D&DTF, Part 2

"If you don't like it, you don't have to buy it."

When Dungeons and Dragons was upgraded to Third Edition, other argument about its value to the customer was eventually ended by that statement. You don't like what they're doing? Keep your old books, and play your old games. You can live without the future, and the future can survive without you.

The same argument returned during the great cash-grab that was Dungeons and Dragons Edition Three-Point-Five. Fourth Edition has been announced, and some people have taken offense to the fact that they're expected to replace all of their thirty dollar books after a mere five years of service.

But they don't have to join in, of course.

For fun, go to your local gaming store, and look at its role-playing section. The section is probably smaller now than it used to be, with spaces that formerly had first rate fanfiction now featuring box after box of miniatures instead. Now, examine how many of the books are part of Dungeons and Dragon's Edition 3.5.. Try to figure out how much those books must have cost the store.

In less than a year, fourth edition will come out and all of that merchandise will become nearly unsellable. This includes the new merchandise just added to their shelves, such as the Monstrous Manual V. And of course, this goes double for the near mint copy of The Complete Psionics Handbook for Second Edition that seems to linger in half of the game stores across the country. They stand as the least loved members of a bygone age, one where not buying the latest new thing just meant that you missed out on a box of ideas, instead of a new mathmatical formula that is required for the next five years.

D&DTF?

Because 3.5 wasn't enough. There's now a fourth edition of Dungeons and Dragons. And (I don't think this is a joke) there's a trailer.

I have to give them some credit. Although I think that new editions/supplements are everything that's wrong about tabletop RPGs, the trailer does suggest that 4.0 addresses the primary drawback of third edition: DM loading times. But both math and rules-lawyering are an integral part of the game, and I don't understand why they would get rid of either. Unless DMs are expected to run modules on their laptops now, as the video hints at.

The short of it though, is that Wizards has updated the game every 3 or 4 years, requiring players to pick up new PHBs and tempting DMs with an innumerable amount of ancillary materials of limited shelf life.

It's been 30 years. Why isn't the game just done?

Details on D4 can be found here, at this suspiciously corporate sounding blog, good old EN World, and on any number of horrible abuses of YouTube. Spread it!

I don't have the stomach for this sort of bullshit, but what I did read before my eyes glazed over suggests D&D is now officially on rails. Also, there are more monsters to fight! (Assuming you buy the Monstrous Manual again.)

I'll let Mr. Bile or TomFoolery pick this apart. I need a nap.

D&D Cartoon Edition: Eric As Archetype

Let's talk about Eric, the whiny cavalier who doesn't want to go along with the rest of the party.

According to Mark Evanier, Eric was included at the request of parents' groups. He was there to teach the moral lesson of groupthink. The majority was always right. The minority was always wrong. A dishonest message, but somewhat appropriate when applied to D&D and role-playing games in general. Tabletop role-playing is a group experience, and consensus among the party is necessary to keep the session from getting bogged and the party together.

But there are two ways to interpret Eric. One, he's the player with the incredibly powerful magic item who resents being in the game if he can't control it entirely. But as Mr. Bile pointed out, Eric never gets his own way on the cartoon, thanks to the network mandate. Because of that, Eric reminds me more of a player who has good ideas but can't get the group to go along with them.

For example, on the cartoon the kids' goal is to get home. Early on, they open a magic portal back to Earth, but turn back to rescue the unicorn or something. Eric is the only one who hesitates. The goal of the story is for them to get back home to their families and corndogs. To not go through the portal is to lose. But the rest of the group wants to go save My Little Pony, so he sighs, pulls out his magic shield, and goes back to help.

Given how true this example is to role-playing games, I can't help but feel the subversive message was intentionally written in. The majority is usually wrong, but if you don't do what they say, you can't participate in whatever they're doing. Of course, what they're doing is probably stupid, so you should think carefully about whether you want to participate or not.

Eric isn't the bastard that kills the game, he's the player who wants to do something different. Maybe he wants to go out to the movies. Maybe he wanted to play Call of C'thulhu instead. Maybe he likes playing Dungeons & Dragons, but would prefer to play it smarter, dumber, or faster.

If you've ever played an RPG, you've been Eric. Either that or Bobby, the passive player who's too inexperienced to do anything but charge at a monsters with a club, unaware of the futility of your actions or the fact the DM will condescendingly never make you pay for them. After all, you're a noob.

Unless, of course, you're in one of my games, because I pwn n00bs.

Lost: The Answers To Life, The Universe, And The Others

To recap:

Cindy, Jack, and a mixed band of crash survivors and Others take the monorail to the Others' mountaintop planetarium. Clouds fly past over the green countryside. One of the clouds darkens, thins out, and shoots forward faster than the rail car. As the smoke monster careens across the sky, the black smoke peels away, revealing the monster to be a large, clanking railroad train.

At the top of the observatory, Ben is being held hostage by a splinter group of Others. They want access to the files on all the crash survivors. The Others have been studying the survivors to determine which 6 are the physical incarnations of 4, 8, 15, 16, 23, and 42. There are 108 archetypes, and the splinter group has different interpretations of what character represents what number. One of them announces that Jack is 52. (This is significant, because he was not on Jacob's original list of the 108.)

A gunfight ensues. Confused and angry, Jack reacts to this revelation by ditching everyone and walking back to the beach. Along the way, a mist clears on the horizon and reveals the island to be just off the coast of a quaint Irish village filled with roads, houses, and hills where school children play.

Charlie, Hurley, and Sawyer cross the channel and enter the town. Charlie heads to the pub. Along the way, he accidentally stumbles into the town library. The locals become hostile and chase after the three castaways with tranquilizer darts. Sawyer and Charlie seek refuge in the castle ruins, but are eventually shot and shipped back to the beach with fuzzy memories of the village.

Hurley ducks into the library just in time. He locks the door with the glowing orange key as hypodermic needles whiz past him. He hides in the back behind a bookcase. The librarian opens the door and tells the townsfolk to be on their way. From their perspective outside the door, the library is devoid of visitors.

Hurley's friend Johnny sits at a table in the children's section of the library with the librarian. Johnny is convinced that Hurley has joined them to play Dungeons & Dragons. He points out the librarian's miniatures display case, where 108 fantasy miniatures are placed behind glass doors. The librarian explains that several of the miniatures have changed over the last few months, and one disappeared inexplicably.

The librarian invites Hurley to browse any of the books on his shelves. Hurley picks a few titles from the pearl softcover Mage: The Ascension print run, which has supplements and illustrations that mirror the numbers archetypes in the Others' files. Johnny expresses his gratitude at being reunited with Hurley, who he says is a kick-ass Dungeon Master.

Reactions and analysis:

After 2 1/2 years, we finally got some insight into what the numbers represent in the series proper. Those of you who participated in The Lost Experience or looked into Bad Twin (or who have been paying attention to this blog and my links to LOSTCasts), already know about the Valenzetti Equation. The numbers we know are the "core values." We now learn the Others are looking for the characters on the island who embody those values, presumably to reprogram them, thus changing the equation and preventing the apocalypse.

We also finally discovered the location of the island, though it's still possible the island is slipping in and out of time, or perhaps floating freely around the ocean. This seems unlikely, however, as the villagers all carry blowguns packed with Dharma darts. They must be in on the island's--er, islands' secrets. Then again, the library seems to be a gateway to its own pocket universe, and having a pocket universe inside a pocket universe would be pushing it.

Of course, there are always nitpicks. How did Jack get back to the beach unscathed? Why didn't he mention the third island to anyone, not even Sawyer and Charlie after they were dumped back on the main island with their minds wiped? Where were Rose and Bernard during all of this? What happened to Sun's bikini?

I suspect all of these scenes were cut for lack of time. Look for them on the season 3 DVD.

Hidden clues and Easter Eggs:

I'm sure it's no coincidence that one week after I suggested it would be nice to see Tamlyn Tomita in a flashback, Sung Hi Lee showed up in Hurley's past. As LOSTCasts pointed out, it's interesting that Hurley's father is named David, considering his imaginary friend is named Dave. Something they didn't pick up on though, was Hurley's real-time reference in the library to Johnny being dead. (Something to look forward to in a future flashback?) Also, the melted miniature and the librarian's reference a figure gone missing was clearly an inside joke about the abrupt departure of Mr. Eko.

Verdict:

This was the episode everyone was waiting for, though it's a shame we won't be seeing Hurley again until May sweeps.

Bastard Killed Your Game

Narraptor's theory of Cartoon Dungeons and Dragons seems eerily accurate, once you get past the whole "But my characters never got a magic hat!" arguments. Another point of correspondence to Dungeons and Dragons proper is that the show never had an ending, even though one was planned.

Only about half of the games I've ever run or played in have had a true ending. Sometimes, I've been lucky enough to experience the grand reveal, where everybody reveals their secrets. Other times, I'm left with no clear idea why the Aztec werewolves were attacking our building. (Or its sister question: Why Aztec werewolves?)

Every role-player I've known has a path strewn with dead stories. Their tales of adventure end suddenly with, "And then, we never ran another game. I wonder what would have happened to the Drunken Ratman Yakuza..." The causes always seem to fall in the same three categories:

1- Inconvenience: Too many people move too far away to achieve critical mass. Or else scheduling conflicts prevent the gamers from ever meeting each other again, barring a solar eclipse.
2- Natural Causes: The players begin to seek other things to do, and the game withers and dies in their absence. Invasive species of gaming also fall in this category, like when Magic The Gathering temporarily replaced all forms of role-playing in late 1994.
3- The Bastard killed the game.

Far as I can tell, there's no standardized name for the Bastard, even though he's as endemic as a "Rules Lawyer" or "Min-Maxer." Many groups don't even acknowledge they have a problem with their Bastard, until a decade passes and they can no longer understand why they put up with him in the first place.

Every role-playing game at least pays lip service to the idea that the main objective of gaming is to have fun with your friends. And yet just about every beginning group of role-players starts off with a Bastard, or shortly picks one up. The lucky ones get rid of him in five years or so. The unfortunate ones get new Bastards to replace any they lose. And during this time, the Bastard will do his best to monopolize the game. He will be a main character, but more importantly, the game will only revolve around what he considers fun. And unfortunately, his fun does not include anyone else into the equation. People in the group are annoyed by the Bastard, but they're never annoyed enough to directly confront him. Instead, they make jokes when he's away, and try to finesse him when he's present.

A great deal of rationalization goes along with this. The Bastard might be a pain, but he's not as bad as that other guy the group no longer hangs out with. You know, the guy who reveal his pet theories on race relations in the middle of an Underdark campaign. At least now you know why he always played a human. Also, the Bastard is indispensable to the group. He's the one who picks up Tony, he's willing to host the game when Bill's not around, and Sarah will drop out of the group if the Bastard goes, and she's cool. And even if he went, his character has half of the Artifacts of power and is the only one who knows the true name of God, so the plot would be fucked without him.

I don't know if the cartoon show accurately represents that aspect, however. The cowardly character of Eric exhibits some of the symptoms. He constantly berates his teammates, never wants to do what everyone else is doing , and he has a shield of complete invincibility. But on the other side of the ledger, he seldom gets his own way. A true role-playing Bastard has the ability to warp any campaign just by being in it. Along with annoying other players, the Bastard wants to have fun, and his definition doesn't jibe with everyone else's. He'll constantly exert pressure on all the other players, and especially on the Dungeon Master, to change the course of the game into a path he feels more comfortable with. (And one that makes him a primary character, usually.) The more the group secretly plots to stop the Bastard from getting his own way, the more pressure he exerts. Which means that Eric could be the Bastard... but since it's all from an in-character point of view, it could easily be Hank instead.

If only there was a scene of the Barbarian kid snapping, and finally saying "Fuck you, Eric! I'm quitting the game forever!" we'd have definitive proof. We'd also have another five episodes of the cartoon lurching along, with everyone trying to pretend that nothing had gone seriously wrong, and Eric making jokes about how they didn't need a kid running around in a loincloth anyway.

The next week, it would be mysteriously replaced by Soul Train. And as always, I'd be fooled for a few seconds into thinking that some really cool new cartoon about space trains was about to start.

Dungeons and Dragons: Cartoon Edition

The complete Dungeons & Dragons cartoon series came out on DVD a few months ago. In comparison to other fantasy cartoons of the '80s, it holds up well. There's an over-arching plot, some effort made at internal consistency, puzzles are overcome with clever (though narratively convenient) solutions, and episodes advance at a Goonies-like pace, eschewing setup, dialogue, and continuity in editing in order to cram in as many monsters and set pieces as possible. For children without access to InuYasha, its appeal is forgivable.

The series departs from the source material in many ways. Magic in particular is handled very differently than any version of the D&D game up to this point. Presto pulls spells from his hat, the evil Venger shoots magic energy from his palms, and Merlin recites words from a giant book and boils spell components in a cauldron. There are no clerics. At the beginning of the series, each character is given a magic item that requires no charges (they only need to be powered up in the Hall of Bones every 300 years) and has different functions depending on the situation. Enemies that can raise ancient temples out of the desert seem to possess no magic resistance or saving throws against these weapons. The 5-headed dragon god Tiamat (a recurring threat, the crocodile to Venger's Captain Hook) can be fooled by an invisibility cloak. Talk about NPCs not using their magic items and innate powers.

Wait a minute.

The characters in the D&D cartoon come into the fantasy world via magical roller coaster, resulting in several anachronisms NPCs hardly bat an eye at. Dungeon Master, the gnome who sends the characters on their quests, is a combination of a stereotypical DM (when he says "when in darkness, seek the light" he means one instance in particular, all the other times you're in darkness and see light be damned) and an Elminster deus ex machinae NPC who is powerful enough to disappear on a whim and hand out magic items as if it were Halloween in Waterdeep, but doesn't feel like stopping the bad guys himself. There's a mad rush from one combat encounter to the next. The one character who suggests a course of action contrary to what the rest of the party or the DM wants them to do is shouted down, either for metagaming, because no one else likes him, or because that's not the direction the story's "supposed" to go.

There are two possibilities here. One, this is the way the game is "supposed" to be played. Two, the D&D cartoon is so hardwired into peoples' brains that it's nearly impossible to find a group of players who want to do something else with the system.

(Author's note: This was written after watching only 3 1/2 episode of the complete Dungeons & Dragons cartoon. Oh, and "to be continued...")

The World Of Insufficient Light

I was exposed to the World Of Darkness by a well-meaning classmate in high school. He had heard that I had been playing Dungeons and Dragons and wanted to spread the word of something a bit more contemporary.

He gave me a role-playing game called Werewolf: The Apocalypse, part of White Wolf’s The World Of Darkness series of Gothic-Punk roleplaying games.

At first, it didn’t seem that much different from Dungeons and Dragons. It even began with the same form of introduction: “Imagine something that’s not roleplaying. Now imagine that it is!”

But as I read deeper, I wanted to give the game a spin. It was the first role-playing game I had encountered where a character wasn’t created by randomly generated numbers. And being forced to choose between pre-defined stereotypes to play made things even easier, allowing a person to easily role-play their character without having to spend time on a backstory. There was even flavortext sprinkled liberally across each page…bad poetry, stories in unreadable fonts, outright lies deluding you into thinking that with five points in Law, your character was the reincarnation of Perry Mason. But the flavortext didn’t have to be good, it just had to exist. Even the mechanics seemed novel back then, rolling and re-rolling dice like a game of jacks.

Werewolf was set in a world where nature was Good, and technology was Bad. You fought businessmen with a penchant for turning into tentacle demons when cornered, and evil werewolves that looked just like you, but slimier. In downtime, you got to jockey for political renown amongst your clan, who were all power hungry assholes and/or sage mystics. In other words, it was a game steeped in anime insisting it was Gothic-Punk. But since I didn’t know a damn thing about anime, Goths, or punks, I just accepted this as fact.

Likewise, the storyline of the rest of the World Of Darkness games were a schizophrenic mish-mash of conflicting ideas, and for a while, that was what I was looking for. I enjoyed the fact that each book featured an entirely different conspiracy that controlled 80% of the world, and didn’t know about each other. What I didn’t realize for a while was that each game put the players in the position of being given goals they could never actually achieve. You could play as Mages who couldn’t use magic, or Ghosts who couldn’t save themselves from Oblivion. Werewolves were already extra-doomed, to the point that “The Apocalypse” was in the subtitle of their book. And of course, there were Vampires. Ancient, alien intelligences that would plot and scheme for thousands of years to bring about the downfall of their enemies. You didn’t play as those people. You played as their henchmen’s henchmen, so far down the totem pole that there was no way in hell you could ever gain a bit of political power. But since no game company could put out modules based on a character’s individual struggle to gain contentment and peace in their lives, all adventures were about being sent to fight people much stronger than you in an attempt to gain favor with a powerful Vampire lord. That was unless you were involved in storylines that could equally be defined as a “Comedy of Manners” or “Dilbert.” Could you bluff your way into the inner circle of upper-class twits who could read your mind and then rip it out of your skull? Of course not.

At the time, we didn’t know any better. Most of the role-playing games we played offered sadistic advice we’d choose to ignore. Dungeons and Dragons would warn that actually letting the players collect the wealth and fame they sought would destroy your precious storylines. Call of Cthulhu was about defeating the undefeatable, and in Paranoia, everyone was trying to survive to see the next day, and that simply wasn’t going to happen. The difference is that World of Darkness was the first role-playing game publishers to take deviation from their vision as insulting. Players who became the prince of their city were simply carving out adolescent fantasies, and werewolves who kicked too much ass were not being realistic enough. The very idea that people were playing Vampire-Werewolves in the privacy of their own home really annoyed them, and they weren’t shy to say so. Repeatedly. In sidebars of books that you had just paid too much money for to few pages of information. Then they’d publish a book featuring a werewolf with a cybernetic arm and nothing to lose. Of course, he has a mysterious past.

But I played the games because role-playing games are viral in nature. Each time my group of friends got tired of the strange mechanics and awkward storylines, someone else would come up with a new idea, and we’d be back on the wagon. In college, this trend continued, as any new game was as likely as not to be about things that went bump in the night.

As time went on, White Wolf became more concerned with defining what the game was not than what it wasn’t. In an entire supplement devoted to wire-flying humans and people armed with robots powered by the dreams of Japanese children, they took the time out to explain why Blade was stupid, and you were stupid for thinking vampires could learn kung-fu. But that wasn’t what finally tipped the scales. In the end, it was the simple fact that the good people at White Wolf games would reissue new editions of their books every few years, usually with hard to define rule changes, and a lack of hooks that would drag a player in…and a steeper price tag. This is the sort of thing that stops a player from continuing on, and also causes him to re-evaluate his previous investments.

My final exposure to White Wolf was Adventure!, a game based on pulp novels from the '20s. It ended with trying to play it. In a game of fast moving action and dramatic flair, I question mechanics that divide “rolling on the ground, picking up a knife, and then throwing it at a goon” into three separate actions, each requiring a separate roll to determine success.

I’m told that eventually White Wolf decided that their storyline had gotten much too complex, and that it was time to end over a decade of interweaving books, comics, and in-game fiction by weaving them together into the final ending that the series had been striving for all those years.

The ending was, “Well…what do you think happened?”

Then White Wolf rebooted it’s series of games from ground zero. It featured the same plotlines, the same themes, and suspiciously similar characters…but it did have better statistics.