Player-Characters Are Over Rated

 

I'm going to perform a magic trick right before your eyes. Are you ready? Okay, turn around and look at the book shelf behind you. You know, the one brimming with RPG rules, splatbooks, game guides, and so forth. It's okay, we all have one. Now, grab a random role-playing game book. Turn to the very first chapter. My mentalist prediction is that contained within that chapter are rules dictating how a player-character ("PC") is created. Was I right?

I once asked the question "Can an RPG exist without player-characters?" to which I got a resounding "no" from everyone who answered. So it should be no surprise that the vast majority of role-playing games focus an enormous page count on player-characters. How to create them, what special abilities they get, what kind of equipment they can buy, level advancement, and so on. However, today I'm going to posit that most RPGs focus entirely too much on these avatars and not enough on, well, everything else.

But you might be thinking "Wait Kyle, isn't player-focused game design a good thing?" to which I would answer yes. Player-focused design, not player-character focused design, is a good thing. But I believe that most RPGs approach the game from a fundamentally wrong direction. Allow me to explain.

Every adventure begins with a designer. This game host is often called a "Dungeon Master" or "Game Master". It is their job to essentially provide the evening's fictional events to the players. One of the many perks of being a GM is the freedom to design an adventure however they want. People who fancy storytelling, world building, game design, puzzles, and so forth, often gravitate to this role. The Game Master can design entirely new fictional universes, worlds, cultures, creatures (both evil and helpful), and special objects, artifacts, and magical spells. The creative power bestowed upon a GM is limitless.

As a GM myself, I enjoy imagining new fantastical worlds. Within those worlds, I want to populate them with my own creations. Those creations are each steeped in unique cultures. So should it be so strange that I, the GM, also design unique player-based species, classes, and spells? What I need, as a GM, are the tools to permit me to bring my creations to life.

But the way most tabletop role-playing and adventure games take is to start with the players picking a pre-designed character archetype. "Lets start with the player-characters!" they say. They then spend several chapters talking about PCs. But when it comes time to offer tools to the Game Master to master creative writing, visual storytelling, pacing, game design, level design, and so forth; the rules are not nearly as long.

The player-character archetypes printed in every RPG book were designed by someone else other than the game host. FUDGE is perhaps a rare exception to this fact. The arbitrary options that game publishers offer players try the "kitchen sink" method of including every conceivable possibility imaginable. In turn, players may spend many hours carefully creating their perfectly-balanced characters, all in accordance to the myriad of proprietary game rules.

For some of us, such a decades-old ritual may not seem problematic. But let's examine it a bit deeper: to start, for new players, they're being asked to put in a considerable amount of time and thought into a game they may very well not know how to play. You're asking them to make important decisions about something at a time they know the least about it!

But maybe you sent all the players a PDF of the rules ahead of time, so they could get acquainted with the game before game night. However, from my experience, very few players actually reach the rules before the game. Or if they do they'll only ready, you guessed it, the first chapter. Worse yet, if the people playing have never playing an RPG before, the whole experience may come as a shock. You have to remember that you're asking someone to play a game that has over 100 pages of rules! Pathfinder alone had a rulebook over 500 pages in size. To a layman that sounds not only intense, but borderline crazy. I mean, would you play a card game, sport, or video game with that many pages of rules?

Second, players are often hit with analysis paralysis. Too many options up front. Worse yet they may end up regretting their decisions later after they learn more about the game (buyer's remorse).

Lastly, I'm sure we can all relate to this one: I can't tell you how many game sessions, lasting 4+ hours, I've spent where the entire night is devoted to nothing more than creating player-characters. Filling out a character record sheet is not a game (unless maybe you're Traveller).

Now I want to use some real world examples of why player-characters are over rated. You see, in the 70s and 80s, when video games were becoming a thing, many early designers set out to re-create their D&D adventures in video form. Early adventure and role-playing games mimicked tabletop RPGs by offering a multitude of character creation options and customization choices. In fact, it was often assumed you, the player, would pick out an entire team of PCs to game as. This involved putting points in all of each character's stats, picking out some special abilities, using a set amount of currency to buy equipment, etc.

But overtime this method proved inefficient and has since over the last 40 years been dropped by almost all AAA+ game studios. Sure, some modern titles will have some stream-lined character creation methods, but the choices offered are usually emotionally-based (e.g. "What do I feel like playing as?") more so than numerically based (e.g. "How many points do I need to get a +10% XP bonus?").

It turns out that allocating points, min/maxing abilities, and choosing a balanced team composition before you even play the game is kind of boring. It takes too long and is a barrier to entry for new players. Players wants to get straight to the action. David Brevik, one of the masterminds behind the Diablo series, once said that he wanted the players to go from the main menu screen to slaying monsters in less than a minute. It turns out, he was right. Focus on what matters and hand-wave (aka automate) everything else.

The same emphasis on game play is in other games as well. World of Warcraft, arguably the best RPG video game ever made, has no point-buy system during character creation. Just pick a race, a class, and a name. Even level advancement is entirely automatic. Now some of you might be thinking "But Kyle! Diablo and WoW are all about grinding for great gear, and end-level play is all about getting the best stat buffs you can." Yes, that is correct. It's all about the treasure you find during your adventures. But if you don't really care about pesky stats, you can focus on whatever you enjoy the most. Maybe you like to play for the social aspect, or the PVE (player versus environment) aspects. Maybe you like the story. The point is, that games like Diablo and WoW a future-facing form of character creation. Instead of focusing on numerical composition, what matters is what the character actually does inside the game. If the end result rewards the players, great.

If you're still not convinced, let me ask you did anyone complain that most of the customization of tabletop games was removed from Blizzard's early adventure games? If so, I've never heard them. Does anyone cry over the fact that Mario doesn't have stats, or that you can't customize Yoshi's jump? It's a shift of focus away from the player-character, and onto the adventure.

I believe what matters most in role-playing games is the "doing". It's more important to provide players with a great story arc, cleverly crafted dungeons, challenging monsters, sneaky traps, cunning spells, and so on; rather than dwell on your character's background. As game designers, and game masters, I encourage all of us to focus on player motivations (e.g. immersion, creativity, action, socialization, etc) and less on the vessel that the players use to explore those motivations. Keep the story moving, encourage the players to continue exploring the dungeon, to engage in the world that you spent hours designing. The player-characters, outside of some special abilities and unique quirks, is ultimately inconsequential. It's not who you're born as that matters, its the decisions you make and the person you grow into that does.

It's less important about "who" is inside the game world, and more important about what the game world is like, what exposition is unfolding, and the challenges in-between the player and their goals.

Now, some of you might be thinking "But I like the acting and role-playing side of games. I like theater of the mind.". I think that's great! I'm not saying you can't have those expressive moments. In fact, I believe that true role-playing supports my argument. You see, professional actors, when taking on new roles for TV shows, film, theater, etc. immerse themselves in the mental, emotional, and personality-based intricacies of their character. They don't spend time rolling 3d6 for stats, or which weapon they're proficient in. If anything, actors are more concerned with a character's internal make-up. Things like the character's motivation & goals, contradictions, fears, and incongruities.

To me, the true definition of what makes a game, a game, is the following: it must have a goal, a challenge, rules, play (e.g. what players can do within a possibility-space), and participants (the players). Player-characters are nice, but not required. I certainly enjoy playing with PCs, but not at the expenses of the other elements of a game.

As for the definition of role-playing, I believe only needs three elements: the Game Master describes the scene to you, you tell the Game Master how you would interact with the fictional world, and the Game Host describes the consequences. This, I believe, is an RPG distilled into its purest form. You see? The focus is not on the player-character, but instead on the player and the adventure.

So go out and design some wonderful player-characters, but don't get so caught up in the PCs that you forget that there's a great big fictional world out there to explore!

LOTR Style Wilderness Travel

I've been reading my copy of "The One Ring" RPG, by Francesco Nepitello, and I found a real gem about wilderness travel.

In Lord of the Rings, overland travel is a big deal. There is no teleportation, or airships (actually, there are in the Silmarillion), or other forms of fast travel. Instead, journeys can take months. In fact, the rulebook states that a party ("company") of adventurers ("companions") usually only get one big adventure per year, and the characters will take an entire season off (usually winter).

Party Roles

The party of characters are encouraged to take on individual roles:

• The Guide. Responsible for navigating the party, maintaining food stores, setting up camp, general maintenance, tending to the horses and wagons, and so forth.
• The Pathfinder. This one is actually called the "scout", but I feel "pathfinder" is more appropriate as they're responsible for finding a path for the party to follow. They're also responsible for finding a suitable camp site, and responsible for traversing the party over perilous paths (steep cliffs, thick underbrush, through swift-flowing water, etc).
• The Scout. Actually called the "look-out", but again, I felt scout was more appropriate. They're responsible for watching out for possible dangers, such as nearby monsters, bad weather, predatory animals, etc. Works well with "night watch" roles.
• The Huntsman. Responsible for hunting and gathering food, locating drinkable water, and somewhat defending the camp from wild fauna. Can also be responsible for tracking and the like.

What makes these roles so fun is what comes next.

Dangerous Journeys

Because travel takes so long, the party will occasionally make fatigue rolls along the way. This is sort of like an encounter roll that the Game Master would make, but instead success & failure are determined by how stalwart the characters are. The difficulty and frequency of these rolls can depend on several factors, such as the overall terrain, how lawless the land is (there's a spectrum from "freeland" where cities reside to "border lands", "wild lands", "shadow lands" and "dark lands"), and the current season of the year.

If one of the characters fails their fatigue roll very poorly, the travel montage "zooms in", and changes to, a "hazard episode".

Wilderness Hazards

A hazard episode is basically an encounter--except hazards don't have to include NPCs. Instead, the party could face a raging river, or poor weather, or become lost in the woods, or stumble across a nest of carnivorous beasts.

However, what makes the LOTR hazards fun is that they're related to the failing character's role. For example, if "the pathfinder" failed their fatigue roll, the hazard the party faced would somehow be related to them failing at their duties (e.g. getting lost, or being forced to bed down in a poor campsite, or the party has to take a costly detour).

Each role has some example hazards, which I thought were pretty cool. Here's some examples:

• Guide Hazards: Lost direction, uncomfortable lodgings, lost supplies, spoiled food, neglect that leads to wear and fatigue of the party.
• Pathfinder Hazards: Dangerous path, slow detour, dead end, path leads into a nest of dangerous creatures.
• Scout Hazards: Neglected to notice approaching bad weather, surprised by ambush, believes misleading information, misses a valuable treasure/area.
• Huntsman Hazards: Rouses interest and is hunted by predatory animals, cannot find enough food, feeds party spoiled/poisonous food.

 The party can band together in an attempt to overcome these hazards, as well. If no characters take on the challenges of the roles, the fatigue tests will automatically fail, and things go south from there.

Conclusion

Though the book doesn't really say whether hazards are supposed to be played out as an abstraction, or in more details (like a combat encounter), I can see how each hazard could be treated like a mini side quest in their own right.

Another idea would be to have positive "hazards", perhaps called "events" or "opportunities", which could be friendly or positive events that may lead to mini side quests. Examples could include: finding a lost village in the wilderness, scoring a larger-than-average amount of food, discovering a bandit's hideout (which could lead to the party ambushing them, or stealing their loot).

Thoughts?

How to Remove Unused Hidden Images From LibreOffice 5 Writer Documents

As a game designer, I've spent years writing. My application of choice has been LibreOffice, which is surprisingly versatile. But, despite the massive community behind it, the software is not perfect.

Digital Crud

One issue I've noticed over the years of writing is the accumulation of my writer document's growing file-size. I've noticed that as I added and took away images (for both backgrounds and inline objects), the images didn't actually go away. They disappeared, sure, and couldn't be seen; but they were embedded somewhere inside the document.

Cleaning the Crud

The process below will show you how to perform some "digital surgery" to an ODT document and remove unwanted graphics that could be taking up valuable memory/bandwidth.

1. Backup Your Files

Because we're going to be altering the document in a round-about-way, its very easy to mess up, which will result in LibreOffice branding your file "corrupt" and refusing to open it. So, backup everything important encase you have a misstep.

If you botch the process, LibreOffice will refuse to load the file. If this happens to you, as far as I know, you have to start over with a new copy of the file.

2. Rename the Extension to .zip

An ODT file is actually just a collection of other files (an archive). If you rename the ODT file with a ".zip" extension (e.g. "document.zip"), you can use a zip program such as Winrar to open it up.

3. Find Unwanted Images

Inside, you'll find several directories (folders), XML files, and other important documents. You'll also find a "Pictures" directory. Open that folder and inside you'll find every image used inside your writer document.

If your goal is to remove images that are no longer used but still embedded, you'll need to go through each image and deem whether it should stay or go. But don't delete anything just yet! Instead, when you find a file you don't want anymore, right click on the file and choose "Rename". This will open a prompt with the filename; which you can easily copy and use in the following steps. Copy the names verbatim, because any misspelling will result in an error.

4. Open styles.xml and manifest.xml

If you simply delete the images and call it a day, LibreOffice will consider your document corrupt. So, we also have to remove any mention of the files ever being there.

Open the styles.xml and manifest.xml (found in the META-INF directory). XML files are just text files, so opening them in a text editor should suffice. Be aware that these files may be quite large in size (several megabytes), which may require a robust text editor to handle them properly. I prefer using Geany because it's open source, free, and has a robust "find" feature.

5. Find the image entries and remove them

In both documents, press CTRL+F to invoke the find feature. Paste the filename of the image you wish to remove into the text field, and click "Find" or "Next" to locate where the image is mentioned.

There may be multiple entries of the image, so be sure to search the entirety of both documents.

In the styles.xml: The image is mentioned in a XML <draw:fill-image/> element. If you don't know or understand XML; that's okay. Simply copy and delete the following:

<draw:fill-image draw:name="ImageName" draw:display-name="ImageName" xlink:href="Pictures/FileName" xlink:type="simple" xlink:show="embed" xlink:actuate="onLoad"/>

Where ImageName and FileName will be specific to your document. The exact code may be slightly different than mine, but the main point is to remove everything in-between "<draw:fill-image" and "/>" (including those text).

Remove it all, then save the document. It'll ask if you want to update the styles.xml file. Say Yes.

In the manifest.xml: The image is mentioned in a XML <manifest:file-entry/> element. Remove the following code:

 <manifest:file-entry manifest:full-path="Pictures/FileName" manifest:media-type="image/FileExtension"/>

Where FileExtension is the extension of the image (e.g. png, tif, gif, etc.). Remove it all, then save the document. It'll ask if you want to update the manifest.xml file. Say Yes.

6. Delete the Image File

Now that we've deleted all entries of the file, its safe to remove the burdensome image. Permanently delete the image from the archive.

7. Repeat Steps 3 Through 6 For All Unwanted Images

The above steps should be repeated if you have multiple images you wish to delete. Once finished, proceed to step 8.

8. Rename the File Back to a .odt Extension and open the document

If the surgery went well, LibreOffice should open up the document normally and be none-the-wiser about what happened, but a whole lot lighter (file size-wise).

Why Dragons Are Too Weak in D&D

Dragons are the quintessential monster. They're massive in size, incredibly intelligent, can breath fire, and have wings. They're iconic the world over, and are in the very name of "Dungeons & Dragons". The very sight of one should send a bone-chilling panic into any would-be adventurer.

Yet I've noticed in the fifth edition of D&D, dragons have surprisingly low strength. Looking through the monster manual and I see dragons with STR of 19, 23, 26, 22, and so on. The strongest dragon I found only had a STR of 30. Now, this may seem like a high number, but when compared to the average human strength of 10, this means that the strongest dragon is only three-times better?

If we think about why dragons seem so dangerous and scary, it's easy to imagine a dragon being able to crush, chomp, or smash a human with little to no effort. In Lord of the Rings, for example, it took an entire village, equipped with a special ballista, and the fact that the dragon had a hole in his iron-hard scales, to defeat it. Yet in modern RPGs we see a watering down of dragons; an artificial nerfing to human levels to allow for PCs to triumph and defeat them with no more than four to six humanoids.

Dragon's True Strength

All of this got me thinking about what the "true" strength of a dragon should be. How much can they carry? What is their STR score? Here's what I came up with...

First a disclaimer: It should be said that yes, there are many different sizes of dragons throughout mythology, and that with that there will also be a wide variation in strength. So, to keep things simple, I'm going to stick with Smaug, the dragon from LOTR; since it's so iconic and seems like a fairly "medium" dragon.

To start, since dragons aren't actually real, we need to find a real-world comparison. I've chosen to look at elephants, since they're both large and are actually a thing. The average elephant is about 20 feet long and can carry 9000 kgs. Compared to a human of 6ft tall who can carry 90 kg (200 pounds) on their back. This means elephants are over three-times longer than humans are tall (foot to head), but can carry 100 times more weight.

Now let's look at this scaled image of Smaug the dragon.

I measured the human to be 66 pixels tall, and Smaug to be 620 pixels tall (from bottom of his front foot to head). One could easily argue that I should have measured the dragon length-wise (including or not including his tail), which would easily make him even larger in pixel count.

So, what do the numbers tell us? Well, for one, Smaug is over nine-times larger than the human; and if we use elephants as a guide, then he'd be able to carry up to 27,900 kg. That makes him an astounding 310 times stronger!

Conclusion

If an average human strength in D&D is 10, then in reality dragons such as Smaug should have a STR of 3,100. Incredible! In fact, it's kind of mind-boggling to think about. However, it makes a lot of sense, as well.

For one, as I stated earlier, dragons should be damn-near unstoppable. They live for ages, are colossal in size, are smarter than humans, and breath fire! The idea of an entire kingdom, with torches & pitchforks in hand, marching up a mountain to a dragon's perch to take them on seems so much more epic then some rag-tag band of adventurers.

Second, based off their sheer size, they should be able to crush humanoids like humans can crush cockroaches. So, having a near god-like strength works well.

Thoughts?

4 Ways to Make Your Dungeon Crawl More Tactical

Before I got into D&D, one of my favorite board games was Descent: Journeys in the Dark. If you've never played it, it's essentially a lite version of a dungeon crawl. Today I was thinking about why I liked it so much; then it dawned on me that most of the fun and excitement I experienced from the game can be codified into four simple rules, and used in almost any dungeon crawl game (particularly Dungeons & Dragons).

These rules are not for every style of game, though, and are particularly geared towards dungeon delving that the game master wishes to turn into a deadly, tactical shootout.

Rule 1: Characters are Mortal

If you're an OSR fan like myself, you're probably already following this rule. Essentially what it means is that characters should have low quantities of HP, and are fragile (can die quickly and easily). This is essential to instilling a sense of fear in the players; by letting them know that they need to fear everything in the dungeon; since almost anything can be a monster, trap, trick, and so on.

Increasing the lethality of the game will be the bedrock for the party to work together, as a team, to survive--rather than individuals waiting for their turn to roll dice.

Rule 2: Onslaught of Encounters

Traditionally, dungeons have moments of action and moments of rest. Parties start to clear out dungeons until they're completely empty. But in this variant, I want you to imagine the situation as if the party of adventurers were soldiers deep behind enemy lines. They're surrounded, they're outnumbered, and there is little respite to be found.

Movement and time management should remain in "combat" time, and encounters should be rolled every round (old school D&D does a good job of this, which sadly has been lost to new editions). Yep, that's right--the enemy will be constantly spawning at random times, and there's an endless number of them trying to kill the party. The monsters should also be a good variety of different creature types.

This rule drives home a message to the party: trying to "clear and hold" a dungeon is not an option. Dungeons are teaming with horrific monsters. These dark catacombs have never been tamed by the local towns guards, past adventurers, or even mercenaries. The goal is not to "claim" the dungeon; but rather to get in, get the jewel/princess/mcguffin and get the hell out.

Rule 3: Fear the Darkness

When the GM is spawning monsters, the placement of the monsters changes to any space that is not within line of sight of the adventurers. Typically the GM can spawn monsters essentially anywhere within 2d6 spaces or so, but here's why my new rule can prove to be better: when players cannot control the placement of monsters, they're bound to "huddle" together so they fight closer to one another. But if you tell the players that monsters can only spawn outside of the parties' line of sight (aka the "darkness"), the PCs will tend to work more tactically by covering the corners, doors, and various angles of the room to prevent a surprise spawn. In other words, they'll spread out more, and work in turns to leap frog one another.

This rule was one of my favorite in the Descent board game. My friend and I would stand at an L, T, or Y junctions while the other adventurers moved down the hallway and opened a door. But once the new room was revealed, there was instantly many dark corners, alcoves, and crevasses that needed to be "cleared". So the PCs would stack up and rush into the room then spread out. As for the hallway we just abandoned? Well, it was fair game for monster spawning (which is why we'd immediately close and bar the door, and never take our eyes off it).

Rule 4: Declare Your Actions

Before each character performs their actions, the players should discuss what they, as a whole party, want to do each turn. Once a consensus has been reached, they "declare" their actions to the GM. Only after this phase would they then move their pieces on the board.

A "declare actions" phase allows for all the players to plot and plan their next move; similar to a game of chess. The entire table is involved; in contrast to everyone waiting for their turn to arrive. Once the actions have been declared, there's no "take backs". So it behooves everyone to know what each character's intentions are.

Once a plan has been plotted, the next phase--performing the actions, is fun to watch as you try to set your plan into motion. Can the unarmed fighter run across the room and grab the healing jewel before the centipede blocks his path? Will the archer kill the orcs at the end of the hall while the cleric heals the magician, or will the orcs survive the assault and kill the magic-user? Can the rogue sneak across the room in time, or spring a hidden trap and foil their entire plan?

Having a plan, and executing it, are two very different things.

Conclusion

These four rules, as simple and "common sense" as they mean seem to some, really changes the dynamic of the game for me and my friends. Descent was one of the only board games I would play for six hours straight and be enamored over the entire time. I loved the tactical feel, I loved planning our moves ahead as a team, and I loved seeing if our plan would go off without a hitch.

Have you discovered any rules that add a sense of tension, suspense, or tactical combat to your game? Let me know in the comments below!

How D&D Became Boring

I've noticed a trend lately. One that was so slow it snuck up on me. Yet its a problem that persists at many game tables around the country: Dungeons & Dragons has become boring!

Low Effort Players

Many players these days, young and old, have adopted a video game mentality when approaching challenges in D&D. It's no longer about trying to solve a complex puzzle, negotiating your way out of a tense situation, or describing in detail how your character disarms a trap. Nowadays its "I made a knowledge roll", or "I want to make a perception check". Boring! How about we all get off our cellphones (I've been guilty of this myself), and pay attention?

Solution: Ask the players to write a two page biography about their characters, so that they know who they're playing, at a more than "sheet-deep" superficial level. Next, ask the players to put away their character record sheets, and truly role-play using nothing but the descriptions from the GM and their own wits.

Hand Waving Away the Minutiae

This is an epidemic everywhere. Encumbrance? Gone. Components for spells? Dead. Meticulous research of magic spells, scribing in spell books, and quests to find all-important focal items? Slashed and burned. When was the last time you tracked time? Or a torch burning out? When has your character began to starve, or develop major blisters on their feet for somehow hiking 20 miles cross-country with overburdening packs and no pony or wagon?

Nowadays, players & GMs alike have the wrong attitude. They think all of this "stuff" that makes the game is a chore, so they simply ignore it away, then wonder why the balance is out of wack.

Solution: Read the rules, follow the rules, as the author intended.

No True Challenge

In modern times, Game Masters have lost sight of the adventure because all they focus on is the campaign. Gone are the days of true excitement when you and your buddies had all Friday night, all Saturday, and some of Sunday, to overthrow the Lich Council that is pouring forth thousands of undead wizards. When the GM would pump you and your friends up with visceral descriptions of how epically awesome the weekend was going to be. Everyone ordered pizza, brought snacks, and drank entirely too much soda. No sleep was had because you and your forces marshed against a true evil that, in all likelyhood, was probably going to take over the world. You only had 24 real-world hours to save the day!

Instead, this fast burn has been replaced with a gradual warming. Your character is supposed to grow from level 1 to 20, which will take years, so slow down there partner. Don't get too excited. You've gotta grind some rats, kobolds, and street thugs down by the docks. The party pinballs from one sorta-important quest to another, with no lasting consequences whether they're successful or not.

Worse yet, the Game Master holds your hand the whole way through; dropping obvious directional markers for the players, fudging poor rolls, and padding the adventure with low-level grunts and plenty of rest time. And since resource management is gone (see above), everything has devolved into a mindless slog that makes no difference if you miss a week's session or not.

And ever since 3.X to 5E, dying isn't really a thing anymore (unless a monster gets a massive one-shot hit), thanks to plenty of potions, healing & reviving spells, healing rests, tons of HP, and several rounds of rolling dice when your down (designed to give the party time to get to the downed adventurer and save them).

Game Masters even give out XP when certain "milestones" are reached, rather than making the party earn their XP from monsters slain, hordes hauled, or secrets revealed. The players just have to show up and they get rewarded (whether or not they make any effort at the table).

Solution: If the players aren't in a dark, weird, and truly dangerous world; you're doing it wrong. Make the party fight tooth and nail, stack the deck against them, and truly try to kill them all off. The players will complain at first, but quickly understand the terms: band together and survive, or perish and let evil prevail.

Build real suspense and make lasting memories from a session that truly matters, and isn't just phoned in. Every character's strengths should be needed, and every weakness exploited.

Conclusion

Did I miss anything that, in your opinion, has made D&D a dull thrill, compared to yesteryears? Let me know in the comments below.

Part I: Identification

This is a continuation of a multi-post series about tracking, and how the real-world implications can be applied to role-playing games (RPGs). In this post, I'll cover the second discipline of tracking: Interpretation. For part I, see the link above.

2. Interpreation

Interpretation of "sign" means understanding the scene and what happened at the Last Known Point (LKP). In this stage, we're trying to paint a picture of what exactly happened when the quarry was last in that spot. This is something that is highly neglected in RPGs and games as a whole. Most games think only about following sign, but not interpreting the evidence/clues.

• Why was the quarry there?
• What were the events leading to the incident?
• What factors would push/pull the quarry a certain direction?
• What is the relationship between the quarry and the flora/fauna, environment, local population, etc.?
• Where did the subject dwell / rest and why?
• Who else was involved in the incident?
• When did this occur?

It may seem far-fetched that a tracker can "pull" this level of detail from the earth, but you'd be surprised by what your own eyes and intuition can reveal. Characters can use this ability to great effect; to almost peer into the past. Given a high enough level, a master tracker could have an almost super-natural post-cognition ability to see peer into the distant past and relive events.

Additional facts a tracker should be seeking, when interpreting sign:

• Speed and direction
• Number in quarry group
• Age and gender of quarry
• Physical condition and disabilities
• Attempts to counter track
• State of outdoor experience
• Weight carried
• Whether the quarry is armed
• Whether the quarry is moving tactically/stealthily
• Whether the quarry was traversing up or downhill
• Whether the quarry was moving during the day or night
• If and when the quarry rested
• Direction the quarry is traveling and where he came from
• Location of Campsites

The more time spent interpreting, the more complete of a picture will be painted in the tracker's mind's eye.

Counting Quarry

It's very rare to find a clean, standalone foot print of your target. In reality, many animals (and humanoids) choose paths of least resistance -- such as game trails, roads, and so on. These paths are often shared by other like-minded creatures; causing many foot prints to bunch up in a single area. Certain herd animals often travel in packs (or parties, in the case of adventurers). Trackers often need a way to count the number of passerbys on a trail. To do this, we use two different techniques to determine the size of the quarry's group.

Box Method. The first method is the preferred method, since it's faster and requires less effort on the tracker's behalf. After finding a trail of foot prints, the tracker draws two lines (perpendicular to the direction of travel) , about 48 inches (122 cm) apart. Then, the tracker simply counts the number of left-only (or right-only) foot prints between the two lines. Divide the total by 2 (round up). This final number if the approximate number of creatures who have travel on that trail as of recent.

 

Comparison Method. If the box method is not possible, or there's simply too many foot prints to count, the comparison method is a good fall-back. The tracker walks parallel to the path several paces. The repeat this process, counting the number of times they do--until their made-up path looks roughly the same as the true path. If both paths look like they have roughly the same number of foot prints, the tracker will have an approximate number of creatures that walk through as of recent.

Conclusion

Interpretation, while straightforward, is surprisingly challenging to pull off well. If you wish to practice yourself, have a loved one walk around your backyard or local park while completing several individual tasks. Be sure not to watch them do it! After they've finished, tell them not to tell you what they've done (that's the secret for you to discover). Find their starting path, then slowly find their sign, interpreting their actions along the way. You'll quickly find its not as easy as it sounds. This is a skill that should be reserved only for high-level rangers, druids, hunters and other tracker PCs.

Next post we'll discuss the ecological factors of tracking; and how to use that information to find your quarry fast. Thanks for reading!