Telecanter's Receding Rules

Scott asked about how I generate my ideas in connection with my sandbox wonders series so I thought I might talk a bit about that and come up with some wonders with you.  I'm not an expert but I have to do some of this at work and I've done my fair share of tables, so maybe it will be useful.

Constraints
It's counter-intuitive, but putting constraints or boundaries on a topic is helpful.  If I were just generating interesting things to encounter in a sandbox I wouldn't know where to start.  But the first couple posts of this series I actually laid out a bunch of boundaries for what I wanted: wonders that evoke awe, aren't deadly, have a system to them, grant souvenirs worth gathering, etc.  Each can be a springboard for my mind.  If I can't think of something that evokes awe I can try to think of locations that might offer interesting souvenirs.

How do you take advantage of this?  Because really, most things you'll be trying to generate will come with their own constraints.  Well, it could mean trying to narrow down the category of what you want to come up with, say interesting coin treasures instead of just treasures in general.  But you could also impose artificial constraints, like only things starting with "G" to help you out.

So, how about now?  What is a wonder that starts with "G."  The first thing that comes to mind is "graves."  But if we go back to the constraint of having souvenirs I think of leaves.  Maybe each grave is under a tree and taking the leaves of a particular one will do something for you.  What would the system be?  Well, we could make the trees cycles through the seasons quickly so you would have to catch them at the right time, but with graves I like the idea that each buried person would offer different boons/banes and you would need to make a choice.

Patterns
Once you start producing ideas, you can look for patterns in them that you can then use to come up with even more ideas.  For the wonders I quickly noticed some I'd come up with dealt with water or fire, the elements, and so tried to specifically come up with new wonders that were earth-based or air-based.  I also noticed I had a bunch of forest-based wonders and tried to think of some that would work in other biomes or regions of the sandbox: desert, swamp, mountain-top, ocean.  In a way recognizing a pattern is giving yourself a new constraint that comes from within the ideas you've already come up with.

I've found that opposites can be a kind of basic pattern to look for.  All of your wonders consist of something natural?  Maybe we can come up with something made by human hands.  I've been trying to avoid the works of people because they bring with them a lot of assumptions about your gameworld's history.  But maybe we could keep it simple.  How about huge boulders carved into natural towers, dotted around the countryside?  What system might they have if they are so scattered?  Maybe something will appear in each of them in turn, like a flame or a light.

Another thing you can do is combine patterns, which is a way of turning them into a constraint.  So, if we wanted an elemental earth type wonder that would appear in a swamp, what could that be?  It isn't really earth, but the first thing that comes to mind is a huge tusk emerging from the muck.  What systems could be involved with this?  Perhaps the light shining on different parts of it at different parts of the day-- aha, its scrimshawed and if the when the light falls on a certain part of the story magical flowers blossom around the base.

Associative Leaps
This whole post is based on the idea of logically figuring out how we generate things and then using it.  But our minds can be complex.  If I say "Apple" you may think of the fruit or the company; we each have different associations with various words based on our experiences.  But how do we tap into this if it isn't logical, just our mind leaping from one thing to another?  Well, to allow for it.  Write down lists of things and don't worry too much if they fit the constraints you set at first, just let stuff come.  Sometimes a stupid, completely useless idea is one leap away from something great.

While I have moved the order of wonders about a bit, they are mostly in the order I thought of them, so if you look at the whole list (and my list of city wonders too) closely you can see how my mind leapt from one thing to the next.

So how about we try "Apple"?  I think of the fruit and worms and seeds in it.  Worms make me think of huge petrified things or the worm-like tunnels of volcanic activity now I'm thinking that a volcano is producing apples, except they are smooth obsidian orbs.  Okay how about at a certain time of day a local volcano rains down perfectly smooth, spherical or tear-shaped bits of obsidian the size of a human head and these are highly sought as scrying devices, but deadly when raining down.

Inspiration
I hate the word inspiration.  It's usually used in a magical or religious sense, like we just have to sit around and wait until a good idea hits us.  Obviously I don't agree.  But it is true that you need to see and experience things to come up with fresh ideas.  My wonders are really limited by my own experiences in the Sierras (probably too many tree-based wonders).  If I could visit somewhere else I guarantee I could come up with some fresh angles.

Another thing I would put under this category though is ideas coming from others.  I was taught by my culture that ideas are a kind of property that are made by individuals and unique to them.  Which if you look around a bit is hogwash.  Similar contexts often lead to similar ideas and no idea comes from a vacuum-- your ideas are coming from the stew of stuff in your mind-- all you've read, heard, and seen.  So basically, if I want ideas I'm not afraid to make it a social thing and ask others and bounce ideas off them.  To that end, I've asked all my friends and most of my employees "You're walking through the woods and you see something that fills you with wonder.  What is it?"

I'm still essential to the generating process, because they don't understand all my goals and constraints.  If they give me something, invariably I have to shape it a bit.  For example, my brother's answer was "a beaver."  What!?  I think he meant as a suburban human he'd never seen one in the flesh and as cut off from nature as we are it would be pretty wondrous to see one. Our characters in a fantasy world won't have that problem.  So what do I do with it?  What if it isn't a beaver, but their handiwork?  How about a section of forest with the trees carved in the crude likenesses of people?  What would the system be?  Maybe you go there, then that night the beavers carve you into a new tree, then there is a boon/bane attached to you for a certain amount of time.


Incremental Improvement
You don't have to get the whole idea on the first go.  In this post I've the kernels for 5 more wonders but I don't have all the details.  I can let them sit for a few days and then look at them again, shifting details to fit my goals better, coming up with the benefits they give players (which is a separate act of generation in itself).  But even after I post them, I can decide later that one isn't a good fit and cut it for a better, more newly generated wonder.  Generating isn't a single-sitting performance, it is a goal you are working towards and any little step you make towards your goals are valuable revisions.

The Brain is a Muscle
The more we do this kind of generating, the easier it is to produce things in these ways.  But there are limits.  There are times when I don't have a single idea of a wonder left in my head and had to shift to doing other thing while that part of my brain recharged.

I went camping for a few days.  My buddy was driving us there and since it was a 2 hour trip he asked if we could play D&D on the way.  I said sure.

Now, I've never played D&D in the car but I knew I would want to minimize my stuff as much as possible-- essentially have everything fit in my lap.  And I'm not a master of improv, I need certain things nailed down to feel comfortable running a dungeon.  So I needed to generate a dungeon and streamline what it would take to run it.  These two processes are interrelated for me because in simplifying to avoid confusion for me as a DM, it also ends up allowing for a low footprint.

I think, for the amount of experience/confidence I'm have now, the absolute minimum I want to run a dungeon is:

1. a definite map with rooms, corridors, and where things are located in relation to each other
2. a wandering monster chart weighted for probability and details on the monsters-- mostly HD, AC, and the amount of damage they do
3. monsters located on the map
4. treasures located on the map

Pretty much all I needed

I've used dominoes and dice tossing to generate #1 in the past, this time I just used the example from the Dwarven Outpost Kit.  I wanted a little depth to it so I printed it, cut it, and overlapped the two parts to give it two levels.  For #2 I used Jensan's cool web app.  I don't have silhouettes for all the monsters possible, but this time it sort of worked like a creative constraint.  I picked a few mundane images and then tried to imagine a more disturbing monster they might represent.  So the centipede, for example, became a ratipede- little bones moving under its fur, hundreds of pink feet pattering on the stone floor. When my buddy first encountered one he said "That's filthy," which I consider a sign of success on my part.

As for the what monsters to tie down to locations I still use the guidelines here.  Basically one really dangerous encounter a few lesser ones, at least one toy-like trick item and at least one trap.  The dwarven dungeon already has pit traps.  I decided the puzzly thing would be a brass mech thingy that a pc could get into and use like a battle suit.  I also envisioned the forge on the lower level would require some figuring out to get working.  Both of those, the suit and the flame of the forge I put as possible ways to defeat the worst monster in the place, a troll.  I wasn't expecting my friend to use either, but I like to at least have a few things I know players can utilize to their advantage lying around.  I also made sure to do it this time because I figured he'd have a very hard time surviving as a single pc even with his one hireling.

For treasures I decided to put a ring, a wand of detection and a couple potions.  I rolled up which of each randomly using my charts.  As to where the stuff is, I just rolled dice, counted off rooms, and placed.

All I really needed to run this little dungeon then, was the map with annotations, the wandering monster booklet with pre-rolled hit points for all the beasties, and dice.  I also brought a mini-booklet of miracles because my friend's pc is a cleric and some tiny travelling dominoes for him to see if his requests for miracles were answered.  The dice I brought were 3d6, 2d20s, 2d10s, and one of d4, d8, d12, and d30.  To roll the dice in, I brought along part of some fancy watch packaging I found somewhere.  It's only about 4"x5" and has a velvety lining.

It worked great.  The only downside was that after about an hour of playing I started getting car sick.  I never really get car sick, but the combination of imagining the map in my head and the winding mountain roads was enough to start making me nauseous.  We had to put the adventure on hold for a bit and finish it up when we reached the campsite.

Tune in next time to see how I fared when I suddenly had to use this minimal set up to DM six D&D mocking newbies around the camp fire.

A While back I messed around with writing two word monsters to help generate fresh ideas. I think we could do the same for NPCs.

Your challenge, if you choose to accept it, is to juxtapose two words that will be evocative for a fellow DM.

I've had an unfair head start. Here are a few I came up with:

1. leprous emperor
2. epileptic wizard
3. gilded lich
4. mute friar
5. honest gambler
6. manic ratcatcher
7. dying saint
8. hungover inquisitor
9. stuttering poet
10. caged academic
11. narcoleptic gladiator
12. balancing merchant
13. clockwork cleric
14. polyglot beggar
15. acrobatic dwarves
16. levitating shepherd
17. wooden nun
18. glass knight
19. senile bishop
20. child aflame
21. albino ninja
22. meticulous ogre
    
23. thumb-sized ambassador
24. emaciated bandit
25. drunken maiden
26. depressed pimp
27. incontinent king
28. two-headed philosopher
29. shy preacher
30. cryptic gossip

I'm really interested in vows and taboos in relation to the granting of power. One of my favorite stories of all time is that of Samson, chosen of God to be a freaking superhero, as long as he observes a few prohibitions. The Nazirite vow of not touching unclean things would include, you know, stuff like jawbones and lion carcasses. So even as he's fulfilling God's mission Samson breaks these prohibitions and loses his power.

Vows, Oaths, Taboos, & Geasa

These seem ripe to be incorporated into an old school adventure game. Whether they be a fate-like prediction given to the character at creation, "He will never _______ until ________," or a kind of self imposed spiritual restriction, "I shall never _____," these could add the flavor of folklore and religion to play. But more interestingly to me, they could function as an ongoing and individualized player mini-game. Yeah it would be fun for a player to have a power, but it would be more fun if they have to be on their toes to keep it.

What Benefit?

Now, the powers a character might gain from observance of these strictures would be a tricky thing; we don't want every pc running around super strong or immortal. Before we try to come up with possibilities let's narrow it down a little.

I'm thinking these benefits might be better as a continuous power (i.e. strength, great size) and not daily powers or spells. It also might be better if they were just one clear benefit and not many. Both of these would make it more obvious and dramatic if the strictures are broken and the power is lost.

I'm thinking it might be better if it is limited to affecting them and their body. Not something like pyrokinesis. But I'm less sure about that.

I feel like these could also be more interesting and flavorful if they were slightly ambiguous or had room for interpretation. You know, like "can never be killed by man born of woman." And then MacDuff of the Cesarean shows up.

Here are some ideas:

• great strength
• great endurance
• great speed
• a silver tongue (great persuasive ability)
• immune to poisons & sickness
• immune to charms and glamors
• great ability with a certain weapon
• always first to strike (win initiative)
• always last to fall (keep fighting even below 0 hp, until all foes fall or flee)
• never be felled by steel (can be rendered unconscious, but not killed by steel weapon)
  

At What Cost?

I think the magnitude of the power granted should be balanced with the difficulty of keeping the vows. And this is related to picking vows that would work mechanically in-game. For example, an ascetic vow of vegetarianism, or a vow to avoid alcohol would rarely be an issue to an old school character unless the DM or player consciously made it one. I'd like something a little harder to avoid.

To help us generate we can think of them as obligations, things the character must do, and prohibitions, things they must never do. My general feeling is that the latter would be easier to use for our purposes but let's go with it for now and see what we can come up with.

You will have X as long as you never:

• kill a living thing
• draw first blood
• raise a hand against a man/woman/elf/etc
• strip the arms off a foe (in the sense of weapons and armor)
• be first to _________ (to stop fighting?)
• be last to _________ (in marching order?)
• keep bad company (whatever that my be defined as)
• reveal secrets (whatever they are established as)

To keep X, you must always:

• draw first blood
• blood a bared weapon
• strip the arms off a vanquished foe
• be first to _________ (enter buildings?)
• be last to _________ (yield?)

I'm thinking this might need some more thought and a second post. But I'm curious to know what you think.

I haven't followed Year of the Dungeon closely, I've stumbled across it a few times in my blogoramblings. But a recent compilation of Tony Dowler's microdungeons is really something worth looking at.

These dungeons are small and uncomplicated. In the past some of them have seemed more like puns or more lighthearted than is to my taste. But the dungeon above, The Old Crypt, caught my eye.

First, the way each room has a word or two as a description fits the One Page Dungeon philosophy to a T. Only what needs to be said is said: screams here, this is sealed, candles here. That makes sense and I'm sure you have maps that have similar notations to remind yourself.


I think the "Here" and "There" above is a wonderful example of this. I imagine it means the doorway at "There" leads to the isolated room at "Here." But it's such a clean way to note it. How would I have done it? Numbers, letters, matching symbols if I was particularly thoughtful. So these dungeons have this efficient evocativeness about them.

But what led me to write this post was something more. Do you see the word "brittle" in the Old Crypt? Maybe Tony has a clear sense of what that means. Maybe in the terseness of the notes it just doesn't get translated to me, the reader. But whatever caused it I don't know what the hell "brittle" means here, and I love it.

Maybe this is all pretty obvious, but I think it might be a great spur to me as a DM to have that kind of brief abstract note about dungeon chambers to help me generate or improvise. Maybe what that would look like wouldn't be much different than the dungeon dressing tables in the 1e DMG appendix I.

But in those, each table was for a specific subset of descriptors (sounds, container contents, clothes). I'm thinking of more general adjective; "brittle" in my mind could apply to scrolls in the room, to a crust or ice over a pool characters have to walk across, or even to the tension in the air.

How about:

1. bitter
2. strong
3. faint
4. sticks
5. cracks
6. teeth
7. pick
8. bark
9. stalks
10. broad
11. early
12. fair
13. light
14. open
15. crook
16. rasp
17. ripe
18. ill
19. calm
20. weak
    

I tried to pick words with multiple meanings and words that can functions as more than one part of speech. If you get stumped on a particular dungeon room you could roll on this table. If you have any suggestions of good words put them in the comments and we'll compile a bigger list.

Anyway enough of that, go check out Tony's microdungeons. Here's the compilation of a month of them.

This is T. Foster's. I think I read about it at Knights and Knaves Alehouse forum.

Don't think of this as a set-in-stone flowchart. Think of this as boundaries to help you when you're floundering around early on in dungeon-making or when you're under the gun to produce something quickly.

The idea is to have at least this much ready for one night's adventure gaming. Twelve rooms holding:

One Session of Play

1 Major Encounter
2 Major Encounter that Overmatches the party
3 minor encounter
4 minor encounter
5 Telegraphed Trap
6 Trick/Puzzle with a Permanent Effect
7 empty room
8 "
9 "
10 "
11 "
12 empty room, with some kind of False Climax

I think it is pretty self explanatory. The false climax and permanent effects are very old school flavor. As is the dangerous encounter that is really too tough for the party unless they out think it (or run like hell). Telegraphed trap means a trap that is obvious about its presence but maybe not its function. The idea is that traps are actually more dramatic and tension building when players know they are there. I picked this idea up over at Ars Ludi.

What I've found myself doing is thinking in chunks of two of these and allowing for player to go in two entirely different directions. Hope this is helpful.

I've talked about putting constraints on ourselves to help generate stuff you might not think of otherwise. I offered you a One Sentence Challenge: Monster here. One interesting thing I noticed is that the sentence format, SVO, pushes you to have the monster do something, you know because of that big V, the verb. They carry cities and pick your pockets and want to eat your brain. This all became apparent to me when I was joking with Kilgore, wanting my flying bears.

Well, what if you drop the sentence structure while tightening the constraints even more? So, the monster won't be doing anything, you'll need to make an adjective do a lot of work. How is that possible, you might ask. Well a lot of the classic monsters are just that Adjective-Noun. For Example, one-eyed giant, two-headed giant, or any giant natural creature: ants, frogs, weasels, bats, spiders etc. Here are some more adjectives you've probably seen:

• skeletal
• shadow
• were-
• various colors (grey ooze, black dragon)
• winged (winged bears)
• -man
  

But now that I think of it, adjectives can be about what creatures do as well. So, what if we go back to what the monster is doing, allowing for a hyphen. How about, metal-eating armadillo, blood-drinking undead, teleporting dogs, petrifying lizards, etc.

[Snip]Here was a ton of me generating back and forth and getting more complicated and possibly confused, haha[/snip]

This turned out harder than I thought, but here's my go at it:

• brass spider
• armor-plated ape
• mummified sealions (okay, okay, sea lions is two words isn't it?)
  
• mechanical fish
• voice-stealing cat
• explosive leeches
• levitating herbivore
• Crystalline memory-thief

And now I throw down my gauntlet in the Two Word Challenge: Monster! In two words describe a monster that intrigues us all. Post in the comments.