I Am Now DMing For Them.

I am now DMing for them.

So my colleagues learned that I play D&D

Sunday Respite - Unconventional and Magical Weapons for an Unconventional and Magical World

A warrior is a warrior, no matter for what weapon they work with.

Warriors of steel, of blades, of words, of law, of faith, of bow and string, judgement and patience, shield and hammer - all fulfill their duties within the ranks. For when time peace comes to pass and power swells, war will come. When it does, you will not grow petty over the fashion of the equipment brought to bare against the onslaught. You will hide and pray that whatever warriors there are, will fight well and true to protect all that is good in your world.

That said, some people just can’t be normal and have to put together their own strange contraptions to spill blood and crush bone. These warriors are a fearsome creed, for their unpredictability squanders the tacticians and sends untamed forces into disarray. Often, a successful first attack will be all it takes to win a war, and what better element to success than that of surprise?

So, go forth, my wild lovelies, and take whatever scatter-brained scatter-shot or brain-dead brain-beater you can get your hands on. It may not work, and it certainly won’t be perfect, but on that rare occasion that it does, kingdoms will fall.

Cashier’s Penny-Slot Rifle

To the majority of sane people, this mechanism is surely nothing more than a cube of wood with a crooked tube of tin protruding from its front. The box has a circular hole cut into its top and a crutch-like stock worked into the frame. Into the hole are fed stacks of coins, whereupon they are chewed up by some growling mechanism of gears and pistons. Once a small trigger on the stock is squeezed, the weapon launches forth a wicked barrage of twisted coins and silver shrapnel to chew through flesh and bite into bone. The weapon barks like a bag full of lead cans when it fires and rattles like one too. The motion of it all could easily dislocate a shoulder. Luckily, its the unfortunate buggar on the receiving end that has the more costly interaction of the evening, regardless for the currency dispensed.

Never-Ending Arrow

Only one of the Never-Ending Arrows remains unnotched and undrawn, safely tucked within glass casing, pillowed by lavender linen, hidden beneath lock and key. This is for good reason. Once upon a day gone past, there were dozens of these nefarious little devils, brought to being by some astrologically-influenced fletcher-turned-madman, caught under a pale star’s shine. The Never-Ending Arrow, once fired, cannot be stopped. It cuts through the world like a darting eel would knife through water. Brick, stone, flesh, wood, sea, whatever; there are no exceptions. The saving grace is that, depending upon the geological geometry of your home world, it will either shoot off into space, detaching from the earth’s curvature and becoming the horizon’s problem, or it will find the edge of the great, flat plain, and wire off into the abyss to cause mayhem thereon.

The Great, Man-Eating Cog-Hammer

A heavilly runed warhammer head purrs with a coursing battery kept somewhere within, smoke pluming out of the exhaust on the cap. The haft upon which it is beset carries the humming mechanism like a bull astride a pole-vault, barely sticking upright and swaying with a troubling violence. Set into a cavity upon the business end of the warhammer-head’s face are a pair of broad, toothy gears. They roll into eachother; a hungry, growling maw of iron and coal. When the warhammer is brought to bear upon the world around, the gears are set off to play. They chew into their contact point, pulling skin, steel, silk, and sanity up and away into the rolling, industrial basilisk, ripping and tearing with a dreadfully messy and blunt attrition, spitting the refuse out of a chute at the rear.

Carrion Crow’s Screaming Shield

Beaming brass, shaped into that of a snake’s open mouth - fangs, forked-tongue, and all. Strong, stoic, and utterly perfect in its manufacture: the shield is enough to cover a crouched man from top to toe. This, however, seems to not be enough to entertain the emblazoned, viperous visage it houses. The snake spins upon the shield face as if stuck within an open barrel, cast downhill. Upon command (a word known only to the possessor), the snake’s head will telescopically lunge forward, grasp at a target, snap with toxic teeth, and hoist the victim back with the force of an elephant’s charge, for more personal interactions.

Sword?

Sword? refuses to be named as anything else. Sword? cannot be renamed. Any attempt to re-identify the weapon results in the wordsmith, sculptor, poet, or playwright fumbling at her literature. She turns to the item’s owner, winced expression wearing heavy upon her face, and shrugs, surrendering to call the thing ‘Sword?’ just as all the others did before. This item is a sword, surprisingly. It has a twisted grip of wound leather strips, red over blue, a clean, white blade of a grassleaf’s curvature, and the trappings and tribulations of a well-decorated weapon. However, Sword? is notoriously uncooperative with new users. When first held, and for weeks after - even months and beyond - Sword? will droop in the hand as if it had died. It will fall loose and limp like a severed limb, refusing to turn turgid despite all interactions, pleas, and promises offered. Once Sword? trusts its new friend, it will begin to twist and turn under their command, worming as a dancer’s fabric would. The sword can fit as keys would into locks, activate latches through doorframe-cracks, and even slither down into their throat and return, unbloodied. It is supremely agile. The sword can grow deeply friendly and personal with their new friend, and may go on to follow their command without delay, forever until death.

Enjoy 

Pixie x

In my new D&D setting, one goat is equivalent exchange for one gold piece.

Guess who’s giving out 200 goats as treasure next session.

Just an update; the record with Tango is 11 natural 1′s in a single session, with 3 of them happening in a row.

Just so People Know ...

I do have a special d20 that I exclusively use for bosses in D&D. It is a transparent and orange one with white lettering and I call him Tango and I love him.

…

He may or may not have single-handedly killed at least three of my major villains through critical failures, however.

I have a suspicion that he might not love me back.

Good shout out. For what Dungeon World lacks in crunchy gameplay, it more than makes up for with a complex understanding of player psychology and human mechanics. 

Worth reading up on if you want to learn some ways to improve, and adapt for, your tabletop game. The system is very rules-lite and supremely comprehensible as it focuses on the people playing rather than the game as a concept.

Monday Night Dungeon Mastering - The Surrender Fallacy

Writers can find themselves itching with an idea. This singular concept of story and narrative sits sluggishly on their minds and teases them with a feather between the shoulder blades. The writer sees their idea as a defining moment of ultimate action that must be realised to be itched. It is where the story comes to climax and the reader is struck in their seat with the awe of it. It is so pure and divinely emotional that it rattles the nerves to even contemplate it, but, if only the writer could wrangle their story into getting there.

This obsession over one moment trivialises the story as it ducks and weaves through itself. The world and characters begin bending and straining to the point of collapse to somehow allow this one moment to take centre stage. It’s the ego talking. We believe our own hype, and consequences be damned. Resultantly, the narrative suffers to propagate this flawed ideal.

This issue is prevalent enough within an environment where the writer controls all input. In a novel or script the writer has sole authority over characters and their agency. The world buckles and bends to their command and reshapes as they see fit. Now, imagine a narrative setting where you,as the writer, don’t control the characters …

… not even close.

Spoilers: you don’t have to. The answer is being a Dungeon Master. Big surprise.

As a Dungeon Master (and trust me, I sympathise) you will have these grandiose concepts for story and player character narrative. You want the game to be exciting. You want your players to have fun. But … 

but.

You kinda, maybe, also might want to show off a little. Just once or twice. Y'know, put your best foot forward and give yourself something to be proud of once the session ends. You can’t let them have all the fun. Maybe its your world, or an NPC or villain you are particularly proud of. So you write that in, and you build the scene in your head. You will beautifully narrate the importance of the heroes’ quest, terrify them with the danger of your irredeemable - yet morally complex - villain, and show the best of the world you have poured countless hours over in your study. You have perfected every encounter, named every tavern and drink, statted every character down to the skill points and pettiest of equipment, and you are ready to blow your player’s minds.

BUT THEY WON’T

SIT

STILL.

The illusionist rogue kicks away from his seat and hurries to harass your chieftain-warlord of grotesque, inhuman rage. The barbarian flips her table and rushes your undercover, double-agent assassin with a maul without an inkling of provocation. The wizard casts a counter-spell on your sorcerer as he tries to dramatically teleport away, leaving him stuck in a sad, little cloud of expended, magical smog. The bard just WON’T STOP SEDUCING THINGS. 

So you snap.

You take your player characters, sit them down, tie them up, and force them to listen. For once. You become one of those nightmarish preschool teacher who duct tapes his students to their chairs.

You set your players up for defeat, stacking the odds against them to such an insane degree that they simply have no other choice but to surrender, or maybe you don’t even give them the chance to surrender and kidnap them as they sleep. Every action is batted down, every interruption silenced. You take a breath, and begin to tell your story in peace to your captives.

Do not do this. Please. It is unhealthy and can damage trust.

If you want a passive and silent audience, write a book. This just has the players feeling as if the DM has reached across the table and stolen their character sheet so she can play by themselves.

It manifests in many ways. Overbearing cut-scenes, NPC plot-armour, save-or-die mechanics, vetoed player actions, forced mulligans or redo’s. (Note how these are different from narrative or gameplay effects, like simply being taken prisoner, or getting knocked unconscious / paralysed in combat . The Surrender Fallacy is when the DM refuses player agency and does what he wants without allowing their input)

These are your players - your friends: people who have put aside their time and work to come to your game to play and have fun, not sit by and watch.

For one, they will hate it. They may behave like they accept it at the time, but their resentment will be immediate and sorely bitter. This is not a dynamic you want between your players and your game. If they have no control over their characters or their actions, then they will stop playing and do something else: play with their phones, talk about other things aside from the game. They will not be enjoying their time, no matter how happy you are, and eventually may just choose to not turn up.

To avoid this deathly circumstance you must do one, painful thing: you have to let go of your pride.

Your story will not be perfect - especially with players at the helm of it; it will be disastrous, chaotic, and downright sinister or even unheroic at times. But it will be their story. They will be in control of themselves. They will be acting. they will be playing, and they will be having fun in your world.

Learn to react to their shenanigans rather than demand something of them. Be happy with taking it slow, and do not get antsy when they are not chasing the plot about at breakneck pace. Don’t abandon narrative altogether; continue to keep things tense and the consequences real, but understand that a memorable story is always based off of character choice, rather than having none -  understanding that taking one road of a branching path makes their character unique with the knowledge that noone else would have done that same thing.

Respect your players and their agency, and they shall respect you, and your game.

And, most importantly,

Enjoy

Pixie x

My eBook - Crow Eater - Chapter One: Little Lynchpin - is available for download on ISSUU.com now!

Its here, its free, and its rather damn, sexy if i’m being honest. 

It feels so fulfilling to finally have this see the light of day after all of these hours of pampering and stressing over details. All feedback and comments are welcome, as  I want this project to be a success, and for my readers to receive my best work. 

So, if you like reading fantasy, or about strange worlds of malice and wilderness or merely just like my writing and want to see more of it, then please do check out the eBook here. It is free, it will always be free, and it is available for download on ISSUU.com.

And most importantly, enjoy

Pixie x