Earlier today, I was suddenly struck by the fragment of a quote, which I though must have come from one old-school RPG essay I read years ago. Maybe something from The Alexandrian, or from JB Blackrazor?
I got digging, and quickly figured out that it wasn't from a tabletop source at all. It was A Letter from a Dungeon, by Ernest Adams, which concerns not D&D but Diablo and similar hack-n-slash CRPGs.
The article, taking the form of a letter written by a videogame protagonist to their teacher, skewers the design of Diablo and its ilk, and even though it's not what Adams was writing about, some of the lessons from the letter can be fruitfully applied to pen and paper roleplaying.
First, the quote which reminded me of the piece:
In this business I am no hero, no warrior; I am an exterminator, a dog killing rats in a crate. If we fight on enough to get tired, they can eventually get the better of us, but for another thing: we have a magic door which allows us to return instantly back to the town. There we may rest as long as we like. I have no fear that this letter may never find you – will rot away beside my body here in the dungeon, for in ten seconds I can be back in safety ... Courage is the conquering of fear, yet I have no fear; no reason to fear, and therefore no need for courage. The stirring stories I read as a child in school are meaningless here; they provide no example to guide me. Richard the Lionheart did not cast a spell and fly home to England whenever he felt tired! He is no adventurer who returns upon a moment’s whim to sleep in safety every night.
If it is possible to trivially leave the dungeon and return to rest in town, the dungeon ceases to be risky. The videogame example is comical, where one can fast travel to the dungeon entrance or town at will. But in pen and paper RPGs, where all actions take place at the pace and level of detail adjudicated by the DM, it is possible to do the same in effect. If the party may leave the dungeon at will without risk, or even if all they must do is disengage from combat to escape, then the DM's description of the party leaving the dungeon is no different from opening a magic door and returning to town.
This may be remedied just by making exiting the dungeon riskier or otherwise challenging. To use the example of Castle Xyntillan, both of the main entrances have some form of risk associated with them, but that risk mostly manifests when leaving through them, not coming in. There are also plenty of examples, mostly from old school dungeons, of features specifically intended to confuse mapping and make finding the exit more difficult, such as spinning corridors, teleporters and the like.
Finally, distance from town and other resource costs involved with travelling to and from the dungeon are a good way to modulate player behavior. Again, using Castle Xyntillan, the town is two full days away from the castle, through mountain pass, but the road is relatively clear and well developed. If getting to the dungeon requires many more days, or unreliable paths, or straight wilderness exploration, there are no guarantees of making it back to town in good time.
The opening of the letter is good on its own:
I write to you from the thirteenth level of a dungeon. The dungeon has a name, but I will not disturb you with it, for it sounds ridiculous and made up.
We've all been there. An excess of apostrophes in particular is strangely common. As are nonsense words, and not the delightful kind. If your dungeon can't have a plain name in your own language, if you really want something exotic-sounding, at least outsource to a language your players aren't familiar with. It helps with consistency of sound. Hebrew, Greek, Swahili, Gaelic and Georgian are all good options. Better yet if you learn one of those languages and use it as a consistent ancient/magic tongue.
Am I saying that DMs should learn a new language for the express purpose of using it at the table? Yes.
The rooms themselves are built in a variety of architectural styles. We have seen many types of stone, and arches, pillars, cornices, balustrades, and other interesting elements, but all have one thing in common: they are uniformly rectilinear. Not a single curve have I seen to relieve the stark uniformity of the place. The floors, too, are curiously level and even; laid by master craftsmen no doubt, but without a step or platform anywhere. There are stairs which lead from one level of the dungeon to another, but that is all. And these levels themselves are curious also: the layout of each bears no relation to the one above it, and the style of the stonework changes suddenly without apparent reason; yet level upon level, the place seems to be little more than a vast storehouse, a storehouse with no rhyme or reason, organization or plan.
I can think of some dungeons which share this flaw, but this isn't as big a problem in pen and paper as it is in videogames, especially procedurally generated ones. Making the dungeon look a certain way in a videogame requires making and placing assets, whereas at the table only the DM's say-so is necessary.
The creatures could perhaps be servants of a single overlord who built this place to be their dwelling. Upon rare occasions we do find tables, chairs, and beds, but never enough for all the monsters we encounter. Perhaps they are only for the use of a middle grade of nobility, and the remainder sleep on the floor and eat with their hands. In any case the dungeon is clearly not a barracks or a dormitory; it does not give the impression of a place where someone lives; it is merely a place where things are.
This is a familiar concept, and the solution to it is solved technology. If you really want to avoid this issue, just add a healthy heaping of Gygaxian Naturalism. That being said, the cure may be worse than the disease depending on how much time you're willing to put into planning an ecosystem. I prefer a balanced diet of mythical underworlds and hand-waves.
 |
| Nobody said they breathed lightning! |
The beings who live here... what shall I say of them? Firstly, that they are uniformly hostile ... And so we kill them.
Oh, God, how we kill them.
Dozens, hundreds of beasts have I slain, in considerable variety of species; but each individual is identical to all its fellows of the same species. There is none of the variation one expects to find among living things, and I find myself wondering if they are not creatures of machinery or magic, all conjured from some template somewhere. They attack in groups of four or five, seldom more, and although there are obviously hundreds of them in the dungeon, they never mass in overwhelming numbers. They are clearly extremely stupid, possessing neither any organizational skill nor a communications system to summon their fellows. They attack blindly, marching towards us, taking no advantage of cover or tactical opportunities. And so we mow them down.
Granted, some monsters are produced by magic or machinery, but in general, a little description goes a long way. Describe how the orcs range from short and round to tall and stick-thin, or how one of the skeletons has a dented skull or is wearing a funny hat.
[See also: The Lost Colors of D&D by Joseph Manola]
Adams' complaints about uniform hostility, lack of organization among even supposedly intelligent enemies, is also well known to us, and unfortunately, seems to be more the rule than the exception when it comes to D&D 5th. The fix for the first part is reaction rolls. The fix for the second part is adversary rosters and some basic tactics among creatures which can feasibly organize. At the very least, kick the habit of suicidal monsters.
-------------
If you enjoyed reading this, please follow the blog to see updates as they come up. Until the next post, have a wonderful time.
No comments:
Post a Comment