Dicember: Parting Thoughts

If you missed the first post, I am participating the the #DICEMBER blogging challenge in which I provide some thoughts on a set of pre-ordained prompts. Like last time, there is no guarantee that these ideas will be good, much less complete. But last time was too easy. I was just doing basic word association. To make it a teensy bit more interesting, I am going to double-up. I will address two prompts at a time. Enjoy.

#22-#23 - The Slow Door

I try to minimize the doors in my dungeons. When the players have multiple exits from a room, opening those exits provide more sensory information to the players and allow them to make a meaningful choice. For instance, imagine the players are in a room with three exits; the first exit leads into utter darkness but it sounds like wind is rustling far in the distance that direction; the second leads down a well-lit stairway, the mauve carpeting speckled with green, gooey stains; and the third leads to a warehouse piled high with sealed wooden boxes and the inexplicable smell of baked goods. If the players don’t fall prey to sensory overload, they may start to speculate about what the rooms contain and which they should enter first. But what if we added wooden doors in front of each exit? Now they might be able to tell that the first door doesn’t have light behind it, and the faint sounds are even more faint; the second doesn’t provide much of a clue, if any; and the third might still have the smell of baked goods. Information-choice-impact, which are at the core of the types of games I enjoy, rely on information for players to make choices. Sure, they could open each door before choosing, but why add the doors in the first place. However, please don’t misconstrue my statement as being universally anti-door. On the contrary,

Doors should be added intentionally. Secret doors are a classic bit of dungeon-door-design that adds something to a dungeon. But what about a door with a huge knocker, practically begging the players to alert whoever is on the other side to their presence? Or a sentient, talking door that has to agree to unlock to let anyone through? Or just the classic locked door? Doors can hide information or lock an area behind some sort of challenge to be overcome. But here is an additional type of door to add to your dungeons, and a bit of guidance on how I would use it: the Slow Door.

The Slow Door is a door that opens slowly. Press a button on one side and it slowly rolls open. I’m imagining a garage door, but it could be a tad more Star Trek if your heart desires. It takes two dungeon turns to fully open after the button has been pressed, though after a single turn it is open enough for a small creature, a halfling or gnome perhaps, to scoot in. The door is also made of a strong and heavy metal or similar material. Even a dragon would have a hard time bursting through this door. But that’s just the door. The placement of a door in the dungeon is just as (or even more) important as how the door itself operates. With the Slow Door, on the side with the button, I would have a room with a few different interesting gizmos or gadgets for the players to interact with. They will need something to do while they wait for the door to open, after all. And the Slow Door itself is a powerful incentive for the players to investigate the room more thoroughly than they might otherwise. But on the other side of the door should be something dangerous, ideally a monster of some sort. Not immediately on the other side of the door, but close enough that when the players encounter the dangerous creature, the Slow Door is still somewhat near the surface of their memory. Why? Because the door now presents the players with an additional choice in dealing with the creature (in addition to fighting it, negotiating with it, falling madly in love with it, etc.): they can send one person to run to the other side of the door and press the button while the others distract it and then haul ass back to the door to get there before it closes, with the hopes of sealing the creature on the other side. To the clever adventurer, every part of the dungeon, even the doors, is a tool to be turned to their advantage.

#24-#25 - The Arcane Tower

These words fit together so naturally, that this feels like cheating. When I think of wizards, I think of towers. But why do wizards live in towers? Is it just the additional space to store grimoires without fearing floods ruining them? That seems too mundane and unexciting of a reason. I assume wizards don’t build their towers by hiring a bunch of subcontractors and construction workers. So if their residences are the result of magic and they choose to use any structure, why do they so often choose towers? Perhaps it is as simple as the reasons why the Washington Monument is an obelisk. I think the best reason given was in Morrowind. In that game, the main level of the wizards’ towers could only be reached by a person with access to the levitation spell. This is a natural security system for wizards, successful for keeping the rabble out. But perhaps it is less protection in a setting where wizards have little to fear except from other wizards. Other precautions must be taken. I once ran a wizard tower-based dungeon in which the only entrance was to the highest level, but the wizard resided on the lowest level. Nevertheless, the players had to ascend the dungeon to get to the lowest level because the entire tower was affected by a reverse gravity spell that would wear off when the wizard died. This was pure ostentatiousness on the wizard’s part, but when the players did slay him (which they entered with every intention of doing), it did complicate getting back to the top of the tower. If you want to kill this wizard, you’ll have to walk in the snow, uphill both ways.

But what happens to the wizard’s tower after they die or otherwise disappear? Presumably, the tower disappears as well. Though the wizard may not want a self-destructive tower, since most wizards are wise enough to have contingency plans, whether it’s a phylactery or a cleric ally. But let’s presume the tower stays up but the wizard never returns. Immediately, the village will begin to produce tempting rumors about what lurks within the abandoned, arcane tower (the tower was already a subject of rumor-making in the town, but with the wizard’s disappearance, interest only grows). So perhaps a band of adventurers seek to plunder it after hearing the news. But other usurpers are likely as well. If the wizard had an apprentice, the wizard’s apprentice is likely in the tower, planning defenses against those that seek to loot their old master’s stronghold. I’m imagining this scenario like Home Alone, except the little boy is instead a fledgling wizard and the foolhardy bandits are… well I guess that part stays the same for most adventuring parties. If there is a nearby wizard, particularly a rival and even more particularly a rival without a tower of their own, this wizard is very likely to make a play for the tower. If the wizard was prominent in the larger sociopolitical ecosystem (which is likely; when not serving as advisors to royalty, wizards tend to be, at the very least, a pain the royal highness’ ass), then the powers that be may also make a play for the land. Rulers have their own magic spells, words that can warp reality, which we know as “laws.” If your setting is based vaguely on medieval England or similar ilk, the ruler is likely to evoke the concept of “escheat”, the process by which a dead person’s property reverts to the state when they have no heirs. If you think it an odd coincidence that this legal concept looks like the word for “cheat”, meaning to act unfairly to gain an advantage, know that it is no coincidence at all. Cheat was born as a shortening of this legal phrase invoked by feudal lords.

#26-#27 - The Gold Boss

Because I am a cool and hip RPG designer, I pretend to entirely dislike Dungeons & Dragons, as owned and marketed by Sorcerers on the Seashore, the Walt Disney of TTRPGs. But if you were to cast Zone of Truth™ around me, I would have to admit that there are things I do like. What comes to mind first is the cosmology. Too often, worldbuilding (in general, but especially at the level of cosmology) offers nothing game-able and typically bores me. But the D&D cosmology is game-able because all these places that make up the cosmos are places you can go and adventure in. Go to the plane of elemental fire and visit the City of Brass! Go to the center of the multiverse and walk the streets of Sigil, the eternal donut-shaped city where you can find anything and everything! In a past campaign, my players infiltrated hell by going through the city of Ribcage, one of the rim cities bordering the Outlands and leading to the other planes. Just the simple fact that these are all places you can go is enough to enflame the imagination. But D&D’s cosmology is an example, not a decree. We can and should make our own.

What if instead of the elemental planes representing the elements of fire, ice, earth and wind (and the paraelements), there was a plane for each scientific element? In each plane, that element is the basic building block to life (so the mundane plane of existence is actually the elemental plane of Carbon). The immediate problem this poses is that I don’t know the first thing about science. I couldn’t tell you the difference between Niobium and Nihonium. But there are a few elements that even I know and could sketch out ideas for a place you could visit. One such element is Gold.

Gold (Au) represents wealth and commercial exchange in our world. But in this multiverse, it’s a cosmological fact of Gold, not just a social construction. So a plane of existence dominated by the metaphysical properties of Gold is one engulfed in greed and exploitation. In the elemental plane of Gold, everyone has a known monetary value based on their productive capacity. Murder isn’t illegal or even taboo in this place; instead, you just have to pay an amount greater than the victim’s value. But who do you pay? The victim is dead. Do you pay it to their family? Their friends? No, you pay it to their boss. In the plane of Gold, everyone must be gainfully employed at all times, lest their value drop low enough to make them a target. So unemployment is low. But because of this need to stay employed, power is even more imbalanced in favor of employers than it is in our elemental plane of meat and trees. In the elemental plane of Gold, boss battles tend to be literal. If you travel to the plane of Gold to fight the Senior Vice President of this or that division, you better have a plan, because that Gold Boss’ minions will be prepared to die protecting their boss. Unless you can offer a more lucrative employment contract.

#28-#29 - The Ghost Toxin

Much digital ink has been spilt on the question of how to make interesting ghost encounters. A frequent answer that is, in my opinion, a cop-out is to simply make ghosts function differently from what most people think of when they hear “ghost.” But I am a sucker for “ghosts, but different,” so this isn’t a complaint. In my own system/setting, Prismatic Wasteland, what characters call “ghosts” are actually holograms with limited artificial intelligence. Some such holo-ghosts are also connected to the systems running the dungeons they reside in, so they can cause paranormal effects like flickering lights and levitating furniture. But ghosts are a flexible trope, so there any so many ways to mix them up (I didn’t include them in my big monster mashup post, but they would be a strong candidate for similar treatment).

What if a ghost wasn’t a type of creature, it was a type of cause of death? Enter the Ghost Toxin. When you see an apparition of a deceased person, it is the sign of a toxic, brain-eating parasite. This parasite kills its victims via the aforementioned eating of brains. But people rarely lay still while a slimy parasite enters their ear and munches on their cerebral cortex. The parasite manages nonetheless. First, it emits a vaguely blue, partially transparent and dimly luminous cloud that resembles a person. If the parasite had recently devoured a brain, this cloud can resemble that specific person and even imitate their voice and mannerisms, with partial access to their memories. This cloud is, however, a deadly toxin. The pseudo-ghost will attempt to embrace a living person (or otherwise get very, very close) with the intent of causing such person to breathe in the cloud of toxic ghost spores. The spores, when inhaled, paralyze the person and cause them to enter into a state of deep dreams. They are now the perfect meal for the parasite, who only needs a few hours to finish its sinister snack. Accordingly, houses that are haunted have a tendency of staying haunted so long as people keep going inside to investigate. The parasite is not the only creature to make use of its powerful Ghost Toxin. Assassins and bounty hunters have been known to collect the toxic cloud in non-porous containers, to release on unsuspecting victims. This poison, commonly known as “Bottled Ghost” is particularly helpful when they want to keep the victim alive. Survivors of the Ghost Toxin have reported receiving visions of their afterlife that were more uncanny than any run-of-the-mill dream they’ve ever had.

#30-#31 - The Reverse World

One does not need to watch the latest Spider-Man movie to know that it is fun to switch between dimensions. Dungeons and Dragons has its own parallel planes of existence (the Shadowfell and the Feywild), but it has been on the rise with other media. The latest entry in the Ratchet and Clank franchise has hopping between parallel dimensions as the focal point of its narrative, and Stranger Things revolves around the parallel plane of existence in its “The Upside Down”, which bears a striking resemblance to the Shadowfell were parallel to 1980s America instead of the Forgotten Realms.

I like the idea of a more silly parallel universe, a place where everything is exactly the same, but the opposite. So if there is a dwarf fighter that has a stronghold in the real world, there is an elf wizard with a suspiciously similar personality with an Arcane Tower in the same spot in the Reverse World. The entirety of the Reverse World feels (to any resident of the quote unquote real world, at least) like every day is opposite day, that perennial favorite of small children everywhere. An easy way to create the Reverse World in a game with D&D trappings is to simply reverse all of the categorical designations that comprise a character: race, class and alignment. Alignment is easy to reverse (e.g., lawful good becomes chaotic evil), but reversing the others requires a bit more thought. Because this silly idea is my own, I will do the thinking for you, as shown below. However, you need not send your characters to the Reverse World to make use of this—surely there is a wizard’s spell or magic item that can reverse a character’s race and/or class (similar to the girdle of masculinity/femininity in earlier editions of D&D). Note, however, that the following only works in a game like D&D where race and class are observable categories that truly exist in the fiction of the game, where a Fighter exists as something separate from simply a person that fights. To implement Reverse World for a different game, you may have to identify what similar categorizations exist within the fiction of that game and determine the opposites.

“Hopefully people disagree with you, because I certainly do.” - my partner, upon reading these tables