The Cultural Attache

I am still working on creating an interesting cultural encounter. At least something more so than the usual stuff I'd do, which is try and present the players with something familiar with fantastic elements.

My friend Frank has said that it's good to draw on something familiar, because it "fills in the blanks," meaning that from what everyone knows about, say, feudal society, they can infer all of the little details that I don't give out when describing the society. This in turn lets them draw their own conclusions as they synthesize the data I give to them with the rest of what they know, making it easier for them to get involved in the (social) action.

So what I have done so far is taken a look at other "created cultures" to see how they've taken the fantastic elements of the worlds they're from and how they relate/effect the society that makes use of them.

The best example of this I can think of is from the show Avatar: The Last Airbender. They have four distinct cultures, each loosely based around a certain vaguely Eastern type of society and the mastery of one of the four classic elements, Earth, Fire, Air, and Water. The four different elements equate to four different styles of dress, methods of defense, cultural mores, etc. And of course, four different kinds of awesome powers. Another thing that I've noticed tends to shape the behaviors of the nations in this show (and hopefully in any game I'd run) is the effect that worldwide events are having on the interactions between each culture.

The Fire Nation is attempting to conquer the world. To this end, they are very industrialized, focused on making machines of war. As a result, their nation is militarized, their structure is very strict. Duels of honor known as Agni Kai are a very striking and visual example of this society. Two combatants square off fighting each other in a manner displaying their skill at Firebending.

Whereas the Earth Kingdom, having been invaded, is heavily focused on defense. They combine the strength of the earth with the intractability of stone. Combat (of the non-lethal variery) tends to be focused on moving your opponent, or crushing them beneath the weight of the earth. Their society, while structured, affords a greater deal of freedom.

Now I am not sure what about meeting a new culture would appeal to any given Explorer, so what I plan to do is come up with encounters among culture that run the gamut from diplomacy to combat. In the examples above, both nations, Fire and Earth come equipped with different devices that can be used to make encounters in either feel different; whether an Agni Kai or an Earth Rumble (kinda like the Royal Rumble, but with more boulders) the fights can feel different, as can the mannerisms of any given subject. I know there's more to society than just its mannerisms, there's also the values, and by extensions taboos to consider, alongside of the style of dress and even local flora and fauna.

So in building the social encounters, I will try and keep these ideas in mind, remembering that my world is as fantastic as I make it. I have a wide variety of elements to choose from. So for example, I could take the Agni Kai and apply it to the Dragonborn, and maybe call it the Breath of Honor, or something, which would be a fight between two Dragonborn, with the goal being to wear one combatant down and render them unconscious with a single, powerful breath weapon blast. Or I could steal a little less blatantly and describe an inn in one of these Dragonborn cities, where the chef happens to be heating food by breathing fire.

And that's just one race. The key here, I think, will be keeping in mind both what races and classes the pcs are, and their backgrounds, so that I can lead them to cultures different from the one they've gotten to know in their first few levels. And in order to speed up the process of developing expectations, I can start them off in a very standard, very generic fantasy/pseudo-medieval feudal society. I'll have them be above serfs, but in a village full of them, so they can see firsthand what life is like. And as mentioned before, the players should fill in the blanks on society.

Then after a while, when they encounter a new culture, they'll be a little more surprised, as it will be something different from what they've experienced to this point. It will be new enough that they won't immediately know everything about it, but easy enough to pick up the information, allowing them to get more and more involved.

That's the main goal, to keep the players interested and involved.

Close Encounters of the I made a bad joke

Today, I've been back to world building. As I said earlier, I've always been kind of fascinated with the Explorer.

So while exploring ways to interest and engage an explorer, both with cool cultures and exotic locales, I've been looking at designing encounters that would appeal to this kind of player as well. With that in mind, I'm going to take a look at a sample encounter I might build with an appeal to the explorer. To make it a little simpler, I'm going to focus more on exotic locale, rather than cool culture for this encounter.

One of the big keys seems to be in setting the scene. It's the chance to really convey where the players are, allowing me to differentiate between fallen ruins that act as difficult terrain, or thick gnarly vines which are difficult terrain, and so on, which is itself, difficult terrain. I know right?

But it's not enough to set one encounter apart from the others with a description of the environment. I've got to try and make encounters in the more "explorey" locations stand out from the others. One thing I am thinking of doing, is giving the terrain a bigger part in the scene. It is already an important part of any combat, what with difficult terrain slowing up monsters, and cover and concealment allowing lurkers to get around to shank more vulnerable PCs. But I think I can try and give it a little more active role, whether through traps/hazards or interesting terrain effects.

So, say I send the party deep into the Shadowfell. Possibly so deep they are in Shadow Shadow bo Badow, and they come through this twisting shadowy mist into a cavern. In this cavern there's a copse of exotic ghost mushrooms the size of trees that give off a faint bluish/white glow. They are slightly translucent, perhaps they have grown so large from eating the dead and decaying ghosts and specters and other haunted souls that roam the lands of the dead. All around them motes of dust and spores dance in their light.

So let's say I have a few stands of these giant mushrooms spread around the cavern. That's kinda cool in and of itself. Maybe if I gave the mushrooms some kind of importance to the story it might make them a little more interesting, maybe they need to harvest young mushrooms for a cure to a deadly disease, or something like that. I don't know, as I've said, I've never really done up encounters/locations like this before.

Now amidst these rare mushrooms, maybe there are ghosts that are trapped, slowly being digested by these giant fungi colonies. And to top it off, there are some monsters here they'll have to fight. Maybe they've been tracked here by their enemies, or maybe it's just a bunch of shadowy cavern monsters. Either way, there's a fight.

So when the fight breaks out, I could probably try and encourage the PCs to explore around the mushrooms, by hinting that say, the shadows around the mushrooms seem eerily thick, they provide concealment to adjacent creatures. Or maybe give players that fight in squares filled with floating mushroom spores a bonus to their attacks at the cost of a penalty to defense.

At some point, the half-digested ghosts might wake up, and either join the fray if the fight is going too easy, or perhaps they start thrashing about, which would give me the excuse I need to change the effects of the mushroom. Maybe this causes clouds of spores to move around, or a different kind of ghost spore to be emitted, which damages anyone caught in it, storing the life energy of creatures within the mushroom stalks. Maybe at this point, they could try and free a ghost from a mushroom, which would allow them to spend a healing surge, or regain a healing surge or something like that.

That seems kinda cool. I like the idea of the dynamics of the encounter changing over the course of the fight. It would encourage people to revisit the terrain. I guess the danger here is in not being clear about when things are changing, but if I can describe the shifting of spores or something, then I could prompt active perception or dungeoneering checks or something, to give players the opportunity to use their skills and feel like they were worth taking. Oooh, I could totally have freeing the ghosts be a skill challenge or something.

That's how I might engage the explorer in an exotic location. Tune in soon for cultural encounters of the third kind.

Dangit.

The Explorer and You. Or. Well. Me.

Man, I guess it's been a while. Let's dust off the old blog.

This means you!

Sorry about that.

Now, on to business. I've been thinking of running a D&D game as of late. It all started back in historic This One Time. The scene went a little something like this:

It was a busy night at Chuy's. Thanksgiving was around the corner, and darned if the hungry masses were gonna cook up a hot meal at home. There'd be time enough for that come Thursday. But tonight, the city was one hotbed of dining out. Money would change hands more than once tonight, and the people? They'd pay.

But that didn't matter, not to me. I'd seen too many lives wasted in the gutter, too many dames with sob stories and killer instincts. A dame a dime a dozen, you could say.

I thought I'd take in the scenery, with my closest buddies. Sometimes it feels like they're the only ones I can trust, but I know it's only because I know where the bodies are buried. That kinda sentiment really gets ya, right here.

The waitress broad brought our orders, and Pat, formerly Big Angry Pat, formerly "Knuckles Mahoney" Pat, the kinda guy who'd bust your nose for lookin' at him funny, reminded me that my life wasn't really a film noir scene, and try as I might, I don't really sound like Humphrey Bogart. (Sadly.)

So Pat spake, proclaiming: "You want to run a game."
And lo, did I ask of them, "I do?"
Verily, did Frank reply, his voice portending the future to mine ears, "Yeah, kinda."

Which brings me to today. I've been doing a little bit of world building, and with a lot of help from Frank I think I have a winner. What really struck me as interesting about the whole process, is the amount of thought put into the various cultures in the game, and the cool/unique scenic and aesthetic elements that I'll be describing.

I don't want to give away too much here. Not yet anyway, but suffice it to say, this has struck a chord with me, as I've always been fascinated by one type of player, the Explorer.

For those of you who don't know, the Explorer is the kind of player who delights in getting to see new parts of your campaign world. When there's a lull in the plot, they're the ones who want to travel somewhere new to see what's out there, they long to climb the next hill, meet the next interesting people, and take in as much of the game world as is possible.

This is easy to understand. After all, part of the appeal of D&D or any similar game is getting to explore a more fantastic world. But for me, it's always been exploration through, either combat with its inhabitants or through the unfolding of a story. The setting has always been kind of a secondary character.

In my experience, the players in the group I'm with have always been more interested in doing than seeing. Often times, travel through the countryside is hand-waved, reduced to something along the lines of "A few days pass of you walking through the woods and you get there." Even if there's an encounter in the wilderness, it's never really described beyond, "And there's totally some trees here, which count as blocking terrain, and some bushes here which are difficult, but provide cover." Everything is always laid out simply and practically, with an eye towards the mechanics.

There's a dearth of flavor text in my gaming experience. Now, mind you, this is probably just my group, but as such, I've often wondered how to describe something effectively enough to invoke a sense of wonder, or at least stoke the fires of nascent explorers. How does one describe "the woods" in order to make them as engaging and interesting as the owlbear that just came crashing through them? How do you convey the timeless sense of ancient ruins and a bygone civilization that wrought such works upon the world, only to fade with time, without having an all too jaded/detached party of players encourage you to get to the fightin'?

So in building this world, I'm attempting to put in details to try and encourage exploration. This means I'm gonna have to practice description. The DMG advises showing, not telling, as a means of encouraging player interest, and engaging all of the senses. Coincidentally, or not, this is also an acting exercise that is used to really evoke "the scene" for you and for the audience, making it more real; they can tell if you're "smelling something good" vs. "smelling freshly baked cookies." The latter is more specific, and it lends a kind of emotional weight that other people pick up on. It helps to fill in the blanks and engage the senses of the audience.

With that in mind, as Frank and I have been coming up with peoples and places, I've been trying to picture them as detailed as I possibly can. I'm still kind of at a loss, but then, this is new territory for me. It seems a pity to give up on exploring it now.

You saw that one coming, right?

Now, if you'll excuse me, I must continue to atone for my misdeeds and redeem/regain my lost honor! Details at 11.

Herein lies the Saga

Fair was the morning, but dark was the day that brought doom upon us. Lo, it had been foretold by the seven winds to Gromnil the Skjald, that the morning of Three Bright Stars would herald a moment of destiny.

Gromnil proclaimed that upon this day, a great king from days long past would return, bringing with him ships and weapons of war, weapons forged in the hell hot fires of our enemy's darkest fears. Young Skaerlas went to the edge of the gray woods, and thereupon did he see the return of King Glaumnisson, astride a White-Maned Beast, which snarled and growled as it trod upon the ancient grounds of our ancestors.

Skaerlas called for the horns to sound, and called for the men to gather their gifts of tribute and prepare to hail the new king, when it happened. The Three Bright Stars shone down, and about the feet of Glaumnisson's beast, the Njaerdling, there was a mist which left the ground frozen in its wake.

More and more of the lands of our fathers was covered in this mist, and it seemed that the breath of Fenris was upon us, for then, Skaerlas beheld the Glaumnisson's host.

Behind the Njaerdling, armed with weapons of the stuff of nightmares and madness, they marched. Our ancestors, unliving, with eyes that screamed from the blackest depths of the night, They fell upon our town, and shattered the kingly tribute that had been gathered.

The winds howled and the beasts roared terribly, but though they were fearsome, we won BECAUSE WE SHOT THEM WITH OUR MIGHTY LASER BEAMS BECAUSE WE ARE ACTUALLY A HIGHLY ADVANCED SOCIETY! IN YOUR FACE!!!!! BOO-YAH! YEAH! LASERS! THAT'S RIGHT!!!

ALSO WE HAVE LASER SHARKS!!!!

THAT'S RIGHT! SUCK IT UNDEAD GHOST MONSTER VIKING ANCESTORS! LASER SHARKS IN YOUR FACE!!!?!!1!

Hooray! Space!

In case you haven't heard, they found water on the moon. This is amazing, and not just because it's a potential resource for humanity and any moon base we might wish to establish (albeit at the cost of a bloody man-machine-space gorilla war), but because it means that here is some strong material evidence for the exploration of space.

It's theorized that water might actually form on the moon in an endogenic process from an interaction between solar winds and moon rocks. Something to do with charged hydrogen breaking apart oxygen bonds in the soil and creating trace amounts of water/ice. Here is something which doesn't happen on Earth, but at the same time is in reach.

Who knows what might be discovered on the other planets in our Solar System? Or beyond even the furthest reaches of our own Sun?

I have always been fascinated by the prospect of exploring space. Ever since we learned about it in elementary school, the idea's been emblazoned in my mind. I don't know if I'll ever be an astronaut, but someday, I'd like to go beyond the Earth. Someday, I'd like Mankind to reach out for the stars, and to know them, to understand the cosmos.

I believe that understanding is the key to our future, to the galaxy's even, if you think of it as one big organism. It's been said that we are a mechanism for the cosmos to know itself.

I'm inclined to agree.

It was Carl Sagan's birthday a while back

I can't believe I had forgotten.

Carl Sagan was one of my heroes. He told stories about the universe, and our place in it. He made the unknowable seem wondrous, and the vastness of space seem filled with delicate joy.

In his writings, science and poetry come together, and the universe is a beautiful place to be.

From Cosmos to Contact, I admire them all.

Here's one last little thing to think about.

Games.

A while back, I wrote about my history with games. Sort of. I was incredibly tired and ready for bed. But since then, I've actually organized my thoughts, and made things a little more coherent. So much so in fact, that I'm using this as a basis for some of my entrance exams. Games are an important part of who we are. More after the jump.

Don't worry, I'm from Space.

So a while back, all of the cool kids decided that they would make web logs, or "blogs." These "blogs" contained the collective thoughts of humanity and were a repository of the wisdom of the ages, a digital Library of Alexandria. However, like the Library of Alexandria, they too were besieged by Nega Beings from the Xth Dimensionoid, hell bent on revenge. Such was the force of this manxome foe, that a blog force had to be created, and even that was not enough. So with the help of a bunch of crackling lightning and some totally sweet theme music, they combined, forming the blog-o-sphere. Even then, if they hadn't formed that energy sword right after the last commercial break we might not be here today.

I know because I was there. I saw it all (from Space, naturally). Now that the world is safe for blogination I'm making one. This is it. I'm not really sure what else to say.