Enter Tonekron

It's time to introduce another one of the settings I've created. Last time I covered Fronteira, the Elemental Borderlands, a fairly standard fantasy setting; now, it's time to get a little weirder.

Imagine a world immersed in death. Where once the sun shone bright in the sky and life flourished all around, now the sky is black and death is but a day's journey away. At the edges of their lands, creatures of Death itself make forays into their realm, spreading their master's influence. Those who scratch out an existence in these far places often become tainted by deathly energy, turning into ghoulish creatures who feast upon their uncorrupted kin.

How does something like this happen? How can such a place exist?

Origin Story

Long ago, there were two gods, each the master of a unique domain. Vafi, the god of Death, ruled over the realm of Nevma, domain of the soul. Zoj, the goddess of Life, ruled over Soma, home of the physical. These two domains were distinct and separate, and thus they remained stagnant.

Over time, Vafi and Zoj fell in love. In a night of passion between the two, the realms of body and of soul mixed and gave rise to life. Thus was Tondyo created.

The two remained fascinated with what they had created, for a time. Eventually, however, Vafi's attention drifted back to his lover, and he grew jealous of the world for drawing all of her time.

He began to court her, showering her with many wondrous gifts from Nevma. She would examine each in turn, treasuring it for a time before gifting it to her children, the living creatures of Tondyo. The world became increasingly diverse, and it became ever more difficult for Vafi to draw Zoj's attention away from it.

Realizing that he could not compete with his rivals, Vafi formulated a new plan; if nothing from Nevma could hold Zoj's interest, he would give her Tondyo itself. He reached down into the world and withdrew a section of it, carving it into a jewel for his lover. It would be the capstone of his courtship.

Yet when Vafi presented this gem to his lover, she recoiled in horror at his callous disregard for life. Far from winning her affection, his act instead caused Zoj to flee crying back to Soma to mourn for the loss of so many lives.

Crestfallen, Vafi cast the gem away; it landed in Nevma, near the border with Tondyo yet ever out of reach. This jewel, a slice of life forced to dwell in death, became Tonekron, abandoned by the gods. Its remaining inhabitants were left to fend for themselves in a hostile environment, and the experience would change them forever.

Overview of the World

Tonekron is a small continent adrift in a sea of souls; a traveler on horseback can cross from one side of the realm to the other in just under a week. Crossing the borders of Tonekron in any direction results in the traveler entering Nevma, the realm of dead souls. This is a hostile environment, for the dead are an envious lot and seek to steal the spark of life from those who possess it.

Yet the dead cannot easily encroach upon the territory of Tonekron. When Vafi carved it into a jewel for his lover, his magic preserved it in stasis; the spark of life it had when it was a part of Tondyo remains inviolate, though severely weakened. Creatures of Nevma can cross into Tonekron for a time, but they cannot remain and are inevitably forced back to their own domain.

What little light shines upon Tonekron is filtered through the veil between Nevma and Tondyo; the sun itself never appears in the sky above Tonekron. Between Vafi's preserving magic and this small amount of filtered light, the hardy plants of Tonekron can just cling to life. This is enough to keep the humans and animals of the realm from starving, provided their population remains small.

At the center of Tonekron, where Nevma's influence is weakest, lies the largest settlement: Ochiro. It is here where the bulk of humans live, sheltering behind their large stone walls. In the smaller villages which lie closer to the outskirts of Tonekron, it is up to their strongest men and women to fight off the occasional incursion from the dead.

The centuries have squeezed the hope out of most citizens of Tonekron, yet some dream of a better life. Every decade or so, a group of adventurers attempt to cross the expanse of Nevma which lies between them and Tondyo; nobody knows if any ever make it, for none return. But then, would you return to death if you managed to escape it?

Ever-Present Danger

The most obvious expression of Nevma in Tonekron is the abundance of ghosts. When someone dies, their soul is drawn into Nevma to rejoin its kin. In Tonekron, where Nevma engufls the realm, this pull is significantly weaker; therefore, most deaths result in a ghost.

The inhabitants of Tonekron long ago learned a form of burial rite which can lay the soul to rest, sending it back to Nevma where it belongs. Not everyone who dies is in a position to be buried properly, however. The ghosts of the dead which did not receive a proper burial linger; in time, they grow strong enough to become a danger to the living. Only the ghost hunters, a militaristic organization with a chapter in most large villages, stand between the living and the dead.

The ghosts of Tonekron are among its least threatening dangers, however. At the outer edge of the realm, horrific creatures of death occasionally cross into the realm of the living and rampage through the small villages that dot the region. Many are too strong to fight; the people of Tonekron have learned to hide and wait for theses monsters to be drawn back to their native realm.

The most pervasive threat to the living of Tonekron is the ever-present risk of famine. With so little light, few plants can survive the hostile environment; fewer still animals can make it. What little food can be cultivated must be carefully rationed.

In lean times, some people become desperate enough to hunt the creatures of Nevma itself. Though it is fairly easy to bring down one of the smaller beasts that haunt the realm of the dead, this is still a risky move. Eating the flesh of dead souls does provide nourishment, for reasons unknown, yet carries a great curse. Those who eat dead flesh are twisted into monsters half-living and half-dead: ghouls. Driven by an inhuman hunger, they attack and eat anything they can, including humans. The only thing a ghoul will not eat is another ghoul. Entire villages, given in to desperate hunger, have been known to fall prey to this curse and become villages of ghouls.

Passing On

This has been a brief overview of Tonekron: its history and the threats faced by those who dwell within. Next week, I'll cover the tools these hardy citizens use to protect themselves, including the magic they wield.

Catch you next time.

Handling Social Skills

There is a debate that rages eternally in the gaming community. Well, actually, there are several. In fact, most debates rage eternally, and not just in the gaming community. It's kind of become one of the things the internet is known for. "Welcome to the internet, home of cat videos and endless arguments!"

I only wish to cover one of these gaming debates here though: When a player character talks to another character, should the player roll his social skill or act it out?

The reason the debate is never over is because, as is typically the case, people tend to pick answers that lie at the far extremes. "Yes, always roll the social skills! It's all that matters." or "No, this is a role-playing game, so you should play your character's role!"

Extremes are rarely the right answer. Then again, a perfect middle-ground compromise rarely satisfies anyone, either.

In this article I present two options that lie closer to the middle than the extremes. In each case, both the game mechanics and the words spoken by the player matter.

Neither of these ideas are my own. I am not writing this article to declare "Look how clever I am!" so much as to present the two options in the same place, and examine the advantages and disadvantages of using them.

Option 1: Know Your Target

The first option I present is a moderate version of the "always act it out" side of the debate. It is an idea I heard on Happy Jacks RPG podcast; particularly, season 2 episode 15, about an hour in.

Rather than have skills like Persuasion or Deception, a character would have a skill such as Empathy. This skill allows your character to read his opponent and learn what motivates him; it is then up to you, the player, to role-play a conversation that manipulates the opponent using what you know about him. For example:

GM: The secretary stops you at the front desk, saying "You can't just barge in and expect to meet the CEO!" What do you do?

Player: I'm going to try to convince her that I have information that the CEO must hear.

GM: Okay, roll your Empathy.

Player: I got a 17.

GM: You can tell that she's nervous. It seems like the CEO is a pretty harsh boss, and she's afraid of making him angry.

Player: Got it. "I'm really sorry, miss. I don't want to get you in trouble, but if I don't get this information to the CEO in time, this company could lose millions. If you let me in to see him, I won't mention your name; if he asks, I'll say I snuck in."

GM: She considers for a second. "You promise you won't mention me?"

Your character says exactly what you say, how you say it. This increases immersion; you and your character are entirely in sync. Nonetheless, you can play a character who is better or worse than you are at manipulating people by putting an appropriate amount of points in Empathy; no matter how suave the player is, if his character has no points in Empathy he's going to constantly say the wrong thing to the wrong person.

Another advantage is that a social character only has to put points in one skill, which eases the problem of requiring several disparate skills to talk at things. You can wield your words with the same ease you wield a sword; your points aren't divided based on how you go about manipulating people.

It also breathes life into the NPCs of the game world. Rather than allowing a generic Persuasion to convince anybody in the party's path, provided the roll is high enough, now a social character has to tailor his manipulations to the current quarry, based on her personality. Since each NPC, in theory, requires different methods of manipulation, they each feel more like unique individuals.

This system obviously works best in a game like Fate, where characters are defined in part by descriptions rather than just numbers. A successful Empathy roll could yield one or more of a character's Aspects; in theory, the GM should know these Aspects in advance, so that she won't have to be making up motivations on the fly. Fortunately, more games (including D&D 5e) are including systems similar to Aspects, which allows this system to be used with little effort.

The disadvantage is that every character focused on social manipulation begins to feel pretty similar. Of course, this is a problem best solved through application of role-playing, rather than hard-coding a solution into the rules. If you're playing a fast-talking weasel, then you should attempt to convince most NPCs through fast-talking; a mostly-honest inspirational speaker would instead try to sway people with the conviction of her words.

It also doesn't help if a player isn't good at thinking on his feet. After all, just because the player learns that he can manipulate the secretary by using her fear, doesn't mean he'll necessarily think of a convincing way to use that knowledge. Still, it's a far cry better for such a player than just throwing him into the deep end with an open-ended "Now role-play!"

Option 2: Roll with the Punches

The second option comes from the Angry GM. He asks why you have to treat a social action differently from any other action in the game.

Before you roll a skill check in a game, you need to know what you're trying to accomplish and how you're trying to accomplish it. Often this is fairly simple; "I jump across the ravine!" You're trying to get to the other side of the ravine, and you're doing so by jumping. "I swing my sword at the orc's head!" You're trying to kill the orc, and you're doing so by swinging a sword.

Things get trickier when your method involves social manipulation, but the same principle stands. "I try to convince the secretary to let me pass!" isn't a valid action; it declares what you want to accomplish, but now how. In social interaction, the how is derived from what exactly you have your character say; without acting out the conversation, you're missing half of the necessary details required for a skill check to be made.

Let's return to the example above.

GM: The secretary stops you at the front desk, saying "You can't just barge in and expect to meet the CEO!" What do you do?

Player: I'm going to try to convince her that I have information that the CEO must hear.

GM: How?

Player: By rolling Persuasion?

GM: No. What do you say to her?

Player: Oh. "Look. I know you're just doing your job, but if I don't get in to see the CEO within the next couple of minutes, this company is going to lose millions. Heads will roll, and yours very well might be among those that do. But if you just let me pass, I can help save this company. Help me to help you."

GM: Wow. That sounds like you're trying to intimidate her.

Player: I guess you're right. All right, I got a 17 on the Intimidation.

GM: She's visibly trembling, biting her lip. "Fine. Just go."

The GM doesn't allow the player to roll his social skill without first acting out the conversation, because the GM doesn't have enough context to determine what skill the player should roll. She asks him to act things out, and when she has enough information she calls for the roll.

This method doesn't require a player to act out the conversation, if he's not comfortable doing so. Instead, it could go something like this:

GM: The secretary stops you at the front desk, saying "You can't just barge in and expect to meet the CEO!" What do you do?

Player: I'm going to try to convince her that I have information that the CEO must hear.

GM: How?

Player: I'll point out that the company could lose millions if I don't get in to see him soon.

GM: Sounds like you're trying to intimidate her. Roll it.

Either way, the exact words spoken by the player aren't important; it's the intent behind them that matters. No matter how suave the player is, if his character's Intimidate skill isn't that high, he won't be able to convince the secretary that way. If, instead, the player isn't as socially adept as his character, it doesn't matter how unconvincing his words are; the result of the roll determines how convincing the character's attempt was.

The greatest advantage to this system is that it requires no changes to how the rules work in your game of choice; the majority of games are already set up to handle skills in this way. The only change is in how you, as a GM, adjudicate these rules. Rather than allowing a player to declare which skill he's using, you instead get him to act out his character's approach and determine from that information which skill is appropriate.

Further, unlike the first option, it allows a player who's not comfortable role-playing to instead declare his actions as he would any other. If he doesn't want to talk in-character, this system allows him to boil down his character's words to an action declaration; as long as he declares how he's trying to Persuade, or Intimidate, or Deceive, he doesn't have to get into the fine details.

The disadvantage is that this method relies more on the GM to read her players' intents. If the player suddenly starts screaming, in-character, at an NPC, he doesn't always let the GM know in advance why, what he's trying to accomplish by doing so. It might break immersion to ask, but sometimes it's necessary.

Walking the Middle Ground

Of course, the beauty of these two options is that they're not mutually exclusive. If you wish, you can combine the two into one beautiful, socially manipulative whole.

Before a player begins talking to an NPC, he can roll Empathy to get a read on her. Then, using the result of that roll, he acts out the conversation until such a time as the GM decides she knows what he's trying to accomplish and how; then, she asks him to roll his appropriate social skill and adjudicates the result.

Combining them in this way mitigates the disadvantages of both methods, while still keeping their strengths. By having the player declare his action in advance, before making the Empathy roll, the GM gets a valuable nugget of information: what does the player want to accomplish. Then, rather than require the player to role-play a full conversation, if he doesn't wish to he can instead declare the gist of how he's going to try the persuasion, and make a roll to determine how persuasive his character is. Unlike in the purest form of option 1, the method of convincing matters as it determines the skill used in the follow-up roll.

And, of course, the GM may choose to give a hefty bonus to the follow-up roll if the player's approach matches particularly well to the NPC's motivations, learned from the first Empathy roll. A character clever enough to use what he knows about the NPC to manipulate her is much more likely to succeed than one who doesn't.

I Roll to Convince You

So what do you think? Would you like it if your GM used one or both of these options in a game?

I know they don't need a plug from me, as they are both far more popular than I, but if somehow you haven't checked out Happy Jacks or the Angry GM, do so. Their advice is informative and entertaining both.

Catch you next time.

Races of the Elemental Borderlands

Last week, I wrote a general overview of the setting of Fronteira, the Elemental Borderlands. This week, I will discuss the five dominant sapiens of the setting.

There are five major races in Fronteira: halflings, humans, elves, orcs, and dwarves. In addition, in those regions on the edge of the material realm, proximity to the elemental energy of the borderlands occasionally causes a child to be born as a genasi.

Halflings

The halflings of Fronteira are a nomadic people. The majority of them make their home in the frozen tundra of the north, closest to the borderland of Air. A smaller number live in the cliffs of the Godscar Canyon that marks the southern border of the tundra.

The tundra nomads are a hardy people, Not only do they make their home in one of the harshest regions of the world, they do so with lightweight and portable shelter: tents made of animal hides, or more elaborate structures with lightweight wooden frames and paper walls. If it can't be packed up and carried with them, the halflings won't bother.

On the plains south of the tundra, where a warmer climate allows, the halflings raise horses. A halfling destrier is unmatched. The larger races often remark on the irony that the smallest folk raise the largest horses.

Those halflings who dwell in the canyon are, by necessity, less nomadic than their taiga-dwelling cousins. This sedentary lifestyle doesn't mean they stay in one place for their whole lives; it is common practice for a cliff-dweller to spend a few years traveling with a nomadic tribe.

The primary religion practiced by the halflings is the worship of Mother Sky. They believe that the world is the child of Father Sun and Mother Sky. While the Sun's light makes life possible, for a people who live in a world of ice too much direct sunlight can lead to slushy terrain or, worse, avalanches. As such, Mother Sky shields her children from Father Sun's direct gaze.

Humans

The humans of Fronteira are sailors and explorers. They live along the coast to the east, or among the islands of the Hinansho archipelago. However, as explorers, they are the most widespread race; it is not uncommon to find a human living among the elves or orcs.

Much of the world's trade is made possible by the humans' mastery of ship-building. Many of the river barges that carry goods long distances are crewed by humans. As such, humans make natural diplomats as well.

The ancient stories of human myth tell of a time of turmoil, before the world was settled by the sapient races. It was a time of war between two groups of gods, the Hitogami and the Jakugami. The Jakugami sought to subjugate all mortals and rule the world, as was their right. The Hitogami fought them, defending the freedom of mortals to live their own life. Eventually, light won out over darkness and the Jakugami were banished from the material realm, deep into the elemental borderlands where they plot their inevitable return.

The average human, however, is not overly religious. Of the five races, they are the least spiritual. Their priests wield as much power as those of the other races, and are respected and well-loved, but most humans view gods and faith as a distant parallel to their lives, rather than an integral part of it.

Elves

In the southeast of Fronteira lie the primordial forests, influenced by proximity to the elemental borderland of Wood. Here, the elves make their home.

Elves, as in most settings, build their homes among the trees of the forest. They seek to have as little impact on the natural world as possible; where humans colonize and adapt their surroundings to suit their lifestyles, elves do the opposite. They build their houses in the forest canopy, sculpting living wood into buildings.

To elves, the world is alive. Everything, from trees to grass to rocks, has a spirit, called shen. This divine energy permeates everything, even manufactured items such as buildings or weapons. By coaching a shen to grow in strength, the elves can channel this divine energy to assist them in their daily lives.

Chief among the disparate shen are the five great spirits, the Daishen. Where a rock may have a fairly weak spirit, a mountain's is mighty. The strongest spirits are groupings of many weaker, related ones. The Rising Stone is the spirit of the earth itself. The Great Sea is the soul of all water, whether in the ocean, the rivers and lakes, or even just small woodland streams. The Thousand Trees is the spirit of all wildgrowth, not just forests. The Surging Flame is the spirit of fire, from the mightiest shen of the sun to the souls of volcanoes and underground magma. The Roaring Wind is the spirit of the sky, of wind and clouds.

Elves build their homes around shrines to these spirits. Ancient trees are the most common, as most elves live in forests, but some elves build villages around large boulders or hills. A few elves, far from home, may build shrines atop a mountain.

Orcs

In most settings, orcs are merely monsters to be slain. Not so, the orcs of Fronteira. A proud culture of warriors, orcs call the most infertile lands home: the deserts and scrublands of the southwest.

The orc mindset is one of power and progress. Even moreso than humans, orcs seek to conquer the land they call home, to bend it to their will. This is a necessity, as the lands in which they dwell are not habitable in their native state. Many technological advancements have been brought to the world by the orcs, such as irrigation or the use of gunpowder.

Strangely, orcs are also the most spiritual of the five races. Rather than connect to the spirit of the land around them, as elves would, orcs look within. Their faith teaches that each orc houses divinity, the spark that gives them an intelligence greater than the beasts of the world. How they reconcile this with the existence of the other races varies: one orcish nation teaches that all races house divinity, and thus encourages cooperation with their brethren. The other nation sees non-orcs as impostors, beings forged from the souls of evil gods rather than the good gods who have granted the orcs their souls.

Orcs view their emotions as an expression of this divine spark. Each of the five primary emotions - Fear, Grief, Joy, Lust, and Rage - is a gift from another deity, one to be cherished. By experiencing a powerful expression of one of these emotions, an orc remembers the long-dead god that made such power possible. Some orcs strive to balance these emotions, doing what they can to experience each in roughly equal amounts; others pick a favorite and dedicate their lives to honoring the memory of the associated deity.

Recently, one of the orcish nations raised a massive army and invaded inland, seeking to expand their territory. This was driven as much by a need for more fertile lands as it was by the orcs' sense of superiority. Understandably, this has led the other races to distrust orcs. Unfortunately, this includes even the orcs who did not partake in the invasion; even those orcs who fought to oppose their invading kin aren't fully trusted.

Dwarves

The dwarves of Fronteira are an isolationist, even xenophobic, people. Whether this is a consequence of making their homes in remote mountains to the west, or a natural circumstance of their religious beliefs, non-dwarves can only guess.

Dwarves do occasionally trade with the other races. Some dwarves even choose to leave their mountain strongholds and dwell within the borders of foreign nations. These dwarves are the exception rather than the rule; the dwarves didn't even come to the aid of the humans, elves and halflings in the war against the orcs.

Dwarven religion encourages this xenophobia. They believe that only by achieving balance can a soul transcend this world and reach the paradise that awaits beyond. The other races simply lack the capacity for balance: only a dwarf can truly understand zakon.

Dwarves are death worshipers. Svet, their unknowable god, is lord of the afterlife and has the job of judging the souls of the dead, to determine whether they are worthy of joining the host of honored ancestors. The only way a living dwarf may know Svet's will is through one of the intermediaries, the souls of ancestors who have passed through the veil into death. To commune with one of these ancestors, a dwarf must allow her to possess him; this is achieved during great parties which celebrate every aspect of life.

At the head of the dwarven nation is a council of three leaders: one living, two dead. Whenever a living king dies, his body is mummified and then reanimated through use of a sacred ritual. Upon achieving his second life, he replaces the oldest previous dead king, and a new living king takes his place in turn.

Genasi

Finally, much rarer than the five races listed above, are the genasi. These are mortals who have been imbued, by proximity to the borderlands, with elemental energy. Each borderland produces genasi of a different type: the Verdant Borderland turns elves into green- or brown-skinned genasi with the power of the woods in their veins, while the Zephyreal Borderland turns halflings into white- or icy-blue-skinned genasi touched by a chill wind.

At the far reaches of the world, where the elemental borderlands meet the material realm, the genasi are cautiously accepted. Further inland, however, they are misunderstood and thus shunned. Few genasi, therefore, live far from the elemental borderlands.

Genasi have no culture of their own; there just isn't a large enough population. A genasi coupling is not guaranteed to produce a genasi child: only exposure to the raw elemental energy of one of the borderlands has a chance to do that. Most genasi are born to non-genasi parents, and are therefore raised in the culture of those parents.

Race to the Finish

That is, in brief, a look at the races of Fronteira: their faiths, culture, and the lands they call home.

Join me next week, when we'll get away from Fronteira and its Elemental Borderlands.

Enter the Elemental Borderlands

My favorite aspect of GMing is worldbuilding. Whether it's a new idea for a magic system, a new fantasy race, or an entire setting, I enjoy the act of creation.

So I'm going to share one of my fantasy settings: the world of the Elemental Borderlands.

This world was created for use with D&D. As such, it is more generic than most of my creations: it's got elves, dwarves, standard wizards, and the like. In other words, it is relatively familiar, and thus a great starting place for sharing some of my ideas.

The Elemental Borderlands

It is a world in the midst of elemental chaos, where one is capable of physically traveling into the elemental planes just by heading in the right direction for a while. In the material realm, at the center, the five races (humans, elves, orcs, dwarves, and halflings) rule; further out, the world descends into raw elemental energy that is unfit for mortal habitation. At the borders between material and elemental, occasional incursions from the denizens of the elemental realms cross into the material realm and seek to spread their influence ever-inward.

Even with a persistent external threat, however, all is not well among the mortal races. The xenophobic dwarves isolate themselves in their mountain strongholds, their religion claiming that foreigners are unclean and thus to be avoided. The orcs, sick of scratching out an existence in the resource-poor desert and scrubland, dream of the day when they can expand their territory, all the while licking their wounds from their recent failed attempt to do exactly that. Humans struggle against the spirit of exploration which tempts them to make increasingly dangerous incursions into the elemental realms.

And the elementals watch, waiting for the perfect time to strike.

Welcome to Fronteira, the realm of the Elemental Borderlands.

The Five Elements

The elemental realms are divided into five regions of roughly equal size. Each region is in a fixed direction with relation to the material realm, but once a traveler crosses into the elemental realms all bets are off. A group of halfling nomads may track their prey into the frozen realm of Air in the north, only to turn around and find themselves in the realm of Fire south of the material world. More dangerous than the chance of getting lost, otherworldly creatures born of pure elemental energy stalk the realms, defending against incursions from the mortal races.

Most dangerous of all, the very essence of these elemental regions is anathema to mortal kind; traveling too deeply into the realm of Water, for example, causes the surface to vanish, leaving only crushing depths with miles of water overhead. Even the locations relatively close to the material realm are dangerous, though livable.

Air

To the north, beyond the frozen tundra, lies the Zephyreal Borderland, commonly called the elemental plane of Air. At first, the only indication that one has crossed into this realm is the starkness of the landscape; everything is flat and white, an endless expanse of snow and ice unbroken by any noteworthy landmarks. Traveling deeper, the wind picks up into an eternal storm of snow and ice; at the same time, the ground begins to soften, hard-packed snow melting away into solid cloudstuff.

The farthest reaches accessible to the mortal races is this floating world of clouds. Beyond that, even the clouds drop off in a great cliff and only creatures capable of flight may continue. At this point, the raging whirlwinds are so harsh that even if a mortal were able to obtain the gift of flight, only natives to the realm of Air (who are immune to even the harshest winds of their region) may continue.

Water

Continuing clockwise, the Littoral Borderland lies to the east. Commonly called the elemental plane of Water, it is reached only by sailing across the mundane ocean of the material realm. In fact, it is almost impossible to notice when one has crossed from physical to elemental; the first clue is a misty fog that clings permanently to the water's surface.

Deeper in the realm of Water, the fog thickens and the air becomes so saturated with water that it feels more like breathing liquid than air. Eventually, further travel becomes impossible without some magical means of breathing underwater, as the fog thickens to such an extent that it becomes water, and the surface vanishes entirely. In the great depths of the realm of Water, the weight of endless water overhead crushes any living thing other than the native denizens of Water.

Wood

To the southeast lies the Verdant Borderland, sometimes called the Choking Jungle but most commonly known as the elemental plane of Wood. It is impossible to miss the border between physical and elemental, as it is marked by a thick hedge of vines and thorns, brambles and bushes. Pushing through this barrier, a traveler finds herself in a vibrant jungle full of life, both animal and vegetable.

At first, the plants and beasts are recognizable; most are obvious relatives to their counterparts in the material realm. Eventually, however, the chaotic nature of the elemental realms makes itself known as the creatures and vegetation become increasingly alien and hostile. Additionally, trees and vines grow ever-closer together until deeper travel becomes impossible; even before reaching this point, however, most explorers are picked off by the variety of ferocious predators native to this hostile realm.

Fire

Southwest of the material plane, beyond the scorching desert, lies the Calescent Borderland. Better known as the elemental plane of Fire, this is widely considered to be the most dangerous of the five elemental regions. Crossing from material to elemental, the temperatures surge even higher than those found in the bordering desert; worse, there is no respite as the temperature remains high even at night.

The landscape is marked by pools of molten rock and twisted mockeries of trees wreathed in eternal flames. The pools of molten rock grow more common the deeper one travels into the realm, and the temperatures continue to soar. Eventually, the land itself falls away into an endless lake of molten lava and the temperatures become high enough that most materials begin to spontaneously combust; travel beyond this point is impossible for any other than the native denizens of this realm.

Earth

Finally, to the west of the material realm and directly counter-clockwise from the realm of Air, lies the Hypogeal Borderland. Sometimes called the Underworld or the Underdark, more often simply called the elemental plane of Earth, this is a realm that exists entirely underground; attempting to climb over the mountains at the edge of the material realm quickly becomes impossible as they continue to stretch ever-higher into the sky.

A maze of pitch-black caverns, tunnels and caves, the realm of Earth is dangerous more out of risk of getting lost than of any inhospitable nature of the terrain. As the caverns are ever-changing, it is impossible to map this realm and thus every incursion carries of risk of being unable to find a way out. At the deepest reaches of the realm of Earth, the caverns thin out and eventually vanish entirely; only the natives, capable of swimming through solid rock as if it were water, can continue beyond this point.

Next Week

Join me next week to continue exploring the world of the Elemental Borderlands. We will discuss the five races: an overview of their cultures, religious beliefs, and homelands. Xenophobic dwarves, nomadic halflings, and more await!

Linear Design Is Not Railroading

It is undeniable that words change over time. A word once meant as a compliment can, over centuries, come to be an insult. This is a side effect of language being a living, breathing thing.

On occasion, a word takes on too much meaning and effectively becomes meaningless. This is the poor fate of the term "railroading". It's not uncommon for a player to declare that his GM is railroading when all she is guilty of is maintaining the verisimilitude of the setting, or telling a linear story.

It is time to reclaim the meaning of railroading.

What is Railroading?

Railroading is the act of negating the choices a player makes. Nothing more, nothing less.

This can occur in a variety of situations, and takes several different forms. Sometimes, it's done outside of the game; a GM says "no, you can't do that". Other times, it is baked into the game; invisible walls spring up, trapping the players within the path that the GM wishes them to take. On occasion, it's done without the players being any wiser; if, regardless of whether they take the left path or the right at the fork in the road, the players will wind up at Dangerville, the GM is railroading to some extent.

As an example.

GM: You pass the first few cottages on the fringe of Dangerville, and people stop their work to stare at you. If the rumors are to be believed, this town is not as safe and secure as the name would lead you to believe.

Player A: I stop to talk to one of the villagers. "Hail, and well met. Is there a place where a thirsty stranger can find an ale?"

GM: Uh... The villager just stares at you and says "You should go talk to the Dollmaker."

Player B: Dollmaker? Sounds boring. Is there a pretty woman nearby? I want to try my Seduction skill.

GM: All of the other villagers ignore you. (To Player A) The man gives you directions to the Dollmaker's shop.

Player A: I ask him directions to the tavern. The Dollmaker can wait.

GM: He walks away.

Player A: Fine. I'll look for the tavern myself.

Player B: Yeah. I'm sure one of the barmaids will be interested in my charms.

GM: The town doesn't have a tavern. But you do come across the Dollmaker's shop...

Clearly, the GM is railroading. The players are trying to do their own thing, and the GM keeps shutting them down and pointing them back to his plot. By disallowing, ignoring, or rendering impossible any other path, the GM anchors his players to a set of rails from which there is no escape.

Other times, railroading can be more subtle.

GM: The Dollmaker's Clockwork Complex on the edge of Dangerville looms ahead of you.

Player A: I'm going to try to sneak in close and get a good look at what we're dealing with.

GM: Uh... roll your Sneakiness skill.

Player A: (rolls) Alright! That's a result of 29!

GM: Wow. Uh... unfortunately, that's not good enough; you needed a 30. The Dollmaker's Clockwork Cavalier sentry spots you and sounds the alarm. Roll initiative!

The GM allows the player to try a different approach than the one he'd planned, but the result is predetermined. Since the GM counted on them fighting their way into the Clockwork Complex on the outskirts of Dangerville, the player's attempt to sneak into the complex is destined to fail.

Now let's step away from railroading for a minute and discuss something else.

Linear Story Design

Imagine you're planning a short campaign in which the players will end up saving the world. You create the following outline.

A: The players hear rumors about a Dollmaker in Dangerville who is building an army of Clockwork Cavaliers.

B: The players track down the Dollmaker in his Clockwork Complex.

C: The players destroy the army of automatons and confront the Dollmaker. They discover that he was working for the Jealous Bard.

D: The players track down the Jealous Bard, atop the Spine of the World.

E: The players stop the Jealous Bard from singing the final verse of the Worldsong and destroying all of creation.

This is a linear story. From any given point, there is a clear path along which the story continues, ending at a predetermined conclusion. So is it railroading to run this story?

No.

Linear Storytelling is not Railroading

Many of you are probably vehemently disagreeing with me right now. "Of course that's railroading! The characters have no choice in where they take the story!"

But I'm here to tell you: it's not the same thing.

That's not to say that a linear story never coincides with railroading. I'm not even going to deny that there is a strong correlation: most railroading occurs within the context of linear stories. Yet it is entirely possible to run a game with a linear story without once railroading your players.

Take our above example. In order for the story to work, the player characters must travel to Dangerville, somehow stop the Dollmaker and his Clockwork Cavaliers, and then travel to the Spine of the World to stop the Jealous Bard. Yet, within that framework, the players have many choices.

When invading the Clockwork Complex, do they favor a frontal assault or a more sneaky approach? Do they go in alone, or rally the townsfolk to storm the place with them? Do they try to lure the Dollmaker out, or maybe wait for him to leave the Complex before striking?

When confronting the Dollmaker, do the players try to negotiate or simply attack? Do they destroy the Clockwork Cavaliers, or try to somehow turn them against their creator? Do they capture the Dollmaker, or kill him? Turn him over to the authorities? Let him go free? Forge an alliance? Try to enlist his aid against the Jealous Bard?

Before pursuing the Jealous Bard to the Spine of the World, do the players seek out more information? Potential allies? When climbing the tower, do they move quickly and destroy any opposition, or do they attempt to infiltrate it in disguise? Maybe they even try to scale the outside of the Spine, rather than taking the winding staircase within.

Before confronting the Jealous Bard, did they manage to discover his motivation? Do they know that he seeks to end the world in a fit of rage, angry that its denizens have for decades considered him useless just because he is a bard?

And, of course, how they handle the encounter with the Bard can go a lot of different ways.

Within the linear story, the players have a lot of wiggle room. Even something as simple as a "travel from point A to point B" story allows for several choices along the way, with each having some impact on how the events of the story unfold.

Why This is Important

A lot of voices in the gaming community are all too quick to jump on a GM for "railroading". "Anything less than a pure sandbox is railroading! The only correct way to run games is to allow the players total freedom, adapting to their choices on the fly!"

This is problematic for two reasons. One, not all GMs are comfortable with the level of improvisation required to run a game in that manner. Particularly when it comes to newer GMs, it's demoralizing being told that they're doing something wrong by not allowing the players to do literally anything they want.

Second, linear stories are a powerful tool in a GM's toolbox. Linear stories often have much stronger themes and plots, and can be more consistently entertaining than a sandbox style of gaming. By lumping linear storytelling in with railroading, we're throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

So don't be afraid to design a linear story. Just make sure that, within the context of the story, the players still have a variety of options.

Is Character Death Necessary?

It is a rare roleplaying game that does not include rules for character death. In the majority, death is not only possible but assumed to be the default failure state. Did you lose the combat against the dragon? Death; roll a new character.

At this point, it's so common that most people don't even question it. Of course the game allows for a character to be killed in combat; that's how combat works. It's realistic! It adds a sense of risk that heightens achievement! While this may be true, it's worth noting that most other storytelling mediums do not have regular character death.

"What about video games?" you ask. Or, "What about Boromir?" "There are countless examples of characters dying," you point out and, since this is the internet, you probably add "and you're an idiot for saying otherwise."

With the exception of video games, which are a unique circumstance that I'll tackle in more detail later, it is hard to name a story where the primary protagonist dies before the end. It's just as hard to name a story where a protagonist dies in a meaningless, random way. Death, in most stories, is used not as a failure but as a way to heighten drama and add to the story.

Yet in tabletop roleplaying games it's comparatively common and often random. Why is that?

The Reasons for Death

When you break it down, most games include death for two reasons: realism, and sense of risk.

Death for Realism

If you get into a sword fight with a rival or enemy, there is a very good chance one or both of you will be seriously injured or killed. If someone is shooting at you, and you decide to stick around and shoot back rather than fleeing, it's entirely possible you'll catch a bullet and perish. Death as a consequence for combat is just realistic.

Outside of combat, death could still be a very real threat. Traveling through a hostile environment without proper provisions could lead to death to exposure or starvation. Attempting to climb a cliff, tree, or building without a safety net or, worse yet, without proper training could mean falling to your death. Again, this is a logical consequence given what we know of the real world.

Often a player character is made to be more resilient than the average person, is given a large buffer of hit points or plot immunity. Yet, when that buffer inevitably runs out, death is still on the line; you can only push your luck so far. The harsh reality is that everyone dies, eventually.

Death for Risk

Accomplishments without risk of failure are meaningless. If students had unlimited chances to take exams, final scores become useless measurements as everyone will, eventually, achieve perfection through trial and error.

Additionally, greater risk carries greater reward. This is why gambling is so insidious: putting more money on the line means greater potential earnings, but it also means a greater rush when you beat the odds. The disparity between the worst that can happen and the best that can happen directly impacts the excitement achieved in success.

The logical conclusion is that when your player characters risk death, which in turn means the players risk losing all of their investment in those characters, victories are that much sweeter. When another character dies, the fact that yours did not makes you all the happier.

Death in Video Games

These two reasons for death are both used in another medium as well: video games. Particularly "death as risk" is a common part of most video games, from Mario to Call of Duty. By examining how video games handle death, therefore, we can learn to apply those same lessons to the tabletop.

Death is often used as a failure state in video games. If you miss the jump you fall into a bottomless pit and die. If you fail to kill the enemies in time they will eventually kill you. If you don't escape from the collapsing building quickly enough, you're caught in the explosion (or implosion) and die. At a glance, this seems to be identical to how death is handled in tabletop games.

On closer examination, however, death in video games is different in one key way. Death in video games does not mean the end of that character.

When a player character dies in a video game, the player is presented with a game over screen. Then, he or she is taken back to a previous point, prior to the death, and allowed to keep playing. This earlier point could be the last checkpoint, a previous save file, or even the start of the game; however, in the game's story the death is erased, the character is alive again, and the events continue to unfold from that point on.

No matter how many times you get your player character killed in a video game, when you eventually reach the ending the canon is that the character did not, in fact, die at all. Death is a temporary state, quickly erased in favor of allowing the player to continue the game.

There are exceptions, of course. In games with large casts of playable characters, sometimes the game will allow one or more of those characters to be killed off for good without forcing the player to restart from an earlier point. In other games, a save file (or even the entire game) may be erased if the character dies, resulting in a death that is more or less permanent.

But these exceptions are just that: exceptions. Most video games will waive realism in favor of player entertainment.

Yet in tabletop roleplaying games, death is almost always permanent. Even in settings where resurrection is possible the character still died; he just "got better". More often than not, the death of a player characters means the player is done telling that character's story and must begin anew with a fresh character. If all player characters die, often that means the end of the campaign itself.

Of course, it is far more jarring to introduce "save game" features to a roleplaying game, or to allow characters to respawn. The takeaway from video games, then, is to instead substitute the consequence of death for something less permanent: capture, injury, humiliation or the like.

Why is Death the Default?

In some games, it makes sense for death to be on the table. In a horror game, characters can and should die, in order to add to the sense of despair and inevitability. In a survival game, never having a chance of dying seriously undermines the theme and tone.

Yet death is not always appropriate. In a heroic action-adventure game, the protagonists are supposed to be larger than life; how can you be larger than life without also being larger than death? In a game about characters' stories, death means a sudden and unsatisfying severance of one or more major plot threads.

So why is death almost always assumed to be a possibility?

My argument is that it shouldn't be. Or, more accurately, in certain games it should only be possible at dramatically appropriate times.

In the Lord of the Rings, Boromir doesn't die to a random encounter with a bunch of goblins. No, he dies in a heroic sacrifice to buy his friends time to escape. In The Princess Bride, when Westley and Inigo duel, Westley doesn't end the fight by taking Inigo's life; Iniqo still has more story to tell. In Star Wars, when Luke and Darth Vader finally meet, Vader could have easily ended Luke's life. Instead, Luke only loses a hand and the plot is deepened.

So the next time you're running a game about heroes doing heroic things, and that random kobold rolls well enough to kill one of the player characters, ask yourself: would this character's death at this moment be appropriate to the type of game we're playing and the type of story we're telling? If the answer is no, consider an alternative.

All Things Must End

Does a story have meaning without an ending?

In this hobby of ours, it is all too often the case that a game never reaches its conclusion. Real life gets in the way, or the GM or players lose interest, or a new shiny comes to the group's attention. Other times, the game gets stretched out, whether because the players latch on to every red herring the GM throws their way, or because the GM doesn't want to stop running her game just yet.

Sometimes the game does end, but not in a satisfactory way. Maybe everyone decides to quickly wrap it up so they can start the next game, or maybe the game was only going to last for so many sessions and the player characters didn't move through it quickly enough.

Still other games are designed to never end. A "monster of the week" style game often just keeps going until everyone loses interest, with no real conclusion beyond one game being the last one ever played. Some are episodic for other reasons, such as inconsistent player attendance or rotating GMs.

Today I'll be discussing railroading and...

Just kidding. Obviously, this article is about endings.

What Value is an Ending?

With few exceptions, all stories should work towards an ending. In order for a storyteller to pull this off it is reasonable to expect that he must have, at the least, a rough idea of the ending before he starts the story. This can be as detailed as a fully-choreographed scene, or as vague as "the story ends when the characters find some way to deal with the crime boss".

Knowing how the story ends allows the storyteller to hone his story, to eliminate the chaff that doesn't work towards that conclusion. It produces a more consistent and focused story. The storyteller can pose questions confident in the knowledge that the conclusion will provide satisfactory answers. Further, it allows for foreshadowing: if the author envisions his conclusion as a climactic battle atop the rooftops of the city, he can throw in a scene where a near-fall causes his character to develop a mild fear of heights.

Knowing where you story goes allows you to eliminate dangling threads, or at least curtail them. If you know your story is building towards a courtroom debate, you can rethink whether it's a good idea to introduce a character with a violent grudge towards one or more protagonists; alternately, you could change that "bloodthirsty brawler" into a "cutthroat lawyer" to bring the grudge into line with the planned story.

Even more importantly, knowing where your story ends allows you to end it. This sounds obvious, but it's much harder than it seems. All too often, a story limps along well past the perfect conclusion, overstaying its welcome. Or it ends before the central question of the plot is actually answered.

If your campaign is about the destruction of a powerful, evil artifact, the game should end shortly after it winds up in the volcano. If, however, the story was instead about the cost of that quest and the impact it had on the lives of those who took part, then the story doesn't end until we've seen the aftermath in everyone's life, whether it be a return to their old lives or an inability to do so.

In the first example, trying to carry on past that climactic moment when the ring sinks into the lava will result in a limping, slow series of scenes. However, in the second example where the story is more about the impact the quest had, ending before seeing Frodo's departure is just as unsatisfactory.

Knowing the ultimate goal of your story allows you to recognize the appropriate time to wrap things up for good.

What Happens if I Don't Have an Ending in Mind?

Madness. Cats and dogs living together. Sunrise at midnight. A million voices cry out and are suddenly silenced.

Without knowing your ending in advance, things becomes much harder. The storyteller might throw in a hint about a dark and shadowy figure lurking outside a protagonist's house, without knowing what she wants to do with it. If she remembers, she might discover an opening to further develop that opportunity later on in the story; however, it is just as likely that no such opening will appear, or that she will forget to do anything with it. Each time this happens, someone in the audience will be left wanting at the end, wondering what ever happened with Shadowy Figure anyway.

You run the risk of stretching things out too long, of including a plethora of scenes that have no real place in the story. What starts out as a tight story about a group of friends taking their first steps into the wider world winds up, by book ten, being about a hundred different bit players each reacting to the events that took place in the last three days of the previous book. A battle which takes place on a planet fated to explode in a handful of minutes is still carrying on over a dozen episodes later.

By the end of your story, even if you managed to make it to a decent conclusion, the lack of coherency in leading up to it may leave the audience asking "That's it?"

The exception to all of this is episodic stories. When each episode, novel, or game session is a self-contained story with very little carry-over into the next, it is safe to carry on without an ending in mind.

That's All Well and Good, but How Does This Relate to Gaming?

The problem is exacerbated when it comes to tabletop roleplaying games. Not only does the GM not know how characters in her story will act at any given moment, she can't even guarantee they will latch on to the story at all.

This does not mean that a GM shouldn't give some thought in advance to how her game will end. What it does mean is that she shouldn't plan the ending in great detail. As a GM, you should think of your ending as a question, rather than a specific scene.

In a game where the characters must defeat an ancient evil, the ending would occur when the group has answered the question "how will the heroes stop the deadly king from overthrowing the benevolent lich?" She shouldn't plan an epic battle between the heroes and the king, occuring in the throne room where the king has begun a ritual to seal the kindly lich away in the same prison that once held him; the players might decide they want to try a political approach, or attempt some more subtle sabotage, in which case that ending would not fit. However, knowing that the game ends when the evil king is dealt with, the GM can react to anything the players do and adapt her story to fit it perfectly.

For the tabletop, a vague question is better. You could build the game around "will the heroes discover that the dragon is only tearing up the country because he's searching for his stuffed lamb that he loved as a hatchling?", but that forcess one path upon the players. Instead, you could ask "will the heroes find a way to pacify the poor dragon before he accidentally destroys all the nearby farms?" They may still discover the key lies in the lost little stuffed lamb, and go on an epic quest to find it, but now you've left open other options. Including, if the heroes are sufficiently heartless, killing the poor dragon in cold blood.

Another problem is that, even with an ending in mind, it can be difficult to "trim the fat". Just because the GM knows where things are headed, the players don't necessarily. They may take actions that don't lead anywhere, effectively spinning their wheels in frustration; maybe they even enjoy taking advantage of several unrelated plot threads.

Tabletop roleplaying is a strange medium in this regard. It is perfectly acceptable to let your players do as they wish, regardless of its impact on the eventual conclusion; as long as they are having fun, the game is working as intended. Of course, eventually it is best to find a way to continue the story, whether you do so by nudging the players back onto the path, changing the path to fit where they've decided to go, or even changing the ending entirely and building towards a new, more fitting conclusion.

This Article Must End Too

Have you ever successfully ended a campaign? Did you have the end in sight the whole time, or allow the story to find its own ending over time? If you've done both, which have you found works better? Feel free to leave your answers in the comments.

Declassified: Dilettante

In this article I will discuss my personal design for the Dilettante class, which may be found here. The class is for use in D&D 5th edition.

What Is A Dilettante?

The Bard class is one possible take on the Jack of All Trades, with a wide body of knowledge that draws from all manner of sources. However, it is tied inextricably to the concept of a traveling musician and storyteller, which is a turn off for some people. Additionally, the bard is limited in many ways, preventing it from being a true dabbler.

To that end, I present the Dilettante. It has some limited ability to cast spells, a bit of combat capability, some skullduggery and subterfuge, and a pinch of healing. Based in part on the Monk, in addition to the obvious inspiration from the Bard, the Dilettante also draws class abilities from just about every other class.

Though not as skilled as Rogues, Dilettantes have more options in the skills they take, as well as a few abilities to augment their proficiencies. Though not a full spellcaster, Dilettantes recover their spellcasting ability more quickly than other classes, similar to the Warlock. Though they lack the weapon and armor proficiencies of the martial classes, Dilettantes may learn a variety of maneuvers to aid them in combat.

This class was designed to replace the Bard (and to some extent the Monk), though of course there is nothing preventing your group from using all three in the same game.

So let's get to it.

Hit Points and Proficiencies

Being based primarily on the Bard class, the Dilettante is proficient only in light armor. His weapon options are more limited, but a certain maneuver provides potential proficiency in any weapon the Dilettante may need.

Skill-wise, the Dilettante is identical to the Bard: any three skills. She also gains the Jack of All Trades ability at first level, so that she has some ability with any skill; at 3rd level, she gains the Expertise class feature to further expand her utility with skills. The Dilettante does not gain proficiency in any musical instruments, as the class is not meant to be shoehorned into the role of musician. Also, the Dilettante's hit points match the Bard, at 1d8 per hit die.

The final difference between the Dilettante and the Bard is that the Dilettante has proficiency in Intelligence saving throws, rather than Charisma. The Dilettante learns her abilities through study and applied knowledge, rather than relying heavily on sheer force of personality.

Spellcasting

Now things start to get interesting.

Rather than utilize spell slots, as every other class does, our Dilettante has a new resource to limit his spellcasting ability. Based on a mixture of the Sorcerer's Sorcery Points and the Monk's Way of the Four Elements, the Dilettante has a resource called Inspiration points that may be spent to cast spells, as well as a variety of other effects that we'll discuss later.

The cost to cast a spell is based on the cost of the Sorcerer's Flexible Casting ability. The maximum spell level a Dilettante may cast is based on the medium progression of the Paladin and the Ranger; unlike the 5th edition Bard, our Dilettante is not a full spellcaster. She doesn't begin casting spells until second level.

To represent that the Dilettante learns her craft through eclectic study, she memorizes her spells. As such, she has a limited list of spells known, and may cast any spell she knows without needing to prepare it in advance. She uses Intelligence as her spellcasting trait.

The Dilettante uses the Bard spell list, though obviously she does not have access to any spells of 6th level or higher.

Eclectic Learning

The backbone of the Dilettante class, and primary outlet for expenditure of her inspiration points, is the list of Cunning Maneuvers. In effect, these are a list of features that a Dilettante may learn from other classes, such as the Rogue's Evasion or Sneak Attack, or the Druid's Wild Shape.

The Dilettante must choose which Maneuvers to learn; she does not have access to every Maneuver for which she meets the prerequisite. Most Maneuvers require spending one or more inspiration, though some (such as Cunning Evasion) are free.

Inspiration points are based on the Monk's Ki. She has a pool of Inspiration Points equal to her level, which recovers whenever she finishes a short or long rest.

The number of Maneuvers a Dilettante knows at any given level are based on the Warlock's Invocations. As such, she learns a maximum of 8 Maneuvers by 20th level. However, as it is the core feature of the class, our Dilettante gets to learn a single Maneuver at 1st level, rather than having to wait until 2nd before she may begin her journey.

Of note, the Dilettante may learn a limited form of the Rogue's Sneak Attack (Careful Strikes), the Druid's Wild Shape (Fluid Form), or the Draconic Sorcerer's Elemental Affinity (Primordial Ward), among others.

Unique to the Dilettante, Mental Armory supplements her limited weapon proficiencies by allowing her to learn any weapon she draws for a short time; this includes weapons which may be considered exotic for your setting. Walking Library serves a similar role for skills and tools, allowing the Dilettante to learn any craft she may need.

A Bard By Any Other Name...

The remainder of the Dilettante's features are drawn from the Bard class. Neophyte Healer, based on the Bard's Song of Rest, augments any healing spells she may know in order to provide the much-needed Cleric aspect of the "Jack of ALL Trades". Magical Secrets allows the Dilettante to truly dabble in any class she wishes, drawing a small number of her spells known from any spell list.

Finally, Perfect Mind at level 20 is based on the Monk's Perfect Self, ensuring that a Dilettante is always ready to throw down in any situation.

Dilettante Paths

Like many classes, the Dilettante has a choice of three archetypes. Each is based loosely on one of the four "core" classes: Fighter, Rogue, Wizard. Cleric gets left out, as the Path of the Mage allows access to Cleric spells just as easily as Wizard or Sorcerer spells.

The Path of the Mage supplements the Dilettante's spellcasting (go figure) by providing a couple of cantrips, and later increasing the damage she deals with those cantrips. It provides an extra opportunity to plunder another class's spell list at 6th level, and finishes at 15th by greatly expanding the Dilettante's magical versatility with access to a couple of Sorcerer's Metamagic abilities.

The Path of the Thief turns the Dilettante into a master of the shadows, literally. These abilities are drawn from the Monk's Way of Shadow. Though not strictly Rogue features - after all, many of the Dilettante's Maneuvers are drawn from the Rogue class - these abilities augment the Roguish playstyle.

Finally, the Path of the Warrior provides our Dilettante with some extra survivability in the form of medium armor and a bit of self-healing. It allows her to attack more often, and to greater effect in certain circumstances.

The Dilettante: Declassified

So that is the Dilettante class.

Do you like this take on the Jack of All Trades more, or do you feel the Bard did it best? Do you have your own idea for how to handle a "bit of everything" class? Leave it in the comments!

Active vs. Passive Skills

Most tabletop role-playing games use skills to model what a character can do. They can cover anything from your ability to attack accurately with a weapon to your knowledge of obscure political information, from your athletic prowess to your ability to persuade. For the sake of simplicity and elegance, all of these things use the same mechanics. That's fine; I'm a fan of elegant simplicity, after all. Yet it leaves me to wonder just how similar swinging a sword could possibly be to remembering a fact.

Some games, such as Shadowrun, recognize the differences by categorizing skills: some skills in Shadowrun are Active, some are Knowledge. Yet the mechanics for both categories remain the same; the categorization has no real impact on the feel. Most games don't even go this far.

Is it even worth treating different skills differently? The more subsystems and exceptions we build, the harder the rules are to remember and teach, after all. Yet, there are some advantages for this increased complexity.

Are All Skills Created Equal?

In a game where every skill uses the same mechanic, the results can occasionally be jarring.

When swinging a sword, or climbing a brick wall, there may well be a good chance of both failure and success: a skill check makes sense in these circumstances. But when facing down a monstrous creature, does rolling to recognize it make sense? You've either heard about it or you haven't. You can try to justify this as measuring the odds that you've heard of this creature before, or determining whether you remember the knowledge; however, this doesn't match what's happening in the heat of the moment. Remembering something, or recognizing something, isn't an action you choose to take.

In maintaining immersion, I find it helps to match each roll of the dice to some action the character is taking; when the character swings his sword, the player rolls the dice and the two are in sync. If the roll does not correspond to some action taken by the character, then immersion is broken by the sudden introduction of a loading screen. The character stands there doing nothing while the player takes time to do math and wait for the GM to adjudicate her result. It also interrupts the flow of the game: the GM has to pause her narration and wait for the result of a die roll before she can continue setting the stage for the upcoming scene.

Furthermore, treating all skills the same gives rise to the age-old problem that all GMs must eventually handle: should the players roll Perception to notice something hidden? The very act of rolling a skill check gives the players information that they may not have, if the check is failed. Good players won't use that knowledge, staying firmly in the head of their clueless character, but that disconnect still puts distance between player and character.

So how do we fix it so that skills that behave differently in the game world are treated differently by the rules? It's simple: we break skills down into two categories, Active skills and Passive skills.

Active Skills

The rules of most games are already set up to handle Active skills perfectly. When a character performs an action, the player rolls the skill check. Active skills include things like weapon skills (Blades, Archery, Firearms), athletic skills (Climbing, Running, Jumping), technical skills (Repair, Construction), and the like.

Some skills are ordinarily Active, but occasionally function Passively. An example could be Firearms: to fire a gun is an Active skill check, but recognizing the make and model of a pistol would be something a character does Passively. Other skills are normally Passive, but can be used Actively: knowledge skills can be rolled Actively when doing research.

So games already handle Active skills. What about Passive skills?

Passive Skills

You may already have an idea of what I'm going to propose. Since dice rolls should sync with character actions, and Passive skills do not involve action, you shouldn't roll a Passive skill.

D&D has already dabbled with this idea, with Passive Perception. The idea is that any time a Passive skill needs to be checked, you compare the difficulty of success against a passive score (often the result of an average die roll plus the amount of training in the skill); if the number is higher than the difficulty the character knows or notices the thing, otherwise she doesn't.

However, even as Active skills have slight differences in how they're handled (an attack is rolled against a target's defense, for example, while a Climb check is rolled against a fixed difficulty), so too do Passive skills. There are three main categories of Passive skills, each needing to be handled slightly differently.

Knowledge Skills

A knowledge skill is any skill related to remembering or recognizing something. These can be primarily Passive (such as Theology), or can be a restricted use of an Active skill (using Firearms to recognize a gun by the sound it makes when fired). Either way, the way they're adjudicated is simple: compare the passive score of the skill against the difficulty or rarity of the knowledge the character is seeking, with success resulting when the score is higher.

This means that, excepting strange corner cases where a skill's rating decreases, a character will always know the same things today that she knew yesterday. You don't have to remember, for every type of creature or organization or bit of occultism, whether the party has encountered it already; if they knew obscure facts about it the first time, they'll still know the second time and every subsequent time.

Perception Skills

Obviously, Perception falls into this category of skills, but so do things like Insight. Any skill that determines whether you notice something subtle or hidden is a Perception skill.

You could handle these skills the same way you handle knowledges: compare the passive score against a difficulty, with success meaning you notice the detail. However, hidden information can be a major part of certain types of challenges, and just always giving the characters that information can be anticlimactic. Here's my recommendation.

Instead of success meaning the character automatically notices the detail, it instead means some vague inkling that there's something she's missing. If walking down a hallway with a disguised door, a high Passive Perception could mean that she gets the feeling she should search this corridor more carefully. Then, when the party decides to actively search for something, the perception skill becomes Active and is rolled.

If engaged in a conversation with someone who's got something to hide, a high Passive Insight could mean the character senses that the person is avoiding certain topics. It is then up to her to press for more information.

This maintains a sense of mystery in the game, and also has the advantage of cutting down on the players' need to search every nook and cranny, or cross-examine everyone they talk to, for fear of missing something. If their Passive Perceptions don't ping, they know (or think they know) that they don't have to worry about searching.

Resistances

The third and final type of Passive skill is the Resistance skill. These are things like Willpower and Fortitude (often they are a stat instead of a skill). In effect, a Resistance is any skill that acts as a defense.

Rather than comparing the passive score of a Resistance against a fixed difficulty, the Resistance instead acts as the difficulty for an attack made against the character.

You can even handle Active skills as Resistances. For example, if a guard is searching for the character, you might decide that the guard rolls Perception against the character's Passive Stealth. Of course, if the character is actively hiding, the dice come out.

Some defenses are more active than others. It is up to the GM and players to determine whether skills like Dodge fall under the category of Active or Passive. Personally, I feel that it's only Active if a player declares that his character is doing it in advance; if the character is focused on doing something else (say, attacking an enemy), the defense is Passive.

Writing a Conclusion: An Active Skill

By treating Passive skills differently, a game can mold the proper feel for knowledges and perception. A GM can keep a list of each player character's passive scores, speeding up play and improving the flow of the game. Every die roll becomes more exciting, as it actively maps up to some important action taken in the game, never being watered down with things like "knowing something".

What do you think? Are the benefits worth the extra bookkeeping? Maybe you refuse to give up your dice, and will roll for everything you possibly can; maybe you're like me, and have such terrible luck that avoiding rolling whenever possible is a good thing.

Now roll me a Reading check to see if you remember the content you've just read.

Art of Artifice: Wager Engine

On occasion, I come up with an idea for a dice mechanic or other bit of game design that I think would be interesting. Rather than save it on the off chance that someday I will design my own game and get it published, I have decided to share them here.

The Conception

This idea came to me while I was thinking about the GUMSHOE dice mechanic. In GUMSHOE, your (non-investigative) skills function as a pool of points that you may spend to add a bonus to a die roll. Once the point is spent, it remains spent until the next time you have a chance to recover your resources.

This is quite different from how skills tend to function in game systems. In most games, a skill is more-or-less constant. If the skill is a modifier to a die roll, you always add the full skill; if it's a dice pool system, you roll a die for every point in the skill. In games like GURPS, your skill acts as the target number for your skill check.

GUMSHOE does away with this, treating a skill instead as a resource. It allows something many other systems don't: a character can become exhausted after an extended period of exertion.

So there I was, thinking about GUMSHOE, and I wondered what else we could do with skills. That's when it came to me: where GUMSHOE allows a variable die roll bonus, we could use a skill as a variable dice pool.

In a standard dice pool system, you roll one die for each point in your skill (sometimes with another component equal to a stat, or something else). For this idea, the skill instead acts as the maximum number of dice you can roll. You don't have to roll them all.

Why wouldn't you just roll all your skill dice with every check? We could do as GUMSHOE does, and treat the skill as an expendable resource: once you roll a die, that die is spent until your next recovery. Instead, however, I had a different idea. What if there were some risk to rolling more dice?

The Rules

The Wager Engine is a press-your-luck style dice pool mechanic, using six-sided dice. The GM tells you how hard the task will be, and you decide how hard your character will try to accomplish it. The harder you try, the more dice you roll, up to a maximum number equal to your skill rating. Any die that results in a 5 or a 6 is a success. Most tasks require only one or two successes, though harder ones may require more.

On the other hand, any die that results in a 1 represents strain. Your character has pushed himself too hard and suffered some fatigue.

A character has four attributes. In order from most physical to most mental, they are Physique, Endurance, Reflexes, and Intellect. Physique is your raw muscle; Endurance is a mixture of resolve and stamina; Reflexes is a combination of physical coordination and mental reaction time; Intellect is your ability to think through a problem.

Each skill is linked to one of these four stats. When rolling a skill check, any die that rolls a 1 results in damage to the linked attribute. When damage brings an attribute to 0, the character is exhausted and unable to perform any tasks linked to that stat. A Physique of 0, for example, is a result of exhausted muscles, while an Endurance of 0 could be coughing and wheezing while trying to catch your breath.

Mitigating the Risk

As-is, this system would actually punish a character for having higher ranks in a skill. The solution is simple: once a skill reaches a certain level, the character could ignore one result of 1 per skill check. Effectively, at a certain point, the character gets one risk-free die per use of that skill; her training allows her to push herself harder than the uninitiated. However, if a pool rolls two or more 1s, the appropriate attribute still suffers damage for each 1 after the first.

At an even higher skill rank, the character could ignore a second result of 1, effectively soaking two damage on each skill check.

For clarity, I'll call the ability to ignore a 1 "Mastery". Mastery 2, similarly, means ignoring two 1s.

Fiddling with Numbers

This idea would require plenty of playtesting to determine appropriate values for stat and skill maximums. My instinct is to say that skills range from 1 to 10, and a stat is the sum of all skills linked to it. For example, say Adam is playing a character with Climbing 3, Jumping 4, Lifting 2, and Brawling 3, all linked to Physique. His Physique would be 3+4+2+3, or 12.

The right skills would vary from setting to setting. Some games may require more mental skills (Intellect) than physical (Physique), or have almost no Reflex skills. The beauty of this method of calculating an attribute is that the value remains appropriate no matter how many or few skills it requires. If your game focuses more on Intellect and Endurance skills and less on Physique, characters will have higher Intellect and Endurance and thus be able to attempt more tasks associated with those attributes before succumbing to exhaustion.

Additionally, we have to determine at what value a character achieves Mastery. Crunching some numbers tells me that, when you roll four dice, the odds of getting at least one 1 exceed 50%. It seems appropriate, therefore, that when a skill reaches rank 4, you gain Mastery for that skill.

We have two options for the second level of Mastery. The odds of rolling two 1s doesn't exceed 50% until you roll 10 dice, so you could give the character Mastery 2 at skill rank 10. Alternately, we could go for the simplicity of doubling 4 to reach Mastery 2 at rank 8. Personally, I favor giving Mastery sooner rather than later, so I would give Mastery 1 at rank 4 and Mastery 2 at rank 8.

Using the Wager Engine

A friend pointed out that the system would work rather nicely for games in the horror genre. The fact that a character is slowly worn down over time, added to the fact that (almost) any action could result in increasing levels of fatigue, combines to build a sense of desperation and danger. It works significantly less well in games of high action, since a character is less likely to risk a large dice pool to achieve incredible successes when a smaller dice pool carries less risk.

We could build upon the mechanic in a few interesting ways. Rather than having a separate measure of "hit points", counting down the damage a character takes until unconsciousness or death, attacks could deal damage directly to one of the four stats. A nasty gash in the arm could damage your Physique, while a blow to the head could damage Intellect. This brings an added risk to combat: not only are you taking a chance that your character could die, but you're also losing valuable resources for accomplishing tasks later on.

Additionally, in games with magic systems, the stats could also be the resource you expend to cast your spells. Maybe a simple force arrow costs you a point of Intellect damage, and a fireball costs three Intellect. This is more organic than having a separate "mana points" number, since taking stat damage genuinely portrays the strain magic places on your body.

Alternately, you could determine the cost of a spell in dice rolled. That fireball spell might instead require you to roll five dice, taking Intellect damage for each 1 that turns up. Or it could be variable, with the damage linked directly to how many successes the spell roll nets, so that you need to weigh the risk on how many dice you're willing to chuck for that fireball. Spell Mastery could function similarly to skill Mastery.

Other things might be linked to this mechanic. Rather than keeping track of exactly how many gold coins your character is carrying, she might have a Wealth score and roll against it in the same way she rolls against skills. In this instance, 1s would measure large expenses that drain your coffers until your next windfall.

Give it a Try

Do you have any suggestions? Ways to improve upon the idea, or new ways to use it? Feel free to post them in the comments. Any feedback is welcome.

And if you try this idea out at your table, leave a comment telling me how it went!

Failure and Consequences

Typically, failure is not fun. Sure, occasionally it results in a more interesting story, but often the player who rolled a 1 feels frustrated or humiliated. He is supposed to be a hero, but in this moment he feels like anything but!

Some games advocate different ways to handle failure. Some say that failure shouldn't really mean failure, but instead be a chance to introduce a complication; other games prefer the simplicity offered by a "yes or no" approach to situations. Both have their merits, but that is not what this article will be about.

Often, when discussing "failing forward", another major component of skill checks is ignored. Regardless of the result, every action taken by the characters in your game should have consequences.

What's the Difference?

Consequence is not the same as success/failure. Regardless of how it goes for you, lying to a guard in order to convince him to let you pass will result in consequences when that guard eventually learns the truth. Failure tends to move up the timetable on consequences, but success doesn't entirely eliminate them.

Take the common example of a locked door barring the party's passage. There are several ways to get through that door: pick the lock, break it down, knock and politely ask to be let in... the list goes on. Without consequences, it does not matter how the party seeks passage; all that matters is whether they wind up on the other side of the door. Essentially, the choice is rendered a non-issue; you may as well just pick the highest number every time.

Consequences breathe a sense of verisimilitude into the game. In our above example, each approach results in further complications beyond opening the door. Picking the lock is the subtlest but it takes time, tools, and skill; however, in addition to being the least likely to give away your presence to anyone who may be on the other side of the door, it also leaves the door and the lock intact, so that the players can then close it behind them. Breaking down the door is quick and dirty, requiring nothing more than brute force; it is also loud, and gives any enemies plenty of time to prepare if the door doesn't go down on the first hit. Knocking and asking to be let in may seem ridiculous, but in some situations it is the best approach; perhaps the characters are great at impersonation, or learned a password earlier in the adventure. In each case, success means the party winds up on the other side of the door, but the circumstances surrounding them are vastly different.

Now imagine the party must get past a guard. Once again, there are several options: maybe they forge authorization and bluff their way in, maybe they try to sneak past unnoticed, or maybe they knock the guard out. Maybe they try to bribe the guard, or try to befriend him so he'll let them in as a favor. Without consequence, it comes down to which approach has the most favorable numbers; though the players may still choose to roleplay, the GM is declaring through her actions that this session is more about the metagame than the story.

Now imagine how she introduces consequences. While it is likely the hardest, an attempt to befriend the guard is least likely to come back and bite the party. Lying may be easy, but eventually the truth will come out and then, at the very least, they will have made a new enemy. Sneaking past circumvents any interaction and allows a chance at anonymity, but means not having a safety net if they're caught where they don't belong. And so on.

Get On With It!

The good news is, most of us already introduce consequences without thinking about it. It comes naturally as part of imagining the world of the game; sneaking past the guard in our example means you have to stay hidden, while forging authorization and bluffing your way past means you can work out in the open... at least for a little while. Some consequences are obvious extensions of the triggering action.

The bad news is, it's not always quite that easy. Sometimes, the consequences can be greatly delayed and thus are easy to forget or unintentionally ignore, such as our door example: breaking it down means the party's passage is obvious when an enemy patrol wanders by an hour later. The more often consequences go unmentioned or unnoticed, the more the GM reinforces the mechanics of the game at the expense of the story.

That's not to say that every single action needs to carry a consequence. Sometimes a cigar can just be a cigar; if the party sleeps at the Red Dragon Inn rather than the Chartreuse Cow Cottage, they may wind up attracting the attention of the Coalition Against Generic Names, or maybe they just get a night's sleep and continue on through the story the following day. At the end of the day, it's all about what makes for a better story.

But if you're going to ignore potential consequences for an action, do so intentionally and knowingly.

So What About Failure? The Title Says...

Fair enough. There are three general camps on how you can handle failure.

"Failing forward" means that, rather than bring the pace to a halt because Lady Luck is giving the players a cold shoulder, use a failed check as a chance to introduce a complication while still allowing the obstacle to be circumvented. Rather than failing a Lockpicking check resulting in a still-locked door, the rogue manages to pick the lock... just in time for a patrol of monsters to round the corner and notice them.

This keeps the game exciting by keeping the action moving, and also mitigates any hard feelings a player may have when he has a bad night with the Dice Gods. The problem is, it can lock a GM into thinking that consequences and complications are only the result of failure, and thus avoid using them when the action succeeds.

The second approach is to not roll the dice when an obstacle positively has to be overcome. After all, if a failure brings everything to a screeching halt, why even allow that failure to happen in the first place? If a locked door bars the only route forward in your environment, then the rogue automatically picks the lock when he tries; it's as if the door isn't locked at all. A similar approach is to allow unlimited attempts, letting the player re-roll until he finally succeeds.

The advantage with this approach is that the pace is never at risk. The obvious disadvantage is that it renders the player character skills less important; if the character is always going to succeed when it matters most, then why even bother putting points in the skills necessary to accomplish such tasks? Essentially, "why bother learning to pick locks if every door is unlocked?"

Finally, you can let the dice fall where they may. If a skill check fails, the character fails. The rogue breaks his lockpick off in the keyhole, the door remains locked, and no further attempt can be made.

This grants actions a sense of gravity: you'd better roll well, or you're not going to accomplish what you want. It does, however, carry a risk of stymieing the story's pace, or even shutting it down altogether. The GM has to design things in such a way that there are always alternatives to try, whether different paths to take or multiple approaches to each obstacle. Nonetheless, on those rare nights when Lady Luck isn't even answering your calls, even the best-prepared game could wind up stuck after countless failed rolls.

What Do You Recommend?

There is no one right answer: it depends on the situation.

Sometimes, the risk inherent in a check isn't about whether it will succeed or fail, but lies in external circumstances; in this case, "failing forward" is probably the way to go. It's only a matter of time before a character with the right tools can set fire to something flammable, but if the cops have received an anonymous tip about an arson attempt, and are coming to investigate, you'd better hope you succeed your Pyromaniac check, lest you get caught red-handed.

When an action is mundane, or there is no imminent danger, it's probably better not to call for a die roll at all; it would just serve as an unnecessary loading screen.

If the GM has several strong ideas for potential consequences for a variety of approaches, or if the path taken by the party has a severe impact on how the story progresses, then it's best to let failure be failure. The party can always regroup and find another way around the obstacle.

So That's It Then.

That's it then.

How do you handle failure in your games? Do you have any stories about a night when you just could not roll for the life of you? Leave them in the comments.