Managing Expectations in TTRPGs - Discussing What We Do and Don't Like

When it comes to TTRPGs like D&D and Pathfinder (pronounced pat-h-fin-der), I think the trickiest part is managing expectations. That is to say that I have had a lot of personal experience with trying to run one kind of game, and players trying to play another kind of game, or vice versa if I'm a player. For me, it's very unsatisfying to tell players, "I'm running a game for heroic characters", and someone still brings a joke character, and someone else still brings a character of neutral alignment and needs some extra motivation to do anything. Ugh.

This article is my attempt to work out a way to manage these expectations. The first thing is to identify the motives, experiences, interests and influences of the participants. Some people's only exposure to fantasy might be Adventure Time. You might think I'm making that up, but I'm not! I have played with that guy. He didn't know any of the classic fantasy conventions and he played like it.

We're going to start with some useful vocabulary. Ask and discuss these questions:

• Influences or Interests: What movies, books, comics, video games, tv, etc. have you seen? that you like? What do you like about them?
• Disinterests: What do you dislike about TTRPGs, genres, literary conventions, etc. Some people are open to anything, some people aren't! For people with discerning tastes, this is as important.
• Experiences: Previous experiences with TTRPG(s). What did you like about them, what did you not like? Players may have learned some things that you would like them to unlearn.
• Motives: Why are you interested in TTRPGs? What about this hobby is fun for you? What makes you want to play a TTRPG?

My Interests: My favorite work of Fantasy might just be Kentaro Miura's Berserk. Let's discuss why. The art is badass. The dark themes are interesting. The scenarios are interesting. There's a sort of cosmic horror to it. Guts is just this regular guy who manages to become above average by sheer effort and a will to survive. He has an extraordinary tenacity for survival in the face of overwhelming odds. His opponents are often otherworldly and nightmarish in power and scale but they have such simple motives like eating people or avoiding boredom. He even earns their respect with his will and fortitude. What else? It's otherwise a low-magic, earth-like setting. The horror elements almost replace the fantastic elements, and I think that's really cool!

I also like Vampire Hunter D for some similar reasons, and because I think it's stylish as hell. In this setting, Vampires became the rulers of the earth. To the extent that the word noble became synonymous with vampire and few people use the word vampire. Humans are cattle. That's pretty dark. The titular character is D, and he's a Dhampir. That means he is a half human half vampire. Because of this, he's rejected by both humans and vampires. He's also secretly the most badass character in the setting. The question is what does he want and why? It seems to me that the author intends to leave these things up to interpretation or inference, but we are to come away believing that this is not a character with ordinary motivations.

Tim Burton's Sleepy Hallow was pretty fucking stylish too. In this movie, everyone's dressed in a period era outfit, there's only one monster and he's an absolute badass, no one understands the monster or magic, and the fantastic elements are not casually accepted by anyone. They're all as wild as if you went out for a walk and met an extra-terrestrial.

Generally, low fantasy settings or earth-like settings where the supernatural or extraordinary are rare and maybe even intrusive upon the ordinary world are interesting. Monsters are monsters! Magic is dangerous or even forbidden. The elements of the fantasy that make fantasy unique are kept low so that they when they are used, they have a greater effect, like a guy who never says curse words finally dropping an f-bomb. I also like the low fantasy, dark fantasy Campaign Diaries of Professor DM on the Dungeon Craft YouTube channel!

Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean is cool for similar reasons. The fantastic elements are presented as curses, and they present the supernatural as dangerous and mysterious. If you had to assign all the characters in that movie a D&D class, they would either be fighters or thieves (rogues). 

My Disinterests: You might think I don't actually like fantasy, and there might be something to that, but I don't like pure horror and I'm not into the horror TTRPGs because in those you play as a survivor or a victim. I do want to be a hero. Fantasy can be pretty @#$%^ nerdy. The way nerds use wizards, vampires, demons, and lycanthropes can be really cringy because they make it mundane and ordinary. Monsters aren't monsters anymore, they're just like cat people or something. And then there's people who think it's racist to kill monsters and take their stuff, and those people are just detrimental to the hobby. I don't like elves, dwarves, hobbits, and some of the other fantastic races that have become standard like Tieflings, half-orcs, and dragonborn (dragon people). These things make me feel like I'm watching the Muppets. I don't like that magic is common and ordinary, like a skill or an art that people can just pick up and learn. What's so special about magic if everyone can do it?

My Experiences: I have mostly played 5e D&D. It's pretty lame. There's furries. There's scalies. Goblins, bugbears, and other monsters are humanoids or goblinoids, and so they're treated like an exotic people. I don't like that. Demons from the Christian hell are not people. Even goblins should be monstrous. D&D makes me feel like I'm Eddie Valiant in Who Framed Roger Rabit. Tonally, it's lame. Players play these goofy characters, or they make characters who are kind of goofy conceptually but are intended to be played serious. It makes it difficult for me to care. I don't care about non-humans, and I don't care to humanize the non-humans. I'm hoping for something more serious, but this can't help but feel cartoonish. Besides that, the player characters get pretty powerful, and after a while they play like they know they are. Powerful player characters are antithetical to horror. I have played mostly in Faerun and Eberron, and slightly in Draconlance, Spelljammer, the Underdark, and Greyhawk; but I think 5e modernized it all made it all lame. It's casual and accessible and safe. Even the modern Ravenloft setting is kind of watered down and plebian. I also hate chaotic and evil player characters! They're dicks and they spoil someone's fun. I want PCs who can play as a damn team. And I don't want to be a villainous character, and I don't want to be a character who would particularly tolerate villainous companions or allies. But when you play D&D, this game permits evil and chaotic player characters, and so do most GMs, so I have to put up with it.

Motives: I have lost interest in tv, movies, comics, anime, and books because I think it used to be good, now it's not; but I still want to indulge in some narrative entertainment. I want an outlet for creativity, I want to socialize, and I want to play a game!

I think this was a particularly interesting exercise and I recommend you all do the same.

Here's what I learned about myself: I am not down for any game.

I want an earth-like or low fantasy, human-centric setting where magic and monsters are rare and dangerous. The line between fantasy and horror is blurred. Monsters are not people, they are monsters, and they are opposed to humanity. Magic-users are rare, maybe even feared and hated. Stakes are low, not epic. Characters are generally relatable; scenarios are generally plausible; environments are generally realistic. Your character is an ordinary or above average person. You are not great, but you can earn greatness. You have a chance to become a hero, and I want you to aspire to be, but if you become a villain, I take your PC and make them an NPC in my setting, and they become the property of the me, the GM. Don't do anything you wouldn't do in real life. Play your character like you care what happens to them. This is low, dark fantasy.

Types of Fun (MDA Framework)

I want to give you some GM advice that no one teaches except for the Angry GM. Go read his article(s)  on his website on this subject if you think I suck at it. The subject is MDA Framework and how you can use it to make your game appeal to different players.

You every hear that condescending "having fun wrong" comment on the internet? Sure you have. Usually in internet conversation where someone tells someone else that "all fun is valid". Ugh. Look man, I'm sure some people have fun punching puppies or kicking kittens. That's an extreme example, but I'm not going to work out an intelligent example right now, I'm trying to sell you on an idea. You might understand what you have fun doing, and you might understand why it's fun for you, but can you say you understand how other people have fun or why that stuff is fun to them?

Let me introduce you to a concept called MDA Framework. MDA means Mechanics-Dynamics-Aesthetics, and it's a concept that tries to explain how video game players have fun. Here's the simplest break down. The Mechanics of a game are what the designers see, but the player doesn't perceive the mechanics, they perceive the Aesthetics (or sensations). In D&D 5e for a very specific example, the game designers have worked out the math so that the players succeed about 65% of the time at things their character is good at. Those are the mechanics. The player doesn't recognize this though because the mechanics are not explained like that in the official books; instead, what the players recognize is that they succeed an amount of time that feels just right. Not too much so that the game isn't too easy, but not too little that the game is too hard. It's an aesthetic; a sensation or a feeling.

What about the Dynamic in MDA? Shut up. That's a stupid question. Ahem.

What is the value of the MDA Framework? Because the people who invented the MDA Framework came up with a list of different ways that players have fun. This is a pretty clever idea. There's a list of eight different ways (or sensations) that people have fun, with other ways being less common but also identified.

One aesthetic is called challenge. That's a pretty easy to recognize concept. Fun comes from challenge when people derive pleasure by succeeding based on choices they made when failure was a possibility. That's easy to understand, right? Now, how about the aesthetic of fellowship. Fellowship is a type of fun that is derived from a sense of belonging. To simplify this, there are people who like to play multiplayers because they like being included in a group or team. Belonging is more valuable to them than the activity.

So, go look up the list of eight MDA aesthetics because it's worth having an understanding of the different ways there are to have fun. Different people have fun in different ways and being able to identify those ways are going to make you better at social forms of play or producing a product intended to entertain an audience.

Then there's also GNS Theory. GNS stands for Gamism, Narrativism, and Simulationism. I think these words are pretty self-explanatory. GNS Theory is simpler than MDA and a bit less useful. One difference is that GNS theory uses Simulationism to describe a person who wants an experience that they can be immersed in. Something that disrupts immersion, like a game mechanic that feels arbitrary for the sake of using a game mechanic and that does not adequately simulate the make-believe world, spoils immersion. That's a fine and dandy concept! But MDA describes fantasy as an aesthetic of wanting a make-believe world, expression as wanting to create a character to express yourself and narrative as an aesthetic of a satisfying story, and MDA presents these as distinct where as GNS's Simulationism might lump these kinds of fun but not adequately describe them as separate.

MDA is more complicated than D&D's attempt to explain different kinds of players: Problem Solvers, Hack-n-Slashers, and Actors. D&D will cause you to overlook sensations, like fellowship. How many of you have seen GMs asking for help engaging certain players in their games? Some players are engaged even though they don't look it. They're having fun just being included. Where D&D says actor, MDA says expression, narrative, and fantasy, which are not the same, and may cause you to fail to engage certain players by misidentifying the ways they have fun.

So let's look at a real example of how all of this knowledge could help me to provide a more satisfying experience as a Game Master.

I think one of the ways I like to have fun is discovery. Discovery is the satisfaction of finding something that was hidden based on choices I made. This can be a secret door, a secret fortress in the woods, or learning a about the castle's steward secret arrangement of selling the lord's wine to the thieves' guild. One thing that discourages this kind of play is a game mechanic! Let's say that I as a player describe examining a bookshelf in a dusty old room. I say I slowly, thoroughly read all the titles on the spines, and if a book doesn't have anything written on its spine, I pull it out and read the front cover or on the inside pages for a title. I say I'm looking for a book about magic, the occult, or the arcane, or something mystic and weird. Because I'm a magic-user, duh. You as the GM could say that I find a book called "The Interstice: The Space Between Spaces". I think that sound interesting and I would like to take that book. Cool, done! But if you instead make me roll dice to see if I spot that book, that feels arbitrary and failure discourages me from engaging in that kind of play again. Why do you think that there needs to be a mechanic to see if I spot this book?

Rolling dice to find something in plain sight also ruins the aesthetic of submission (or immersion) because it makes no sense that I could miss something that I think should be obvious and have no chance of failure! This also spoils the sensation of narrative because my character is not stupid, but you've made me doubt the competency of my own character. I should not have a chance to fail at discovery for something that's in plain sight if I take my time, but you introduced random chance where it shouldn't factor. For some situations, you use the logic of the narrative, not the game mechanics!

So, learn these ideas. Teach them to others. This will help you to communicate your needs to others, and it will help you to help others to communicate their needs to you. This has been a public service announcement brought to you by the letter Q. All hail Q, the most useless letter of the English alphabet. We could literally replace you with K and no one would miss you. I hope you die in a fire you lame ass letter.

How to Create a Fantasy Setting (Loria)

This post is about creating a setting for a fantasy TTRPG from scratch with only what is minimally necessary. In other words, the essentials. Why? Because reading and studying and learning a setting book or gazetteer is time consuming and effortful. Sometimes, it's just easier to rely on people's basic assumptions about a fantasy world and make it up as you go. This post is motivated by a YT video called Minimum Viable by @Earthmote and by the simplicity of the Alfheim Setting section of the ICRPG book. I'm going to start broad and then go to specific.

Sliders and Dials

First, genres, subgenres, and various concepts found in settings and fiction. Let's treat these like sliders or dials. Let's say fantasy and sci-fi are sliders that go from 0 to 10 where 0 means none, 1 means a very small amount, 5 means a medium amount, and 10 means an extra or exceeding amount. If I said I had my fantasy slider set to 2 and my sci-fi slider set to 0, this probably describes a low-fantasy, earth-like setting.

Other sliders can be magic, monsters, (because magic and monsters can be distinct from fantasy), horror, intrigue, mystery, action, adventure, religion, dungeon-crawling, and whatever else you can think of. If I exclude a slider, it means either it hasn't been considered yet, or its set to zero (0).

Let's say I have a setting with the following sliders: fantasy 3, horror 6, magic 2, and monsters 8. I think this tells people to expect some fantasy and some magic, but more horror and more Monsters. Maybe we could assume it's a dark, low fantasy letting. Thus, the expectations are starting to form!

If I had to describe Star Wars, I would put Fantasy low, and Sci-fi would be somewhere in the middle. You might disagree! So, there are some things to define with a simple one or two sentence explanation.

The Force in Star Wars is both the religion and magic sliders combined! The Force is ever-present, and it's very important thematically, but most characters don't concern themselves with it at all! Experts in the force are very rare, and they're limited to factions; rarely independent. I put sci-fi in the middle because I think there could be more sci-fi in Star Wars. For example, Star Wars does not have an abundance of cybernetics and they're usually crude or plain rather than stylish. Narratively, they're replacements, not enhancements. There's also little to no merging of the human mind with a computer like connecting your nervous system into a machine or the internet. Therefore, no transhumanist concepts. I would also say that in Star Wars, the fictional tech is not trying to be scientific, it's not making a commentary on technology, and it doesn't intend to speculate on the future of technology on humanity. For example, little to no personal portable computers like a smart phone; they have clunky robots instead. They have cloning technology, but they only use it to make an army. Daily conveniences of tech are not shown, like cooking appliances or entertainment. So, in summary, tech is just a part of Star Wars because it's cool and because the setting is futuristic; it's an aesthetic more than a theme!

Now, let us make a checklist of ordinary parts of a setting. What are some basic concepts of setting?

1. Society (structure, culture, art, values)
2. Politics and Government (systems, leaders, laws)
3. Economy
4. Religion(s) and Faith
5. Military, War, and Defense
6. Geography and Climate
7. History
8. Technology
9. Other (like magic and monsters and extraordinary stuff)

If you can write a one sentence description of each item on the checklist above, or maybe three simple bullet points, you will define the ordinary parts of the setting. If you can work in one NPC such as a governor for Politics, a shop keeper or merchant for Economics, or a local expert for history, then you're already fleshing out specifics. Consider that the list both describes the setting and reflects what the player characters would know about the setting! 

Here's a sample I made for The Empire of Loria:

1. Society (structure, culture, art, values)
1. Human only. Resembles a mix of ancient Rome, Mediterranean, and European
2. A patriotic empire who believes that their society is the greatest in history! Loyalty is the norm.
3. Cowardice and crime are abhorred. Disloyalty is comparable to treason. Punishment is typically strict.
4. Itinerant people without loyalty to the empire are called Evrwyrs (ever-way-ers) and are commonly regarded poorly
5. People say Oy instead of Hey, Aye instead of yes informally, and they never say OK (that's a modern word)
2. Politics and Government (systems, leaders, laws)
1. Feudal. An upper class of nobles whore right to rule comes from God.
2. A clergy who props up the nobility and quells the masses
3. The empire is subdivided into counties; each county is distinct but a part of one empire!
3. Economy
1. They have many, many trades and are a self-sustaining land
2. There is a Porters Guild which delivers goods across land and sea
3. A rising Merchant Class is opening the doors to industry
4. The currency is called Lora. Fractions of a Lora are called pence as in pennies or cents.
4. Religion(s) and Faith
1. Luciusim; A generic western religion resembling Christianity dedicated to Lucius, God of light and life
2. Worshippers are called Lucians; The empire is massively Lucian! Pagans and apostates are discriminated against. Evrwyrs are follow a pagan faith.
3. The religion is led by a high priest, Richard IV.
4. The city of High Mark is considered the capital city, where the High Priest lives 
5. Magic is regarded as witchcraft, as evil, and is forbidden.
6. Superstition is ordinary
5. Military, War, and Defense
1. They have a standing military that constantly defends the boarders
2. Military service is mandatory for one male in each family
3. Lately, mercenaries have been used more and more
6. Geography and Climate
1. There is a portion of land where three continents that meet around the Middle Sea; this area is called Midland. The empire possesses all of the land immediately around the sea.
2. Mediterranean climate; Long, warm, dry periods with short, cold wet periods.
3. Areas of Midland outside of the Empire of Loria are referred to as "Barbaroy", the lands belonging to savage barbaries (or barbarians).
7. History
1. The empire is 225 years old; We are now in the year 225 LE (Lorian Era).
2. King Cornelius Lora I conquered much of the region called Midland.
3. The current emperor, Cornelius Lora VIII, has been slain! His only known heir is a witch and a murderer.
8. Technology
1. Medieval era technology. Quality steel is available. Glass goods and books are expensive.
2. Some early guns, but they are rare and expensive.
9. Magic and Monsters
1. Magic-users are feared, rare, and secretive.
2. There is no established magical culture (traditions, clothing, etc.).
3. Monsters are rare and universally eat humans. People in the more populated parts of the world go their entire lives without encountering them. There are no experts or expertise in monsters.
10. Central Conflict(s) - Major Conflicts within the Setting
1. The city of Cornelia in the County of Cornelia has been devastated by a mercenary sieged followed by barbarians and occupations by the armies of neighboring Lora counties. Displaced refugees from Cornelia are everywhere.
2. The noble class has been devastated by in-fighting. All of the nobles appointed by a Lora are now dead! Has the divine right to rule has been rescinded?
3. The High Priest has been oddly absent, and the Church has been oddly silent on recent events.
4. The county of Alexandria has withdrawn from the Empire. It was a great and powerful kingdom long before Loria.
5. An infamous witch called The Heiress, supposedly the bastard daughter of Lora VIII, has recently repelled an army from High Mark single handedly, and killed the first Paladin anointed in a generation.
6. A miracle healer disappeared from High Mark with The Heiress. He has returned, but the healing he performs have not resumed.
7. The Merchant Class of Odegrad has led small rebellion against the nobility of Odegrad following the mysterious death at sea by the governor of Odegrad, Count Reginal Gilcrest.

This is just a single region, not the entire world. Now that I have a region conceptually, I can do Q&A and fill out any gaps if needed. Notice I didn't name the continent because that's not important; I named the region, which is Midland, and the empire is called Loria. Also notice that the setting is rich with conflict. There's a lot that's happened. There's a lot that's ready to happen. I am introducing you the players right into this moment in time. You are a character from this setting; What do you do?

Counties of Loria as they ring the Middle Sea

Below I have listed the major counties of Loria and provided some simple, brief details of them. I have not created a map! Maps are overrated. Where the previous portion described Loria, this portion describes the sub-divisions of Loria. I am 

1. Odegrad in the Northwest
1. Considered the most progressive and industrious
2. They have the greatest naval power in the empire
3. Home of the Porter's Guild and the Merchant Class
4. Military colors are bronze and blue. Symbol is a Hawk.
5. Prominent Noble Houses: Gilcrest, Arc de la Chance
2. Cornelia in the Central - North area
1. The capital, and long considered the safest and most prosperous portion of the empire
2. Is now in ruins!
3. Military colors are red and gold. Symbol is a Crown.
4. Has a lot of flat plains good for farming, hearding, and ranching.
5. Prominent Noble Houses: Lora, Magnus
3. Gargalad in the Northeast
1. The most authoritarian portion of Loria with the strictest laws and highest taxes
2. Military colors are orange and black. Symbol is a dragon.
3. The only county that does not touch the Middle Sea. Connected to the middle sea by rivers; The area along them is swampy.
4. Prominent Noble Houses: Gargaladius, Ebonoble, Frost
4. Arcadia in the East
1. The most patriotic and ready-to-fight county
2. Military colors are red and blue. Symbol is a Lion.
3. Has a lot of hills.
4. Prominent Noble Houses: Cidvermillion, Silvance
5. Alexandria In the Southeast
1. The oldest, longest-lived county
2. Has very rugged, green land
3. Military colors are black and green. Symbol is a griffin.
4. Prominent Noble Houses: Alexander, Northcast
6. High Mark in the Southwest
1. Capital city of the Church of Lucius
2. The central portion of the county is largely a desert; the perimeter is forested.
3. Military colors are red and white. Symbol is a cross.
4. Prominent Noble Houses: None! Governed by the church.

Specific!

Now, when you set a story in a location, you set in in a very, very specific place! Like a single town or city, or an area of wilderness.

Port Bleu is a small barony in the County of Gargilad. I'm going to bring back the checklist I used above specifically for this small place. I can flesh it out some more with key locations and characters, even factions and their conflicts, but I won't (for now). You could also add rumors, news, and gossip!

• Society: The population is largely poor. There's a lot of laborers here. There are some merchants, but they don't have permanent residences here, instead having a presence through a proxy to manager their enterprise for them.
• Militiamen
• Local experts
• Thieves or criminals (organizations?)
• Politics: The governor is Baron Allan Frost. He's charming and generally noble, but he's subservient to Count Gargalad who is strict. Laws here are strict.
• Minor Noble House
• Economics: The city doesn't produce anything. Instead, it's dedicated to importing and exporting goods! The harbor is full of ships with flags from all over Loria.
• Merchant: Franklin Greene, local merchant (lesser)
• Pawn Shop
• Eatery
• Inn or Lodge
• Religion: There's an abbey of the church called Bella Iris Abbey. They have a witch hunter here.
• Father
• Witch Hunter
• Military: The soldiers wear blue gambesons. They wear kettle helmets and they carry bucklers and small swords.
• Captain, Sergent
• Jailer
• Geography: The city is situated on a great lake connected to the Middle Sea by a great river. The town is three days south of Gargalad.
• Local features (caves, hills, woods)
• Minor location (village, fort, settlement)
• History: This town was built after the empire was established. It was built to connect Gargalad to the rest of the empire by water.
• Event
• Local Conflicts: This is where you detail the opportunities and obstacles in town. The town was recently captured by Arcadia during conflict. Baron Frost was captured. During that time, the town was in chaos. His ability to govern is now called into question.
• Large man-eater in the water
• Smugglers, thieves, raiders
• Evrwyrs stealing work from Lorians

Star Ocean Till the End of Time's @#$%! Plot Twist

If you never played Star Ocean 3 AKA Star Ocean Till the End of Time on the PS2, there's a plot twist. It's controversial apparently. It shouldn't be controversial; it should just be hated.

The plot twist in SO3 was unsatisfying for two reasons. It comes down to placement and how spontaneous it is. By placement I mean it's in the middle. The end of Act I (about 10%-15% mark) is a good spot for a twist b/c the audience hasn't committed to anything too strongly yet, and they're more open to a story pivot. By spontaneous I mean it wasn't set up or foreshadowed at all. The plot twist wasn't done well because it was abrupt, without satisfying reasoning, and at the expense of the investment of the audience; By audience investment, I mean by the midpoint of the story we are invested in the story in-progress. When you get the audience's investment and then THROW OUT the thing we're invested in, that's an absolute rug pull and that makes it a, ahem, Richard Relocation, for a writer.

I think that was really concise. Go me.

Hyper-Gratuitousness in Fiction and TTRPGs

I like Berserk and I liken my interest in its gratuitous violent imagery and dark themes as the literary horror-enthusiasts equivalent to adrenaline seeking behavior. Adrenaline junkies do not want to be in real danger because they can get hurt, but they want the sensation of it. They seek the sensation of it in a safe way. Similarly, I as a Berserk reader don't want to be a butcher. I have a passing interest in the macabre, but I don't want to work in a museum of horrors.

In case you don't know, Berserk is a long running manga (comic) that has been adapted into an anime multiple times. It's a dark fantasy about a man who kills demons with a massive sword. It is firmly in the seinen genre. Seinen means "young men", not boys. Its target audience is adults with male interests. It has mature themes; it has some nudity and lots of violence. It's horror. Some of the horror is very mundane; for example, the evil deeds of regular men include torture and various cruelties. Some of the horror is more cosmic. For example, the setting has a generic western religion like Christianity, but the religion is false within the setting. The god in Berserk is indifferent to human suffering, and there is no heaven. Further, God is responsible for the presence and empowerment of man-eating demons who's physical might far exceeds ordinary men. This is dark stuff.

One of my favorite parts is when they introduce Farnese. She's a young noble woman who was assigned to this symbolic position as a leader in an army that answers directly to the setting's equivalent of the Vatican. The story slowly reveals that she's a pyromaniac because they used to burn witches alive outside her bedroom window when she was a little girl and so now, she has a cruelty-streak because of it. As an adult, she thinks she understands God's divine order for the world - then she meets the hero who's perpetually stalked by things that should be an abomination to that divine order. This is tantamount to forbidden knowledge, and encountering demons causes her to go temporarily mad and lose her faith. I consider loss of faith a form of cosmic horror in a way that loss of a hand is body horror. It's interesting. There also may or may not also be a scene where she grinds her groin on the hero's sword which is neither here nor there. Don't worry about it.

The point is there's a lot of complex and inappropriate stuff in this series. Before you judge me, let me explain. Given all this wild stuff, it's done artistically. That is to say, there's artistry in the choices made for when and where and how to depict this stuff. It doesn't show nudity for its own sake. It's not used to please the audience. It doesn't show gore for the sake of it. It shows these things with an intent of evoking a sensation in the audience. Some scenes are intended to be disturbing or sickening. If doesn't show blood and gore insipidly, it's precise. There's a scene for instance where the hero stabs a very attractive, naked villainess though the stomach and she derives sexual pleasure from this. It mixes the sensations of horror and sexual thrill. The result is a weird sickening sensation that you feel in your gut. This is why I liken the horror of Berserk to adrenaline seeking behavior. Berserk does the sensation of horror like skydiving does the sensation of adrenaline.

Like I said, the series does this with precision. It picks its moments. It does not indulge. If every panel had something horrifying, you would become desensitized and it would lose its effectiveness. There are quiet contemplative moments where characters sit around a fire and talk about their dreams. Real life years and years of content later, some of those characters get eaten alive and it's shocking. So, in summary, I read Berserk for this artistic use of this subject matter, not the (over) indulgence of it.

Now, would I put this subject matter explicitly in my TTRPGs like Dungeons & Dragons? The answer is a firm no. Why? Because I know that it's not for everyone. Also, even I would probably be uncomfortable. That said, I refuse to overly sterilize or over sanitize my setting as I believe this is infantilization and kitsch. I would be happy to say that some of these darker things exist in my setting, because their absence would be conspicuous. By conspicuously absent, I mean it would be distracting and immersion breaking if something wasn't present. In other words, how can you believe there is danger in the world if the world is too nice and safe? Therefore, some of it exists implicitly in the setting. Let me use a very safe metaphor to illustrate my point. Puppies die. When I say puppies die, this is code (or a euphemism) for any horrible thing you might imagine. Implicit means yes, there are puppies that die in the setting, but we don't need to show puppies die. Sometimes, it's good enough to hint that puppies die off-screen. We don't need to indulge in puppies dying, but they do. 

Even Star Wars, a franchise considered to be intended for children, has torture, sexy dancers, war, slavery, murder, dismemberment, brother-on-sister kisses, use of deadly poisons, no bras in space, and off-screen youngling slaying. In conclusion, we're not doing gore-fest, but you do need to pick moments in fiction to absolutely splatter someone.

Human-Centric Settings (No Monster PCs)

Here's the real reason for wanting a human-centric setting. Personal taste. This article is not about convincing you to agree because I don't expect to be able to. Persuasion doesn't work like that. This article is about giving you the perspective of people who don't want monsters as player races, among other features of generic fantasy. It's not about the right or wrong way to have fun; it's about why I can't have fun the same way you can.

Let's start with the strongest point before I peter out at the end. Monsters are not people; they're monsters. When you humanize the monsters by making them a player-race or by making them equal or similar to humans in mind or spirit, they cease to feel like monsters. I want monsters to be the things that go bump in the night. They are the things that hunt us. They lurk off the edges of the map. If you can play a monster (i.e. kobolt or goblin or half-orc player character), then monsters aren't monstrous; They're just exotic people. It trivializes what it means to be a monster. I want my fantasy monsters to resemble the monsters of the horror genre. You can't have a setting where monsters can be both monsters like in a horror genre but also exotic people like in modern kitchen-sink high fantasy. The exception is if you want to reestablish what is considered a "normal" race, but for me, this exception still spoils monsters because there is this imaginary line that distinguishes humans from monsters, and every exception blurs that line and diminishes the certainty of the distinction.

Second, it's about tone. Modern D&D feels like playing A Very Muppet Fantasy. I've heard and read criticisms that refer to 5e D&D as kitchen-sink fantasy because, like the kitchen sink, there's a little bit of everything. It lacks cohesion and consistency, like macaroni and glue on the Mona Lisa. There isn't a regard of how things fit or consideration for whether it belongs there or not, and the audience has to adjust their suspension of disbelief to accommodate it. In the last 5e gaming group I was in, I felt like Eddie Valiant in the movie Who Framed Roger Rabbit, but I would have rather felt like a character in Lord of the Rings or Berserk. In case you don't know, Eddie was the straight man in the sense of a straight-man silly-man dynamic, among a cast of silly-men. My experience with 5e is that the monsters as player races make the game feel cartoony. The cartoony-ness spoils the tone I would like. I didn't like it. It wasn't to my taste.

Speaking of tone, what is it? It's the mood or atmosphere. Think about the difference at a kid's birthday party vs a party for adults with depression. They have different moods. Some things don't mix. You shouldn't mix Lord of the Rings with Rick and Morty, for instance. The tone of Rick and Morty spoils the tone of Lord of the Rings. Tonally, they don't mix. Generic fantasy permits you to mix Peanut Butter and Pepperoni (I call it peanut-pepper butter-oni) and dip it in olive oil. One thing spoils the other thing.

Don't be insulted but kitchen-sink fantasy is plebeian fantasy because it is fantasy for everyone without discerning taste and people who don't know about the craft of acting or drama or of history. It tries to satisfy as many people as it can all at the same time. It's generic as opposed to specific. By generic, I mean it is "of the genre" in the broadest sense of the word genre, permitting everything under the fantasy category; but by specific fantasy I mean something curated and intended to create a more specific aesthetic, sensation, mood, theme, and style. Specific fantasy appeals to a narrower audience, not necessarily an audience with superior tastes but with specific tastes.

The definition of fantasy as a genre is "fiction plus magic or supernatural elements". That's it. Nothing about what kind of magic stuff or how much of it. So, imagine fantasy as a dial or slider. At the lowest setting of 1, you might get something like Liar, Liar with Jim Carry where a boy makes a wish on a birthday cake so that his dad can't lie. Crank it up to 2 and you might get Legend of King Arthur, where the quantity of magical elements is few and uncommon. There's one magic sword, one wizard, one lady of the lake, and one holy relic to find. There are no dragons and no potions of gaseous form. At the highest setting of 10, you might get Baldur's Gate 3 where you start off on an illithid spaceship and end up visiting hell, and one of your companions is a half-elf vampire. It's a mess and I don't like it.

Expectations are the hardest thing to establish for an TTRPG, and I think kitchen-sink fantasy makes this more challenging because not there's too many options. If I invite you to play in a game with me, I have no idea what your experience with fantasy is, and I have no idea what kind of fantasy you like. This is why D&D classically had an Appendix N which referred you to the works of fiction that inspired D&D.  If I tell you I'm running a low fantasy game, are you thinking that it's fantasy with the slider on a low setting, or are you thinking it's low fantasy as in the sub-genre low fantasy which has a more specific definition than fantasy. If I tell you I'm running a game using 5e D&D, then I think your expectations might immediately go to Baldur's Gate 3 even if I tell you "LOW, LOW fantasy". Are you thinking about a fantasy equivalent of the Marvel Avengers? Are you thinking about Adventure Time? Are you hoping for a western or a gangster movie? Appendix N may help you narrow people's expectations down.

Now let's break the fantasy elements down into their own sliders. Fantasy is a slider, magic is a slider, monsters is a slider. Lord of the Rings is high fantasy because it is set in its own fantastic, non-Earth setting with its own history and mythos, but on the magic slider it's low because only wizards can do magic and there's like five of them. Furthermore, on the monster slider, there might be a massive army of orcs, but the variety of monsters is limited; you can't put a 300-page monster manual together based on the monsters of Lord of the Rings, so, let's say it's in the middle. Lord of the Rings has epic stakes: the fate of Middle Earth. That's usually a feature of high fantasy. With low fantasy, the stakes tend to be more grounded. In Conan the Barbarian for example, the stakes are very local.

The last thing I want to give you is the concept of a hypothetical master checklist of all fantasy concepts. I'll call it the master fantasy checklist. It's got everything on there from magic wands that shoot jets of colored light to dragon shouts to magic gemstones made of condensed ether that let you cast spells to sticking bits of metal in your tummy and getting powers based on the type of metal. When you define your specific setting, you check off items include it in the setting. Let's say if you check off 75% or more of the boxes, that's kitchen sink territory. This is because the list is so massive. If you check off 10% or less, that's focused, specific, or niche. It likely qualifies as a dedicated subgenre. If you check off 30% - 49% (meaning you're excluding more than half of the list), that's a curated Variety Fantasy. I think you should aim for Variety Fantasy on any regular day. Less is more and keep it simple stupid are axiomatic; you might believe that getting rid of excess (bloat) leads to greater satisfaction, or you may believe that restrictions breed creativity. Maybe you agree?

Real vs Fantasy: Druids

Found this on the internet (might have been from Blizzard of all places) and thought it needed to be saved somewhere for future reference:

"Fantasy druids are depicted as wise, nature-bound mystics who can shapeshift and/or commune with nature. They are mediators between the natural world and the human realm, embodying a balance between destruction and renewal.

Real druids were high-ranking priestly classes in ancient Celtic cultures, known for their roles as legal authorities, adjudicators, lore keepers, medical professionals, and political advisors. They were also responsible for maintaining sacred groves and ritual sites, and their knowledge was often passed down orally due to their doctrine against writing."

The reason why this is valuable to me is because the portrayal of the druid by D&D players is generally nonsensical. Every D&D player who's been a druid plays them like a recluse or madman who lives in the woods and doesn't care about anything except their trees. The druid player learns that the villain is about to sacrifice a baby to summon a demon, and they ask, "but are they a threat to my forest?" They're missing the depth of the fantasy druid and they're missing the function of a real druid. They're playing their character like a joke character, or they use their class as an excuse to be weird.

At the end of the day, all fantasy classes that specialize in magic are the same except for flavor. Near as I can tell, there are two types of druids: Either Wizard or Cleric who has taken on a druid subclass or variant class. Some people suggest a cleric with a wizard spell list. The kind that exists in your setting is the kind that makes sense for your setting. The wizard-druid is a sort of a sage-like magic-user who specializes in nature. They use divination to translate the mysterious will of nature for the benefit of man. The cleric-druid is a wiseman and priest of a nature religion who takes makes sense of world and spirituality for the benefit people in their tribe or clan. An evil druid is someone who worships the destructive forces of nature and sabotages mankind. The D&D druid player shapeshifts into a dog, acts like Scooby-Doo, and ruins the mood of a scene.

Another source: "Druid – A priest of the pre-Roman celtic religion. Druids filled the role of a priest, lawmaker, historian and medicine man in Celtic culture. Modern conceptions are based on Neo-Druidic movement in the Victorian age, and the term was later adopted by many RPGs as a kind of nature mage."

D&D Alignments - How to Use Them!

Alignment describes the setting. There are forces of good and evil, and these two forces are opposed. There are forces of law and chaos, and these two forces are opposed. Your character's alignment may have been defined by the rules as a stance or an attitude, and is often treated like a personality type by players, but your character's alignment instead describes their alignment to these forces, or to neutrality if they're unaligned.

What is good? What is evil? Are these ideas up for debate? The higher powers in the setting (gods for example) decide. In other words, it's up to the GM to define these concepts for their setting as s/he is the designer and curator of the setting, and is the one who portrays these NPC higher powers. What if your character has the desire to be good, but lacks the knowledge of right and wrong or the willpower to act on it? That's also up to the higher powers of the setting.

If your setting does not contain these forces and conflicts, then why use these alignments?

How to Convert 5e Players: The World Within a World Strategy

I'm going to lead with this: if someone is happy with 5e, they're going to stay with 5e. But, maybe, possibly, you can get them to TRY another game, and maybe they can learn to appreciate another game! I have had an epiphany!

I can't be the only person who has ever had the idea "what if our D&D characters made their own D&D characters and played D&D? How meta!"

The premise: You give the players characters (not the players) a situation in your game where they can play another TTRPG for a reward. A reward is better than avoiding a consequence, but you can layer both. Maybe a traveling magical stranger come along and offers the PCs a chance to play a magical game for fabulous prizes. Maybe they meet a mad wizard who got trapped in a secondary world, that is to say, a world within a world like the Matrix or some Isekai. That secondary world has different rules. To go into that world, the characters will have to play by those rules - like the Savage Worlds, Shadowrun, Shadowdark, or GURPS or whatever. I'm sure you can make up a situation that suits your own game.

Tips:

Use incentives! If their 5e D&D characters can complete the 1e D&D adventure you have prepared for them, their 5e characters can magically keep a magic item their 1e characters earned. Offer them something NICE like a +3 item.

Make sure it's a choice! Don't force it on them. But you could.

Split the party. Its magical wibbly-wobbly timey-whimey BS and it doesn't interfere with normal passage of time. Don't let a pesky thing like democracy stop willing players. Run a side-game for them. Work around the party-poopers so they don't feel spurred.

Make the medicine sweeter! Don't just give them a loser 1e D&D character sheet, give them a really impressed 1e D&D character sheet. Unless they'd be into a character funnel.

Justification: Maybe the players need a palate cleanser; Do this instead of a one-shot. Maybe they've just finished an adventure and you don't have the next adventure prepped yet. This is your excuse for delaying.

Have respect for their time: Structure this like a one-shot! Try to keep it to a one-session thing.

Leave them wanting more: At the end of the PCs brief stint into the secondary world, when everything feels wrapped up, you're going to give them another adventure hook! Like a treasure map to a ruin with a ton of treasure, or their own star ship.

Make it Easy: Hand out pre-generated characters. Don't spend game time making characters. Leave out some of the more complex options.

You're Doing Tieflings Wrong

Tieflings do not have a standard skin tone, and 3e did not assign them standard physical features.

Look up Tieflings online in the D&D 3.5e SRD. "Many tieflings are indistinguishable from humans. Others have small horns, pointed teeth, red eyes, a whiff of brimstone about them, or even cloven feet. No two tieflings are the same." Note the use of the word "or" in the list of physical features, not "and". And definitely note that the description reads "many tieflings are indistinguishable from humans". This is the full physical description and does not address skin color. This passage comes from the monster manual (where tieflings used to be) and the physical book provides an illustration of a woman who looks like an ordinary human.

For reference, even the description of tieflings in 2014 5e PHB, under the subheading "Infernal Bloodline" reads "Their skin tones cover the full range of human coloration, but also include shades of red." The red skin thing is new in 5e (or maybe it was 4e?) and it suits cambian demons, which are creatures with a human parent and an infernal parent like Hellboy.

In 3.5e, Tieflings are categorized with Aasimar under Planetouched in the Monster Manual. Quote: "Planetouched is a general word to describe someone who can trace his or her bloodline back to an outsider, usually a fiend or celestial." To reiterate, if you're a tiefling, you have a fiendish ancestor. That's bad. Here's why. Tiefling alignment is given as "usually evil (any)". The alignment of usually evil is the basis for discrimination against tiefliings. To quote 3e's definition of evil: ""Evil" implies hurting, oppressing, and killing others. Some evil creatures simply have no compassion for others and kill without qualms if doing so is convenient. Others actively pursue evil, killing for sport or out of duty to some evil deity or master." THIS is this the bases for discrimination against tieflings. Evil alignment in 3e is traditional black-and-white-morality, objectively bad.