Perils of a DM

     You would not know it by looking at this old bastard, but during the 80's and early 90's, I used to do a lot of role-playing. Of all the facets of the gaming hobby, role-players, like Larpers, are often looked upon dismissively if not with outright disdain by folks who regard miniature gaming as the only legitimate form of gaming. I am proud to not be a member of that snobbish camp. Frankly, those folks do not know what they are missing out on.

  The beauty of role-playing is in watching your characters grow from farmers, peasants, herbalists, and pickpockets into seasoned warriors, healers, spell casters, and rogues. If you are the DM (Dungeon Master), you get to enjoy building the world your group plays in. You as the DM can choose how much to reveal about your world and when to reveal it. You can make a character who seems friendly to the party, but has nothing but ill intentions in his heart. You can make a character that is more than a little rough around the edges towards your players, but he's secretly the hero they need to complete their quest. In short, a DM has total creative control over the game. The only limit is his imagination, or at least, that is what I used to believe.

   This story starts, not last Saturday, the day of the actual game, but the Saturday before that. That night I went to dinner with two of my oldest friends, Robert and Dave. Dave and I have been gaming together since the early 80's, starting with Dungeons & Dragons. Dave has been in both the passenger and the driver seat when it comes to role-playing. He is, in fact, the best DM I know. His games were all-day affairs ending with a rousing dinner among friends. Those were the days! His adventures were multi-layered, unpredictable, and challenging but winnable.

   Robert, on the other hand, has only played in other people's role-playing campaigns. I met him in the early 90's during the fun days of Ravenloft. Though he has never been a DM, he more than appreciates the amount of time and energy a DM puts into preparing scenarios and running games. He is the best kind of player you could ever hope for as a DM. He is willing to play pre-generated characters that fit your scenario. He fully inhabits the character he is given. For example, if he is playing a lawful character, his choices are aligned with the character's moral code, and he will always do what is “right” even when doing what is wrong is easier. Robert is also willing to play the scenario that you have constructed for that session. This used to be a given among role-players. The DM writes the scenario for that session; you, as the player, show up to play in it. Sadly, that is not the case anymore.

   So Dave, Robert, and I were discussing our glory days of role-playing. We talked about some of the greatest moments of our combined role-playing histories, and I could feel my excitement for the hobby building up again. Before I knew it, I was blurting out, “I will run an adventure.” After the initial shock of my declaration, Robert asked, “What rules?” I thought about it for awhile and agreed to try Pathfinder. My local gaming store has all the rule books and supplements, so I could buy everything I needed, learn the basic rules, and write the scenario before the weekend.

   I have always felt that four was the magic number in role-playing, so I asked Dave and Robert if they knew any good players to add to the group. Dave quickly recommended Joel, a former Marine and combat veteran who played his first D&D adventure during a tour of duty in Afghanistan. Though Joel was only in his late 20's, Dave assured me that he was a mature and highly intelligent young man. That took me up to three players. I should have stopped there, content that I had a really good group of men.0, but I had to have a fourth. Robert and Dave could not think of anyone else to join us, so Dave called Joel and asked him if any of his friends would like to join in an upcoming Pathfinder game. Joel said he would ask around and call Dave back. Twenty minutes later, we have our fourth, a young guy (early 20's) named Sam. Joel says that Sam is a “little flighty”, but he assures Dave that he can make Sam “behave.” This should have been a huge red flag, but yours truly had already been infected by the role-playing bug.

   I picked up the materials that night, learned the rules, and broke out a dusty ammo case at the back of my bedroom closet, which had been converted into a carry case for my D&D miniatures (some of the first miniatures I had ever painted ). My nephew Tyler made me a Pathfinder music playlist on YouTube, mostly composed of ambient music from video games that my nephew had played, but that I had never heard of. The music was perfect, nothing too jarring.

   The scenario was basic for this first game: an order of monks were expecting to receive a holy relic for study, but the relic never arrived. Found on the road in the neighboring village was a toppled caravan containing three dead bodies: brethren of the holy order disguised as farmers. The relic was missing. The adventurers were to find out what the neighboring village knew about the incident and look for clues. Then they were supposed to bring what information they could back to the monks. Of course, the investigation would not be without its perils.

   The day of the game, my group and I have a corner of the game store all to ourselves. Robert and Dave were early, and Joel arrived a few minutes later with his friend Sam. These two could not have been more night and day. Joel looked every bit the soldier and carried himself with pride. He was polite and respectful, but he was also clearly enthusiastic about the game. Sam, on the other hand, was the picture of everything I disdain about his generation. His long hair and pimply skin were greasy from not bathing, and he was wearing a well-worn Iron Maiden shirt paired with pajama bottoms and, I cant make these things up, mushroom bedroom slippers. He had a habit of interrupting people when they spoke. He carried one of those fidget spinners in his left hand, and he was very fidgety.

   To make a long story short, we start to play the scenario. Robert, Dave, and Joel quickly settle into the adventure. They ask all the right questions as they proceed with caution throughout the game. They also stay in character. Sam, surprise, surprise, would interrupt the game to ask random, and frankly, stupid questions. “Is she hot? Would I want to pork her?”, in regards to a village wise woman. “Can I stab him and take his money?”, in regards to heavily-armed town guardsman. “Can my character have a flying pig as his pet?”, as he was rolling up his stats. Luckily, everyone in the group was silently en cue with me and responded to Sam's antics by ignoring him.

   Then two hours into play, his antics take a sudden and final turn for the worst. The group of adventurers meet up with the only surviving member of the caravan attack. He tells the group he will join them, and take them in the direction of his friends' attackers. The group has two choices. One, trust the survivor and follow him into what may very well be an ambush, or, refuse and take what knowledge they have gained back to the monks that employed them. The group had a few minutes to talk over their decision, while I grabbed some refreshments for the next leg of the journey.

   When I came back, Joel, Robert, and Dave had decided that they were going to proceed with caution and politely decline the survivor's offer. A wise choice, because the “survivor”, as you may have guessed, was actually one of the bad guys. Reluctantly, I turned to Sam and asked if he would be joining the group in their decision. He quickly told me he was bored with this adventure, and that he wanted more action. His character wanted to go to a brothel (there was not one in this scenario), disguise himself as a woman, and pickpocket from the wealthy clients. The table went silent. Was this kid trying to be funny, and we just missed the punchline? I asked him, in my sternest voice, “Are you serious?”

   He said “Yeah. This scenario is pretty boring. Not enough action. We have only got into two fights, and one of them was with wild dogs.” I replied, “Yes, because you are level one characters. I am trying to take it a little easy on you, so you can have a fair chance to build up your stats.” Then, I said in my nicest voice, “There's more action to come, once you get back to your town.” “I don't want to go back to my town,” he whined. “We have already seen it, and there's nothing to do there. I want to go on my own adventure.” “But you are part of a group,” I reminded him. “This is a scenario where you move along with your group.” This should not have to be explained, I thought to myself. “That's not the way my last Pathfinder game went,” he replied. “Everyone could decide if they wanted to move along with the group or have their own side adventures.” Side adventures? What was this crap? I asked Joel if he had been in any games that we were run like that, and he confirmed that that was pretty common for his Pathfinder group. Then that little twerp dared to interject, “My last DM does not have a problem coming up with side quests on the spot.”

     I am boiling with rage at this point, then a little light comes on. I will show you who can improvise, you little jerk. I smile. Roger and Dave are wide-eyed at this point. They know what's coming. I roll a die. I barely make my roll, but it's enough to accomplish my goal. The villain in disguise quickly plucks a dagger from under his robes and stabs the little bastard's pickpocket character in the kidney. Sam starts to hyperventilate and rolls a die. 'I got it. I got it. My character is saved,” he sneers. “No he is not, kid. You were stabbed in the kidney. No magic potion or prayer in the world is going to save your character now”, I answer. The kid shoots up out of his chair, throws his pencil across the table and yells, “You can't do that. Everyone gets a saving roll.” The crowd in the store are all looking at our table now. I reply, with admitted smugness, “I can do any damn thing that I want to, kid. I am the DM. That makes me God at this table.”

    The kid starts throwing all his dice in his dice bag, as he is mumbling under his breath. I cross my arms in front on me victoriously and sit back in my seat as the little twerp takes his dice bag and his fidget spinner and stomps away to the opposite end of the store. He can't leave because he does not drive, so Joel is ride back home. I looked at Joel and asked him if he wanted to call it a game. Joel looked over at his friend who was slumped over in a chair, pouting, still mumbling under his breath. “Eh,” he said with a shrug. “Sam can cool off. So what happens next, are we all dead?” he asked, enthusiasm still in his voice. I think for a second, then proceed, “Before the assassin can stab you, an arrow flies out of the the forest and lands in your would-be-killer's neck. An archer appears from the forest donning the cloak of the holy order. He hands you a written decree that proves that he has been sent by your employer to aid you in your quest.” Everyone left at the table opens their soda cans and water bottles and tears into their second bag of chips, fuel for the next leg of their journey. You see, Sam, I can improvise too, if given a chance.

Chess or Yahtzee

    I always felt that wargaming was about recreating battles and putting you in the
generals chair. Could you do better than Napoleon at Waterloo or Lee at Gettysburg?
Tactics it was all about tactics.
    Now I know that history is full of random events, that are beyond control
and in our games that aspect is covered by the random roll of the venerable d6.
(on an side note: I find all other poly dice cumbersome and tedious, but more on that in another lament)
We have all rolled box cars trying to rally that important unit or win a crucial melee and seen victory snatched from our hands. So yes there is some randomness in the game, but good tactics still are the dominating factor.
    These days it seems that it's all about luck. These Lion/Dragon Rampant games, roll to see if your Orcs feel like charging or your Elves are in the mood to shoot. Saga, roll the bones to see if your guys can figure out how to form a shieldwall. Black Powder and Hail Caeser, roll to activate your french brigade, you may get yahtzee and suddenly teleport to the other side of the table! "But it's fun and adds a lot of uncertainty to the game", is what people who like this style of play keep telling me.
Rubbish, I say!
    When a game allows some new punk kid to win because he can out roll his veteran opponent it becomes no more than a game of Yahtzee, fit only for kids.
When we use to play WRG Ancients it was the skilled player who knew his army and how to play them that almost always won. In Empire it was the correct use of tactics that won. For goodness sake, even in Warhammer 40,000 the veteran player is at an advantage against the newest pimple with his bare lead army!
    Tactics and homework on your army should nearly always win the day.
    Chess my friends not Yahtzee!

For Pete's Sake, It's called Flock

I have been fortunate enough in my life to meet some fellow gamers who fully embrace the wargaming hobby as a whole. I am talking about guys who research the period, paint their miniatures to A+ quality standards, and make beautiful terrain befitting the scenario or campaigns they are going to play. These fellas elevate gaming to a feast for the eyes and spirit.

People can and do say that painting miniatures does not matter. These lazy bums try to convince others that painting should not be a requirement in this hobby. Yet, what tables do these guys flock to at conventions? Like the rest of us, they are drawn to tables with beautifully painted miniatures and the right terrain to get you in the setting. All of us, from the enthusiatic modeller to the mere plastic pusher, are drawn to the awe factor that each miniature game has potential to be.

Last weekend, I was invited to a 15mm Seven Years War game at my local game store. It's a war that I am often inspired to build for, but the inspiration never surpasess my first batch of newly painted minis for the period. I will be first to admit that the uniforms for certain periods, particuarly this one and the American War for Independence, can be trying to even the most devout modeler. The young man hosting the Seven Years War game had painted up two sizable forces. The figures themselves were wargaming quality, no highlights or washes to add depth, but the sheer number of painted minis on the table, particulalry for this period, was impressive.

There's just one problem. The basing for each stand was one coat of forest green craft paint. No grassing, no highlights, no dirt, just a dark whir of uneven paint. The young man had started painting miniatures about two years ago, so I did not want to be too judgemental. Nevertheless, he asked me what I thought about the minis. He seemed rather proud of them. He was grinning from ear to ear at his accomplishment, and who could blame him. I told him that his painting had vastly improved, which is the truth, compared to other figures he had painted sloppily in the past. But I also noted that the bases were distracting. He was taken aback by this, and, dare I say a little offended. This generation can get offended by the weather, after all. I told him I meant no offense, but that the forest green bases clashed with the standard issue Army blanket he was using for his college-budget terrain.

I took him over to the hobby supplies and proceeded to show him the different grasses he could use for his bases, something that would blend in with Army blanket a little better. What I thought he would take as helpful advice from a seasoned mentor actually ticked him off. He told me that grassing bases "sounded hard". I told him, short of priming and sealing your minis, it was the easiest part of the process. I kindly reminded him that by painting the miniatures and doing a pretty good job on them, that he had done the hardest part. I also told him that grassed bases would really makes his figures pop. I tried my best to be complimentary, but this kid was not having it. "As far as I am concerned, the bases are done," he huffed.

I let it go. We played the game, both of us a little irked, and I went on my way saying nothing more to him about the miniatures as he started packing his pretty minis away. I have seen beautiful figures enhanced by equally beautiful basing, and I have seen, like the miniatures in this Seven Years War game, beautifully painted minis ruined by ugly bases. All the while, I am shaking my head internally, wondering why. If you are going to go through the trouble of painting miniatures, why leave the bases simply painted brown or green? Grass your figures, for Pete's sake! It's cheap and easy to do, and it gives your figures the true look of completion.

Proper conduct for losing

How to take losing.

Now, when I was growing up, if you lost a fight or got beamed by the ball, you dusted yourself off and
got back into the game. When things aren't going well in a miniatures game you take a deep breath and
rethink your strategy. If it's hopeless, like at  the Alamo, then you find a bit of grit and play till the end.
What you don't do is WHINE or grumble like an old woman! 

This weekend we played the battle of Arsuf. One of the new kids, okay so he's almost 30, still a newbie, was going on about the Knights Templer
and how great they were (one history class and suddenly they know it all)  so we let him play them. Well no sooner did my light Arab cav start shooting them then the whing began.
him "But you shoot and run away before I can charge.' me "that's what bow armed cav does. You have to charge and hope I fail my parthain shot test"
Meanwhile ole Tim, also playing crusaders, had moved his crossbows to challege the light cav, Does newbie notice and take head, no he tries to charge again
and gets caught in the open away from his support. My lt cav whittles him down again while my heavy cav charges in a routs him.
newbie 'Crusader Kinghts are crap! Obviously this game system is geared to favor the Arabs! Why do we even waste time with these rules!'
So let's blame the rules for bad tactics, something done by old and new gamers alike. But what bothers me is the WHINING. Stop spoiling the game for everyone else.
Because that is what you are really doing,  For God's sake show a little grit!
Wait till after the game and discuss the pros and cons then.
And this post isn't just about that new kid, there are plenty of older games, but not wiser by any means, who have been doing this crap for years, No sooner do they they lay out their army then the moaning begins, you'd think you were at a funeral, "well clearly I'm out numbered again' (stop taking elite armies), 'I've lost my general, game over for me' (well stop attaching him to the first charge of every game) "That's not fair I didn't realize irt was rough ground"(next time pay attention at the start of the game or learn to ask before pulling a blunder)
Sheeesh