Thursday, August 25, 2011

Dungeonspiration: Chichén Itzá

Tamoachan/Kukulkan
The Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan was one of my favorite modules to look at and read back in the early '80s, so when I had the chance to go to a real life Central American temple complex, I jumped at the chance.

The tour guide looked like a Mexican Saddam Hussein.  I would have never mentioned it, but he seemed proud of the fact and told us at least ten times.  El Saddam also informed us that the best was to remember how to pronounce Chichén Itzá was to say 'Chicken Pizza' as many times as possible.

Chichén Itzá is a wonderful site, dominated by large gray buildings rising up out of the hot, arid jungle.  Any thoughts of fantasy worlds or imaginary dungeons melt away.  This shit is real, and there is a heck of a lot more to it than just a pyramid.

What most people don't realize is that a good chunk of the site was basically rubble when European explorers found it.  A lot of effort went into figuring out how all the stones fit together.  And who knows, maybe they got it completely wrong. Perhaps Chichén Itzá should really look like a gigantic stone EPCOT center.



Okay, maybe not. :)



Below is the Well of Souls. It's a cenote, which is a fresh water filled limestone sinkhole. Supposedly, the Mayans took sacrificial victims, weighted them down with stones, gave them a hallucinogenic drug, and tossed them in the below.



Unlike the other cenote I visited in the Yucatán, this one was dirty and muddy looking, and I could just imagine centuries of corpses piled up on the bottom, intermingled in the ooze. Yuck.



The image above is of part of the Tzompantli, or Wall of Skulls. Supposedly, thousands upon thousands of human sacrifices were performed here. Death seems to be ever present at Chichén Itzá.

Near the end of the tour, El Saddam let us roam the site on our own.  I was drawn to the out of the way nooks and crannies were the crowds were absent.   After some time of wandering, I found myself staring at a blocked entrance.  Where was the entrance to?  Well - it should be obvious.  A hidden shrine - with deadly traps and hideous monsters.  Perhaps there was a  gibbering mouther just beyond the stones - but only Erol Otus would know for sure.



So get off your duff and go to the Mexico.  Or perhaps just go to the Wikipedia page.  Whatever the case, ancient Mayan ruins are a great way to get inspired.  Dream on.

- Ark

Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Dear Christian

[I intended to write a brief note to Christian regarding his latest post, but it turned into an essay . . .]

I feel your pain.  For most of the last thirty years of game mastering, I've felt I've been too nice to the players, too kind, too wishy-washy.  The threats I designed weren't deadly enough - I didn't push hard enough - I wasn't ruthless enough.  Then there were the rare TPK's where I felt completely opposite.

I decided to become a bastard earlier this year.  I told the guys that I had been playing 4e with up front -  "I want to play old style D&D.  I want to kill your characters.  I want to kill them in a frikkin pit trap.  But more importantly, I want you to be frosty enough to avoid that pit trap with your own wits - not at the roll of a die."

They were interested, but kind of freaked.  "Can we have max hp at first level?" they asked.  "Sure," I grumbled.  "Can we use AD&D/AEC big style hit dice where the fighter would have a d10 instead of a d8?"  "Sure," I sighed.  "Death at -10?"  "Okay." Their freak level reduced drastically and they started looking forward to the game.

In business lingo - they had 'buy-in.'  They agreed to to support the 'gaming project.'  Why?  Well, they trust me enough to keep coming back for more.  But more importantly - we bargained and made a deal.  They had input.  I wanted to kill them.  They wanted more hit points.  Did I want to give them more hit points? Nooooo.  ONE HIT POINT IS ALL YOU GET, YOU SQUIRMY LITTLE MAGIC-USER!  But it was important to them to have that buffer.

They really didn't take into consideration that if they were more powerful, I was just going to throw harder things at them.  :)  Live and learn.

We've made other deals and their characters have had an extra leg up once in a while - like for a period of time during low levels they were allowed to play two characters.  That helped them feel a bit better.  We are phasing that out now with attrition.  I also instituted the Order of the d30, which allows them to use the d30 to replace any single 'in game' roll, which has been quite helpful to them.  But each little concession or boost like that made me feel better about being the bastard - giving me license to throw the kitchen sink at them.

It's not like we have a TPK every week, but in around half a year we've had 4 deaths.  The wonderful thing is that each one of those deaths has been perfectly guilt free on my part.  And almost all those deaths have been when I turned up the heat and something went wrong in their planning.  Like jumping on a frikkin airborne dragon. You know, that kind of wrong. :)

A lot of players these days have a sense of entitlement.  They feel their character shouldn't die.  They feel that their stuff should never be destroyed or stolen.  They want to be immortal gods at first level.  Part of that is because there are more players that GMs, so the gaming companies design games to appeal to where their cash is coming from.  The other part is because GMs let them - to be nice or liked or that's how the damn book told us how to do it.

While playing pumped up glowing-haired wuxia death ninjas out of the gate can be a valid and enjoyable form of role playing - it's not the only one, and it's certainly not the way we started back when we were riding dinosaurs to school.  Forcing the players into an LBB/OD&D style campaign would have been a disaster.  Their expectations were no where near such a thing.  Sitting down and being honest about the type of game we wanted to play has paved the way for a really completely awesome gaming experience that's going on now in our Labyrinth Lord game.  I enjoy REALLY trying to kill them, and they enjoy outsmarting me.  And when someone does eat dirt, we laugh and laugh and laugh - wait for the guy to roll up his next character - and keep on trucking.

I hope that you can get the type of edge in your game you are looking for.  I don't know if what I just wrote will help you achieve that in any way, but I'm crossing my fingers and am thinking happy little tree thoughts for you and your players. :)

- Ark

Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Beard and Boob Badge

Yeah yeah yeah, show me a parade float and I'll jump on it.

I'd like to present the Beard and Boob Badge, for those DMs who like to play an opposite sex NPC a little bit longer than anyone else at the table is comfortable with.

I guess that's all the badges that fit.  Yay me!

- Ark


Monday, August 22, 2011

Educating The Boy

Actual photo of The Boy.
This last school year was a big bag of not fun for the boy.  Years of bullying from students and pressure to conform by teachers into some kind of Stepford playground attendant left him emotionally exhausted.

My response to a similar school experience led me to become a silent wallflower.  For the Boy, such a compromise was never really on the table.  As those of you have met him know - you know - the Boy is THE BOY, in all caps, the guy who puts a big smile on your face, causes you to laugh to the point of tears during an rpg session, can drive a teacher insane, and has the ability to attract every bully within a ten mile radius that is crusin' to destroy the different and special.

Near the end of the year, enough was enough, and we pulled him out of school and spend some quiet, calm time home schooling and emotionally recovering.

Today was the first day back to school - but this time, no brick and mortar school, and no home schooling.  He's attending an online school.  Enrolling was a bit of a hurdle, but when that was completed, they sent us books, school supplies, and a computer.  Pretty nifty set up - especially since it's a public school so all of that was free (well, we gotta send them back.)  It's kind of like home schooling, but with the heavy lifting done by the state.

After this first day he was absolutely ecstatic.  He gets to interact with teachers on the phone and on the web in a variety of ways.  The kids even get to chat with one another before classes - which are flexible time-wise.  And one of the things he seemed most excited about - he doesn't have to stick with the rest of the pack - he can go do lessons ahead of time.  He's already two lessons ahead on the first day, and we can see his progress right there, live and online as he chugs along.

I'm so happy he's liking it so far.  I'll be doing some supplemental education in the evenings.  Since we are learning to create Pathfinder characters, he'll need to learn algebra and pre-calculus.

HA!  That was a joke.  Sort of.  ;)

Things are looking up.

- Ark


Saturday, August 20, 2011

Bloodspurt

image by Nathan M. Rosario 
I am working on my character for the Pathfinder game I'm going to be playing with the Boy, who is playing a Goth halfling sorcerer with a tiny dragon familiar.

My character is, well, just check him out -

Name: Bloodspurt

Race: Half-orc
Class: Paladin
Alignment: Lawful Good

STR: 15
DEX: 13
CON: 14
INT: 8
WIS: 16
CHR: 19

I am seriously considering making him blond with an appearance identical to Fabio. I don't think I am going to be able to stop laughing throughout the entire campaign.  Dear god I'm going to be annoying.  The other players are going to kill me while I'm sleeping.

- Ark

Friday, August 19, 2011

The Six Million Dollar GM: Faster, Stronger, Now With More Funions

Honestly, I don't remember it being so PINK.
I triple dog dared ckutalik over in one of beedo's post to do what beedo mentioned, which was "something I'd like to see more bloggers discuss is their successful table techniques that translate into good games."  ckutalik is still writing, I guess, so I'll go first. ;)  He did post up some rules for the challenge, which I probably have not followed at all, but here we go . . .

Everything important that I've learned about running a role playing game I discovered in the first few years of playing.  The remaining decades are just filled with me having to relearn these basic tenants because I've read gaming advice that sounds good, but ultimately falls short.

Now when I say YOU in the points below, I mean ME.  I'm talking to myself here, and the games that I play.  What works for other people is different that what works for me.  You probably shouldn't even be reading this because it will screw up your game.

1. Stop fucking planning.

Really dude, just stop it.  Being prepared is one thing, but sitting around, imagining what the players are going to do and coming up with some sort of tree branch decision matrix outcome generation system is futile.  It's not going to be exciting.

Let the players do whatever the hell they want and react to it on the fly.  Build the world each step of the way as the players put their foot down on that particular patch of grass.  Sure, sketch out a map, imagine some dungeon ideas, flesh out an npc - but never expect that the players will go to those lands, explore those dungeons, or meet those characters.  The players can't screw up your plans if you don't have any, and it's kind of rude to expect the very free-thinking players that you want to be playing with to hop aboard your choo-choo train of railroadiness, no matter how grand it might play out in your head.

The best 'planning' for a game is to read lots of adventure fiction, ancient history books, geology texts, and Shakespeare.  Go watch Mythbusters and play with LEGOs.  Devour information and play games.  Feed your mind the building blocks of world making so you can have the tools to build on the fly.

2.  Don't you dare open that rulebook.

Looking up monsters stat, equipment lists, or random tables is okay.  But don't waste anyone's time digging for rules DURING A GAME.  If you can't remember it - it was obviously too complicated anyway.

Recently, one of my newer players had a character in the water, fighting a sewer kraken in 4e.  I told him that he was at a negative two to hit.

"Is that in addition to the underwater combat modifications listed in the rules?"

I chuckled.  "I don't remember what the 4e rules for underwater combat are, and I don't care.  You are at a negative 2.  Go."

He looked like I was speaking Martian to him, but he continued.  Later he joined my Labyrinth Lord game as well, so evidently the way I was running things wasn't too repulsive to him.

3. Leave the damn dice alone.

If you roll the dice, accept the result.  You asked the universe a question.  The universe gave you an answer.  Deal or don't roll the dice in the first place.  The universe typically makes better decisions that you anyway, since, you know, it can't be WRONG, so you might as well go with it.  And it works because I never feel guilty about cheating or short-changing the players from the full 'gaming experience.' :)


So, there you have it, ckutalik, my recipe for LEET G4MERZ SKILLZ   You are now 'it.'

:)

- Ark