Fear and Insanely Brave PC's

Last time, I talked briefly about fear and horror in RPG's (D&D specifically) since it was so close to Halloween. Since I rarely am not thinking about horror stories (both movies and books really), and since I watched the excelent Dracula and His Brides the other night, I've further refined my thinking on this in terms of RPG's.

One of the most difficult realities to face when trying to run a horror campaign, or a campaign with horrifying elements in it, is that players tend to treat their characters as if they were absurdly brave. Of course, compared to the average inhabitant of any world, PC's truly are brave. It takes real courage to face down the average monstrous threats from bugbears to orcs, from kobolds to great wyrms, and most of the inhabitants of the Monster Manual: the average peasant runs in terror while the PC's stand their ground. Which is entirely appropriate in most instances. After all, most of us really do have the itch to play a heroic character seeking glory and riches (or maybe just riches).

But there are times when such courage becomes a little ridiculous. Whether you're actively trying to frighten the players/characters or they simply should be frightened, most likely the players simply are not. It's frustrating even if you manage to build up an unsettling atmosphere that it becomes just like any other action centric session once the veils are torn away and the center of the mystery is unveiled.

The comment (singular) from the last post recommended treating it like a horror movie, at least in part: turn the players into a passive audience for short times. This I cannot agree with. Simply put, this is a role playing game, not a horror flick. Part of, perhaps the main part of, the fear rests in the choices the players make, or are forced to make. It's about looking at your list of choices and knowing that there isn't a "good" choice and a "bad" choice, merely choices and few, if any of them, wholly worthy of the risk or likely to repair the problem(s) at hand. You've killed a vampire and taken his powerful magic item from him, but the local powers that be (a pack of wolfwere bards who run the nearby city and university) are in front of you and want that item. You don't know what they'll do with that magic item, but you can only assume that it will be nothing good, but keeping it from them means a fight and there's nothing at all you can do to stand up to them, at least for the moment. What, precisely, do you do here?

Is that horror? Or is that not? I'm not entirely sure, honestly, but it's something that certainly horrifies me, the thought of trying to do something good (yes, for the most part I, as a player, tend to create and run characters motivated a little less by the money and more by the thought of improving the world in some small way) and instead having merely transitioned the danger/evil from one place to another, or even worse, increased the danger inadvertaintly. Of course, the danger here is in pushing it too far and refusing the players any level of success instead of simply moderating or corrupted success. After a certain point, it feels pointless and the fun gets drained out of it all.

This is also, incidentally, where I believe the concept of fear and horror checks rests. These little "tools" for the DM out of Ravenloft the setting are there to tell the players how their characters feel. While certainly useful at times, it tends to be something with all the subltety of a hammer. They can be useful to be sure and can, in some cases, give cues to players who like to get into the swing of things to have a lot of fun, but most often they feel contrived and more like something that overrides player choice in favor of a "desired result." Something that results from too much faith and emphasis on plat rather than story as well.

One of the best methods for putting a little fear into players that I've found is in the monsters. No, not in finding stronger and more terrifying monsters, but in using them properly. Nothing puts a crimp in players' styles quicker, at times, than a monster that refuses to "play fair" by simply standing there and dying politely. More than likely, the monsters have plans and goals and are going to act to further them even when, or especially when the players aren't ready for them. Moreover, monsters don't play fair and limit themselves to attacking "military targets. Wanna upset a player? Take an NPC that they've become attached to, who has sheltered them or provided aid in some way, and have a frustrated opponent who can't strike directly at the players kill them or turn them instead.

Another great tool is monsters that "violate" the PC's, or do something just "wrong" enough the get past the character/player filter. I love Goblyns (spelled with a "y") for this. Nothing says scary like a moderately tough humanoid that will eat your face off the first chance it gets (literally). And for added fun, see what you get when you add just a little bit of low level telepathy or instant communication as they did in Castles Forlorn.

There have to be better ways of communicating genuine horror if not actual fear than turning the players into an audience and perfuse purple prose.

Mildewed Thoughts

Just getting a few things out of my brain before I suffer a stroke over them.

1. I wonder if it's possible to make a living by actually working reasonble hours. I've done nothing other than sleep and work for about a month and a half now, and it's inexorably pushing me towards a psychotic break. You wouldn't like me when I'm crazy.

2. Thoughts of late turn, naturally, to horror. In the D&D world, that naturally leads to thoughts of Ravenloft the campaign setting. There's a nice little review of Ravenloft's history over at Advanced Gaming Theory, from the first module all the way through the horrors that were inflicted on us by crappy writers and the bitch in charge of TSR at the time. I agree with most of it, but I'll say that there are a few of the modules that were really excellent, most notable among them was Castles Forlorn, a madening little twist of insanity involving time travel and a bad guy to drive you loopy.

More specifically here, in between TPS status reports, I've been pondering how a good horror campaign in AD&D would run without falling into the same traps that TSR's middle and late Ravenloft did. TSR, you see, noticed that most of our greatest horror movies and stories revolved around a central "bad guy" or antagonistic character. Dracula is mostly about the titular vampire and the efforts organized to defeat it. Frankenstein's tale is about the mad doctor's perverse disfigurement of the natrual cycles of birth, life, and death (and if you have forgotten just how perverse this really was, go back and read it again keeping in the front of your mind the image of a woman giving birth). Hell, in the end, even Halloween (our first and greatest slasher movie) became, in the end, mostly about Mr. Meyers. This is great, because the greatest horror, in my view, revolves around the concept of a single, charismatic damned soul and those caught up in its orbit or a very few other rare concepts.

But, of course, this doesn't make for a good roleplaying game. What scares us on the big screen just makes for crappy gaming, really, so what, exactly, is the composition of a good horror game? I suspect it has little to do with Ravenloft itself and more with understanding the underpinnings of what frightens us individually rather than what frightens us in the books and movies.

3. Thoughts of late also turn, for some unknowable reason, to The Peninsular War and the prospect of a game set in the style of The Richard Sharpe series. If you've not experienced this particular series, it behooves you to take some time and get into it. I think it'd be a great deal of fun to put together a series of "adventures" or more appropriately, missions, casting the players as members of a detached unit in either the military intelligence corps or part of the 95th Rifles. Of course, the trick would be to avoid the "Star Wars Syndrome" and keep major personalities out of the game. As tempting as it might be to put Welsey into play, I'd hate myself for doing it.

4. Thylia is log jammed in a corner of my mind, slowly developing a tumor that keeps me up nights. I find it becoming darker and darker in my mind and less and less like the original D&D, and even less like the morality play that 2nd edition can turn into. Bleak and hopeless wastes populated by men and women who's sole concern is to survive to the next day. I feel compelled, here, to quote "The Widening Gyre," but I shall resist such temptation for now. I'd like, more and more to actually assemble a group to give this world a twirl, but it's hard to set aside time to actually do that. Perhaps a Thursday or Friday night game, weekly or bi-weekly, but really, how many northern Jersey gamers are there?

Why Aren't We Gaming In Pandorum?

Ok, this isn't a movie review at least partly because I haven't completely mentally digested the thing yet, and partly because, well, you probably wouldn't believe me if I told you what went on in that flick. For those that have seen it, you'll understand.

The purpose here, though, is to simply state the obvious that Pandorum the movie seems to be a perfect setup for a sci-fi/modernesque RPG game. It would be ridiculously easy to set this up as a short (or long) adventure using some modern ruleset (like Alternity or D20 Modern) and watch as things unfold.

That is all.

Specialist Wizards

In the comments here, James M. talks about why he dislikes 2nd editions take on specialist wizards. Rather than clutter up the comments over there too much, I'll throw this up here.

I dislike 2e's specialist wizards for two reasons. First is the creation of a universal spell list that lumps both MU and Illusionist spells into a single collection. In 1e, there were spells -- illusionist spells -- that no MU could ever cast, regardless of their ostensible school. I think 2e misreads the meaning of the schools and attempts to over-rationalize them at the expense of flavor and mystery, which is what having separate spell lists for each class did.

Second, and more damning, many of the specialist wizard types exist for no other reason than to fill out a schema. No effort is made to make each specialist type unique. Instead, each type gets an identical bonus for its favored school and cannot cast spells from one or more "opposed" schools. It's in my opinion the triumph of categorization over substance, a kind of "spreadsheet" mentality where everything has to fit in a nice little box according to an outside rationale.

I don't think 2e specialist wizards (or specialty priests for that matter) are unholy abominations and I fully understand the reasoning behind their creation. However, I think they sacrifice too much uniqueness on the altar of simplicity/rationality and, given the choice, I'd rather stick with the original presentations.

While I can sympathize with James' point of view, I can't really agree with it. In my eye, the 1e (or OSRIC since it's effectively the same) Illusionist is no more mysterious than anything else. Nor is it particularly distinct. To me, it looks just like any other magic-user/wizard/arcanist/whatever-the-hell-we're-calling-them-now: a unique spell list is but a distinction without a difference. Honestly, what fundamental difference is there between an Illusionist and a Magic-User in the PHB other than a somewhat exclusive spell list?

Contrary to James' point of view, I think the designers understood the idea of spell schools and spheres perfectly well and that the real objection, here, is that all of 2nd edition's specialists are, at their core, pretty much the same thing. They get the same bonuses and penalties, they chose from a largely identical spell list except for banned and favored schools. In essence, they were as similar as two law school students, one who focused on criminal trial law and the other who focused on corporate finance law. In exchange for sacrificing a certain level of general knowledge (i.e., they do not have the breadth of comprehension that a genarlist does), they gain a depth of knowledge in their chosen field that gives them an edge both in the lab and in the field. In the end, though every one of them works with magic of a different sort, they all belong to the same archetype and class - the hermetic/academic spell caster - and, in my mind, do not at all need to be differentiated more than that. That way lay the dreaded realm of the third edition where every fine nuance on an archetype required it's own unique base class (in some cases there or four base classes) and any number of prestige classes.

Of course, I don't object to the idea that the spell lists are too much the same. Too often, it seems that, for the most part, the spells one wizard carries are virtually identical to just about any other out there. Can't tell you how many times the later 2e modules had every single wizard NPC carry magic missile, even if the evocation school was forbidden them. Personally, I think it might be very interesting to try a campaign in which all wizards are specialists (no such thing as a generalist in this world) and they are able to learn and cast spells ONLY from their favored school: a necromancer, therefor, would cast ONLY necromantic spells. There would be a short list of universal spells, the likes of Read Magic, Detect Magic, and so on, but otherwise, all spells would be the exclusive domain of the specialists.

Now, I'm not at all opposed here to the concept of adding truly unique specialist types. As much as Vancian casting works for D&D, I think the possibility of magically endowed characters who do not utilize recipie like spells is an intriguing one. I've simply never seen an adequate example of it that would work along the lines of the D&D game (or any version of it). Maybe a simple short hand for an elementalist would be to utilize the vancian system, but to remove the "spell book" aspect and have them function more like clerics. Their spell list would be a conglomeration of both clerical and magic-user spells that would fall within that element (i.e., both burning hands and flame-strike would be a part of a fire elementalist's spell list). Instead of a holy symbol or spell book, they would be carrying a fetish or medicine bag type of object which would act as a focus for the magic.

I don't know, I'm ust spitballing here. The entirety of D&D seems built around the concept of Vancian magic (with good reason) and it's difficult to go outside of that boundary without venturing into other realms.

Drow Part II

Disclaimer: I don't have the monster manual entry (or Monstrous Compendium entry, or the like) right in front of me, so I'll likely get something about the TSR standard Drow marginally wrong. I don't really care, it's not my purpose to dissect every little nitpicking aspect of that version of the "evil elf."

First and foremost, Drow are elves, biologically speaking (and in terms of rules mechanics) and do not have a small swathe of special powers and spell like abilities at their disposal. A Drow is, from the perspective of the rules, just an elf out of the player's handbook/monster manual. And, while we're here, might as well get this out too: there are no biological divisions between high elves, sylvan elves, wild elves, gray elves, Kheebler elves, shoe making elves, or elves with purple polka dots. An elf, is an elf, is an elf. Any such differences are socio-cultural, not biological or genetic.

Many generations ago (that's elf generations for those keeping score) the elf race was united and ruled from great cities that stood as beacons of civilization in the wilderness. At the time, the elves were the pinnacle of sentient life and, via various paths, began to explore not only the physical world around them, but the multiverse itself. Despite the popular view of elves as an inherently magical race, these early individuals eschewed magic in most forms, finding the reliance on outside sources of power and of easily lost or removed tools dangerous and demeaning. Instead, they preferred the innate power of the mind, of psionics, a tool that relied upon and enhanced the personal power of each.

At some point, the elves made contact with the Illithids - likely via Probability Travel or some similar means - and were horrified by what they found. The Mind Flayers proved a frighteningly accurate mirror to the elves' own ambitions and values, and to their credit, many elves turned away in revulsion and retreated from their cities to lead more ascetic lives. However, a small minority saw in the Mind Flayers not the terrifying prospect of what the elves were becoming, but an admirable role model. They argued in the public forums that these entities were to be revered as a realization of true potential rather than reviled.

For their crimes, these individuals were hunted and slain wherever they were found, but what remained of elven authorities were unable to locate the core faction of these Drow as they were termed. In reality, the Drow used their powerful psionics to pull a portion of the material world into a pocket dimension which their incensed bretheren (having long ago abandoned entirely the practice of psionics) were entirely unable to locate and enter. Whatever safety the Drow had created for themselves, however, was barbed in that each of them bears the mark of that realm standing a full foot taller than most of their more normal bretheren with pale, nearly white skin and preternaturally blue eyes. Occasionally, there have been those displaying faintly reptilian features and habits.

Their motives are mysterious, but assumed to be nefarious and hostile by most civilized persons who know of the Drow's existance. Typically a Drow within the Prime Material World can be found at the center of a web of intrigue and influence, rarely acting on their own or in the open for they are unwelcome in all places.

Professionaly, the Drow overwhelmingly pursue a career in psionics, finding that they have a natural aptitude for it, especially telepathy and clairsentience: they are masters at the art of gathering and using information and controlling those around them. Infrequently, they combine such power with theivery or martial combat. Only occasionally will a Drow take up the study of arcane magic and will never take up the worship of deities or divine, faith based abilities. Truly, the only thing that the Drow worship is themselves.

And now, just because I can, I include this picture, which is the quintessential Drow.

Drow Part I

I don't like the Drow; which is to say that I do not like what the Drow have been turned into after 20+ years of D&D history and gaming. Somehow, somewhere along the line, they changed from an altogether creepy, consciously immoral race of evil elves broken from their kin and mutated by the mysterious radiations of the depths below the earth to an entire race of chaotic good rebels against a decadent and evil society of their peers. I suspect, perhaps too strongly really, that a certain TSR fiction character by a certain author who shall remain nameless, though I tend to think he rather "gave permission" to a practice that was already rampant by that time. After all, I'm sure that by the time D3 came out, there were more than a few persons chomping at the bit to sink their teeth into a Drow character.

Of course, there are other issues at work. First, and in my mind foremost, how many different brands of elf do we really need? There's already mechanically distinct flavors for wood elves, high elves, grey elves, and elves ad nauseum. Do we really need a special entry for "evil elves"? Granted, according to the grand D&D mythos, Drow aren't just evil elves, they're mutated by the magical radiation of their deep, subterranean lairs, but at times that just seems like an excuse for the next generation of gamers to play an "elf with bonuses" rather than anything else. In their first appearance in Gary's writings (I think they showed up in the Monster Manual, but I may be mistaken), they were little more than a legend, a foot note to a larger elf entry. It was the especially magic nature of Gary's underworld that had changed them, an artifact of setting rather than of sort, thus, I don't think that Gary ever intended all Drow to look the same on paper. They were a prime target for referee individualization and in that light, I'm gutting the Drow of all their magical gizmos and noisemakers. They are, from my perspective, holdover elements from the setting of Greyhawk and, worse yet, the Forgotten Realms and have little or no relavence on my conception of what a conciously evil society of elves would be.

Second, there are whole layers of unfortunate implications orbiting around the dark skinned Drow. Of course I'm not going to attribute racism where none exists, but seriously, the situation is ripe for misinterpretation. Which isn't to mention why a race living underground and far from light would have its skin turn black when, scientifically speaking, the opposite would be true. Of course I know that for Gary, the Drow's blackness was largely metaphorical, a blackness of the soul that was physically manifested as darkened skin pigmentation, but at the same time, I don't see the need for this, leastways because the moment a player catches sight of a dark skinned elf underground he knows precisely what he's in for. No, I see no need at all for dark skinned evil elves when there are other, more interesting ways to deal with physiognomatic ways of expressing inner darkness and spiritual rot. Salvatore from Name of the Rose springs to mind. Jeremy Irons as an "uber-morlock" even more so.

Of course, it's only natural from there to move on to the completely dysfunctional society. Honestly, has anybody seen a culture more rooted in backstabbing, betrayal, and self-gratification as the Drow are most often portrayed as? To the point of ineffectuality even. Nope, my Drow will work and play well, if not with others, than at least with each other.

Then there's the whole spider fixation. On the one hand, yeah, spiders creep me the fuck out. On the other, I'm really tired of Lolth and the dysfunction inspired by the whole premise. Honestly, here I'm torn about whether or not to pull it out entirely.

From what's left (a basic, pointy eared elf), I want to build up towards something that's not related to a certain wangsty character that's inspired millions of copy cats.

Magic Item: The Way Stone

I have a feeling that this is far less original than I think it is, but I can't find it anywhere in my books that I have access to at the moment. I'm sure if I'm just copying from a sourcebook that I only remember fuzzily, they'll tell me.

The Way Stone

These devices are simple in both form and function. A flat bit of knapped flint pointed on one end, these devices are easily mistaken for arrow or spearheads from a technologically primitive tribe, though a detect magic spell will reveal a minor enchantment of divination. To use, one must simply hold them in the palm of one's hand and name a desired and known location. The stone will spin to point in the direction of that location.

Successful use of the stone is based upon how well known the desired destination is:

*Location known intimately to user (having physically visited for a period no less than 4 hours) - 95%

*Location known in passing (physically passed through on at least one occasion, but did not stay) - 85%

*Location described in detail (as from one who knows it intimately or from a text) - 75%

*Location known only vaguely or by reputation (have heard of location, but do not know any details about it) - 50%

*Location known only by legend or heresay (true existance unsure) - 10%

A failure indicates 50% of the time that the stone simply does not function and 50% of the time the stone will point to a random, incorrect location.

Note that the stone does not indicate passable routes, only the direction in which a point in space is situated. Thus, if asked to point in the direction of the center of the planet, it will point straight down and not at the location of a tunnel that will eventually lead to the center of the planet.

A very few (5%) of these devices will, in fact, point not to a location, but a passable route to reach that location. In the case of common towns, cities, castles, etc., the stone will likely point to a nearby road that will take the user towards their destination. If no road exists, or the "best" route is a direct, overland route, the stone will point in that direction. Asking the location of mythological locations, or locations that are not entirely within the confines of the Prime Material plane will likely generate a prosaic response similar to a Divination spell: helpful, but likely not direct or straightforward.