Campaign New August 31

I'm returning to the old newsletter format today.

PLAYERS & CHARACTERS

Summer has been surprisingly eventful in terms of player activity despite that half of the scheduled sessions have not been played by anyone, and a couple of the usually more active players have suffered reduced availability. I'm very happy to report that Amy B, Monica R, and Scott B have joined us, Josh L has created a character in anticipation of re-joining us, and Alex W plans to join us as soon as he is able. Sadly, John S has decided to retire from the game.

The time gap between the least and most advanced characters' timelines has narrowed to 45 days after peaking at 80 days. The geographic gap has widened however, with characters as far flung as Waterford, Castlenoe, and the Mountains of Mis.

In a fascinating turn of events, the last session saw the first overt player-versus-player actions of the game, one character picking the pockets and leaving for dead her comrades in the dungeon after a near total-party-kill.

I've previously asserted that while AD&D is ultimately a competitive game, skillful play at the lower levels is cooperative. The last session may be the exception that proves the rule. I'll withhold further analysis and discussion for the time-being, but this may be a very interesting and informative case study to improve our understanding of early competitive play in AD&D.

SCHEDULE

The next scheduled game is Tuesday, 8 Sep.

Please remember that you are invited and encouraged to bring new players to the table with you any time. You are likewise invited and encouraged to request impromptu or ad hoc games at any time. I will always have characters on hand for use and adoption by any player. Barry has indicated that he may be available for ad hoc sessions on some Wednesdays, so reach out to him if a Wednesday night game might work for you. Also let me know, because if I'm available, I'll be interested in playing, or possibly refereeing if Barry can't.

TIPS & TRICKS

The Role of Simulation

Perhaps the defining characteristic dividing games like AD&D from games like chess and tennis is "tactical infinity," the allowance within the game to take actions not explicitly described by the rules. I touched on this last April using the iron spike as an example. The only rules around the iron spike are that it costs 1 copper and weighs 1 pound. There are no other rules and just one suggestion about what a character or monster might do with it, and that is to anchor a piece of rope. In our game, characters have successfully used an iron spike to hold a portcullis up and a door closed.

How can players imagine innovative things to do with spells and equipment, and how referees decide how such innovation should be handled? A lot of modern gaming writing will recommend things like "the rule of cool" as the best way to handle situations that the rules don't cover. Those games have different objectives than ours. In our game, on the spot rulings that a referee needs to make for situations not covered by the rules are governed by two principles: 1) consistency with the existing rules of the game, and 2) consistency with our understanding of how the world works. That second principle is essentially simulation: imitating in the game what could happen in the real world. We do that instead of making a ruling that "creates epic moments" as one modern game writer put it, because we are interested in fairness and predictability rather than story.

The reason fairness is important to our game, and not so important to modern expressions of the game, is that our game is competitive and our referees are also players. There are characters in our game who have played at times with me as their referee and with Barry as their referee and there has been zero difference in what rules were used and how they were applied. Likewise, I have played characters that Barry has refereed, and Barry has played characters that I have refereed. Eventually those characters may be rivals for lands and resources and it's important that neither of us has had any unfair advantage.

The reason that predictability is important to our game is that it allows players to innovate actions. Not every action is on the table, for example, a player suggesting his or her thief climbs up the backside of a giant in the middle of combat to gain a backstab bonus. While arguably "cool" and "dramatic," it is also unreasonable once one carefully pictures the maneuvers involved. In this case, it also violates the rules as the giant would certainly be aware of the character climbing his back if such a thing made any physical sense. Players are constrained by a "reasonableness" that comes from a shared understanding of how things work. It is at least as much a burden on the players as on the referee to think this through, lest they waste their valuable session time asking if their character can shove the elephant into the pit, or some such nonsense. On the other side of that coin, practical innovations, such as carrying a potted plant into the dungeon in order to use some plant-affecting spell in a place in which plants aren't normally found is perfectly possible.

Campaign News August 3

We had three new players join in July, and there are two more who've expressed interest in joining as well. It seems like a good time for a refinement to the definition of how this group plays AD&D and why we play it that way. I'll start with my favorite quotation from the Dungeon Masters Guide, from the afterword in Gary's all caps emphasis:

BY ORDERING THINGS AS THEY SHOULD BE, THE GAME AS A WHOLE FIRST, YOUR CAMPAIGN NEXT, AND YOUR PARTICIPANTS THEREAFTER, YOU WILL BE PLAYING ADVANCED DUNGEONS & DRAGONS AS IT WAS MEANT TO BE.

Paraphrased: rules first, setting next, players and referees last.

Why Rules First?

1. Rules generate the campaign setting in which the characters operate. 

The random encounter tables, for example, tell us if, when, and what the characters run into crossing a wilderness. The encumbrance and movement rules tell us how long it takes the characters to cross that wilderness, and terrain tells us how frequently there's a chance they might run into something, and what sorts of things they might run into.

The random encounter tables tell us all, referees included, what's actually in the world. They enable and require referee creativity, not stifle it. The referee is forced to make pieces he or she didn't expect to hold, fit together and conform to the rules and established precedent.

The rules allow the referee to be just as surprised as the players by what happens next. This allows all the participants explore the setting together instead of being led through places and events that the referee has already thoroughly explored. 

2. Rules ensure fairness.

When everyone is following the rules to the best of their ability, the referee is just another participant in the game, with no more power than anyone else at the table. 

Following the rules means that the referee can't simply decide that the characters will or will not win a fight. It means that players can evaluate the risk-reward tradeoff consistently. This allows players to improve their skill at the game, which improves their enjoyment of it. It means that the players' choices matter. It means that the referee is unable to manipulate the circumstances. It means that players can look for ways exploit the rules to their advantage and not worry that the referee will override them.

We all keep getting better at the game as we keep playing the same game as defined by those constant rules. 

3. Rules deepen immersion in the world.

Time in the game world matters. The characters' upkeep expense, resource consumption, and hireling wages are all applying time pressure on the players to execute efficient plans, and adjust intelligently when those plans are thwarted by the dice.

Risks are real and calculable. All of the work and time put into one's characters is at risk in the session, and it could all be lost.

Learning more about the rules and the setting provides advantage, both cooperative and competitive. 

How players use their characters' downtime between sessions builds more campaign setting and creates more disparity between who knows what.

Because the world persists between sessions, it becomes more solid and real.

The rules give structure to the activity, making it a game and not merely playing pretend. 

Campaign News July 16

Despite being sailing season and money-making season and visiting-family season, the campaign has been cooking right along. In the Saturday session this month we had three new players join the game and make a strong push into the middle of the characters pack right out of the gate (not sure if I'm mixing metaphors there, but I'm too enthusiastic to care). I may be jumping the gun (third metaphor, second, I don't know) to announce it this early, but I think the Thursday session in July will see a player on hiatus returning to the campaign as well, and maybe, just maybe, even another new player!

Quite some time ago the campaign took on a certain life of its own. As more players join that life becomes more complex and vibrant. Counter intuitively, perhaps, this reduces cognitive load on the referees. Yes, we have more we have to pay attention to, but less we have less we have to drive. It becomes more and more the game that the players are making and less and less the game that the referees are creating. Already, the rules and the players create the bulk of the game, with we referees just kicking in a little here and there. I see a day soon when, as a referee, the game will move so quickly I would have difficulty adding any value. That is the goal.

Sorry for another brief update with no "tip & tricks," but really, nobody needs my tips anymore and you all know more tricks than I do!