans to remain one people with one language in one place will succeed." (Hiebert, T. JBL 126 no 1, p 45) This translation has an almost regretful note and suggests that humanity being all the same is less that what we were intended to be.
Now God takes action. God mixes up their language so that people have lots of differences. The people form little groups of different people speaking different languages and living in different places all over the face of the earth. God's commandment to be fruitful and multiply can be carried out; as Azeem answered the little girl in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves "Because Allah loves wondrous variety."
The Game:
In D&D language is based in a character's intelligence as much as it is based in the culture from whence the character came. "All characters know how to speak Common. A dwarf, elf, gnome, half-elf, half-orc, or halfling also speaks a racial language, as appropriate. A smart character (one who had an Intelligence bonus at 1st level) speaks other languages as well, one extra language per point of Intelligence bonus as a starting character." (PHB p12). The existence of Common is super handy for players and DM. The party never needs to worry about walking into a village where absolutely nobody understands them. The DM never need fear not landing an important message or plot point for want of a translator. Many PCs have at least one bonus point in INT (probably for no other reason than because it influences skill points); for non-human PC's this means at least three languages. Languages known, I think, is one of the most "min/maxed" aspects of character creation. Rather than referring to their back-stories players try and consolidate power in the party trying to cover common monster language groups and provide a language that the party can converse in other than common.
It all makes me think of that song by the Refreshments, "Banditos." In the refrain one of the characters tells the border guard that he is Jean Luc Picard of the United Federation of Planets. I had thought for years that the next line was "they speak English everywhere" rather than "he won't speak English anyway." Sure the universal translator was nice, but some of my favorite episodes were the ones when, for what ever reason, the translator wasn't working. So here are some suggestions for using language in play:
- Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra: Why not use some of the interesting ways that language barriers form for people on Star Trek? In this episode though the words are being translated they make almost no sense to people unfamilar with a dense set of local metaphor and idiom. Let characters mourn their lack of Knowledge: Local (obscure village)
- Oh no! I think he understood that: Don't skimp on NPC's languages known. Taking an extra ten seconds during planning to prevent characters from keeping their powwow secret from the bad guys might just make your night even if it doesn't make theirs
- La préservation de diversité: In our world where English is increasingly making the world's population a people with one language and one vocabulary there are places where linguistic diversity is being preserved. Could perhaps your players enter the struggle to preserve or demolish a language group? Adding divine or arcane overtones to such a mission might make for some interesting low-level encounters.
Saturday, March 1, 2008
Please oh please
OK
I live in a racially diverse (for Peoria) neighborhood where many of the families are renters in low-income jobs. Many of the houses on our block are proud old homes that were built in the 30's when the neighborhood was one of the nicer places to live. Carson and I are not into gentrification. Just to make it clear at the get go. We were sure that we would have a nice time in our neighborhood as we restored the house we had bought, but it wasn't too long into our stay here that we began to notice ...things.
First to arrive on our attention was the excessive amount of garbage that seems omni-present. Now some of this can be laid at the feet of the garbage removal service the handles the route in the neighborhood, but not nearly all. Let me start at the beginning. Because of some questionable choices made by previous owners of our house and quirks of geography, our front and back yards appeared to be collecting trash as it blew in from other yards. Which would be bad enough, but no what was actually happening was worse. People were actually throwing trash into our yard. Pedistrians as they passed --if they finished with whatever they were eating, drinking, smoking, reading would just toss the refuse into our front yard. Our neighbors on either side who weekly seem to amass mountains of trash. And somebody, and I'd like to think it isn't our neighbors made a habit of throwing trash into our back yard. We have a high energy dog who needs lots of room to run, so we fenced in the back yard with a 6 foot tall privacy fence. I was sure this would be the end of it. People walking by would see the improvement we had made to the property and would stop with the garbage already, and blown-in garbage would also cease. Yeah, clearly I'm delusional. I want to say, "Listen people, and listen well...please oh please stop throwing trash into yards --yours or other people's; it's a part of what makes this neighborhood run down."
Moving on in my rant. Car horns. In many neighborhoods like ours honking is associated with drug dealing, and I know that it's a problem in our neighborhood, but the honking. Seriously it goes on day and night. Even the school bus as it drops kids off in the afternoon honks. People who carpool honk, families passing kids back and forth in visitation honk, people just driving down the block honk. Here's what I think -- if you would feel like you shouldn't honk on Grandview Dr. don't honk in our neighborhood. Get out of your car and knock on the door of the house you are interested in, that or be patient. I wish people would have a little more "pride-of place."
This neighborhood isn't run down because people are poor. This neighborhood is run down because the people who live here clearly don't want to do the things that makes a neighborhood nice. Short grocery list of other things that tick me off: dogs (barking excessively, chained up, too many in too small a pen), music (blasting, blaring, frequently after midnight), and truancy (kids should be in school every day it is in session for the whole day). Now to be fair I have to fess up that I am not a fan of some of the landlords in the area and would be happier if more people owned the homes they lived in. I feel this way in part because I think home ownership is a part of that "pride of place" thing I was talking about above. Maybe there's a part of my idealism that's in intensive care, but I'm beginning to think that it wouldn't change much for some of the people in our neighborhood.
You may say, well just move you haters--don't be hatin' on people who choose to live that way. To which I say this neighborhood can be a nice one, it has the potential...and no child, no senior, no anybody should have to live in a neighborhood where people don't take these basic steps.
I live in a racially diverse (for Peoria) neighborhood where many of the families are renters in low-income jobs. Many of the houses on our block are proud old homes that were built in the 30's when the neighborhood was one of the nicer places to live. Carson and I are not into gentrification. Just to make it clear at the get go. We were sure that we would have a nice time in our neighborhood as we restored the house we had bought, but it wasn't too long into our stay here that we began to notice ...things.
First to arrive on our attention was the excessive amount of garbage that seems omni-present. Now some of this can be laid at the feet of the garbage removal service the handles the route in the neighborhood, but not nearly all. Let me start at the beginning. Because of some questionable choices made by previous owners of our house and quirks of geography, our front and back yards appeared to be collecting trash as it blew in from other yards. Which would be bad enough, but no what was actually happening was worse. People were actually throwing trash into our yard. Pedistrians as they passed --if they finished with whatever they were eating, drinking, smoking, reading would just toss the refuse into our front yard. Our neighbors on either side who weekly seem to amass mountains of trash. And somebody, and I'd like to think it isn't our neighbors made a habit of throwing trash into our back yard. We have a high energy dog who needs lots of room to run, so we fenced in the back yard with a 6 foot tall privacy fence. I was sure this would be the end of it. People walking by would see the improvement we had made to the property and would stop with the garbage already, and blown-in garbage would also cease. Yeah, clearly I'm delusional. I want to say, "Listen people, and listen well...please oh please stop throwing trash into yards --yours or other people's; it's a part of what makes this neighborhood run down."
Moving on in my rant. Car horns. In many neighborhoods like ours honking is associated with drug dealing, and I know that it's a problem in our neighborhood, but the honking. Seriously it goes on day and night. Even the school bus as it drops kids off in the afternoon honks. People who carpool honk, families passing kids back and forth in visitation honk, people just driving down the block honk. Here's what I think -- if you would feel like you shouldn't honk on Grandview Dr. don't honk in our neighborhood. Get out of your car and knock on the door of the house you are interested in, that or be patient. I wish people would have a little more "pride-of place."
This neighborhood isn't run down because people are poor. This neighborhood is run down because the people who live here clearly don't want to do the things that makes a neighborhood nice. Short grocery list of other things that tick me off: dogs (barking excessively, chained up, too many in too small a pen), music (blasting, blaring, frequently after midnight), and truancy (kids should be in school every day it is in session for the whole day). Now to be fair I have to fess up that I am not a fan of some of the landlords in the area and would be happier if more people owned the homes they lived in. I feel this way in part because I think home ownership is a part of that "pride of place" thing I was talking about above. Maybe there's a part of my idealism that's in intensive care, but I'm beginning to think that it wouldn't change much for some of the people in our neighborhood.
You may say, well just move you haters--don't be hatin' on people who choose to live that way. To which I say this neighborhood can be a nice one, it has the potential...and no child, no senior, no anybody should have to live in a neighborhood where people don't take these basic steps.
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Urban Commune...Hmm...
Maybe I have just gone 'round the bend, and perhaps this post will be proof. Lately I have been thinking a rather lot about the nature of human community. It's a theme I return to again and again; humans needing to be in community with one another is an important part of my personal ecclesiology.
This latest return to the subject was prompted by I am Legend which Carson and I saw a the theater a while back. The novel on which this film, Omega Man, I am Omega, and The Last Man on Earth were all based describes the growing burden solitude presents for the main character. Will Smith may not be recognized as one of the great actors of our time (because he probably isn't), but his nuanced and tenderly heartbreaking performance was one of the best I have ever seen in this genre. Kudos to Mr. Smith for his investment into this side of the character; a side, I might mention, that Mr. Heston didn't even attempt.
So anyway, Carson and I are coming to terms with our decision not to be parents. One of the consequences of which is the fact that Carson and I are pretty much all we can count on for domestic human companionship. This is not remarkable for American middle-class people our age, but in the course of human history this lifestyle is really novel. Not that long ago the idea for two people to be living alone would have been seen as strange (even on the frontier). The business of living was shared by many adults all pulling together. Extended families lived with or next to one another and supported each other not just with labor or finances, but with those harder to measure things community brings like human contact. The tasks of working and housekeeping is more than two people can stay atop, particularly if you want to do both well. The solution lies in the adage, "many hands make for light work."
Carson and I were talking about all this over dinner last night when I wondered aloud if there were urban communes. When I think about communal living I end up picturing agrarian hippie types who cast off concepts of ownership and urban life, which is a cute, quixotic vision, but holds little appeal for yours truly. Carson suggested that a group of young professionals could go in together for the purchase of an old hotel, and that even after renovations it might still be cheaper than renting or buying lots of individual dwellings, and that when somebody wanted to move out they could sell their portion to a new member.
His idea really captured my imagination. I saw a group of people taking a hotel and altering it to contain a collection of one or two bedroom units that share common areas (like kitchen, dinning, living) Depending on the overall size of the project shared spaces could include several dens, a dedicated childcare area, a library, a multi-work station office area for flex workers, console video game room, paper-pencil/ board game room, solarium/ garden, or party room.
Group members would contribute 1. effort (scheduled cooking, cleaning (of common areas), child care, building upkeep, etc) and 2. money (both initially to "buy in" and monthly to cover costs of cable, internet, electricity, water). Meals would be prepared for whoever is around for that meal and wants to eat. Those cooking would make food for people who noted on a sign-up sheet that they would be in for the meal.
There are things that would need to be ensured. The group would need a pretty clearly defined social contract, rooms would need to provide sufficient "private" space and amenities, the soundproofing that is typically used in hotels would be substandard for this application -- it would need upgrading, and rooms would need to provide sufficient closet/storage space. Group members would elect a "bill payer" semi-annually who would collect the monthly bill portion and pay the communal bills. People would still have person bank accounts, retirement plans, person wealth (we're talking communal living, not communism).
Are there glaring flaws in my wild idea? Post a comment and let me know
This latest return to the subject was prompted by I am Legend which Carson and I saw a the theater a while back. The novel on which this film, Omega Man, I am Omega, and The Last Man on Earth were all based describes the growing burden solitude presents for the main character. Will Smith may not be recognized as one of the great actors of our time (because he probably isn't), but his nuanced and tenderly heartbreaking performance was one of the best I have ever seen in this genre. Kudos to Mr. Smith for his investment into this side of the character; a side, I might mention, that Mr. Heston didn't even attempt.
So anyway, Carson and I are coming to terms with our decision not to be parents. One of the consequences of which is the fact that Carson and I are pretty much all we can count on for domestic human companionship. This is not remarkable for American middle-class people our age, but in the course of human history this lifestyle is really novel. Not that long ago the idea for two people to be living alone would have been seen as strange (even on the frontier). The business of living was shared by many adults all pulling together. Extended families lived with or next to one another and supported each other not just with labor or finances, but with those harder to measure things community brings like human contact. The tasks of working and housekeeping is more than two people can stay atop, particularly if you want to do both well. The solution lies in the adage, "many hands make for light work."
Carson and I were talking about all this over dinner last night when I wondered aloud if there were urban communes. When I think about communal living I end up picturing agrarian hippie types who cast off concepts of ownership and urban life, which is a cute, quixotic vision, but holds little appeal for yours truly. Carson suggested that a group of young professionals could go in together for the purchase of an old hotel, and that even after renovations it might still be cheaper than renting or buying lots of individual dwellings, and that when somebody wanted to move out they could sell their portion to a new member.
His idea really captured my imagination. I saw a group of people taking a hotel and altering it to contain a collection of one or two bedroom units that share common areas (like kitchen, dinning, living) Depending on the overall size of the project shared spaces could include several dens, a dedicated childcare area, a library, a multi-work station office area for flex workers, console video game room, paper-pencil/ board game room, solarium/ garden, or party room.
Group members would contribute 1. effort (scheduled cooking, cleaning (of common areas), child care, building upkeep, etc) and 2. money (both initially to "buy in" and monthly to cover costs of cable, internet, electricity, water). Meals would be prepared for whoever is around for that meal and wants to eat. Those cooking would make food for people who noted on a sign-up sheet that they would be in for the meal.
There are things that would need to be ensured. The group would need a pretty clearly defined social contract, rooms would need to provide sufficient "private" space and amenities, the soundproofing that is typically used in hotels would be substandard for this application -- it would need upgrading, and rooms would need to provide sufficient closet/storage space. Group members would elect a "bill payer" semi-annually who would collect the monthly bill portion and pay the communal bills. People would still have person bank accounts, retirement plans, person wealth (we're talking communal living, not communism).
Are there glaring flaws in my wild idea? Post a comment and let me know
Friday, February 8, 2008
DMing the Bible: Denouement
Introduction:
OK. So it's been a while, and if you're just joining me ... welcome. Follow the tag links to catch the beginning and some explanations. When we spoke last Noah and his crew of amateur mariners were adrift in the boat that they had built at God's behest. This time we're going to pick up after the flood. The last few verses in chapter eight and chapter nine contain the end of Noah's adventures. Our focus for the text will be primarily on God's promises and the formation of the post-diluvian covenant. On the game side we'll look at wrapping up campaigns.
The Text:
The rains came and covered the earth, but Noah and company couldn't leave the ark right away. I think sometimes we get a little glib with flood stories; we see a big fluffy wave of blue pristine water pick up the ark, and then once the rains stop, the water recedes like a tub draining. French artist Gustave Dore etched his vision of the great flood (which you can see here), and they strike me as helpful, though icky. In August of 2005 those of us who live in America were confronted with the real grusomeness of a flood that wipes out civilization. Two and a half years later the effects of the post-Katrina flood are still being felt.
So it's really no wonder then that the p-source doesn't have Noah stepping foot on earth until a year after the rain stops. God tells Noah to head out of the boat and let the animals go do their animal things. God's instructions to “be fruitful and multiply” restores the corrupted creation; the world is given a new start. Noah builds an altar and preforms a sacrifice of an unidentified number of animals. The p-source narrator of this story points out that Noah offers some of every clean creature. This is an element of anachronism in the story. It would be a bit like my telling you about the Battle of New Orleans and explaining to you that Jackson hadn't checked his email, which is why he didn't know the war was over. The sacrificial system is established in the covenant at Sinai. Until that point animals were not differentiated clean v. unclean.
God then makes a pretty big promise. Take a look at verses 21b-22, “I will never again curse the ground because of humankind, for the inclination of the human heart is evil from youth; nor will I ever again destroy every living creature as I have done. As long as the earth endures , seestime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease.” God here is removing the curse placed on the ground after the incident at Eden; humanity may well have the capacity for great evil, but God will not scourge the planet and all the other beings with whome we share it because of our shenanigans.
As a perk for having made it through the flood, God allows humans to start eating animals which had hithertofor been a nopey-no. This comes with some instruction though. People should not eat meat with the blood still in it. This is because of what I call the threshold theory. In some Hebrew worldviews and to a lesser extent some Christian world views, places of threshhold -- that is experiences, substances or locales that emphasize the thin line between life and death, flesh and spirit carry with them a kind of power. Being too close to them carried with them risk, being too close to the presence of God was dangerous. Blood is one of those threshhold substaces; when it's inside a creature that creature is alive, but when the blood departs the creature dies. The other caveat to eating meat is that it's bad to kill humans. So Ravenous is right out, but it's more than that. God's stiff penalty for killing people is a sign that God still sees humanity as very good and creatures that are made in the likeness of God.
Then, God makes the first covenant. There are three covenants that God makes with people in the Torah, this one, one with Abraham (which I hope to get to in a couple months), and one with the people of Irael and Moses at Sinai. Covenants are one sided, God has made a promise that is not contigent on the actions of humanity. God establishes the covenant with every human and every animal that never again will God flood the whole earth. God sets as a sign of the covenant a bow in the sky, signifying that God's destructive powers are decomissioned. When we see a rainbow in the sky we can be comforted by God's steadfast promise not to wipe us off the face of the planet (since we seem to be plenty good at that by ourselves). Noah retires to pursue a hobby in vintaculture. Noah's sons and their wives get busy repopulating the earth and planting seeds of racial tension that will plague humankind for millenia.
The Game:
Your players have battled through dangers untold, fought their way into the castle beyond the goblin city, and discovered that the Big Bad ultimately had no power over them. The size of the denouement will vary based on the scope of the campaign, of course, but the very nature of calling it a campaign as opposed to the latest in your series of unrelated missions implies that there is some significance. The city/ area/ world/ plane is different now in a demonstrable way because of your PC's activities. Like Noah, PC's need a moment or two to have their adventures place into perspective. On the other hand, a DM can't say, “Well done, you guys!! Your dominance has killed off all adventuring potential for this world.” Here are a few of my suggestions for balanced Adventure endings:
- The 4 L's: Loot, Land, Leisure, and Legend. Because of the mammoth nature of their exploits, the characters have amassed large monetary rewards with which to rent happiness. Try not to limit your self to the piles of gp that accompany regular play; reach out to the others L's. Allow the PC's to be connected in a proprietary fashion with the geography of the places they have saved. These last two are more ephemeral, but can make or break a denouement. Leisure allows characters to pursue quests and projects that linger as concerns (e.g. pushy bard in town #2 that needed being put in his place, but plot drove the characters away before getting to it). Legend means that when the party shows up again in town #2, people will pay attention.
- Rock the Foundations: If you are playing in Forgotten Realms or Dragonlance, you may feel like you can't shake the boat too much because of the pre-written material about political systems and power structures. There are a handful of work arounds, but my favorite is this: “Don't worry about it so much.” The second and third are nearly identical “play somewhere that is under-emphasized in the books” and “play some when that is under-emphasized.” The forth is to mess with the power behind the thrown. Chances are your PC's aren't looking to rule the roost anyway, but if they pushed out another set of advisers to become the regent's go-to guy and gals – that's snazzy too.
- Create a New Natural Phenomena: You want to show your PC's how much you care, but don't know what to get a party that already has everything? Let their last battle create a new constellation, add an aurora to the world in their honor, maybe cause desert to recede and fertile land to appear or make an oasis or hot spring. Maybe set a rainbow in the sky to remind everybody of the characters' accomplishment. Creating a natural phenomena gives players a sense of having changed the world even while you're rolling up the next Big Bad.
- Don't Reset Time: You may have wondered why I didn't include reseting time as a work around to the stable pre-built world; I didn't because I don't think it's a good idea in the long run. Just look at the increasingly insane Doctor for evidence of what happens to characters who are cut adrift of the consequences of their actions. In some cases it feels like a cop out, and in others it created a sense of futility in players. I just don't recommend it.
| Law's Game Style | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| You scored as a Storyteller | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| You're more inclined toward the role playing side of the equation and less interested in numbers or experience points. You're quick to compromise if you can help move the story forward, and get bored when the game slows down for a long planning session. You want to play out a story that moves like it's orchestrated by a skilled novelist or film director. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Yes, I know it's another quiz result, and I'm sorry, but I think there is a lesson to be learned here. Take a moment and check out the scores of some of the others in my group at Stupidranger.com you'll see that my results are a bit different than those of my comrades. Does that mean I'm a bad fit with the rest of the group? No, but it does add dimensions to play that should be taken into account. Our group is heavily weighted towards fluff that means we spend lots of time in character and our character's personalities drive the action. My style of play however suggests that I feel most involved and have the most fun as a player when I know that the DM has a good understanding of the way our characters tick and is using that to create conflict, incentive, challenge, and rewards that allow us the freedom to play "off the rails" sometimes but also gives us good reasons to care about the plot.
One of our players was DMing another group for a while that was very hack and slash oriented. That group worked well because they were happy to battle their way through whole sessions. A real challenge for a DM would be having one group that contained power gamers, some hack'n'slasher, and fluffy types. If the golden rule of DMing is "Everybody at the table has fun," a group like this would present a wobbly highwire.
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