That will happen another day. Here's another sea location for saltbox adventures.
PDF on Patreon!
Hack & Slash
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On Islands II
This is late because I was waiting on exciting news.
That will happen another day. Here's another sea location for saltbox adventures.
PDF on Patreon!
That will happen another day. Here's another sea location for saltbox adventures.
PDF on Patreon!
On Towers II
Hope everyone is doing well! Here's the second tower in the series!
The PDF with it keyed and stocked it on Patreon!
The PDF with it keyed and stocked it on Patreon!
On Artifices & Deceptions, Triggers: Pressure Plate
Pressure sensors detect and measure pressure and convert that into some kind of output.
We are not escalating our interactions with the players to engage esoteric knowledge, but rather to allow them to enjoy problem solving. This is the lens through which we examine the pressure plate. 
There are a few types of pressure sensors: Strain based sensors require a physical material placed under strain such as a coil or strip of wire. There are also Resonant pressure sensors which measure frequency to determine if a machine is experiencing unexpected pressure. Finally there are thermal or ionization sensors measuring pressure via temperature change. There is a heating element balanced delicately, and any movement causes a change in temperature due to airflow.
- Historically, pressure plates were given a chance to trigger as each character passes. Players poking and prodding ahead would have a chance to trigger the trap with their poles. Mechanically this meant the more likely the trap was to trigger, the easier it was to detect. Pressure plates that trigger 100% of the time are always detectable. This ratio is a good starting baseline.
- Pressure plates are not necessarily a trap trigger. Cities use pressure plates
(tubes) to map traffic to better design roads. Detecting a pressure plate doesn't give a character any insight into what it does.
Here, the medium is air,
the strain element is the left spring
and the output is the latch. - The illustrations indicate one case where the pressure plate itself is the trap, and another where the pressure plate is a trigger for the trap. This is not merely a matter of semantics, but describes what the problem the player actually faces.
- There are many many ways that people become aware of pressure plates, consider your own awareness when using pressure plates to open handicapped doors. It is difficult to completely integrate pressure plates into surfaces undetectably, though there will always be a dwarf who will claim otherwise. Bipedal creatures are acutely concerned with the stability of the surface they are standing on. We are very aware of instability.
- The plate being triggered must be abstracted to a random chance. Because of this abstraction, a failure to trigger could mean "Didn't step on the plate at all," "Plate didn't trigger due to weight distribution," to "The player's patron used mystical force to protect them". Consider this when framing the fictional positioning to the players.
- Variations on the pressure plate include many thousands of tiny pressure plate, each step triggering some percentage of them. A pressure plate that disarms a trap or produces a safe space.
- The reuseablity of pressure plates makes it difficult to conceal them. Plaster and paint will crack, space that allows the plate to move will crack and grow, plates will lean, et. al.
Here, the medium is air,
The strain element is the electrical
resistance in the air, and the output
is an electric current. - Common classic player behaviors to discover these include pouring water, tapping ahead with poles, and being a dwarf.
- Pressure plates and their environments are frequently decorated or part of decoration and tile mosaics to hide their presence. In addition, the effects of the pressure plate are usually visible—scorch marks, blood stains, gouging.
Traditional use
A1: Slave Pits of the Undercity, By David Cook
20. TRICK STAIRS
A staircase goes down about 10’ and ends in a small landing with a door facing the stairs. The steps are made of flagstones set in mortar. The flagstones are loose.
This staircase will become a slide if the door to room is not opened properly. A thief may not detect the trap, but a dwarf could detect shifting stone if checked for. If the door is opened without first locking a secret catch (detectable only by a thief), the stairs will suddenly slant, creating a steep incline. Unless previous precautions have been taken, characters will slide into room #21, automatically losing surprise and initiative for the first round. Characters roped together, but not fastened to anything, will have even greater difficulties (the characters will be surprised for two segments and may not take any action during that time). After the door is closed and pressure released from the slope, the stairs will return to normal. If the door is opened after locking the catch, nothing will happen and the party will find stairs going down.
C1: The Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan by Harold Johnson & Jeff R. Leason
2. The Hall of Thrashing Canes
The sides of this corridor are carved to resemble walls of bamboo-like logs. The passage slopes down from a single door on its western leg, the lintel of which has been crafted to represent a stylized cavern entrance, to double doors of beaten bronze, worked to resemble a forest of seaweed
There is a pressure plate halfway down the hallway which triggers a trap. Several of the logs will swing out from either wall and buffet the paw towards the double doors. For tournament play, the trap will always work. For campaign adventure, the trap will be triggered on a 1 or 2 in 6. Characters will suffer no damage if the trap swings out behind them, stunning for 1-4 rounds. If a character is walking up the slope towards the trap, he or she will receive 1-6 points of damage from the trap, and will be stunned for 1-4 rounds. Once triggered, the stone logs will not swing back and will effectively block the passage, since they bar the way from ceiling to floor with only a 6” gap between the logs.
T1-4 Temple of Elemental Evil by Gary Gygax
103. PILLARED HALL
One hundred pounds of pressure on the floor at a point five feet in from the entry triggers a delayed-action mechanism. The pressure point limit is shown by X marks on the map. One round after this is triggered, a heavy barred grate drops and seals the doorway. Two harpies roost atop the two central eastern pillars, having special niches cut into the eastern faces 34 feet above the floor. When the grate crashes down, the harpies start singing. After one round, they cease their song and fly around, attacking any creature that makes a hostile gesture. If sounds of fighting occur here, the occupants of area 104 arrive 1 round later. If there is no such turmoil, these creatures arrive five full rounds after the grate's noisy descent.
Pressure Plate design
Early pressure plate design should trend toward obviousness and small hit point tax. Escalating this should be both pressure plates that trigger nothing or are broken, or plates that work to allow the players to advance. (e.g. a plate that requires 800 pounds for a door to open). Consider the construction of the plate, specifically the medium in relation to what the players do to examine it. The pressure plate is not a critical feature. The simplest option when dealing with it is "I ignore it". This is a feature. Pressure plates (and pits) are most effective when they are placed in areas where characters will be fleeing: tombs, in front of fear runes, outside of a room filled with 12 beholders.
On Islands I
Island campaigns are so hot right now! One can never have enough places characters can stumble across that aren't on a map!
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On Towers I
This is the Frucissur Tower. It is inhabited by three Rakasta. They like to avoid people and argue with each other about planar schematics.
A nearby corrupted pond is spawning fish men of Dagon, so the Rakasta have used their vat to turn the local crows and ravens into a cult that believes they are gods. The raven men take care of all the fish men, as well as all the obnoxious business of daily life.
On Cravenpeter's Dream Auction
Deaths continue to more than double from the Coronavirus every 30 days. Racism is so integral to america that protesting it seems like protesting America itself.
Now is not the time for me to speak, so I won't, beyond saying BLACK LIVES MATTER, and
encouraging you to contact your representative to let them know your concerns. The number that will put you in touch with your representative is the capital switchboard at (202) 224-3121.
I do have to work. So, I'm happy to announce:
Gold & Glory: Cravenpeter's Dream Auction
I've written a new module for GOLD AND GLORY, a savage worlds engine designed for solo or group dungeon crawls!
Rich items await in the auction of Maximillian Ernesto Cravenpeter Esquire the Mediocre. A powerful archmage is publicly retiring and is holding an auction for his eclectic and exotic items.
Maximillian, a powerful wizard in no way overcome with paranoia and petty concerns, has always had little trust or respect for anyone who would covet his things. As a security measure he has contacted the Green Feather agents—fae mesmerists, who have agreed to hold the auction in a dream within Maximillian’s psyche. This works flawlessly, protecting both the clients and the auctioned
objects, as long as no deep psychic disturbances exist.
Obviously, with a name like Cravenpeter, the chance for psychological trauma is surely nonexistent.
It's a fun jaunt into realms of dreams and weirdness. There's a talking moose, sexy bards, and noble knights. I've done the illustrations for it also.
It's 4.99 on DTRPG. 30 pages, ten magical items powerful and unique, eight competing dream bidders, and psychological weirdness.
If the chaos in this nation dies down, I've got quite a lot of work coming out and we'll see lots of new exciting things here.
Now is not the time for me to speak, so I won't, beyond saying BLACK LIVES MATTER, and
encouraging you to contact your representative to let them know your concerns. The number that will put you in touch with your representative is the capital switchboard at (202) 224-3121.
I do have to work. So, I'm happy to announce:
Gold & Glory: Cravenpeter's Dream Auction
I've written a new module for GOLD AND GLORY, a savage worlds engine designed for solo or group dungeon crawls!
Rich items await in the auction of Maximillian Ernesto Cravenpeter Esquire the Mediocre. A powerful archmage is publicly retiring and is holding an auction for his eclectic and exotic items.
Maximillian, a powerful wizard in no way overcome with paranoia and petty concerns, has always had little trust or respect for anyone who would covet his things. As a security measure he has contacted the Green Feather agents—fae mesmerists, who have agreed to hold the auction in a dream within Maximillian’s psyche. This works flawlessly, protecting both the clients and the auctioned
objects, as long as no deep psychic disturbances exist.
Obviously, with a name like Cravenpeter, the chance for psychological trauma is surely nonexistent.
It's a fun jaunt into realms of dreams and weirdness. There's a talking moose, sexy bards, and noble knights. I've done the illustrations for it also.
It's 4.99 on DTRPG. 30 pages, ten magical items powerful and unique, eight competing dream bidders, and psychological weirdness.
If the chaos in this nation dies down, I've got quite a lot of work coming out and we'll see lots of new exciting things here.
Hack & Slash
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On GNS in my OSR? It's more likely than you think.
My own words from 2000, a few short months after the genesis of the threefold model.
Of course, the threefold model is—Well, I mean, Ron Edwards is still active in gaming. It isn't a reflection of him as a human, I certainly don't want to be held accountable for the things I wrote from 1997-2001, so I'm not in any way looking to hold him accountable for what he said. I like Ron as a human, and I'm super glad he's a game designer. And yet I'm going to speak my mind on this.
The threefold model is terrible, made up of nonsensical self-referential spherical cows. Now with the advent of healthy gaming groups broadcasting thousands of hours on twitch, has firmly ensconced itself in history next to other theories like phrenology, flat-earth, and anti-vaxxers. Yeeet.
GNS stands for "gamist/narrativist/simulationist". Twenty years ago, I thought it was amazing. Finally I knew how to talk about different approaches to gaming. Although it seems exciting at first glance, It led to a dark place.
The first red flag is when the definition for a term is an essay. I accept as natural law that if you can't define a term objectively (i.e. in a determinate way) in less than a paragraph, then it is by its nature not useful as a tool.
Very simply, there are essays defining what those terms mean, and they contradict each other. It seems simple! You might tell yourself Gamist is a focus on procedures, narrativist is a focus on narrative and drama, and simulationist is, well, something like gamist, but maybe involving mostly games people didn't like?
The use of the terms matched the way someone might use the word communist in 1960. Unless it was the group you identified with of course. This is what eventually turned into the "Big Model". But the big model is wholly reliant on the "creative agendas" of, you guessed it, gamism, narrativism, and simulation.
In reflection, I believe the threefold model was vague because it was simply a way for people who had difficulty managing group communication challenges to create an in-group-out-group dynamic to shore up their own insecurities. You can read the essays yourself linked above, I've written before about how the theory is internally inconsistent, when I was less circumspect about what I would say on the internet.
My impression is that people who talk about "System matters", GNS, and such things, have never actually read any of the source material. They have invented some thing inside their head, which makes sense based on their assumptions, but breaks down with any actual contact with what the text says, or interaction with anyone else's assumptions of reality. It isn't helped by the fact that the field is filled with a ton of jargon, having meanings that are very specific and different from their common use.
The fundamental flaw of the Big Model is its core thesis. Ron defines the various material factors of role playing as character, system, setting, situation, and color, and says that the reaction to these elements is the premise.
Everything he lists that appeals to people who play role-playing games is superficial and irrelevant. I will play any game with any Dungeon Master. Character, system, setting, situation and color are almost completely irrelevant.
Now, sure I have preferences, but the whole artifice of the situation is that gaming groups break up because the participants are brain-damaged by the fact that the game is incoherently made up of multiple modes, instead of focused on a single one, G, N, or S.
I'm not kidding.
"It is just that their thinking has been infected by unhealthy thoughts,” said the Han to the Uighur. It is a man, justifying an animals actions as not those of a living thinking creature for his own edification. That is not hyperbole, it is the core of tyranny, when your opponents preferences are evidence of some sort of mental illness. Do not claim to advance your ends that I am comparing what Ron said to genocide; this isn't about Ron at all. I am saying many men in their hearts dream themselves your master. Call it gate-keeping, or manipulation, or whatever you want. Redressing in-group/out-group power dynamics as scientific fact is happening all the time.
Ron Edwards (and super-friends like Luke Crane) had dysfunctional gaming experiences growing up. I did not. It's clear today that functional gaming experiences are the norm because we have video of thousands of hours of people playing with all different kinds of focuses and different games, and the only problems that exist are social problems. And that's knowledge that's propagated. In the 80's and 90's, games were blamed for problem behaviors—when really the source of the problem was mental illness, social maladaptation, and all too frequently exploitative abusers, the "missing stairs".
Now, I can read internet forums today without going blind in my right eye from anger, because when someone starts talking about a problem game, there is a resounding cry of "Talk to your players". Engage in communication instead of trying to engage in a war of manipulation within the context of an activity.
There is a lot of thought and a lot of work and literally hundreds of thousands of words written about game theory on the forge and by various proponents. You can read it. It may be my 20 years in the mental health field that makes it look like people processing trauma in the open (and re-inflicting it on others) but you can read it yourself and make up your own mind. I'm not the first person to come to a similar conclusion.
I was 16 when that was written. It's important that we remember the past so that we don't repeat it. I've seen people in the last month mention both System Matters and GNS (and thankfully, saw people make the same points I made above). And you thought ten year old tweets were bad.
Role-playing theory is a subset of communication's group facilitation theory, with a sprinkling of theological communication theory. (We see the main role of the facilitator in such a group as contributing to process and structure, not content. Sound familiar? Ever heard that old saw about the Dungeon Master being an impartial adjudicator?) It's a shared human experience and it has concrete techniques that can be taught. You don't need special training—everyone facilitates groups and communication.
You want to know what's fair? You have specific assumptions, a culture, and relationships with your friends. When you are in a group, the group shares preferences within the scope of social norms while respecting individuals. You can call this a social contract, but it wouldn't be worth the paper it's not written on. It is, as a social tribal animal, what occurs in every grouping. You discuss and negotiate expectations, verbally, non-verbally, or if handicapped, using an aid. You develop a ritual and a culture as a group.
Everything else, eventually, comes down to preference. Anyone who tells you differently is trying to insinuate you within a system of control. Stay free.
Happy American Thanksgiving. This is normally where I pitch my Patreon, but a friend of mine, Amanda, is struggling this season. It is within our power, in our comfortable, cozy, holiday, warmth, to help another wonderful human suffer less. I urge you to do so. I am so grateful that I am finally in a place where I can give to others. Gofundme for Amanda.
From: Courtney CampbellSubject: Re: Getting player buy-in to a surprise
Date: 2000/05/26
It is a 'system' a 'model' for discussion.. .So, I'm into it, I've always been into it, and I always will be.
For someone who claims to know so much about communication, you certainly 'get
off' on going to newsgroups and saying, and I paraphrase; "Your stupid model
is a waste of time. How dare you dumb fuck-wits come up with some common
terminology to discuss something you enjoy. How come you don't just play the
game?"
in answer to your question, We do just play the game, just not while we
choose to discuss it on a newsgroup.
Of course, the threefold model is—Well, I mean, Ron Edwards is still active in gaming. It isn't a reflection of him as a human, I certainly don't want to be held accountable for the things I wrote from 1997-2001, so I'm not in any way looking to hold him accountable for what he said. I like Ron as a human, and I'm super glad he's a game designer. And yet I'm going to speak my mind on this.
The threefold model is terrible, made up of nonsensical self-referential spherical cows. Now with the advent of healthy gaming groups broadcasting thousands of hours on twitch, has firmly ensconced itself in history next to other theories like phrenology, flat-earth, and anti-vaxxers. Yeeet.
GNS stands for "gamist/narrativist/simulationist". Twenty years ago, I thought it was amazing. Finally I knew how to talk about different approaches to gaming. Although it seems exciting at first glance, It led to a dark place.
Next, I encountered GNS. I read some of the essays on TF and realized there were what I perceived as errors in the theory. I and others pointed that out here, and we were always met with a circle-the-wagons mentality. It quickly became apparent to me that GNS was immune to criticism because anyone who criticized it by definition didn't understand the theory. And given the extremity of the jargon, it was always possible to retreat from any conflict into semantic obscurantism. Of course, a theory which can't be questioned or falsified doesn't have a lot of meaning, and anyway there was never a response to the original criticisms. In particular, there was an exchange between Bruce Baugh and Ron Edwards where Bruce pointed out flaws and the most Ron could do was suggest he shouldn't tear down others' (false) theories, instead he should build up his own. —Chiaroscuro, 2006
The Threefold Model
The first red flag is when the definition for a term is an essay. I accept as natural law that if you can't define a term objectively (i.e. in a determinate way) in less than a paragraph, then it is by its nature not useful as a tool.
I've noted this tendency on the parts of a lot of people who arrive at the Forge from a scholarly background - accustomed to reading texts as representatives of identified points of view, they aren't used to dealing with texts as "thickets of debate" in which everyone understands that the point of view is expected to emerge eventually.- Ron Edwards
Very simply, there are essays defining what those terms mean, and they contradict each other. It seems simple! You might tell yourself Gamist is a focus on procedures, narrativist is a focus on narrative and drama, and simulationist is, well, something like gamist, but maybe involving mostly games people didn't like?
The use of the terms matched the way someone might use the word communist in 1960. Unless it was the group you identified with of course. This is what eventually turned into the "Big Model". But the big model is wholly reliant on the "creative agendas" of, you guessed it, gamism, narrativism, and simulation.
In reflection, I believe the threefold model was vague because it was simply a way for people who had difficulty managing group communication challenges to create an in-group-out-group dynamic to shore up their own insecurities. You can read the essays yourself linked above, I've written before about how the theory is internally inconsistent, when I was less circumspect about what I would say on the internet.
Brain Damage
My impression is that people who talk about "System matters", GNS, and such things, have never actually read any of the source material. They have invented some thing inside their head, which makes sense based on their assumptions, but breaks down with any actual contact with what the text says, or interaction with anyone else's assumptions of reality. It isn't helped by the fact that the field is filled with a ton of jargon, having meanings that are very specific and different from their common use.
The fundamental flaw of the Big Model is its core thesis. Ron defines the various material factors of role playing as character, system, setting, situation, and color, and says that the reaction to these elements is the premise.
I don't agree in the strongest possible way. The things that sustain my interest is augury of unknown realities, experiencing meaningful choice, sharing a life experience with my friends.
"Premise is whatever a participant finds among the elements to sustain a continued interest in what might happen in a role-playing session." — Ron Edwards GNS and other matters of role playing theory
Everything he lists that appeals to people who play role-playing games is superficial and irrelevant. I will play any game with any Dungeon Master. Character, system, setting, situation and color are almost completely irrelevant.
Now, sure I have preferences, but the whole artifice of the situation is that gaming groups break up because the participants are brain-damaged by the fact that the game is incoherently made up of multiple modes, instead of focused on a single one, G, N, or S.
I'm not kidding.
LaterMore specific to your question, Vincent, I'll say this: that protagonism was so badly injured during the history of role-playing (1970-ish through the present, with the height of the effect being the early 1990s), that participants in that hobby are perhaps the very last people on earth who could be expected to produce *all* the components of a functional story. No, the most functional among them can only be counted on to seize protagonism in their stump-fingered hands and scream protectively.. .[The most damaged participants are too horrible even to look upon, much less to describe. This has nothing to do with geekery. When I say "brain damage," I mean it literally. Their minds have been *harmed.*]
All that is the foundation for my point: that the routine human capacity for understanding, enjoying, and creating stories is damaged in this fashion by repeated "storytelling role-playing" as promulgated through many role-playing games of a specific type. This type is only one game in terms of procedures, but it's represented across several dozens of titles and about fifteen to twenty years, peaking about ten years ago. Think of it as a "way" to role-play rather than any single title. - R. Edwards, ForgeHe's talking about D&D.
"It is just that their thinking has been infected by unhealthy thoughts,” said the Han to the Uighur. It is a man, justifying an animals actions as not those of a living thinking creature for his own edification. That is not hyperbole, it is the core of tyranny, when your opponents preferences are evidence of some sort of mental illness. Do not claim to advance your ends that I am comparing what Ron said to genocide; this isn't about Ron at all. I am saying many men in their hearts dream themselves your master. Call it gate-keeping, or manipulation, or whatever you want. Redressing in-group/out-group power dynamics as scientific fact is happening all the time.
Ron Edwards (and super-friends like Luke Crane) had dysfunctional gaming experiences growing up. I did not. It's clear today that functional gaming experiences are the norm because we have video of thousands of hours of people playing with all different kinds of focuses and different games, and the only problems that exist are social problems. And that's knowledge that's propagated. In the 80's and 90's, games were blamed for problem behaviors—when really the source of the problem was mental illness, social maladaptation, and all too frequently exploitative abusers, the "missing stairs".
Now, I can read internet forums today without going blind in my right eye from anger, because when someone starts talking about a problem game, there is a resounding cry of "Talk to your players". Engage in communication instead of trying to engage in a war of manipulation within the context of an activity.
There is a lot of thought and a lot of work and literally hundreds of thousands of words written about game theory on the forge and by various proponents. You can read it. It may be my 20 years in the mental health field that makes it look like people processing trauma in the open (and re-inflicting it on others) but you can read it yourself and make up your own mind. I'm not the first person to come to a similar conclusion.
The Past and Future
I don't agree. The RPGA promotes itself as taking care of role- players' interests. As long as this is the case, they should not put restrictions on material which is highly relevant to quite a few gamers; this is neglecting gamers' interests. The only reasons I can think of for banning homosexual issues are marketing reasons. —Holter, Matthijs, 1993
I was 16 when that was written. It's important that we remember the past so that we don't repeat it. I've seen people in the last month mention both System Matters and GNS (and thankfully, saw people make the same points I made above). And you thought ten year old tweets were bad.
Role-playing theory is a subset of communication's group facilitation theory, with a sprinkling of theological communication theory. (We see the main role of the facilitator in such a group as contributing to process and structure, not content. Sound familiar? Ever heard that old saw about the Dungeon Master being an impartial adjudicator?) It's a shared human experience and it has concrete techniques that can be taught. You don't need special training—everyone facilitates groups and communication.
Examples of concrete techniques: encouraging exploration: Establishing the focus of the session. Setting up the question or issue that we are going to explore. Encouraging trust. Acting so that people are disposed to work together with the facilitator to create an environment in which all can participate. Helping people to engage with the subject and each other. Pose some initial questions or open up conversation. Don't undermine player action to force an outcome. Communicate so that everyone understands the situation in the same way. Include verticality in design, Address and avoid power struggles in the clinical sense. Make sure choices in games are interesting, significant enough to notice and have meaningful consequences. Participants should be able to define their own objectives and methods for achieving them; choices should not be coerced or manipulated; and choices should be based on valid information. Et al.The core of all this started, when Mary on rec.games.frp.advocacy started talking about what factors influenced what a game master decides. Is this a reasonable thing for the non-player character to do? Does this also produce an interesting experience for the player? Working out the answers to these with the group is the way.
You want to know what's fair? You have specific assumptions, a culture, and relationships with your friends. When you are in a group, the group shares preferences within the scope of social norms while respecting individuals. You can call this a social contract, but it wouldn't be worth the paper it's not written on. It is, as a social tribal animal, what occurs in every grouping. You discuss and negotiate expectations, verbally, non-verbally, or if handicapped, using an aid. You develop a ritual and a culture as a group.
Everything else, eventually, comes down to preference. Anyone who tells you differently is trying to insinuate you within a system of control. Stay free.
Happy American Thanksgiving. This is normally where I pitch my Patreon, but a friend of mine, Amanda, is struggling this season. It is within our power, in our comfortable, cozy, holiday, warmth, to help another wonderful human suffer less. I urge you to do so. I am so grateful that I am finally in a place where I can give to others. Gofundme for Amanda.
Hack & Slash
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