Category: Gaming

Combat is the multiheaded monster we have to slay.  There are so many issues to tackle that it may look like a hydra at first blush.  But, this behemoth can’t be approached head on.  No, combat is too big of a subject and too robust of a terror to be demolished in one fell swoop.  Rather, combat must be slashed along its flanks.  The only to bleed this monster is to unpack why it’s become the elephant in the room and why everyone’s forced to pay homage to the terror at the table.  Defeat it we must if we are to free gaming from the rut that many products have maneuvered us into.

If pulp fiction has taught us anything, it’s that physical conflict is exciting.  The majority of fiction plays up on the interior monologues of the characters and how they process their predicaments.  The problem with all of this is that there isn’t any action and while the drama may be on the edge of your seat, it doesn’t make for good visuals.  But, this is suspense at its finest.  In visual media, you have to rely on dramatic irony as much as music and lighting to convey the interior spaces of the characters.

This puts us in an uncomfortable place in roleplaying games, however.  The inherent problem is that we’re supposed to be friends with the people who share our gaming table and to add that level of intensity to any game can strain the strongest of relationships.  So, how do most games escape that level of mental anguish?  Partially they do it by having little to no rules governing social conflicts.  This includes any experiential rewards for those situations.  The lion’s share of the rules covers the equipment, technology/magic, and combat system’s features of the game.  What’s left over is often advice on how to run the game and enough information to get a flavor of the different roles for characters and their niches in the world.

At stake here is the complete jettisoning of the interior for the exterior.  Conflicts are often resolved on the battlefield with little to no interior conflicts for the characters.  In effect, it’s the detached style of storytelling used in pulps and Ian Flemming’s Bond novels.  And it would be a mistake to ignore that it’s infinitely easier to stick with surface descriptions of interior states than it is to explore deeper.  A fist to the face is a clear indication that the attacker is angry/frustrated with the attacked.

Accompanying the excitement of the physical descriptions of harm beset on foes who in dramatic terms are in dire need of it due to their clear role as the alien “other,” combat is rooted in the thrill of sporting contests and conflicts that keep the tribe safe.  The result is the continued glorification of the warrior/athlete.  This should be expected when you look at the roots of the genre: sword-and-sorcery pulps and miniature wargaming.  The use of miniatures only helps to reinforce the heritage.  Add in the dice throws and the excitement of the outcome that the dice provide and you have a potent mix of physical actions that put the interior dialogues of characters to shame.

Why is this a problem for the RPG genre?  First and foremost, events outside of combat have fewer rules and are left in the hands of the players to interpret the outcome.  Even if the game system has rules to facilitate game play through social encounters, they are often loose and lack the excitement of combat.  Besides, how much of a letdown is it to have a passionate debate get reduced to a handful of rolls between the contestants?  Consider that the specialized roles of the characters in many games revolve around what they can do on the battlefield and not what they can do behind closed doors to grease the wheels of society.

Combat is the juggernaut of the game not just because of the edge cases, but also because it represents brute force and magical might.  The tactical prowess of the players and their characters is at its apex in the heat of combat.  A bit of terse, witty dialogue is preferable to a soliloquy.  The players get to showcase their unique talents at defeating their foes for good.  This isn’t always good for the story, which is why some boss characters often slink away during the battle only to antagonize the characters once more.  But what if you can’t touch your foe no matter what you want to do?  What if their words are always getting the best of you while their influence also keeps you in check?

In many cases, the characters are stuck pounding the hell out of that character’s underlings and followers or those who stand to gain from helping keep the player characters from profiting on their own skills and political clout. Beating the villains into the dirt and saving the townsfolk from their own blindness is a satisfying way to gain their trust, but it puts back at square one: solving all problems with combat.  This can make the game suffer from a formulaic pattern.  That’s a surefire way to boredom.

One of the techniques that writing instructors stress time and again is “show, don’t tell.” Yet, no such piece of advice exists for gamers. In fact, more often than not players tell the gamemaster what their characters are doing while the gamemaster tells the players about the world their characters inhabit. It seems weird that something that would bore an audience to tears in a written format is how many players derive satisfaction in the heat of the moment.

Something that strikes me as being just as strange is that when people talk about their most memorable sessions, they show almost as much as they tell. The characters are more alive with details of what they were doing compared to the actual game session. In many ways, their descriptions are like stories of true events. But, again, this is not the most exciting way to tell a story.

What can gamers learn from this? There are ways to interject showing into the descriptions of the events that occur in a game without taking away anyone’s agency. This is why players are able to describe events as a story rather than a report after the fact. But there should be a way we can draw from this to move beyond a report style of gaming.

If you are unfamiliar with the difference between showing and telling, consider the following descriptions of events:

“My character walks up to the door and I want to check for traps. I rolled a 16.”
“I walk up to the door and examine it for traps with a result of 16.”

The differences are subtle, but one is more active than the other. The first example is a play-by-play report of what the character is going to do and the second is a smoother rendition of the same event that shows. There is nothing inherently wrong with the first method, and this is often the way most game sessions go as there is a need to pause to let people know what is going on in any particular game.

If you trust your players or gamemaster enough, you can show these actions and trust that neither side is trying to circumvent any of the rules. After all, if there are any adjustments due to situational circumstances, there should be little reason to believe the gamemaster is cheating. This also requires the gamemaster shows rather than tells what the world looks like.

In this instance, it requires the gamemaster does not just provide a list of details for what the room, town, or dungeon looks like. A 10’ wide corridor with moss is boring after a while, but if you say that the moss is growing or creeping up the walls, you give a description that feels alive and more active. One of the techniques that keeps descriptions from moving from a showing to a telling is the verbs used. Do the objects interact with one another, or are they just present? If they interact, then you are showing.

Telling is often passive and does not come across as vividly. Veteran gamemasters are often great at doing this, but when players make the transition to the other side of the screen they often tell as that is the mode they have learned to operate from when playing a roleplaying game. Showing is a skill that people have to develop as we are used to reporting what has happened in the past. This is as much caused by how we learn to receive news as it is the way our brains process stimuli and weed out the information it doesn’t think is important, like how things interact with each other unless the event affects the observer.

Another area where showing and not telling comes in handy is in interior dialogues with a character. We might not be able to show the interior of a character’s thoughts, but we can show how he acts as a result of them. Even if the process is mostly in the character’s head, there are a few tricks to help make these moments dramatic and active. Most of these tricks are the same as those outlined above. What is important to remember is that the events have to be actions if you want to retain the excitement.

To make it more mysterious, you can limit who gets the information for what goes on in the character’s head. However, that can lead to other problems with players being left out of some of the action. That is where letting the players see the results without seeing the cause comes in handy. It is just like the movies, only better because it is unfolding in real time.

So, when someone gives a dry description, you can tell them “Don’t tell me about your character, show me.”

If the common concept of the Lawful Good alignment is the saintly figure of the priest who overflows with compassion and has taken vows of poverty or charity, the holy warrior that is the paladin, and the heavenly beings occupying the celestial realms. There is no doubt that these are paragons of the alignment. Not everyone can serve as the epitome of the alignment’s tenets, however. Far and few between could even hold to such a standard. To make your game feel like a living, breathing world, some characters must fall short of the ideal but still retain most of the core of the alignment.

Not everyone can hold to the ideal, so what do others do to exhibit the alignment? The rest of the adherents might strive to embody the ideals, but their shortcomings mean their interpretations as to what they should do and how they act are seen through a lens of the person’s background. This means that what many Lawful Good characters do falls short in reality, especially if viewed by someone else without the same set of experiences. Some of the characters may be fully aware of their failings. To compensate for the difference, they are hyper vigilant.

The intolerant zealot is a character who is ruled by his passion. At his core, he is filled with compassion for the tenets of his alignment. It is through this love of his ideals and convictions that he works to save his culture and the populace from corruption and strengthen the worship others have for his ideals. It drives him to extol the benefits of a well ordered and benevolent society and to police it lest it becomes lost to the ages. When confronted with deviance, his response is not to express melancholic feelings. His compassion becomes anger directed at and borne of the social ills caused by chaos and evil which lead to harm of the individual or the collective.

Anyone on the wrong side of this fury experiences the zealot as being a member of the awful good. The intolerant zealot is so convinced of the rightness of his tenets that he does not see his concerns as an imposition of his views on others. In fact, he may not even be aware of his actions affect on others. The deviation from the “true path” is the blasphemy or heresy that imperils the soul, so it must be stamped out before it takes root.

The intolerant zealot routinely expresses his views at every opportunity. This goes along with his self-appointment as society’s watchdog. The slightest failing is subject to an espousal of doctrine or philosophy. A keen eye is developed for such scrutiny to be possible. What is the purpose of this? It is fear of the damning of the soul or society to irrevocable and eternal loss. With a belief that such is the gravity of what is at stake, what loving and compassionate Lawful Good character would not act on the individual’s or society’s behalf? Thus, the tom foolery must be corrected.

It is possible that this view conflicts with the alignment’s core edicts of compassion and tolerance? Maybe, but the zealot will be quick to point out his tolerance of others so long as what they do is lawful and promotes the greater good. Questioning whether something does this is not a rejection of anything new or different. For the zealot, people or laws are created to serve the greater good in an orderly fashion.

One can easily envision how merely being in the presence of an intolerant zealot can be an insufferably torture. The nitpicking of the wrongs of society and one’s on companions is as irritating as it is draining. Such a situation can lead to a group dynamic rife with tension, which may explain why so few players will consider such a character is Lawful Good. Characters in such a group may find themselves trapped in the uncomfortable position of needing to defend or explain their actions on a near-continuous basis.

Unless the intolerant zealot has a common goal or affiliation with the group, any cohesion the group may have will likely evaporate at the first perceived deviance from the intolerant zealot’s lofty ideals. Amongst a group of player characters, this might be unsuitable as a choice. The problem is the risk that the tension between the characters might carry over to non-gaming interactions between the players that may require the gamemaster to intervene in both the game and outside of it. There are ways to work around this if a player insists on following an interpretation this strict. If there is a lighter tone to the campaign, then a comedic gap between the intolerant zealot’s worldview and his reality can make the game more bearable when such a well meaning but abrasive personality is part of the group dynamic. When the group then encounters non-player characters, there can be a collective groan as the likely outcome is well guessed at in advance. Another option is to involve a lot of character building scenes and even flashbacks as part of the background story to let the other players in on the reasons and motivations for the intolerant zealot’s behavior so that whatever transpires between the characters stays within the framework of the game world.

As a villain, the intolerant zealot makes an excellent choice for Lawful Good antagonists. From an outside perspective, the character’s motivations are too rigid to be recognized as being rooted in the alignment’s tenets. While he might not outright terrorize his self-appointed charges, it does not mean he is not doing just that. Such a character is more likely to visit everyone under his sway to ensure they toe the line. What ultimately keeps the people in line is the fear of punishment. They might have more fear of the retributions of their deity than the intolerant zealot. After all, this is the very retribution which the intolerant is trying to save the people from.

The intolerant zealot might not do much to discourage such a mindset in others – if he is aware of it at all. Depending on the society, the intolerant zealot may be given more power, not less. The populace may very well see the character as an emissary of their deity, making it easier for him to preserve the souls of the people or their culture while risking flirtation in developing a cult of personality around the intolerant zealot. Such a villain is empowered by legal and moral authority to enact his policies. So long as this does not lead to abuse of power, the character is still Lawful Good.

Whether such powers were usurped or not is of no consequence so long as the means to gain that power were not overtly dishonest. After all, the zealot prides himself on his honesty and likely used it to secure his power base. The confidence he and others have in his morality is how he got here in the first place. For the intolerant zealot, this confidence is often resolute and unwavering, allowing the character to exude it in his speech and mannerisms. So long as the intolerant zealot has not transgressed, the illusion is the lie perpetuated by those believing it. Should he be able to do so, the intolerant zealot will use what he sees as a self-delusion as a method to guide the person to the correct path. The justification for this is that he did not create such a view; if it can be used to promote the greater good and an orderly society, then it is a loving gesture on the intolerant zealot’s part. Eventually the scales should fall from the individual’s eyes.

Discipline is an oft used tool for the intolerant zealot. Both components of the alignment require it, with it being known as restraint when referring to good. Not all intolerant zealots will use such a tool or love to do so. It is only a necessity to enforce discipline when an offender cannot keep his ways upon the purity of the alignment’s ideals. Nobody enjoys pain and the intolerant zealot knows this. That said, he resigns himself to the task out of a belief that punishment of the body teaches the mind the lesson of restraint. The intolerant zealot metes out justice in the same manner as a parent disciplining a child. In fact, the intolerant zealot may view his stewardship of his society as a parental one.
Another way in which the intolerant zealot remains Lawful Good is that he never pushes for a punishment that exceeds the law or surpasses the crime. The point of serving the greater good would be lost, rendering the effectiveness of the lesson to a diluted state. Keep in mind that the character desires to curb chaos and evil tendencies before they take hold in the community. The intolerant zealot is afraid of crossing a line wherein any punishment carried out becomes an act of evil.

Given the propensity to seek out and quash behaviors that threaten the social order and greater good, it would be easy to believe that the intolerant zealot would use any means at his disposal. This is not the case. Some acts are so abhorrent that not even the intolerant zealot can justify. If he can, he is no longer Lawful Good. At best, the character will use questionable methods, but they must still be legally acceptable when rooting out the bad seeds. Again, the methods are used to prevent moral decay and corruption that helps his fellow citizens keep the faith in the value of the Lawful Good tenets.

The intolerant zealot has to view the administration of justice symbolically in order to carry it out. Otherwise it feels too personal. If he is carrying out the corporal act, he is not flogging an individual; rather he is flogging the deviance out of the person. Yes, this is dangerous territory. The intolerant zealot cannot take solace in the symbolic role. Giving in to that temptation is a form of justification used to distance himself from the violence he is parceling out. The key thought behind this must remain that the use of the rod applied justly and as needed serves as a lasting reminder that the pain the transgression caused others will be visited upon the offender. They received a taste of the suffering the lawbreaker’s actions caused as a lesson; hence the reason the justice cannot be personal.

Up until this point, the focus has been on the visceral. Is this what the intolerant zealot defaults to? Does the punishment have to be physical? No. The intolerant zealot prefers verbal instruction and correction. Physical punishments are seen as a last resort. They received so much emphasis because the intolerant zealot must not shy away from the hard tasks. The severity of the infraction must be weighed, but the effectiveness of the disciplinary methods must also face the same scrutiny to see if they will prevent future instances of the infraction. The intolerant zealot wants to bring the wayward back into the fold, not drive them further from the flock.

When Good Zealots go Bad

You probably noticed how tenuous this position is within the Lawful Good alignment. Most zealots eventually go too far in their methods. When this happens, people remember why they cannot stand the character. The problem is that ultimately for many zealots nothing is good enough for the intolerant zealot’s exacting standards of purity. Zealots are still mortal and subject to all the flaws that entails – another reason they try to be impersonal when carrying out some offices. When they can no longer keep their emotions from overruling their reason in pursuing their ideals, they cease to be Lawful Good.

Such individuals may admit that their actions are harsh, but claim that they are misunderstood. They are often blind to their own faults. Many intolerant zealots reason that if people only knew the truth the way they do, it would be clear how much they love their faith and country and they have the best of intentions. The intolerant zealot is quick to point out that there needs to be someone to watch over society and protect from being frayed. The best way to do this is a vigilant policing from within and without. When the intolerant zealot takes it upon himself to shoulder the deity of holding the line for the community, he often does so without anyone to reign him in. This leaves him to judge what qualifies as an evil or chaotic element seeping into his beloved community should his vigilance fail.

Perhaps, then, it is fitting that the intolerant zealot is aware of the challenges and that he cannot hold back the darkness on his own. Like-minded zealots will thus band together in order to increase their efforts and as a means of protection. Thus it is rare that an intolerant zealot will be encountered alone. Worse, such insulation serves to unmoor the group from its original tenets and creates a gap between the zealot and their society. Banding together serves several functions: it keeps the intolerant zealots from giving in to temptations, a way to receive moral support, and a method by which they can organize. All of these things further isolate them from the very people they believe they are saving.

While all zealots have a dim view of the world’s moral state, those who have gone too far (and thus make suitable villains) have an exceptionally grim outlook. They have all but abandoned their alignment. These zealots feel they must do whatever it takes to fight against the moral decay at all costs. Such characters are close to becoming irredeemable fallen heroes. Once they cross the line to use any tactic to get their point across, the character stops being Lawful Good. Justifying the razing of a town to save the nation at large is neither lawful nor promoting the greater good. Even the possessed can be redeemed. The only way for this character to return to the alignment’s tenets is to give up the ghost to rid society of its ills. To continue is folly and eventually will lead to the character losing himself.

The “Sins” of Time

The acts of today are the crimes of tomorrow. The sin of time is not any actual misdeed on the part of an individual. Rather, it is the reevaluation of the past based on the evolution of a culture. This moral interpretation of the culture’s history is something modern societies are used to. Each generation in its search for identity to distinguish it from its forebears holds a critical light on the past. This is not just a modern phenomenon, however. It is more noticeable with our modern technology. The stories of the past are not just told to keep the traditions alive. Each retelling of the story is couched in the language of the writer’s or speaker’s time.

The lens of time changes perspective, for some it may be a myopic one. Who killed Julius Caesar, why did it happen, and did he play an active role in his own death to gain a type of immortality? While historians have a plausible reason for their speculations, they are still interpretations of the available data. The same holds true for the thought process behind Alexander the Great’s decision to kill his father and seize control of Macedonia. Even with what evidence that still remains, no one can ever examine the contents of Alexander’s mind. The two men were products of their respective ages. What constituted lawful or good behavior for them does not necessarily translate to today. The inferences on the acts of history’s great figures have been viewed through the thought process of the day.

The very nature of human cultures’ tendencies to change with such rapidity means that today’s heroes may very well be tomorrow’s villains. With the revelation of new information or better technologies which allow deeper understanding, the views held often change. The shift may be gradual or abrupt, depending on how the new perspective comes about. There are those who will resist a cultural shock that knocks their lives off of their pedestals, but it is what the following generations believe that determine the outcome. The Victorians didn’t write about their era, they wrote about their parents’ and the social problems that resulted from past actions that affected Victorian life, just like the Romantics who rebelled against the Enlightenment did. The American and French revolutions of the eighteenth century are obvious forms of social shifts. In France, the Bastille became a symbol of tyranny and it was demonized as a place that held political prisoners; despite if this was true, such was the accepted view of the period. The shift in what had been and no longer was acceptable became symbolized in the structure and reached a critical point that the political and cultural structure could not be sustained.

The Lawful Good character born into a Lawful Evil society was used to show the concepts for how what one sees as the tenets of the alignment are subjective and can slide into another alignment. The hypothetical caricatures were without flaw to highlight the differences between the strict interpretations of the alignments. By themselves, the conceptual views are purified versions free of all their potential nuances.

The history of the country is this: long ago, forces loyal to Chaotic deities besieged the nation. The theocratic ruling council had always been a fractured lot. Invasion brought the council to its knees. The most prominent churches had a martial quality to them. One god was Lawful Good, the other Lawful Evil. Both had a common enemy before them. The two churches set aside their differences in order to preserve their system of government and its laws.

The invading humanoids had a semblance of a plan: drive a wedge between the council’s factions to distract them and keep cooperation from taking root. In such a state, the theocratic council would fall while the forces of Chaos did as they wished. It almost succeeded. The invaders had not considered that the more Lawfully-minded churches would make concessions amongst themselves. The combined might and codified systems aided the parties involved in planning counterattacks. Seeing that this was a war of annihilation, the terms stipulated that while genocide was not allowed, forced labor and bondage in perpetuity until captured combatants could be released as law-abiding souls was.

Contingency plans by the clergy of the Lawful Evil deity were enacted as the tide turned to favor the theocratic council. In a few key battles, the Lawful Evil troops were “delayed” or “ambushed” by pockets of humanoid units. The Lawful Good divisions most at risk were those of the church leaders. In a few cases, Lawful Evil leaders feigned incompetence and pulled their troops out of position, exposing their allies’ flanks to the enemy. The Lawful Evil clergy also used a couple of well placed assassinations to gain a clear majority. The deaths were publicly lamented and vows were sworn to honor the fallen by the Lawful Evil church. When the dust settled, the nation was in the hands of the Lawful Evil clergy, who were heralded as saviors.

With so few remaining to oppose their ascendency, the church was viewed as valiant heroes for the token members of other clergies they helped save. The clergy did nothing to dissuade the perception; in fact, they encouraged it. The Lawful Evil church bided its time as it slowly made changes which made it even more difficult to break their hold on power. As the remaining heroes of the various clergies died from old age, the institutions which played the greatest role in the nation’s survival were imbued with the credit. Through subtle manipulation, the Lawful Evil church received the lion’s share of favorability. When enough of a cultural shift had been engineered through the laws, the other churches faced sanctions that led to their criminalization. All other faiths became branded as enemies of the state eventually.

The enslavement became codified and, other than an occasional token figure, none of the humanoids were deemed capable of rehabilitation. The Lawful Evil church found it was to its advantage to keep the humanoids as chattel. Any frustrations a person had could be taken out on the enslaved. A few rumors of potential uprisings and even the occasional group escape went a long way in cultivating the xenophobia and paranoia necessary to institute draconian measures and legalized cruelty for anyone who does not contribute to the efforts to rehabilitate the enslaved creatures.

For the Lawful Good character, it is quite possible to engage in the codified institutions. The acts are couched in words like “defense,” “duty,” and “rehabilitation” to justify the character’s behavior. The interests of the state in perpetuation of its existence have used indoctrination and a skillful campaign of propaganda that promotes the greatest good of the populace at large. In this manner, the character can be a staunch supporter of the state (and thus become a potential villain) until learning the truth from outside of the government’s official channels.

In the point of their history in Gulliver’s Travels, the Lilliputians had always hated their enemies because of their scandalous beliefs. That was the way things had always been. Most were aware of the root cause for the dispute, but years of blindness to their own culpability prevented them from resolving the issue. Miscommunications combined with social shifts and the passage of time magnified the anger and distorted the historical truth. As a result, the true cause of the feud was all but lost in the heated rhetoric that became a prelude to war. Gulliver’s presence only sped up the timetable.

There may be some truth to the adage that history is written by the winner, but it is the job of the historian to rewrite it without bias. American history is not immune though many wish otherwise. Part of the reason extends into a more mundane reality: the changing nature of language. Colloquialisms and references to contemporary events fill the ages of any given document. They are, after all, products of their time. We use them as a species because they convey ideas quicker than other phrases might deliver. Shakespeare did the same with his humorous characters often receiving many of the lines. In part, this was to appeal to a broad audience, but humor requires a person remains topical for mass audiences. Some of these expressions, along with the writer’s bias, have to be translated or filtered out to get to the truth or reasons behind the words. The way to do this is to unpack the meanings and untangle the writer’s feeling from the event, not because such emotions are unimportant, but that they need to be placed in proper context to fully appreciate what they connote about the era.

Social shifts also spark debates. Change for the sake of change is as terrible as doing what others have always done without question. Many of these debates revolve around the status of social/racial/religious or other minority groups within the social fabric. There are also the issues of biological and reproductive rights and laws of who can own weapons. Every one of these issues serves as a potential spark to ignite passions and cause the tension to threaten stability. The requirements for governments to step in and make rulings on the traditional habits as well as the implementations and reasoning of laws and passage of time means that everyone involved is a potential villain in the eyes of the future.

Religion is not exempt from this. Is the faith as a whole contrary to our values or how it is interpreted by the believers of the age? Ask Martin Luther. He was a priest and challenged doctrine with his ninety-five theses. What about the split between Sunni and Shia? We may think in concepts, but language shapes how we transmit those thoughts to others. We cannot predict how people perceive those words when in the same room. How do we do so with a century or more separating speaker from audience? Some terms and words become obsolete or shift in meaning, deepening the potential for misreading and confusion. If this happens in the real world, how might the faiths of your game world interpret their holy texts and doctrines?

So, what does it mean to be Lawful Good? If you were the Lawful Good character in the Lawful Evil dominated country, how would you perceive the world without outside interference, and what would you do?