MUCK session 3

Layout and play-testing continues with MUCK. It is looking beautiful:

That's a dragon!

And the play-testing is going really well. The party is knocking dominoes over. Shaking the foundation. They killed/eliminated one of the witch clans and also led one witch clan to killing the Giant head that likes to play games. 

They haven't left the bottom half of the map yet. They haven't met three of the other factions. And they've already done so much. I'm in love with this adventure location. 

I'm learning more about Muck. The characters there are all very transactional. This for that. Do this and I'll do that. And they all have their secrets. Things they'll do when other things happen. 

For instance - the Ladies of Oolice are all pretty chill and laid back. But when they found out one of the characters had an item that could harm the giant that protected faerie land, they traded as little as they could for it, and went and got some information. 

They didn't tell the party of these plans because, even though they're chill, the party had not done anything for them. The party had the option. They had the head of another witch clan and planned on giving it to the Ladies of Oolice, but instead gave it to another person for a favor. 

So they gained that possible ally, and didn't gain another. 

Everything is transactional. And gaining favor with one might gain enmity from another. 

I'm excited to see where Muck leads and feel that the writing won't be completed until the party leaves. 

Snake Train #1

Snake Trains take you from point A to point B. They exist in your world for those time where you party wants to go somewhere and you have no idea what's in between where they are, and this new place. They're big snakes. And trains. Kinda like the catbus from Totoro but moody.

The first issue is a free, 8-page supplement detailing 5 passengers on the train, what the train actually does, and the first stop on this new journey your party is taking.

You can download the free pdf here. 

Zak

This post is about Zak. It has nothing to do with DnD.

I'm writing this after reading this and revisiting this by Patrick.

I've read every blogpost Zak ever wrote. I don't remember how I found the blog itself, probably through Goblin Punch. But over the course of the 2016 summer, I read every. single. post. I did it because Zak is a good writer, and he changed me. My ideas of D&D and rpgs were entirely 3.5 based. All forgotten realms lore and monster manual lore. And his blog opened things to me. I had (up until just a few minutes ago) a folder full of 20 or so of my favorite blogposts that I would revisit.

The way he talked intimidated me. He talked with such conviction and unrelenting "rightness". He was never wrong, you just misconstrued what he said. I didn't know what to make of it. I was always reserved and never spoke like that. I lived with a lot of shame and didn't think my opinion was worthy of such devotion.

But I tried to be more like him. I defended myself, and fought, and was stubborn.

I was an asshole.

I am an asshole.

I remember feeling uncomfortable by the way Zak talked to people but "since he was famous" it was okay. I though that was the right way and *I* had been wrong all along.

Then I read Patrick's post, and False Machine was one of my favorite blogs. I still think Patrick is my favorite writer. Just. Period. I read Patrick's post and it was like my thoughts had been given a voice. Everything he said felt right and it made me feel better. "I'm not the only one."

I'm mentioning this because I believe Mandy. I believe Patrick. I believe their opinion more than my own, and more than the many more opinions that will become public soon after this information spreads. This coming from an avid fan of this man. From someone who wanted to be like him, to emulate him. Now I just feel gross and unsure of which parts of me are better because of him and which parts should be thrown away.

I believe Mandy because she was in a relationship with this man for a decade. People will say "there are two sides to every story", and that...is a poor defense. If one person makes a claim against another saying they're a terrible person, and they come back and say "no I'm not", that's not a good argument for a defense. Then if MANY more people say the same things as the original claim, and you still defend with the "no I'm not" defense, then you've lost.

THAT. IS. PROOF.

The testimony of the people who know this man as a friend and lover are more important than those of colleagues (though colleagues should not be discredited) and definitely more important than those he only interacted with online (though those TOO should not be ignored). All testimony is important, but when the people closest to you stand again you...there's a problem.

I'm not here to condemn anyone but myself. I don't know Zak. But I believed him. I was witness to his side of the story for all of these attacks that came against him. And I believed him because of the same things Patrick pointed out in his post. I was duped. I feel manipulated. I feel...gross.

I don't care what Zak has to say to defend himself. Because he'll be really good at it. This is what he's good at. This is why it worked on Mandy. Patrick. Me. And many others. This is what he does. His statements coming out in the next couple of days...they will probably convince many more people that Mandy is lying or something. Or just false. I doubt he will actually attack her.

All I can do is say that your opinion means jack when compared against the opinions and experiences of a person who *lived* this man, and the people who corroborate the story.

Read Patrick's recounting. See the tactics. Learn when you're being manipulated. Don't be like me.

Spinning Plates

I've been testing MUCK on my players.

Session 1 saw the party enter the swamp, meet some heretic cultists and some spider-loving witches. It was bog-standard D&D. In my mind, I'm sitting there wondering "is this place *fun* enough? there's nothing *happening*..."

I worry about that a lot. When writing fiction, I think about drama. When I'm writing a film I think about the fun. The scenes, set pieces, characters. And I think, in that regard, an rpg adventure is more like a film. And instead of putting them in an order that already tells a story, you lay them out in a way that they, when interacted with by the party, can create a story.

But in past adventures I've written, it was often about *that* scene. By that I mean, the particular scene the party was in. The party goes somewhere, meets a thing, interacts with it, drama, then they move on. And each scene is beneficial to the last only by how, together, they tell a story about a location. If the party decided to dig, they would find the web that connects it all.

So after the first session of MUCK I was worried. "Is this fun?" The spider witches gave the party a fetch quest to earn safe passage. "Go get some feather from a Maneater Crow," the head witch said. The session ended with the party member who stayed up for watch, snuck into the witch tower to investigate. He was caught.

THAT'S what I mean by the players interacting with things makes the story. But even then, I didn't know if MUCK was worth the price off admission. Would the party leave this place saying "eh, whatever"? I thought about this while writing stats and shit.

Then session II came along. And a lot was revealed to me.

Muck is made up of factions. Humanoid factions, of varying degrees of *cool*. The spider witches took their friend to a place to marry him to a witch. "If you bring us the head of the punk witches, we'll let him go." Another fetch quest. All of these faction have fetch quests. They all want *someone* dead, and are in such a state of stasis that they can't do it themselves.

This place is sort of locked in a cycle and the party is who breaks it up.

And by breaking it up, they start to spin plates. They are spinning the plate of the Heretic Cult and the Spider Witches. That's two plates. A fairly easy task for charming adventurers. That's why I worried about the un-fun. They had just begun.

Throughout session two they gather more plates. They're spinning the betrayal of the spider witches, the friendship of the punk witches, the secret assassination of one of the punk witches, the knowledge of trapped demons, the spider wedding, the Dumb Metal Angel on her tower that reads "DOOM TO US ALL", and then the Goatmen who run the catacombs, a literal heart turned into a cave.

They have A LOT of fucking plates to keep balanced.

And as I learned--the fun of spinning plates is watching them all come crashing down.

So MUCK testing is good. These two sessions show me that I need to do a bit more graphic design when it comes to this one. I need to present these plates in a way to show how dangerous it can get. A chart for the party to keep track of who they meet and what they owe them. And also a kill-tracker for those parties that come in here to just slaughter witches. A forward about the dangers of spinning plates, and writing everything in a way that makes it easy for the DM to learn the factions wants and dislikes.

This will be my most ambitious project to date. The biggest by far. 20 locations, over 50 statblocks. Shit.

Working with Stats

So I was talking about stats some more with a friend. We were working things out, doing some math. Keeping it casual.

Then they left and I went overboard.

I'm working how to determine a creatures HD based on Number Encountered and Difficulty.

Here's what I started with.

Top one is the Hit Dice, and the bottom one determines how many are in a "group". These numbers did not make it to the first draft because they were all over the place. But they were a starting spot.

I tested the numbers by using a 5 Player Party at level 1 and at level 20. If the number matched the desired effect at both extremes of the spectrum, I am going to assume that the middle will work out just fine.

REGARDLESS

With some tweaking, I landed on these as the first draft.

Big difference, but in the end these are the results when tested under the same idea.

It does what I want it to do. With a little tweaking it might be even better, but the idea is to ignore the numbers as much as possible by using these designations (easy, medium hard, solo, duo, group) and make the encounters more about what the monsters do and how they fight. The purpose of this is to make it so that I can create monster types and they can level up with the party and adjust to different party sizes.

I just want to be able to run an adventure without any fucking prep. So to get to that point I'm writing a lot of stuff before hand. A lot of pre-prep.