D&D: The Pros and Cons of World Building

(with apologies to Roger Waters)

In a recent Tweet, Mike Shea (@SlyFlourish) made a controversial pronouncement about world building (he has since moderated his stance a bit), but I considered it thought-provoking enough that I wanted to “deep dive” on it a little, especially for those who don’t follow the #dnd Twitter verse… and I also made a bit of a joke that I was going to refute each one of his tip tweets with a blog post (It was only a joke).

I had meant to write this post back when this occurred, but with Origins and other life events, it took me a couple weeks to post about it. Unfortunately, I can’t find the original tweet (possibly deleted, since he clarified his stance later), but you can see a fair amount of the discussion that ensued by searching through the various Tweets and replies.

As noted, Mike moderated his stance after reviewing both sides of the debate, but the original gist of the comments were:

No one cares about your world building. Spend more time becoming a better DM (encounter building, PC hooks, etc) rather than exploring the intricacies of your fictional world, especially given that players will not see (nor possibly care about) most of that effort.

This stirred up a bit of a bees nest, because he is both absolutely correct and utterly wrong at the same time (yes, I know this statement appears self-contradictory).

Roger Dean paintings always put me in a world building mood.

First, I’ll start with the Cons as Mike (and others who agreed with his stance) originally stated them:

1. If you build a big sprawling world, your players will not see most of it and therefore your effort is wasted.
2. Time spent world building would be better spent focussing on the PCs, their backgrounds, recent actions in the campaign, etc. Focus on the players and work on what they care about, rather than spending a lot of time on what you care about (which they may not).
3. If your detail a lot about the world, it doesn’t leave as much room for the players to contribute to the details of the world.
4. There are oodles of pre-published worlds out there. Use one of them instead of spending scads of time building one from scratch (i.e. - Why reinvent the wheel? Your generic fantasy world is not a special snowflake).
5. Once you’ve spent a lot of time on your snowflake, you may be hesitant to let the players make large changes to your intended timeline of events or political landscape, which would lead to railroading, rather than letting the player’s agency contribute to the shape of the campaign.
6. When prep time is constrained, world building time is better spent on game preparation which has a more immediate and lasting impact on the quality of play.

These are actually all perfectly valid points. Assuming you are spending more time on world building than you are prepping for the upcoming game sessions, you may be falling into one or more of these traps.

However, there are also Pros (Pro’s?)... benefits that came out of the discussion which I will attempt to summarize (and add my own thoughts):

1. World building is one of those solitary D&D activities where the DM can stretch their creative wings. Just like players who build PCs that they may never use in play, it's an exercise in imagination that keeps creative juices flowing and generates new ideas.
2. It is not necessarily time wasted as most GMs will likely focus development on the areas in which the PCs are already exploring. This creative endeavor will very likely produce NPCs, hooks, and adventure ideas for the campaign.
3. Without homebrewing, no one would have invented Forgotten Realms (Greenwood’s homebrew), or Eberron **. 
4. A homebrew is not weighed down by published game world canon, nor is there much mystery left in those well known settings. (i.e. - “What’s over that next mountain?”)
5. The players may engage more if the GM is world building with the players' interests as well as the their own in mind.

** There is some debate whether Keith Baker created Eberron specifically for the WotC setting competition or if it (or elements of it) existed prior to the competition.

These are all perfectly valid points as well.

All Things in Moderation

Like Mom says, “There is such a thing as too much of a good thing. All things in moderation.”

It always boils down to moderation. If you spend more time world-building than you do on campaign prep, you may be on the wrong track because you are focussing your energies in ways that may not directly lift up your game mastering skills or the player’s engagement. On the other hand, if you focus your world building on the things that your players do care about, then it is likely your creative labours will cultivate some in-game fruits.

One of the best adventures of the 4e era

As an example, I ran a Nentir Vale campaign based on the Reavers of Harkenwold module for D&D 4th Edition. The module doesn’t go into a lot of detail as to why the Iron Circle is invading Harkenwold. They are merely presented as the conquering Bad Guys and no more need be said about that. While Nentir Vale is technically a "published setting", there is actually very little published about it, so it's largely a blank canvas. During my own Nentir Vale home brewing, I built up some backstory about the Iron Circle and gave the villains their own ideals and motivations. This lead directly to several ideas about how the important NPCs would react to the PCs’ interventions and created other hooks as I opened up the sandbox wider. Not all of the notes I wrote up directly impacted the PCs, but it did give me a scaffold upon which to hang future events and adventures. It also turned a "Levels 2 to 4" module into a 3 year campaign encompassing 8 or so levels of content.

There is also something to be said about deriving your own enjoyment from your campaign. A GM’s enjoyment is as important to the game as the player enjoyment. As a GM, you don’t want to burn out, and if world building keeps the fires lit, then more power to you. However, keep in mind that the actions of Queen Forgothername from 400 years ago will probably not be important to your players. It’s fine if you want to write out a complex history for your own sake, but don’t let yourself be frustrated by the player’s disinterest in the historical trivialities of the world… because they likely won’t care. However, throwing in a piece of historical trivia here and there does add verisimilitude and may lead to other adventure hooks (or red herrings) if the players do happen to glom onto a casually-mentioned historical aside.

Roger Dean

As general world building advice, I would recommend prioritizing the aspects of the game world that have a more direct impact on the PCs, their backgrounds, NPC relationships, etc. Detail those people and places with which the players are already building a relationship. I would also prioritize those ideas that make the world a bit different than the traditional fantasy world, especially details that have impact or consequences related to the actions of the PCs. Those consequences will add interest for the players in what might otherwise be setting noise in the background.

There may be times where you are drawing maps or detailing places the players may never explore, and that is OK as an exercise in solitary creative fun, but make sure you also leave time for planning for the next few upcoming sessions of your game and improving your GMing skills.
If the time spent world building negatively impacts your session organization and how well you are actually running the game, you need to rearrange your priorities to improve the game at the table rather than the setting awaiting in the wings.

Final Thoughts

There are always two sides to every coin and at least as many in any debate. World building can be an excellent way to get into a creative flow for your game as well as come up with new ideas for adventures, plot hooks and NPCs... But make sure the hours spent world building help improve the overall game as well. Don’t short change the session preparation side of the equation and make sure your world building involves and integrates the players’ actions and interests.

What fun or interesting ideas have come out of your world building that paid off in the campaign? Tell us in the comments!

Origins 2017 Post-Game and Owlbear 500K

Last weekend, I spent my long overdue vacation time attending Origins Game Fair. During that period, Raging Owlbear crossed the 500,000 page view mark. Three years ago, I could have never guessed I’d get more than a couple thousand page views in any given month. It’s been pretty surprising the blog has grown the way it has. Thanks for the support!

Anyway, back to Origins… If you don’t already know, Origins is one of the largest tabletop gaming conventions aside from Gen Con. This year saw approximate 17,000 attendees in the Columbus Convention Center.

In a prior post, I ranted a bit on the issues encountered during pre-registration. Thankfully, the on-site badge pick up this year was fairly quick and painless. This year they had multiple laptops available on which one could perform a self check-in and have your event tickets printed.This was a welcome improvement over the last year where check-in took anywhere from ½ hour to 2 hours depending upon when you arrived. This year, we were in and out of the line in a matter of minutes.

For the most part, the convention appeared to run fairly smoothly, although I did hear from a Mayfair representative that all was not perfect. Mayfair, who is a major sponsor of Origins (and publisher of many popular games such as Agricola, Caverna and Patchwork), submitted over 700 events into the pre-registration system which, due to a technical snafu, were not in the registration system, nor printed in the events program. Because of this, the Mayfair hall was very lightly attended in comparison to other years. There is bound to be some damage to the relationship, as Mayfair has been a headline sponsor of Origins for as long as I can remember. I hope this doesn’t create a permanent rift.

From my perspective, the convention went quite well and some of the lost esteem due to pre-registration was regained over the course of the weekend.

Highlights:

• Played Castles & Crusades with author Davis Chenault (which I wrote about). He’s a true mensch.
• Had a chance encounter in the hallway with Chris O’Neill of 9th Level Games. Not only did he remember who I was, we had a pleasant (but quick) conversation about 9th Level and their new releases. Super nice fellow.
• Briefly watched Ken St. Andre GM’ing a game of Tunnels & Trolls. I would have liked to say hello, but I did not want to interrupt his game.
• Won a Tie F/O model playing X-Wing. 
• Played a truly enjoyable home brew Savage Worlds scenario.
• Participated in a crazy Paranoia LARP
• And a crap-ton of D&D Adventurers League (probably too much, to be honest).

Misses:

• I did not get an opportunity to chat with any WotC people.
• There were a few well-known authors/bloggers I wanted to meet, but did not.
• I really wanted to get to play a demo of Dragonfire which looks like it could be a hit.
• There just isn't enough time in the day to fit in all the extra gaming.
• I don't have tickets to GenCon this year... sigh.

Let me know about your Origins experience in the comments!

Owlbear and the Troll Lord	These come equipped with ER-PPCs, right?
Bit of a furball going on...	7 evades in a row?!?
Hey Guys... What's in here?	Meeting Chris O'Neill in 2016
Dice Tower's Tom Vasel	Acerak demands your.. erm... devotion.

D&D Character Sheets - a $10 Review

TLDR Summary: Don’t buy this. Not worth the price.

Wizards of the Coast recently released a new character sheet folio for Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition. I recently previewed this in an article a couple week ago, but here is a “full review”.

The D&D Character Sheets contains a folder with a ampersand dragon artwork, 4 copies each of 3 standard character sheet designs (12 total), 8 copies of the "newbie" character sheet, and 4 copies of the spell sheet. Basically, a folder with 24 sheets of paper.

Don’t buy this crap. Seriously. Just don’t.

With two exceptions, the character sheets included in this folio are all directly downloadable for free from the Wizards.com website. If you don’t have a printer, go to the library. They have internet and printers. I just saved you $10.

http://dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/character_sheets

The folder? It's a folder. It's glossy. It's made of card stock. It's basically the same as any other glossy folder at an Office Depot (are those places still around?), but with the ampersand artwork seen above on the cover (originally a Dragon+ cover) which I find less than inspiring. Looks a bit like an 80's metal hair band album cover. These are character sheets. Why doesn't the illustration contain characters? Inside, it has a list of actions in combat, but MPMB's combat reference sheet is much better -- see below.

If you want more pictures, you can check out Grand DM's blog.

"Newbie" Sheets

One exception to the freely downloadable clause is the character sheet designed for new players. It uses a larger font with a larger layout area for the most basic numbers a new player would need (AC, Initiative, Saves). It leaves off ideals, bonds, flaws and the full skill list for a shortened fill-in-the-blank one. It also includes two sections called "Things You Should Do" and "Things You Shouldn't Do" to help the players take notes on good and bad idea.

Under "Things You Shouldn't Do" it should have listed "Buy these character sheets" as the first entry. These newbie sheets are not a terrible redesign, but they don't really bring anything new to the table.

Where is the Value?

Is a glossy folder with an ampersand logo really worth the $10?

If you want a fancy folder, buy a 3-ring binder. Print out your own custom artwork for the cover sleeve. Wizards.com even provides the same artwork on their folio as a wallpaper… but you can also just search “D&D wallpaper” on Google image search and find all kinds of awesome imagery... many of which actually contains characters doing character-y things.

Want help making your own character sheet folio with a player reference? Try these links:
http://dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/character_sheets
https://crobi.github.io/dnd5e-quickref/preview/quickref.html
http://swshinn.com/dnd-5e/rules-summary/
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B2Fbq7v8pucJVENWZlE5Z2h1T00/view
https://olddungeonmaster.files.wordpress.com/2016/04/combat-reference-sheet_b.pdf

Final Thoughts

If you really want to waste $10, go for it... but this just encourages Wizards of the Coast to put out crappy products when they should be focusing resources somewhere else. If they had come up with some interesting character sheet designs that weren't available online, then maybe this might have been worth a look... but as a product, this whole thing is an underwhelming money grab.

If you want a truly useful character sheet, download  MPMB's fully-automated printer friendly character generator (mobile link) which is Pay What You Want from DMsGuild.com. This sheet is truly worth $10, but all that is asked is a voluntary donation.

Random Encounters with a Troll Lord

Best SWAG from Origins this year

First a bit of background… In 2004, Castles & Crusades by Troll Lord Games was the very first OSR** game to hit the market. It utilized the Open Gaming License released by Wizards of the Coast to re-create an Advanced Dungeons & Dragons ruleset, but with updated mechanics. This was years before anyone used the terms “retro-clone”, “OSR” or had published D&D-adjacent games like Pathfinder.

This past weekend at Origins, one of the game masters in C&C game for which I had tickets did not show up. Even though it was not an official C&C event, the Troll Lords had heard about it and another GM from the community offered to run a different adventure in its place.

As a bit of a “sorry this happened” consolation, C&C author and lead game designer, Davis Chenault, showed up to the game with a handful of C&C beer stein swag and sat in on the game with us. The next day I had a very pleasant conversation with Davis about C&C and D&D 5th Edition, and he generously gave me a signed copy of A1 - Assault on Blacktooth Ridge for D&D 5th edition (I own the C&C version).

Owlbear and Troll Lord

I don’t have any connection to the Troll Lords other than being a huge fan over the last 10 years, but these folks are definitely the Good Guys of the industry and very committed to their fans. I urge everyone to support their work. Davis Chenault is a class act and his modules A0 and A1 are two of the best RPG adventures written. They are up there with Village of Hommlet and Keep on the Borderlands in style and substance and as good as the D&D 5th Edition Starter Set for starting a new campaign.

A0 - The Rising Knight
A1 - Assault on Blacktooth Ridge

Don’t forget that in addition to Wizards of the Coast, there are several other small publishers making awesome content for Dungeons & Dragons. You should check them out!

** Old School Revival or Old School Renaissance depending upon whom you ask.

New D&D Products in 2017

The Wizards of the Coast "Stream of Annihilation" was accompanied by a plethora of product announcements (in addition to the few that had dribbled out in prior weeks). Some of those products elicit eye raising, while others might be a bit more eye rolling. Here's my take (as if you cared... or perhaps you do, because you're reading this, right?)

First off, on the eye rolling side of things...

D&D Character Sheets

Yes, for the low, low price of only $10, you can get what you already download for free, but in a pretty folder! Seriously, who f@$%ing buys character sheets in this day and age?  Several weeks ago, I noted that there is a huge amount of revenue that could be had for little cost by putting out core book PDFs, and some of the WotC defenders said Wizards had "bigger fish to fry"... Yeah, apparently instead of spending time on PDFs which could net a lot of revenue, they are putting out a product that can already be had for free. Way to build new revenue, WotC!

By the way, if you are not already using MPMB's Pay What You Want character sheet (mobile link), you need to get your butt over to DMsGuild.com and donate to this author. Like, right now. This is the single best character sheet builder you can get pretty much anywhere. Not that I want to dish on Hero Lab and the like, but this guy is essentially giving away (for a voluntary donation) what others are charging $35 for. Toss a buck or two his way. Well worth it.

Xanathar’s Guide to Everything

In the same way Volo's Guide to Monsters was not a Monster Manual II (it kinda was), Xanathar’s Guide to Everything is not a Player's Handbook II or Unearthed Arcana (it kinda is). Xanathar's Guide is going to take many of the UA website articles and combine them into a larger book. I am extraordinarily interested to see exactly what this book contains. I haven't bought SCAG, or VGtM (yet)... but this one is certainly on the "eye-raising" side and I'm pretty certain this will make my own must-buy list.

Hopefully, this will quell some of the bitching over 5e "not having enough character options". Back in my day, we had four damn classes (and 3 race/classes), and we were happy with that!

Tomb of Annihilation

At first, I was a but skeptical because I've had about enough of Tomb of Horrors or other death trap dungeons. It just doesn't speak to my play style... but, the more I've read about it, the more it seems to be a spiritual successor to X1 Isle of Dread. This, I can get behind. I'm not at all interested in running this one, but I am pretty damn sure I want to play in it instead. I think I need a little gonzo in my game, and it zombie dinosaurs sounds about right.

Tomb of Annihilation Dice

I'm a bit of a dice fiend, but have broken my habit in recent years. At first, these prompted a kind of "meh" reaction, but when I looked more closely, I actually quite like the color scheme. At $20, it's a little on the high side, but not a terrible deal for a full set of dice (assuming you want something nicer than a big bag of random dice or factory seconds). It will be interesting to find out if the Epsom salt test shows if these d20s are balanced or not. Pearlescent dice are notorious for bias because the different resin plastics can create density variations. This is generally not a problem with a single color plastic die.

Dungeon Master’s Screen Reincarnated

I've always been a fan of DM screens even though I almost never use them in play. I feel like they are too much of a physical barrier (and sometimes a mental one) to the rest of the table, especially given than I like minis and 3D terrain so much. Despite that, I have a big collection of DM screens from AD&D (first edition) onward.

D&D 5th edition screens have been notable for their lack of utility. Other than the condition chart, the real estate on the screens published in support of the adventure paths has been wasted space. They mostly showcase artwork for whichever adventure path they correspond. With several helpful PDF DM screen layouts on the internet, the desire to purchase yet another condition chart is pretty low.

Supposedly, the new screen design is going to be better. First, it will be landscape to be lower, which I like... and it also "provides an at-a-glance reference for the most relevant and often used in-game information," according to the Wizards.com website and has been "revisited and refreshed as a direct result of feedback," but that really tells us nothing. This is very much a wait and see product, since they've had several iterations to try to get this right already.

D&D Adventure Grid

This is essentially the competition to Pathfinder Flip-Mats... but at twice the price. For $25, you get a single double sided map, which appears to be 20" x 24" (hard to tell exactly from the images, but that would correspond to fold lines for a map that folds down to 8x10.  The Pathfinder Basic Terrain Multi-Pack offers 2 double-sided maps at 24" x 30" for the same price. I like that Wizards is getting back into the accessories business. I recommended this very thing in prior posts. It's just a shame that they can't be more competitive on price. While I like the color patterns, because of the price, I have to give this one an eye-roll as well.

Nolzur's Marvelous Minis

These have been out for a while now, but I hadn't talked about them on the blog. I love these. I am so sick of random miniatures and these are at an excellent price point for the Friendly Local Game Store because they can match the same price as offered online. Please go out and support your local game store by purchasing these miniatures. They are excellent. I just wish these had been available years ago when I was trying to bulk up my collection of iconic monsters like goblins, kobolds, orcs and gnolls. Now if we could just get an affordable beholder or huge dragon, that would be a major bonus.

D&D Adventure Module Collector’s Editions

This is another item that I am looking at with guarded anticipation. Wizards of the Coast is partnering with Goodman Games to create updated reprints of classic modules. Starting with B1 and B2, they appear to be more than just a stat block updates, and will include some rewriting as well as extra content. Many of these classic modules can be run today with community created conversions. I am hoping Goodman Games brings a little more to the table than just a stat block update given the price difference. Classic Modules Today conversions are an extraordinarily cheap way to have someone else to your conversion leg work.

Betrayal at Baldur’s Gate

While Betrayal at the House on the Hill is not one of my all-time favorites in my game collection, I do enjoy breaking it out from time to time as a light, beer-and-pretzel traitor mechanic game. I am cautiously optimistic about this re-skin of the game. Betrayal is one of my wife's favorites, so this is likely to enter our collection at some point. I just hope they play test it better than the original or expansion. It seems there is almost always some missing text or rule clarification needed for almost every haunt. This really knocks down the overall enjoyment, especially when a misunderstanding of a haunt mechanic can alter how the haunt plays out in game. This is probably the most frustrating aspect and one of the major reasons I do not enjoy the original game more.

Final Thoughts

A lot of people online have been poo-pooing the speed at which Wizards of the Coast is bringing out new D&D product. I actually think the publishing pace has done pretty well for the game. One of the banes of prior editions has been the need for multiple splat books (and the inevitable power creep that results). So far, D&D 5th Edition has avoided this pit fall and the designers appear to be cognizant of that trap. Given the recent Unearthed Arcana articles, Xanathar’s Guide appears to be a step in the direction of providing additional PC options, without creating power-game creep of older editions.

With the addition of more non-book accessories, Wizards also appears to be strengthening their non-book revenue stream, which is a good idea... but Wizards, you really need to learn how to promote on your web site. Your products shots suck. Who doesn't offer zoom-ins or multiple angle product images in this day and age?  Seriously, offer some fracking high resolution images, for Pete's sake.

D&D / OSR: The Dunning-Kruger Effect on GMs

We are all terrible Game Masters, but we [mostly] don't know it. Why do I say this? Because of Dunning-Kruger effect.

The Dunning-Kruger effect basically says there is a bias in cognitive ability that prevents us from evaluating ourselves objectively. Basically, we all think we are better than we are because we may not have the skills (or the lack of bias) to judge ourselves appropriately.

This is especially true for "soft skills" where it is harder to judge success or failure in a given task. If I am a terrible juggler, I know I am bad as soon as I can't make it past the first few seconds of fumbling objects before they come crashing to the ground. If I am bad at telling anecdotes at cocktail parties, my friends are likely too polite to tell me I'm a shite story teller. So I may never know. If I am a terrible leader, I may still believe I am a godsend, even if the press and a majority of my constituents are believe I can't count to 21 without taking off my pants.That is Dunning-Kruger in action. Out incompetence masks the ability to recognize our incompetence.

Real knowledge is to know
the extent of one’s ignorance

So what is a thoughtful Game Master to do? 

Confucius said, “Real knowledge is to know the extent of one’s ignorance.” Socrates was also famously quoted as saying , "The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing," which makes one wonder if he had somehow heard of Eastern philosophy.

As a Game Master, your best bet is to assume you are bad at it. Only through that lens of reality will you aspire to be better. If your initial reaction to reading the first sentence of the post was "I know I'm a good GM because my players don't complain," then it is highly likely you may actually need help.

GM 101: Just Say No To Fudge

Bonus points if you can spot the Easter Egg.

+Venger Satanis wrote a little piece a while back about GM fudging which I found thought-provoking, but also found the advice a bit concerning, especially for a new game master.

In addition, on my post about Fun and Story over Rules, several comments mentioned "fudging rolls" as a way to bend the rules with the goal of enhancing story or fun.

For the record, I am strongly against this. I am more than willing to change a lot of parameters in a scene or encounter on-the-fly for the purpose of storytelling, but once dice hit the table, reality becomes static. (Read on for the why).

While I agree with a few of Venger’s musings, there needs to be a lot more context for anyone who is a relatively new game master for a role playing game like D&D. Some strong words of caution: Fudging can destroy a game just as easily as it can help it.