Mass affects roleplaying (see what I did there)

I'm playtesting a friend's system.

I've been wanting to run a Mass Effect game.

There's no official Mass Effect table top game.

There's a ginormo-metric-shit-ton-load of official Mass Effect information.

Said friend's system is setting neutral.

Copy Pasta, don't fail me now.

Really, the only question is: "How much information do I shove at my players?" Complete information is really too much, vignettes are really too little.

I think I'm going to throw it all at my players and see what sticks.

Stats, stats, stats

If there's an individual who can challenge Gygax in the title for Most Influential, I would argue for Tolkien.

Despite the former's apparent disdain for the latter, the author's works informed and defined fantasy roleplaying, in particular my own early games, in a way which precious few other can claim.

Yes, there are others whose names loom large in Appendix N, but in high fantasy games, at least, Tolkien reigns.

To that end, I found this supremely interesting.

Should it be used as a concrete guide for worldbuilding? Nah. But it's frakk'n neat.

Shadow Delvers, part II

So I'm not really running an ADnD game at the moment.

The only thing I am running is a playtest of a good buddy's homebrew game, it takes place in modern day New York City (which none of us know anything about) and is basically Sherlock and Watson meet Batman where Batman is a spoiled brat who fights crime for kicks, Sherlock has a serious heroin problem and a pronounced limp, and Watson is strong-arm British ex-pat and ex-con.

So far, they've been solving mysteries that have all had a paranormal connection, with the help of Egg Shen. Think Call of Cthulu meets Big Trouble in Little China.

Anyway, this lack of pressure for me to create content for my original campaign world has, of course, got me thinking about my original campaign world and formulating (read: stealing) ideas for it.

So, shadow delvers, dungeoneers, adventurers, whatever you want to call them.
They're not your average nutter, they're worse.
They think it's great fun to wriggle themselves into holes in the ground in search of some dead king's tin cup.

And there's plenty of places for them to crawl, I don't mind telling you. You see, way back when, the old kings of Viroof used to bury their dead in tombs like the heathen dwarfs. All along the Southron Road, the countryside is littered with cairns and mounds to some minor chieftain or favored gilly.

But they've all been picked over a thousand-thousand times, and no delver is interested in them anymore. There are deeper, darker, more dangerous and more profitable graves to plunder. Usually on the western side of the road. Between the highway and the mountains, or carved into the living rock, you can find the places where no one has been stupid enough to enter since the place was sealed.

They're often difficult to find, your best bet is to find a good guide, a seasoned woodsman from the area. He'll know the places where moss and turf and tree hide ancient masonry. The places that animals avoid, and the places where he dare not spend the night. A good woodsman will know all the signs that point an old grave.
He'll charge to take you out there of course. The best guides will bring a wagon with them, and you'll have to charter that too, but if you're lucky, your guide will be a good cook as well, and should you manage to not get killed inside the dungeon, you might have a decent meal waiting for you at the campsite.

Shadow Delvers

I've been reading the book Shadow Divers about deep sea scuba divers trying to identify the wreck of a German World War II U-boat off the New Jersey coast and it has me thinking about the parallels that a DM could draw.

Wrecks are often found by fishermen, who will sometimes trade the locations of the wrecks to charter boat captains.

The locations are jealously guarded and the wrecks themselves are dangerous locations that sometimes hide great treasures for those brave or stupid enough to dive them.

It' an easy comparison to make, but an interesting one too. I've already sketched an idea in my head of what it would look like in my home campaign. Perhaps I'll post that later...

Skillz

Fuck it, I'm drunk. Let's do this.

*The male pronoun is used here exclusively, because either A: I can't be bothered. or B: see above.

The singular most important skill for a Dungeon Master is learning.

A DM needs to absorb all information, images, and other sensory data that will inform his game.

What does that encompass?

Fucking everything.

A DM must convey an entire world to his players, one bit at at time. How much does a polar bear weigh? What are the prevailing winds in a given region? Does a witch float? All these things and infinitely more are vitally important to a given set of players in a given situation in a given game.
It is not, however, vitally important that a DM know exact details about these things, but he must have an idea.
The air-speed velocity of an unladen swallow is unlikely to ever come up in the course of regular gaming (if there is such a thing), but the DM should have an idea of how fast a bird can fly.
Especially if the players need to send an important message to a faraway kingdom where time is a factor.

Most important are visuals.
A DM provides all sensory information for the players, sight being the most important.
Humans (as well as elves and dwarves, for that matter) are visual creatures. The sense of sight is paramount to us. In general, the more a DM has seen, the more a player can see. This also ties back to general information. What do certain types of architecture look like? Furthermore, can players distinguish between a mortar joint and a dovetail? If not, a DM cannot just inform the players as to what type of joint is present, he must describe it visually, in the least.

Similarly, a DM must describe the effects of his world on all the other senses: smell, hearing, touch, and taste. Also included are any other senses specific to a fantasy setting, or otherwise not recognized by real world science, such as a players gut.

If a player gets "a bad feeling" from the obviously demonic artifact, a DM should know how that feels to a player. Does it twist their guts? Does it cause a sinking feeling?  Perhaps vertigo? Additionally, characters who are sensitive to magic may feel their hairs raise when around powerful items or locations.

Always in the background of the DM's mind should be the idea that the players experience their world through him. Does the creature in front of them look like a giant, angry jello mold come to life, send chills down their spine, and smell like gym socks? DOES IT?

Fucking figure it out. It's your job. It is your challenge.

It is your art.

A bit unbalanced

Steve Winter's latest blog post got me thinking about game balance or the lack thereof.

So, question: Should every encounter be balanced to the adventurers who stumbling into it?

NO! says I.

I am a simulation gamer, which is to say, I believe that the game should represent the DM's vision of a fantastic reality and to that end, the game should hold as tight as possible to that vision.

Part of that means that The World is not Fair. Which is to say, The Game is not Balanced.

If you wander into the Trollhaunt Woods at level 1, ghost-trolls will probably rape you to death, eat your flesh, and sew your skin into a tablecloth.

However, the DM's job is to have fun and help everyone else have fun. In my experience, neither goal is accomplished by having a black dragon repeatedly murder everyone.

So, what is a DM to do?

I  try and give adventure hooks to my players that lead them toward what I think is probably a level appropriate encounter.

Notice the lack of trying there. Not trying is key. Just do what makes sense, consequences be damned.

As a DM you're no more obligated to keep the party alive than you are to murder them. Ideally, one finds a happy medium.

Throw things at them, let them sort it out. A smart group of players will triumph or flee.

Above all, do what makes sense.

The frontier

Doing some writing on my home campaign, realized I have no unmapped areas on my map. That is to say, so far, there is no frontier.

I think adventurers should want a frontier, a vast untamed land full of possibility and mystery.

I'm making two maps now, one says SHOW TO PLAYERS the other says NEVER SHOW TO PLAYERS.

I think it is important for the DM to at least have an idea of what awaits over the next hill, but players should be setting off like Bilbo. They might have a guide, or even a map, but all they really know is that they're going Out There, and they might not come back.