Keep Them Hungry: Fading Suns Edition

One of these days, I'll need to do a proper campaign update for my Dark Between the Stars Fading Suns campaign, which I've been refereeing since October of last year. We're only twenty sessions in, but things are evolving quite nicely. The players have all settled into their characters and the characters are now well established within both the setting and the group. They've even added a new companion, an amnesiac Vorox named Guron, who'd previously been employed as a chef by Count Ennis, the governor of Pandemonium, the planet on which they're currently staying. We're still in the early days, especially compared to House of Worms, but things are going well and I have every reason to expect this campaign has taken root and will still be ongoing for some time to come.

However, there were a couple of minor incidents in yesterday's session that reminded me of a post I wrote almost a year ago. In that post, I noted that it's important to keep the characters "hungry," which is to say, they should always want more than what they're capable of acquiring. It doesn't matter what it is that they want – money, status, knowledge, etc. – only that their reach should exceed their grasp. I say this, because experience has shown me that it's a good driver of both individual adventures and the larger campaign. Want keeps the characters (and players) focused and motivated, which is important, particularly in the early weeks and months of a campaign, before other more "elevated" goals take center stage.

Which brings me to yesterday's session. The characters, led by Sir Yamashiro Li Halan, had returned to The Hub, Pandemonium's capital, after a sojourn in the Badlands. They'd come back to the city for several purposes, most importantly the acquisition of new equipment to replace gear used during their expedition. Initially, they thought this would be a simple matter, since Yamashiro is wealthy. However, as they soon discovered, he's only rich according to the prevailing standards of the Known Worlds. His annual income is 15,000 firebirds – not bad for a wandering wastrel and very good compared to, say, a skilled laborer whose monthly income is probably 20fb a month, but nowhere near as much as everyone had previously assumed.

This meant that the characters' upcoming spending spree was more constrained than anticipated. After several combats against various foes in the Badlands, it was decided both Father Kosta and Holai liTarken needed standard shields (at a cost of 500fb each). Additionally, they needed more ammunition. These small purchases alone added up to nearly 1500fb. That's nearly half of what Yamashiro had on hand. On top of that, the characters had "requisitioned" an air yacht registered to House Gilgar and needed to replace its transponder with one that recognized their current possession of it. This was beyond Iskander Ecevit's skills to on his own. Instead, he turned to his contacts in the Supreme Order of Engineers, who were suspicious of Yamashiro's claims to own the yacht (rightly so) and thus demanded 2000fb to replace the transponder in a timely manner.

Added to the other expenses already accrued, this exceeded Yamashiro's available funds. Never fear, though, as, at the same time the characters acquired the air yacht, they also acquired a case of blaster rifles that could easily be sold to the right people in the Hub – or so they thought. The task of fencing these weapons feel to Orphos the Scraver. It was a simple enough job that should have taken no effort at all. Unfortunately, a roll of 20 on any action is a critical failure and that's exactly what Orphos' player rolled. That brought the attention of the local constabulary, who after failing to extract a bribe from the Scraver to overlook his criminal activities, threw him in jail for the night, during which time they tried (without success) to find out who he was working for and how he'd obtained so many blaster rifles. Though he managed to throw them off the scent, he'd failed to find a buyer, leaving the characters without sufficient funds for all their expenses (and he was incarcerated).

The characters now have some choices to make and those choices will have consequences. Most likely they'll forgo a new transponder, the reasoning being that, so long as they continue to operate in the Badlands, they need not worry about anyone questioning whether they actually own the vehicle they're piloting. That comes with risk, of course, but probably smaller ones than having insufficient ammo or defenses. Choices like this may seem small but they're nonetheless important and I relish them, especially in the early days of a campaign. 

By Any Other Name (Part II)

A couple of years ago, I wrote a post in which I briefly touched on the variety of names by which the Game Master or referee is known in older roleplaying games. Since I'm currently knee-deep in revising Thousand Suns, which uses the term GM, I found my mind wandering a bit back to this topic, trying to remember what alternate terms the RPGs of my youth employed. 

A quick check through my library revealed the following, but, as ever, I am certain I missed some important ones. Feel free to fill in any obvious blanks in the comments. I have intentionally not included games whose term is Dungeon Master, Game Master, or referee, since these aren't especially noteworthy.

• Ars Magica: Storyguide
• Call of Cthulhu: Keeper of Arcane Lore
• Chill: Chill Master
• Ghostbusters: Ghostmaster
• Golden Heroes: Script Supervisor
• Marvel Super Heroes: Judge
• Skyrealms of Jorune: Sholari
• Space Opera: StarMaster
• Star Ace: Campaign Master
• Starfaring: Galaxy Master
• Star Trek (Heritage): Mission Master
• The Fantasy Trip: Fantasy Master
• The Morrow Project: Project Director
• Timemaster: Continuum Master
• Toon: Animator
• Top Secret: Administrator

As I'm said, I'm sure there are others, especially after 1990 or thereabouts. Still, I must confess I was a bit surprised by how few I could identify. My recollection was that, back in the day, every roleplaying game had its own unique name for the referee, but I suppose I was mistaken. 

Freedom Friday

Despite having refereed roleplaying games for more than four decades, I still suffer from what can only be described as stage fright. It’s not a new affliction. In fact, if I’m honest, I think I’ve felt it for most of my life as a referee and it hasn’t diminished much with time or experience. At the moment, I’m running three separate campaigns: House of Worms, Barrett's Raiders, and Dolmenwood. The first has lasted more than a decade, the second is entering its middle years, and the third is still in its relatively early stages. Yet, with each of them, without fail, I feel a familiar anxiety in the hours (and sometimes days) before every session.

My fear isn’t so much that I’ll “do it wrong” in some technical sense. It’s more that I’ll let my players down – that I’ll fail to be imaginative, that I won’t keep the game engaging, or that I’ll be caught flatfooted, like a deer in the headlights, with no idea what to do next. Mind you, my players aren’t strangers. In most cases, I’ve known my players for years, sometimes decades. They’re friends and long-time collaborators in this shared hobby of ours. Despite this, the fear persists: that I’m wasting their time, that the spell will break, and the game will sputter out.

The irony is that this fear tends to fade during the session itself. Once the game begins, once I see the players reacting, asking questions, scheming, laughing, I usually – usually – find myself caught up in the moment. The game world takes over and real-world anxieties fade into the background. But before the session (and sometimes afterward)? That’s when the doubt creeps in.

Fridays, for example, are often my most relaxed days of the week, not because of anything inherent to Friday, but because they’re farthest from my next scheduled session. I run games on Monday, Tuesday, and Thursdays, which means that, by Saturday, an internal countdown has already begun. The butterflies stir. I start second-guessing myself. Do I have any idea how I’m going to handle what may happen next?

To some extent, this isn’t really about preparation, at least not in the usual sense. I’ve long admitted that I’m a lazy referee. I don’t spend hours poring over notes or crafting detailed plans. Most of my prep consists of a few scribbled bullet points, some half-formed ideas, and a handful of hopeful notions about what might happen. I suspect that’s partly a defense mechanism. Too much planning stresses me out and tends to make me rigid at the table. I’ve learned that, for me, the best sessions are the ones where I stay loose and follow the players’ lead. Improvisation keeps me responsive. It keeps things alive.

Improvisation also leaves me exposed. When you haven’t mapped out every possibility, it’s easy to feel unready or worse, like you’ve been caught bluffing. Maybe that’s the root of the stage fright. It's the sense that I’ll be found wanting, that I’ll freeze up, that I’ll have nothing of value to offer when it matters most. I sometimes think there’s an unspoken belief that veteran referees, especially those with a lot of campaigns under their belt, must always feel confident in their role. To some degree, I do. I’ve run a lot of sessions that my players have told me they enjoyed. I’ve done this for a long time. I know I can do it.

Of course, knowing and believing in the moment are two very different things.

I'm sure I’m not alone in feeling this way. I suspect many long-time referees harbor similar doubts but rarely speak them aloud. In a sense, we’re all performers. Our "stage" is small, our "scripts" unwritten, and our "audience" made up of fellow performers who are just as invested as we are. Like all performers, we fear falling short, letting others down, not being good enough.

I’ve reluctantly come to accept this fear as just part of the process. I can’t say I enjoy it, but I’ve learned to live with it. If nothing else, it’s a reminder that what we do at the table matters. It matters to our players, certainly, but it matters just as much to us. We care. We want to do a good job, because the shared world we build with our friends is worth the effort and, yes, even the worry.

That’s why I love Fridays. I let myself enjoy that brief moment of calm before the tide of self-doubt rolls back in. I also remind myself that fear isn’t failure, but evidence that I still care a great deal about these games I play with my friends each week.

Keep Them Hungry

Not long ago, I remarked to the referee of a long-running campaign in which I play that he had managed something quite rare: a steady, satisfying equilibrium of reward and need. Our characters receive just enough compensation, whether in money, items, or status, to feel that their efforts are meaningful, but never so much that they grow complacent or aimless. And by "rewards," I don’t just mean money, though it’s worth noting that monetary incentives are too often undervalued in modern games. In the House of Worms campaign, for example, two of the original six characters were initially motivated largely by the pursuit of wealth. It took them years of play to realize that goal, at which point they had acquired new aspirations, grounded in relationships, secrets, and obligations they had accumulated along the way. The quest for gold set them in motion, but it was never the final destination.

In my experience, one of the enduring challenges in roleplaying games is managing the balance between keeping characters "hungry" enough to stay motivated, while ensuring they’re not so deprived that their every action is driven by desperation. This tension is especially pronounced in the early years of a campaign, when characters are still finding their footing. It’s a subtle and vital balancing act that both referees and players must navigate, because it has a profound impact on how compelling, engaging, and even playable a campaign becomes.

Characters who are too impoverished may find their choices narrowed by the constant demands of survival. The campaign risks becoming a slog, where every session is a battle for rations or ammunition and long-term goals fall by the wayside. On the other hand, characters who have everything they need can just as easily lose their drive, making it difficult to justify their continued risk-taking or exploration. The sweet spot lies between these extremes: when characters have just enough to persist, but not enough to be content. That’s where true adventure lives, where ambition, curiosity, and necessity intersect.

This principle applies across genres. In most fantasy roleplaying games, especially those derived from or inspired by Dungeons & Dragons, gold is more than just a measure of wealth or experience. It can also buy better arms and armor, fund magical research, grease the wheels of bureaucracy, or earn the goodwill of influential patrons. In a science fiction setting, similar constraints emerge around currency, but they’re often refracted through different lenses: fuel, maintenance costs, tech upgrades, or the acquisition of rare components may serve as the limiting factors. Even basic necessities like oxygen or can become precious commodities. Meanwhile, in horror and post-apocalyptic games, the same dynamic exists in grimmer form, like clean water, ammunition, medicine, or safe shelter, all of which can stand between the characters and a gruesome end.

While money is often the most obvious and fungible form of reward, it’s far from the only, let alone the most interesting, resource to manage. The principle applies just as strongly to other needs within the game. Equipment, food, information, training, healing, influence, even time – over the years I've used all of these to keep the campaign moving forward. A character might have a full purse but lack access to a mentor who can train him in rare knowledge, prompting a journey to a distant locale. Another might possess a reputation that grants entry into high society but find himself struggling to acquire the materials he needs to craft something important. Still another may enjoy access to advanced technology, but without the knowledge or permissions needed to use it. The gaps between what the characters have and what they want is vital to the health of a campaign. They become reasons to explore, to negotiate, to take risks, and to change. Managing these gaps without frustrating the players is part of the referee’s art and, when done well, it ensures that the world remains dynamic and full of opportunity for adventure.

To the extent that I have any wisdom to offer on this subject, it's drawn from years of trial and error as both a referee and as a player. Much of it strikes me as common sense, but it bears stating because it's easy to overlook in the heat of play or the rush to get a campaign off the ground.

At the start of a campaign, it's usually wise to establish a baseline of scarcity, whether of money, equipment, information, or access to influential allies. This doesn’t mean starving the characters or turning the early game into a joyless slog, but it does mean making them work for the things they need. Even a well-connected patron should not simply hand out powerful items or resources without cost or consequence. Early challenges should reinforce the idea that the world does not revolve around the player characters, at least not yet. Let them earn their status and let them remember how they earned it.

• I've used this to good effect in the House of Worms campaign several times, especially as the characters began involving themselves more fully with the factions of Tsolyáni politics. Their assignment to govern the colony of Linyaró, for example, initially appeared to be a reward – and it was in many ways – but they soon realize that it also tied them down and made them responsible for resolving problems that kept them occupied for years of play. 

Scarcity can be more than an economic condition when it's used to reward ingenuity. One of the simpler ways I've found to encourage clever play is to tie success not to brute force or luck, but to creativity. Allow characters to negotiate, trade favors, leverage contacts, or even take calculated risks to meet their needs. If they succeed through resourcefulness, they should be rewarded but within limits. The goal is to give them just enough to keep them moving forward, not so much that their momentum fades.

• When the Barrett's Raiders campaign was still in Poland, for example, the characters often had to trade items from their supplies – ammunition, clothing, fuel, even weapons – to gain the help of neutral or otherwise uncommitted NPCs they encountered. On other occasions, one of these NPCs might have something they wanted and the only way to acquire it was to do them a favor of some sort. This dynamic was a useful "gateway to adventure" that I found very effective (and continue to use).

As the campaign progresses and characters evolve, so should their motivations, as well as the challenges that come with them. For instance, a character who once hoarded coin might later crave legitimacy, land, or even a title. These new desires should be harder to obtain than mere gold, since they involve reputation, trust, or long-term planning. You can’t simply loot a title from a dungeon. If a player is really interested in his character's pursuit of these goals, doing so will shape the direction of the campaign.

• In my Dolmenwood campaign, one of the characters, Clement, began play as a wannabe knight. However, to become a knight, he needed to find someone of sufficient station to accept his service and that proved difficult, because he had a reputation as a bit of a dolt. Not even his own family thinks much of him. The quest to find him a noble patron thus formed a big part of the first few months of the campaign. Even now, after he found a patron, his desire to prove himself worthy of her pushes many sessions forward.

Another way I've found tension within the campaign can be maintained is by introducing new needs as older ones are fulfilled. Characters who have mastered one environment might be cast into another, where their equipment is less useful or where their knowledge insufficient. That moment of displacement, where old advantages no longer apply, is not just a challenge but an opportunity for deeper engagement with the setting. It forces players to reorient themselves and take nothing for granted.

• An important moment in the House of Worms campaign's early years came when the characters found themselves in a region where spells and magic items did not work. In the face of an impending attack by a numerically superior force, they had to find other ways to defend themselves and escape.

Scarcity, used thoughtfully, can also be a tool for worldbuilding. In the aforementioned example, the characters learned for the first time that, on Tékumel, there are some places where the otherplanar energies that power sorcery do not function as they do elsewhere. The next time they encountered a similar situation, they could use their hard-won prior knowledge to address the situation more easily. Among my favorite moments in the House of Worms campaign have been when the characters are confronted with something that confounds what they thought they knew about the world and its rules and have no choice but to improvise. 

Another thing I've learned is that, believe it or not, players remember their characters' first major windfall. Beginning characters scrimp and save to upgrade their equipment, so the discovery of a valuable gem or a cache of magical weapons can feel momentous. Veteran characters, by contrast, shrug at another pile of coins, but light up at the chance to retrieve a lost tome of knowledge or to curry favor with an important patron. The trick is aligning the party’s current desires with the rewards their actions give them. When the carrot matches the desires of the character, the player almost always follows. When it doesn't, the hook falls flat.

Again, I don't imagine any of this is new to long-time referees, but I found myself thinking about it over the last few days and decided to turn it into a post. Here's hoping at least something in the foregoing can serve as food for thought.

The Petal Throne Has Thorns

Recently, I sent a message to the players on our House of Worms campaign Discord server. It was, in essence, a warning.

This is not meant to frighten anyone.

Now that I've succeeded in frightening everyone, here it is: From this point on in the campaign, the gloves are off. 

By that I mean, we're nearing the End and that means anything can happen, including characters dying. Obviously, there are means to bring them back cough, *cough, cough Aíthfo* but there's no guarantee of that, especially given how things are going. I bring this up only because I'm committed to the campaign's conclusion being a tense and uncertain one in every way. Though I've never held back in letting the dice fall where they may *cough, cough, Aíthfo*, things may nevertheless get even nastier than they ever have before and I feel an obligation to remind everyone that no one has Plot Armor.

Have a nice day. 😊

It’s a bit tongue-in-cheek, but the underlying message is serious: after more than a decade of weekly play, the House of Worms campaign is approaching its conclusion. The characters, most of whom have been in play for years, are not guaranteed a happy ending, let alone a heroic one. They can fail. They can die. They might even die pointlessly, offhandedly, from a bad roll at the wrong moment.

That’s all par for the course in a proper old school RPG campaign, of course, but I felt compelled to remind the players. As I’ve likely said many times over the years, House of Worms is light on dice rolls outside of combat and combat itself is rare outside the underworld. Most sessions consist almost entirely of roleplaying in one form or another and the players are very good at it. More often than not, they resolve their problems through conversation, manipulation, and clever schemes rather than through swordplay or spellcraft. Much as I love that – and I do, given my longstanding dislike of combat – I sometimes worry it’s made them a little too comfortable. A little too safe.

From what I read online and have sometimes even observed "in the wild," there's a tacit expectation in a lot of contemporary gaming circles that player characters are protagonists will, therefore, reach the end of a campaign. They might suffer, they might be scarred, but they'll get there. There's an implicit contract between referee and player that, so long as you show up and play your character, you'll at least survive to the final scene. Old school play usually doesn't work out that way and, at least in my interpretation of it, Tékumel especially doesn’t work that way.

Tékumel is a setting where the gods are real, inscrutable, and often indifferent. It's a place of Byzantine scheming, hidden pacts, and ancient horrors. A misplaced word or an ill-advised alliance can unravel everything you've worked toward – and that’s glorious. As I conceive it, a Tékumel campaign should end the way it began: full of mystery, danger, and unpredictability. There's n script; there’s no "true ending." There's only what the players do and what the dice say about it.

I've always tried to referee the House of Worms campaign in a way that respects the players' choices – as well as the consequences of those choices. That doesn’t mean I'm out to kill their characters for shock value or for sport. However, it does mean that no character is safe just because they’re "important." If anything, being important only puts a larger target on a character's back. Indeed, that's been the pattern of this campaign since its inception in March 2015: each time the characters succeed, there's been an escalation in the stakes and the strength of the opposition. Where once they contended with local matters of small moment, now they're at the very heart of an imperial succession crisis, one that involves not just earthly power politics but the machinations of gods and demons. 

In playing House of Worms, what I’ve come to appreciate most about it and, by extension old school RPG campaigns more generally, is their fragility. There’s no safety net, no rewind button. The stakes are real and when the players realize that, when they know the character they've played for literally years could disappear into the void at any moment, the impact on play is considerable. That’s when the game transcends mere mechanics and becomes something else: a shared experience of genuine risk and reward.

So yes, the gloves are off, but they were never really on to begin with.

Have a nice day. 😊

Boot Hill: Campaigns (Part II)

Boot Hill's section on campaigns continues with a brief aside about the maps included with the boxed set. Because I don't see anything especially worthy of comment in this section, I'm going to pass over it and move on to the much more relevant section devoted to "Campaign Time."

At the referee's discretion, campaign turns can be weekly or monthly or of any specified duration. Each turn, the players relate to the referee what their character's actions and undertakings will be, and the referee moderates the resultant occurrences. The gamemaster takes all actions into account, and relates the appropriate information on various happenings to the players as seen through the eyes of their characters.

When characters' actions are appropriate for moving the action to the tabletop, the time frame changes to the lower level, and the larger campaign's goings-on are suspended until the tabletop action is resolved. Once that is done, the rest of the whole moves on, with the results of the tabletop action reflected in the ongoing and ever-changing situation.

The mention of a "campaign turn" immediately caught my attention. From context, it would seem that the actions of such a turn are "high level" actions distinct from those capable of being adjudicated on the tabletop, like combat or movement. Unfortunately, there's no explicit discussion of the precise nature of these campaign actions, though one can somewhat intuit their nature from other discussions in this section. For example,

The roles and objectives assigned to the participants should be commensurate with the scope of the campaign. Thus, if the map covers a large area and the duration is expected to be several game years, players would represent major characters: large ranchers, outlaw leaders, sheriffs, Indian chiefs, cavalry commanders, and so on – each with many figures to operate or command. Objectives would likewise be broad. On the other hand, a campaign taking place in a small county with but a town or two would have participants cast in less grandiose roles and with smaller objectives – i.e., an outlaw's objectives might be to lead a gang of desperadoes into town, rob the bank, escape to a hideout, and lay low for a month before pulling another job.

Again, there are few specifics here and the specifics that are offered belong to the "small county" campaign and, even then, they strike me as the kind of thing that would be more likely to be played out on the tabletop than through a "campaign turn." 

The referee should keep copies of all starting statistics and changes made by all pertinent characters in the campaign, with special care taken for the player characters (who may also want to keep suitable records of their own). For example, the referee may inform each player at the start of the game as to his characters' cash on hand, equipment, animals, and possessions owned, hirelings/associates/friends, and so on. Thus, rancher Longhoop starts with $671 and a herd of 600 head of longhorns. During the course of the first couple of game months he hires three extra hands, makes a cattle drive which mysteriously picks up several hundred additional doggies along the way, and sells off the lot. At that point he could then have $9,004 and 325 head of cattle.

Orders for the actions of characters in each campaign turn can be given orally, but referees may wish to consider requiring written orders from each player to have a record of all desired undertakings.

I am absolutely awful when it comes to campaign record keeping. I frequently rely on my players to remind me of many details, which is why I think the idea of keeping written records of campaign actions is probably a good idea. I'm reminded once again of Diplomacy, whose play demands written orders from all the players each turn. Indeed, I continue to suspect that, for all the talk of the importance of Braunstein and its derivatives, Diplomacy may well be an equally important (and overlooked) component in understanding how early RPG campaigns were played. 

Boot Hill: Campaigns (Part I)

Boot Hill devotes several pages in the middle of its 32-page rulebook to campaigns.

The full flavor and scope of BOOT HILL comes out in campaign play, with numerous players vying, through the use of their game characters, for a wide assortment of goals and objectives. The interplay of personalities (on both sides of the law) can be fascinating and fun, and a well-run campaign with a competent gamemaster and a good assortment of players will be a satisfying endeavor for all. Campaigns should be tailored to suit the preferences of the players, but some general guidelines are here. All campaigns require an impartial referee. 

 None of this is new. The game's introduction already covered a lot of the same ground. Nevertheless, I personally find it gratifying to see yet another suggestion that roleplaying reaches its zenith in campaign play – and by "campaign play," the author means an open-ended and player-directed series of sessions with a shared continuity, overseen by "an impartial referee." There's no mention here of "story" or "plot," just "players vying ... for a wide assortment of goals and objectives." 

The person taking the role of gamemaster is a pivotal figure, for it is her or she that will shoulder the principal responsibility for all aspects of play. The referee should thus be a person who has a good working knowledge of the rules.

This is just common sense.

A referee should be impartial, and should moderate the action without interfering in the course if might take. The referee will be in charge of processing and revealing all information as the campaign goes on, and this "limited intelligence" aspect will greatly add interest, since not every character will be aware of all that is happening. 

This conception of the referee is clearly derived from miniatures wargaming, which only makes sense, as the entire hobby of roleplaying arose out of it. More interesting to me is the statement that the referee's primary job is not to direct the action of the campaign – that's the purview of the players – but to "moderate the action without interfering in the course it might take." That's very different than the way a referee, game master, or Dungeon Master is generally conceived of nowadays (and, if I'm honest, most of the time that I've been playing RPGs).

The gamemaster provides background for the players, and the scope of the campaign will be determined by the referee's judgment. The referee's decisions will be important in many instances, and the players must accept the judgments accordingly. 

The referee, then, establishes the status quo ante for the campaign, including its locale, major NPCs, conflicts, etc. Much of the rest is left to the players.

Two campaign scenarios are included in this booklet – one which is quasi-historical, and another which is completely fictional. These can provide the beginnings of a campaign in themselves, or an independent campaign can be started "from scratch," if desired. In any event, players can make up their own roles in such settings by rolling the dice to determine their character's abilities and then choosing a personal role or occupation. The objectives of each character can then be outlined by the referee, and these are the goals each will seek as the campaign goes on. 

The two campaign scenarios referenced above both take place in the fictional Promise City at different periods in history (1876 and 1890). The earlier of the two scenarios is "quasi-historical" in that it involves a gambling competition that attracts famous historical gamblers to the town, like Johnny Ringo and Bat Masterson. Otherwise, however, it's entirely fictional in nature, as is the later 1890 scenario. Notably, this paragraph seems to suggest that it's the referee rather than the players, who decides the objectives of each character. I suppose this might only apply in circumstances where the referee is working from a pre-generated scenario, such as those in the Boot Hill rules, but it's a bit unclear. Ultimately, though, what's most important is that campaign play proceeds according to the principle that characters have "goals" that they will seek and the bulk of the campaign's action derives from their attempting to do so.

Number 9

A couple of weeks ago, my House of Worms Empire of the Petal Throne campaign marked its 9-year anniversary. As I alluded to in a post earlier this year, the campaign continues to grow and evolve. I added a new player to our merry little band, bringing us to eight (plus myself, of course), and his character helped usher in a new phase of the campaign. 

Every time another anniversary is reached, I goggle at the fact that we've somehow managed to keep this going for so long. It's truly a wondrous thing and, while there's undoubtedly a good deal of luck involved, I think there are several other factors that have contributed to the campaign's continued success. In the interest of encouraging others who are interested in keeping a RPG campaign going for nearly a decade of continuous, weekly play, here's what wisdom I have to offer:

1. Friendship: This is my number one insight: play with friends. Now, to be clear, at the start of the campaign, not all of the players were my friends. Indeed, I only met several of the players through playing the game. Within fairly short order, though, those of us involved in the campaign have become friends, spending time with one another outside the game and generally enjoying one another's company even when not playing. That's vital, in my opinion. Roleplaying is an inherently social pastime and only really works when played with people whom you like and with whom you enjoy a friendly intimacy. So many of the problems that arise in gaming groups do so, I think, because the players aren't friends or don't open up to one another. Without that level of camaraderie and, above all, trust, I'm not sure you can have a successful campaign of any length, let alone a long-term one.
2. Consistency: A close second insight concerns the need for consistency. Meeting every week to play is important. I know all too well have distracting and vexatious the real world can be. However, if the players and the referee don't get together regularly, especially in the crucial first few months of a new campaign, there's little chance that it will last long. We play every week so long as we have a sufficient number of players to do so, which is a lot easier when you have eight players. Doing so builds the momentum a campaign needs to keep going under its own force. It also serves as a cushion against those inevitable times when the group doesn't meet to play. We often have such times, especially around major holidays and during the summer, so it's not as if we never miss a session. However, we make a point of playing consistently and it's paid huge dividends.
3. Expectations: This one is important too. When you're playing on a weekly basis, not every session is going to be memorable – or even "good." Some sessions will be boring or a bit of a drag for any number of reasons. That's just the nature of anything that lasts for a long time. Keep moving forward, even through the "bad" stuff and I guarantee that you'll get to something much more enjoyable – so enjoyable, in fact, that you'll soon forget about the boring stuff. It's impossible to maintain a constant high. Not even the best referee, which I am not, is capable of producing a non-stop rollercoaster of fun. That's OK and to be expected.
4. Flexibility: Similarly, don't be afraid to shift your focus or change gears. The House of Worms campaign has seen the characters engage in dozens of undertakings. Many of them have worked – some brilliantly – and some of them have not. When something's not working, there's no shame in moving on to something else. Maybe you'll come back to something you abandoned later; maybe you won't. Ultimately, it doesn't matter if there are "dangling threads" from an earlier part of the campaign, because a fun, long-running campaign isn't a movie or a novel. It doesn't need to be dramatically coherent or well structured. It should be a rambling, chaotic mess that's constantly in flux. 
5. Detachment: This one is mostly for the referee, though it has some applicability to the players too: don't get too attached to an idea. As the saying goes, ideas are cheap. Over the course of the last nine years, I've had lots and lots of ideas for the campaign – but my players have their own. Consequently, the campaign is strewn with adventure hooks, rumors, and NPC patrons that I thought would serve to propel the campaign forward and that were never seized upon for one reason or another. Rather than trying to find some way to foist them on the players, I've come up with new ones that the players did seize upon. I doubt the campaign would have lasted this long, had I been hung up on my precious ideas rather than continuing to come up with new ones (or variations on old ones – I can be tricky that way).

Obviously, there's no single road map to maintaining a successful long-term campaign, but all of the points above have proven instrumental during the last nine years I've refereed House of Worms. I hope considering them might be of use to you as well.

In Defense of the Murderhobo

Like any hobby, roleplaying games are replete with their own unique vocabulary and jargon. Spend any time with someone deeply invested in roleplaying and odds are good you'll soon encounter one or more words whose meaning would be impenetrable to outsiders. Even the title of this blog has its origins in RPG – and, before that, wargaming – argot that would make little or no sense to the average person. 

Occasionally, even someone who's been playing roleplaying games for as long as I have will come across a term whose meaning is unclear. Such is the case with "murderhobo," a word whose origins, I assumed, must be relatively recent, since it's not one with which I was familiar. A quick search online reveals that "recent" in this case is relative, since "murderhobo" has been commonplace in online discussions of Dungeons & Dragons for more than a decade now. Color me surprised!

Like "grognard" and "killer DM," "murderhobo" seems to have mostly negative associations. What interests me, as I delved more deeply into this, is how the term seems to have evolved since its initial coinage. At the start, the term appears to have been a partly affectionate jab at the style of play that some claim was the default at the dawn of the hobby: rootless wanderers employing violence to enrich themselves. 

DCC RPG has made murderhoboism its brand

This post is not the place to rehash arguments for or against how people in the early days actually played RPGs. For our present purposes, all that matters is that plenty of people not only believe that the first gamers played games in this way but also that this style of play is, at best, laughable and, at worst, objectionable. Despite the contemporary origins of the term, this censorious attitude toward murderhoboism isn't limited to players of more recent vintage. Even within the old school realm, deprecation of the murderhobo is far from unknown.

That having been said, there is a criticism of murderhoboism that does seem to originate among newer gamers. This criticism focuses on the way that murderhobo characters can derail a referee's carefully constructed campaign. Their acts of random violence represent an unwillingness to commit fully to the "story" the referee is attempting to tell and is thus worthy of rebuke. While I am generally quite dismissive of referees who mistakenly think it's their job to tell a story, I am nevertheless mildly sympathetic to any referee who has to deal with needlessly disruptive players.

Note the adverb: needlessly. Sometimes, players are disruptive for a very good reason. I have personally been involved in sessions where my fellow players decided to barricade a tavern and then burn it down, its patrons still inside, as an act of rebellion against the referee, whose heavy-handed plot they could no longer stand. They were, according to this second understanding of the term, murderhobos, because they derailed the referee's game with their violent antics.

I'm afraid I don't have much time for the first criticism of murderhoboism. Most of the protagonists of the pulp fantasy stories that inspired Arneson and Gygax could probably be called murderhobos, in at least some of their adventures. I find it difficult to look askance at any player inspired by Conan, Fafhrd, or the Gray Mouse – never mind Elric, many of whose yarns begin and/or end with random acts of violence on his part. Certainly, this isn't the only way to play Dungeons & Dragons, nor even my preferred one, but I don't see anything wrong with it and indeed know firsthand that it can be quite fun. Like so many things, I think what's really needed is not so much disdain for so-called murderhoboism as clearer agreement between players and the referee about the kind of game they wish to play.

I've already addressed the narrow sense in which I can give credence to the second type of criticism. That said, I have very little patience for referees who want, above all, to "tell a story," more specifically their story. One of my strongest beliefs about roleplaying is that it is a collaborative entertainment, where the wishes of neither the referee nor the players are supreme. Consequently, "story" is, at best, an emergent property recognizable only after the fact, an attempt to make sense of the unexpected twists and turns arising from the interactions of all involved and the randomness of dice rolls. Anyone who places his own prefabricated narrative above the glorious riot of player choice (even stupid choice) deserves to be terrorized by murderhobos.

In the end, I'm not sure murderhobos need defending, so much as understanding of what they are and why someone might wish to play D&D (or any other RPG) in that style. Mind you, I think that's the case with nearly every style in which one might play, but what do I know?

Inimical and Beneficial and the Worst and the Best

Some fascinating thoughts from Gary Gygax about the role of the Dungeon Master in Dungeons & Dragons (from the September 1980 issue of Fantastic Films). What he has to say reminds me a bit of my defense of the "killer DM" last year.

Fear of Ruination

As my House of Worms campaign starts its ninth year, I've regularly found myself wondering, "How long can I keep this going?" House of Worms is, by a long shot, the longest continual campaign I've ever refereed and I'd like to keep it going for as long as possible. This campaign is regular source of satisfaction and joy for me and, I hope, for the players as well. These feelings are almost certainly why I so often worry that I'm on the verge of ruining it through poor judgment or some misstep on my part. I worry that, despite all evidence to the contrary, that the campaign isn't nearly as sturdy or resilient as it appears to be and that it could all come crashing down in an instant if I'm not careful.

To many of you reading this, that probably sounds irrationally anxious and you're probably correct in thinking this, but please allow me to explain where I am coming from. From its inception in March 2015, the House of Worms campaign has been very player-driven. After its initial kick-off, I rarely presented the players with "adventures," as they're usually understood. Instead, I strove to present a variety of situations and opportunities within the world of Tékumel that the players, through their characters, could either pursue or not, as they desired. Further, if the players wanted to pursue other opportunities, ones I'd not immediately considered, that was fine too. Truth be told, I prefer it when the players do most of the heavy lifting for the campaign, because I am by nature a lazy referee. Plus, it's been my experience that allowing the players to do their own thing is one of the keys to campaign longevity.

Over the past eight years, House of Worms has chugged along very smoothly, flitting from one situation to the next according to the interest of the players. Sometimes, the players have had clear and obvious goals, such as return home after a magical mishap hurled them far away, but most of their goals over the years have been much more open-ended and elusive. One of the advantages of this is that it's given me lots of opportunities to show different parts of Tékumel to them through play. I feel that's where a rich and detailed setting really pays off. 

Though the players and their interests are the main drivers of the campaign, that doesn't mean I don't have ideas of my own, ideas that I'm interested in exploring through play. A good example of this concerns the nature of the gods of Tékumel, including their natures and purposes with regards to lesser beings. Looking back over the course of the last eight years, I now recognize that this has been an important underlying element of it, with multiple instances of divine invention, encounters with computer "gods", and deity-centered mysteries informing the course of its action. Overall, I think this element has not only helped keep everyone interest but has also helped to make the House of Worms feel distinct from other fantasy campaigns I've refereed. There's a sense that the characters are slowly unraveling some of the bigger mysteries of Tékumel, which is heady stuff.

And that's precisely the source of my occasional worries. Over the course of the campaign, I've given quite some thought to these questions and have come to some tentative conclusions. At any given moment, I'm happy with them. Indeed, I often find them genuinely clever and compelling – to me, if no one else. These conclusions inform my approach to the characters' actions; they're part of the slowly emerging truths of Tékumel. So far, the players have responded well to them, but there's a part of me that worries, "Have I gone too far? Have I ruined this campaign that we've all enjoyed for nearly a decade?" 

My anxiety is based, in large part, on the fact that, as I reveal more and the characters come to understand more, I am changing the setting in various ways, or at least changing the players' perspective on it. A few sessions ago, one of the players commented that, in light of new things his character had learned, that character would have to re-evaluate what he believes and wants to do. The player didn't say this ruefully – far from it, in fact. Nevertheless, there was a sense that the character had lost some of his innocence; he could no longer look at Tékumel as he once knew it. This was definitely a moment of growth for the character, but it is also signaled that the campaign had rounded a particular corner and there was no going back.

Have any other referees felt similarly about their campaigns? Have you ever felt that you'd introduce something into a campaign that had changed things in such a way that you worried it might do lasting violence to the campaign? Or is this just another of my overthinking of things? 

B2's "Notes for the Dungeon Master"

Of all the modules written by Gary Gygax, I suspect that The Keep on the Borderlands is his most widely played – not simply by virtue of its having been included in all printings of the Tom Moldvay-edited D&D Basic Set (and later printings of the J. Eric Holmes-edited version of the same), but because it's a solid, introductory scenario with which to kick off a campaign. Further, the first two pages of the modules are given over to a "Notes for the Dungeon Master" section that is filled with excellent advice for neophyte referees. 

Consider the following:

The basic instruction book for DUNGEONS & DRAGONS® has given you the information to understand D&D and start play. This module is another tool. It is a scenario which will help you to understand the fine art of being a Dungeon Master as you introduce your group of players to your fantasy world, your interpretation of the many worlds of DUNGEONS & DRAGONS®. THE KEEP ON THE BORDERLANDS is simply offered as a vehicle for your use, a way to move smoothly and rapidly into you own special D&D campaign. Read the module thoroughly; you will notice that the details are left in your hands. This allows you to personalize the scenario, and suit it to what you and your players will find most enjoyable. 

Looking beyond the overuse of the registered trademark every time the name "Dungeons & Dragons" is mentioned, Gygax says several important things here, starting with the fact that a module is merely a tool, indeed another tool, alongside the game's rulebook. That's why he quickly emphasizes the referee's ability to "personalize the scenario" according to one's own interpretation of D&D with the ultimate goal of enjoyment by oneself and one's players. 

These are points Gygax repeats throughout these prefatory notes.

Become familiar with this module, then make whatever additions, changes, or amendments you feel are appropriate to your campaign ... As an aside, feel free to limit race or profession as suits your conception of the setting. You might disallow the presence of elves or halflings in the KEEP, or you might not want any thieves as beginning characters. It is all up to you as DM to decide the shape of the campaign. Likewise, you can opt to give the player characters a special item of equipment to begin with – possibly mounts, a weapon, some trade goods, or virtually anything of small value (within reason).

While I can completely understand, given his later statements on the matter of "official" D&D, Gygax's reputation as hard-nosed and uncompromising, that's not at all what comes across here. Throughout these notes, he is, if anything, open-minded and flexible. He is quick to highlight the referee's ability to alter both setting details and rules to suit his preferences and those of his players. A beginning DM very much needs to hear such things; he needs reassurance that it is completely within his role as referee to make D&D – and any module he uses – his own.

At the same time, Gygax acknowledges that the role of referee is not an easy one.

You not only must order and create the cosmos, you must also play the part of each and every creature that the player characters encounter. You must be gate guard and merchant, innkeeper and orc, oracle and madman, as the situation dictates. The role of DM is all-powerful, but it also makes many demands. It is difficult to properly play the village idiot at one moment and the sage the next, the noble clergyman on the one hand and the vile monster the other. In one role you must be cooperative, in the next uncaring and non-commital [sic], then foolish, then clever, and so on. Be prepared!

This is very well said and true in my experience. Gygax then goes to discuss the challenges of portraying monsters. All of what he says is fascinating, but some of it stands out in light of his later criticisms of "amateur thespianism" in the pages of Dragon.

When the players experience their first encounter with a monster, you must be ready to play the part fully. If the monster is basically unintelligent, you must have it act accordingly, enlivening the meeting with the proper dramatics of the animal sort – including noises! If the encounter is with a monster of a more intelligent sort, it is up to the DM to not only provide an exciting description but also to correctly act the part of the monster. Rats, for instance, will swarm chitteringly from their burrows – a wave of lice-ridden hunger seeking to consume the adventurrers with their sheer numbers, but easily driven off squealing with blows and fire. Goblins, on the other hand, will skulk and hide in order to ambush and trap the party – fleeing if overmatched, but always ready to set a new snare for the unwary character.

If nothing else, Gygax paints a compelling picture of what it must have been like to play at his table. At the same time, he does, I think, paint the job of the referee as a difficult, even off-putting one.

If all of this seems too much to handle, never fear! Just as your players are learning and gaining real experience at D&D, so too will you be improving your ability as DM. The work necessary to become a master of the art is great, far greater than that necessary to be a top player, but the rewards are proportionate. You will bring untold enjoyment to many players in your role as DM, and all the while you will have the opportunity to exercise your imagination and creative ability to the fullest. May each of your adventure episodes always be a wondrous experience! 

Over the years, I've noted that fewer and fewer roleplayers seem interested in becoming referees, to the point where I frequently hear people bemoaning this fact. I can't speak to the way that most contemporary games present the role of the referee, but, if these complaints are true, I can't help but wonder if it's because they don't make it seem as compelling as Gygax does in the passage above – what a shame!

Sir Pellinore's Advice to Referees

Here's what Sir Pellinore's Book has to say about how to referee, reproduced without any changes. I think it does a good job of showing the overall flavor of the book. 

To start the game you must at least make a town for the adventurers to start in. You can add the world outside the town, kingdoms, orc tribes, wandering monsters, elves, magic places, shrines, treasures, monsters, thieves and all kinds of other adventures for the other players to find. 

In your world don't make it impossible to survive. Since you must tell the other players what's happening and what effects their actions have you are their eyes and ears. Give them all the information you can.

Don't be too generous or it takes the fun of the struggle out of the game.

Don't be too stingy or no one will want to play.

Let the players do what they want unless it is impossible. After all, it's their neck.

Try to be realistic. Read up on the middle ages so you'll get a good idea of how things went then.

Don't make your world too civilized. If there's no monsters around to fight the players will take to robbery to make life interesting.

When you create your area, start by making a map of the area with graphpaper at a scale of 5–10 miles to a square. Then make maps of a larger scale of areas that should be more detailed, like castiles towns etc. Fill in all the smaller details with your imagination when a player comes to them.

Any rules for anything that is not here feel free to make them up. But, remember, because there are no winners or losers don't feel you have to destroy the other players. Everyone can be a winner! So be just and fair!

By Any Other Name

Like most people who got into the hobby in the late 1970s or early '80s, my first roleplaying game was Dungeons & Dragons. However, my second RPG was Gamma World and one of the things that struck me about it at the time was that it didn't have a special name for its referee. For some reason, I'd assumed that, just as D&D has a Dungeon Master, Gamma World would have something equally distinct, perhaps a Mutant Master. That it didn't was a bit of a disappointment. 

I don't know where I'd gotten the idea that the referee in every RPG should have a special name for its referee, because most of the games I encountered in those first years after I'd discovered D&D did not. Generally, they used Game Master, Referee, or even Judge. There were exceptions, of course, like Top Secret's Administrator and Call of Cthulhu's Keeper of Arcane Lore, but they were actually few and far between.

Are there any other notable examples of RPGs from prior to 1990 or so that use an unusual name for their referees?

In Defense of the Killer DM

One of the unique – and often frustrating – things about roleplaying games as a form of entertainment is how variable one's experience of them can be. More so than other types of games, one's enjoyment of an RPG is heavily dependent on the referee. In this, an imaginative, quick-thinking referee is every bit as important as solid rules. Of course, imaginative, quick-thinking players are vital too, but, for the purposes of this post, I want to focus on the referee.

If a good referee contributes to one's enjoyment of a roleplaying game, it stands to reason that a bad one can detract from it. I don't think this is controversial, though I suspect there's likely disagreement over just what constitutes a "bad" referee. Even so, I frequently hear criticism of a particular species of bad referee, the so-called "Killer DM." The Killer DM is the kind of referee who supposedly delights in torturing the characters in his campaign by presenting them with unfair fights and unavoidable traps, not to mention belligerent and unhelpful NPCs. He's a cruel tyrant rather than the impartial arbiter demanded by the role of referee.

Fear of the Killer DM is widespread – so widespread, in fact, that many RPGs not only contain explicit admonitions against the types of behaviors that are the purported hallmarks of the species, but often design their rules in such a way as to give them rather than the referee the final say on how things are to be adjudicated in the game. Lest anyone think this is simply a grognardly rant against "kids today," I am quick to point out that fear of the Killer DM goes back decades and the changes to the presentation of games I mention above are almost as old. 

Nevertheless, I do think that fear – or at least vocal disapproval – of the Killer DM is more commonplace than ever, despite (or perhaps because of) the near-extinction of the species. Roleplayers continue to talk about the Killer DM as if one were likely to encounter him lurking beneath every gaming table, waiting for his chance to strike, but how often is he actually seen in the wild in the 21st century? In my experience, the Killer DM is now mostly a myth and a cautionary tale rather than an ever-present danger against whose sadistic power-trips games must be designed to guard. 

All that said, I'd like to come to the defense of the Killer DM, or at least to that sub-species of him I encountered several times over the course of my decades in the hobby and for whom I retain a certain affection. The most memorable example of the Killer DM of my acquaintance was a childhood friend's teenaged older brother. He, along with their father, would sometimes referee adventures for us and it was always a struggle to survive them. There was also an older fellow who'd regularly show up to the local library's games days and referee an incredibly deadly dungeon crawl for anyone who dared to take a seat at his table. My old college roommate was cut from similar cloth and I distinctly remember many hours spent braving his insidious labyrinths.

Two things unite all these referees. First, they ran their games in a ruthless fashion and definitely took delight in watching characters suffer as a result of the bad decisions of their players. Second, their games were a lot of fun, in large part because they were a challenge. Whereas nowadays I think the emphasis is placed more on the roleplaying aspect of RPGs, in the past it was not at all uncommon to find who referees who emphasized the game aspect. For referees of this sort, an adventure was a battle of wits (and luck) between the referee and the players. Their fun was had in coming up with cleverly fiendish ways to test the intelligence, imagination, and perseverance of the players – and I can attest to the fact that it was indeed fun.

I don't think there's as much interest in (or tolerance for) this style of play anymore. This is the culture out of which things like Grimtooth's Traps arose and, if you know that legendary product, you might have better insight into the kind of Killer DM of whom I am still fond. The games these referees ran are not my preferred style of play, then or now. Yet, I find myself regularly reminded of them and the joy my friends and I took in occasionally besting them on their home turf. I think even they secretly enjoyed seeing us grind out a hard-earned victory once in a while, because they knew better than anyone how difficult it was to do that. 

Tom Moldvay claimed in his Basic Rulebook that "winning" and "losing" didn't apply to D&D – but that's only because he never played with my friend's older brother. Anyone whose character made it out of one of his dungeons alive knew well what it meant to win.

Random Roll: PHB, p. 8

Beginning on page 7 of the AD&D Players Handbook, there's a lengthy section entitled simply "The Game," in which Gary Gygax lays out something approximating his understanding of what Advanced Dungeons & Dragons is and how it's meant to be played. It's actually a very good section, devoid of most of the bluster and bombast that unfortunately accompanied many of Gygax's other forays into this topic. I could easily devote many posts to this section (and might well do so in the future), but, for the moment, I wish to focus on a single paragraph toward the end of this section, in which Gygax talks about the role of the referee in using the AD&D rules to create and maintain a campaign.

This game is unlike chess in that the rules are not cut and dried. In many places, they are guidelines and suggested methods only. This is part of the attraction of ADVANCED DUNGEONS & DRAGONS, and it is integral to the game.

Chess is a frequently used reference point in Gygax's discussion of the rules of AD&D, most infamously in his November 1982 essay, "Poker, Chess, and the AD&D System." Here, chess represents a game with clear, objective, and unchanging – perhaps even unchangeable – set of rules, in contrast to AD&D whose rules include many "guidelines and suggested methods only." I find this interesting, because, it initially seems as if the general tenor of what Gygax is saying comports with that of OD&D, but, as we shall see, there are significant differences.

Rules not understood should have appropriate questions directed to the publisher;

So much for "why have us do any more of your imagining for you?" seen in the afterword of Volume 3 of OD&D. It's quite a sea-change in approach.

disputes with the Dungeon Master are another matter entirely. THE REFEREE IS THE FINAL ARBITER OF ALL AFFAIRS OF HIS OR HER CAMPAIGN. Participants have no recourse to the publisher, but they do have ultimate recourse – since the most effective protest is withdrawal from the offending campaign.

That said, I can't help but agree with Gygax here, even if I wouldn't have deployed all capitals in stating it. His advice about dealing with bad referees is practical and effective. I have seen it used several times over the course of my years in the hobby (never against me, of course!). I sometimes think that, had this advice been followed more readily, fewer gamers would today have so many stories of tyrannical referees.

Each campaign is a specially tailored affair. While it is drawn by the referee upon the outlines of the three books which comprise ADVANCED DUNGEONS & DRAGONS, the players add the color and details, so the campaign must ultimately please all participants. It is their unique world.

I like this, though I am fairly certain that Gygax intended a greater degree of uniformity between campaigns than his reference to "specially tailored" might suggest. Nevertheless, his statement that "the campaign must ultimately please all participants" is important. I doubt he meant that it's the duty of the referee to assume that everything always goes the preferred way of the players (and their characters). Rather, he seems to mean that everyone involved, players and referee alike, should have a stake in the campaign and its continuance. That is eminently good advice and true, at least in my own experience.

You, the reader, as a member of the campaign community, do not belong if the game seems wrong in any major aspect. Withdraw and begin your own campaign by creating a milieu which suits you and the group which you must form to enjoy the creation. (And perhaps you will find that preparation of your own milieu creates a bit more sympathy for the efforts of the offending referee …)

I like this as well. Truly, I think more players should try their hands at refereeing, not merely for the reasons Gygax includes in parenthesis but also because I sometimes feel as if many players expect campaigns to cater to their own preferences. Over the years, I've played in several campaigns that, for various reasons, weren't to my taste. In every instance, I ultimately bowed out of the campaign rather than attempting to sway the referee to change those aspects of it that I didn't like. That strikes me as both polite and, dare I say it, adult. If you don't like something, don't partake of it; make your own thing that you do like and have fun with it. Life is too short to bother with games (of all things) that you don't enjoy and whining to get your own way does you no credit.

Random Roll: DMG, p. 230

The afterword of the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Dungeon Masters Guide, found on page 230 is another one of those passages that bears examination. In it, Gary Gygax attempts to present a summation of his overall philosophy toward both AD&D and gaming in general. He begins by stating that

IT IS THE SPIRIT OF THE GAME, NOT THE LETTER OF THE RULES WHICH IS IMPORTANT. NEVER HOLD TO THE LETTER WRITTEN, NOR ALLOW SOME BARRACKS ROOM LAWYER TO FORCE QUOTATIONS FROM THE RULE BOOK UPON YOU, IF IT GOES AGAINST THE OBVIOUS INTENT OF THE GAME.

These two sentences are reminiscent of similar passages in OD&D, which not only establish that the referee is the final arbiter of how the rules are to be interpreted in his campaign but also to resist being bullied by players in making such interpretations. I think statements like these can be easily misinterpreted and exaggerated to give the impression that Gygax was a dictatorial referee who would brook no dissent, which is not only untrue but unfair. Speaking of which, he offers us another such sentence.

AS YOU HEW THE LINE WITH RESPECT TO CONFORMITY TO MAJOR SYSTEMS AND UNIFORMITY OF PLAY IN GENERAL, ALSO BE CERTAIN THE GAME IS MASTERED BY YOU AND NOT BY YOUR PLAYERS. 

From context, I think it's pretty clear that what Gygax is counseling here is simply that a good game rests on a foundation of consistency, both in its rules and its rules interpretations, hence his notion that "the game is to be mastered by you," which is to say, the referee. Though Gygax often presented himself, for business reasons, as a champion of rules uniformity in AD&D, I can't shake the feeling that, in his heart of hearts, his concern was simply that games have rules that provided an intelligible basis on which to make decisions for their characters. The referee plays a vital role in ensuring this – indeed it is his primary occupation.

WITHIN THE BROAD PARAMETERS GIVEN IN THE ADVANCED DUNGEONS & DRAGONS VOLUMES, YOU ARE CREATOR AND FINAL ARBITER. BY ORDERING THINGS AS THEY SHOULD BE, THE GAME AS A WHOLE FIRST, YOUR CAMPAIGN NEXT, AND YOUR PARTICIPANTS THEREAFTER, YOU WILL BE PLAYING ADVANCED DUNGEONS & DRAGONS AS IT WAS MEANT TO BE. 

I think it interesting that Gygax pairs "creator" with "final arbiter." Clearly, he considered both to be important parts of the referee's job. The act of creation is not passive; Gygax did not see the referee of AD&D as simply a rules arbiter and interpreter but as an active participant on par with the players. It's also interesting that Gygax nevertheless places "the game as a whole" ahead of the referee's campaign in terms of "ordering things as they should be." I'm not quite sure what to make of that. Is this an instance of "TSR Gary" intruding or is something else going on? 

MAY YOU FIND AS MUCH PLEASURE IN SO DOING AS THE REST OF US DO!

Ultimately, this is why I retain a fondness for Gary Gygax, despite all those times when he spoke in a way that reinforced people's worst opinions of him. At the end of the day, Gygax loved games and derived a great deal of pleasure playing them with others. I recall that, on several occasions, when publicly asked how he wanted to be remembered, he said something very close to what I just wrote. He wanted to be remembered as someone who loved playing and making games. I have no doubt that, when you strip away everything else – the business success, the cranky commentary, the disputes with others – that's what we're left with. It's something that comes through often in Gygax's writing in the Dungeon Masters Guide and I'd like to try and highlight it a bit more often, because it's important to recall.
 

Different Worlds: Issue #8

Issue #8 of Different Worlds (June/July 1980) features a cover by Steve Oliff and opens with an article by Robert Harder entitled "Teaching Role-Playing," another entry in the continuing "Better Game Mastering" series. Despite its title, the article is not about how to teach someone to play a RPG but rather about the process of becoming and developing one's skills as a Game Master. I have a fondness for these kinds of articles, especially older ones, since they sometimes offer unique perspectives on the art of refereeing. Harder has a number of worthy insights to share, including his emphasis a gaming session as a "social gathering" and his belief that a session "should not exceed three hours." The latter point is one I feel very keenly these, though I would never have accepted it in my youth, when four to six hours – or longer – was a more common length.

John T. Sapienza has written D&D variant article called "Sleep vs. Mixed Parties." Sapienza's concern is that, as written, the sleep spell is difficult to adjudicate against enemies with mixed hit dice. Consequently, he proposes rewriting the spell to be both clearer and somewhat less powerful, while also leaving the door open to higher-level versions of the spell. I don't have much to say about Sapienza's specific point, but I will say that I generally appreciate seeing articles like this, since they reflect a culture of play and reveal the idiosyncrasies of individual referees. To my mind, this is where roleplaying lives and it ought to be applauded.

"Alien and Starships & Spacemen" by Leonard Kanterman is a both a review of the 1979 science fiction film, Alien, and a scenario inspired by it for use with the aforementioned RPG. It's fine for what it is, though it's very grim for a game inspired by the original series of Star Trek. John T. Sapienza re-appears with another article, "Talent Tables," intended as a follow-up to his "Developing a Character's Appearance" piece in issue #5. This article is in a similar vein, providing a D1000 table that confers minor (+1 or +2) bonuses in a wide variety of situations to characters. For my tastes, it's a lot of unnecessary work for very little mechanical benefit, but, again, I think articles like this arose out of the play of individual campaigns and, for that reason alone, I have a certain affection for them nonetheless. Sapienza also penned a review of four RPG products from a company called Bearhug Game Accessories. The products are a series of counters for keeping track of equipment and treasure – an idea I've seen in other contexts and that definitely has something to recommend it.

Lewis Pulsipher's "Defining the Campaign: Game Master Styles" is an overview of the kinds of decisions a referee must make in describing his campaign, such its degrees of believability, risk, reward, the extent to which the referee is truly impartial, and so on. Pulsipher does a good job, I think, of outlining many of the big questions. Simon Magister's "Composite Bows" is a historical article about the development and use of these weapons and interesting if you're into this kind of thing. There's a review of Heritage's Dungeon Dwellers line of miniatures by – guess who? – John T. Sapienza. I didn't own many of this line, but I enjoy retrospectives on old school minis like this; they're a terrific blast of nostalgia.

Anders Swenson provides a very positive review of the D&D module The Keep on the Borderlands. Ron Weaver's "Zelan the Beast" is a Gloranthan cult for RuneQuest. Dave Arneson and Steve Perrin review the two volumes of Walter William's Tradition of Victory Age of Fighting Sale wargame and RPG. Perrin also reviews Advanced Melee and Wizard by Steve Jackson, both of which he highly praises. Lee Gold, meanwhile, describes "How I Designed Land of the Rising Sun," her RPG of feudal Japan. This is a fine article, since Gold talks not just about how she designed the game's rules but also the process of research, writing, and rewriting that led to the game's final form – very fascinating stuff! "Alignment on Trial" by David R. Dunham is exactly what you'd expect: another entry in the hoary genre of why alignment is too simple/limited/inadequate/just plain dumb. To be fair to Dunham, his perspective is more nuanced than that, though it does at times have the air of a teenager reading philosophy for the first time and suddenly thinking he's thought things no other human has ever thought. 

The issue ends with Gigi D'Arn's column, filled, as ever, with terrific tidbits from gaming's past. For example, it notes that the three volumes of Dave Hargrave's Arduin series have sold 40,000 copies! Not bad. There's also a reference to TSR's ending of its exclusive distribution arrangement with Games Workshop, no doubt a prelude to the establishment of TSR UK. Apropos recent discussions, Gigi notes that the name of SPI's then-upcoming fantasy RPG had run into a trademark snag with Martian Metals, which is not what I was expecting to read. There's also mention that school board of Heber City, Utah has "chucked D&D" (whatever that means in this case) because "townspeople found it un-Christian, communistic, liable to leave players open to Satanic influence, etc." I've said before that I never personally experienced much pushback against RPGs because of their supposed Satanism, but it was apparently a very real thing in some places and this is evidence of that, I guess.

In any case, Different Worlds is clearly growing more confident and interesting. I very much enjoyed this issue and will be curious to see where the magazine goes in future issues.

"Less than Worthy of Honorable Death"

No matter how many times I crack open Gary Gygax's Dungeon Masters Guide, I come across something I don't remember ever having read before. That's probably not literally true, but the book is so large and anarchic in its organization that it's very easy to overlook (or forget) bits of its text. Sometimes, the text in question is insignificant; other times, it's actually vital to understanding some aspect of AD&D's rules. More often, the text is simply amusing and/or provides insight into the mind of Gygax himself. 

And then there are the head scratchers – passages or paragraphs that leave one wondering whether or not to take them seriously. I found one of these the other day as I was seeking out something else entirely from the DMG. In the book's preface, shortly before the credits and acknowledgments section, Gygax offers the following warning:

As this book is the exclusive precinct of the DM, you must view any non-DM player possessing it as something less than worthy of an honorable death. Peeping players there will undoubtedly be, but they are simply lessening their own enjoyment of the game by taking away some of the sense of wonder that would otherwise arise from a game which has rules hidden from participants. It is in your interests, and in theirs, to discourage possession of this book by players. If any of your participants do read herein, it is suggested that you assess them a heavy fee for consulting "sages" and other sources of information not normally attainable by the inhabitants of your milieu. If they express knowledge that could only be garnered by consulting these pages, a magic item or two can be taken as payment – insufficient, but perhaps it will tend to discourage such actions.

I'm genuinely torn between thinking the whole paragraph in jest and thinking that Gygax was being completely serious. Like the Dungeon Masters Guide itself, the paragraph contains both genuine wisdom and absurd bluster. In my youth, I don't think I knew a player of AD&D who didn't own the DMG, it being seen as part of the essential "three-book set" one needed in order to participate in the game. If Gygax were serious in his admonition, very few people heeded him (and, to be honest, I can't imagine that TSR would have wanted to discourage anyone from buying the biggest – and most expensive – of the AD&D hardbacks).

And yet, for all that, there is a kernel of truth in what Gygax wrote. Not knowing is an important part of the fun in almost any RPG campaign; I can remember many occasions when the players' puzzling out something previously unknown to them was the source of much excitement. (Mind you, I feel the referee is a player too and some things should remain unknown even to him.) Secrets, hidden knowledge, and the thrill of discovery are all vital tools in a good referee's repertoire and Gygax is quite right to caution against allowing players to know too much, lest it lessen their own enjoyment. But the "solutions" he advocates, I hope humorously, are small-minded and vindictive. Far from achieving the laudable goal of preserving campaign mysteries, they would, if implemented, only convince players that their referee is petty martinet. I am certain that was not Gygax's intention, but, as with many passages in the Dungeon Masters Guide, who can say?

Retrospective: Gamma World Referee's Screen

I've never been a big fan and, therefore, user of referee's screens. Part of this is practical and part of it is philosophical. On the practical side of things, it's rare that I have a space at the gaming table large enough to accommodate a referee's screen, something that's been true most of my gaming career, with the exception of the days when we used some friends' ping-pong table in their basement. Even then, I wasn't particularly fond of the screen because it reminded me too much of the worst kinds of referees I'd seen. These were the confrontational, us-vs-them guys who took pleasure in killing PCs left and right. And while their use of referee's screens was neither a cause nor likely even a symptom of their unpleasant ways, I nevertheless came to associate the two.

Of course, being a kid, I nevertheless bought a lot of referee's screens; I just rarely used them. Mostly, they sat folded amidst my books and notes. Occasionally, I might crack one open to look at a table I hadn't memorized, but that was rare. I bought them out of a combination of obligation and a desire for whatever additional goodies came packaged with them. I say "obligation" because, as a younger person, I took it as my "responsibility" to have a referee's screen, even if I rarely used it. After all, I was the referee. Silly, I know, but there it is.

On the other hand, the goodies makes more sense, especially in the case of the Gamma World Referee's Screen, which was released in 1981. The screen had two things going for it that make it memorable even today. First is the glorious cover art by Erol Otus, which, to my mind, is an iconic image of what Gamma World is all about: a Mohawked techno-barbarian and her mutant sidekick watching a trio of freakish enemies make use of an ancient highway, while a weird creature flies overhead and a ruined installation can be seen in the distance. I've said before that Gamma World suffers a lot in people's imaginations because it was often illustrated in a way that reduced it either to banality or (worse) comedy. Otus's cover didn't do that, instead giving the setting a queer majesty that overflows with possibilities. I adore it.

The second thing that makes this screen memorable is the 6-page "mini-module" included with it. Entitled "The Albuquerque Starport" and written by Paul Reiche III, it's also an example of something  that gives Gamma World its due. One of the things that's often misunderstood is that Gamma World's apocalypse happens in the 24th century, not the 20th. That's why there are blaster pistols, robots, and other examples of space opera tech littering the ruins of North America. That's also why so many of buildings and other structures from the past still exist more than a century later -- they're made from high-tech materials that could withstand both the weapons of the Apocalypse and the effects of time and tide. Consequently, the post-holocaust world Gamma World depicts isn't bizarre, not just to the characters but to the players. I think that adds a lot to the game's appeal and sets it apart from (and above) most other RPGs in the same genre.

"The Albuquerque Starport" provides an example of what I mean. As its name suggests, it takes place at an old starport buried under the New Mexico desert, complete with a working space shuttle. Exploring the starport, players find all sorts of funky stuff that serves as a reminder that the pre-disaster world was not our own. More importantly, there's that space shuttle that can rocket the PCs away to an orbiting space station infested with "plague zombies." These unfortunate creatures are all the remains of the visitors and crew of the station after they contracted the interstellar Canopus Plague and exist only to infect more living beings with their deadly malady.

The space station is thus, for all intents and purposes, a haunted house and I've found it a surprisingly effective locale, especially as the characters likely have no concept of "space," let alone space travel. I also like the way that it expands the Gamma World setting by implying that, before the End, mankind had expanded beyond the Earth to other worlds and encountered who knows what. In my own campaign back in the day, I used this thin suggestion to introduce some surviving interplanetary colonies that were beginning to take an interest in Earth once more, much to the chagrin and delight of the planet's battered inhabitants. This was also totally unexpected by my players, which is as it should be.