Save Your Father From the Whale's Belly

In this Post, I finally describe those Moby-Dick dungeons

Except way more Treasure and Monsters

In order to enter a Sea-Beast one must first find one and there are generally two methods to do so. Summoning a Sea-Beast: By dropping 100 silver worth of blood/entrails and 1000 silver worth of treasure into sea near the whirling straight a Sea-Beast is summoned in 1d4 turns. Entering the Whirling Straight: Make a massive cave complex and populate it with sea monsters, about 2 levels down start flooding it, 3 levels down where you would normally place a dragon/lich/other super high dangerous encounter start placing Sea-Beasts.

Once in the presence of such a creature one either becomes Swallowed by the Sea-Beast or Cuts into the Sea-Beast's flesh making an entrance. If one is swallowed, they enter the Sea-Beast through it's mouth which can be exited out of again. By Cutting into the Sea-Beast's flesh, one enters into a random organ and the musculature plugs the whole in after them.

Sea-Beast Maps/Physiology

Every Sea-Beast has a base structure composed of 8 organs (rooms which the PC's can travel through). There is the Bloody Path and the Bile Path. The Bloody Path is a one-way series of 4 organs which loop back into one another. The Bile Path is a linear series of organs. There are always 3 intersections in the Bloody and Bile Paths. The Throat and Gills have a passage between them, and the Veins have passages to both the Stomach and Bowels. The graphic below should help make things clear.

If the Party chooses to become swallowed by the Sea-Beast, they start in the Mouth, otherwise randomly select a room that isn't a Mouth or Gills Organ and they start there. Once the party is inside, the Sea-Beast simply becomes a dungeon to be plundered. However, the Sea-Beast is not simply a series of 8 rooms, there are more organs.

Creating the Sea-Beast Dungeon

Each Sea-Beast has 1d10 (or more) spare organs/rooms. When creating your Moby-Dick dungeon, you figure out how many extra organs the sea-beast has and then roll on the chart below for what type of organ it is. If the extra organ is a bowel, you attach it to another Bowel Room, otherwise just attach it to a room at random.

Roll	Organ
1-5	Extra Bowels
6	Spare Heart
7	Extra Gills
8	Extra Veins
9	Egg Cavity
10	Air Bladder

For our example lets say we rolled a 5, so we have 5 extra organs. We roll 5d10 and learn our sea-beast has 3 Extra Bowels, 1 Spare Heart, and 1 set of Extra Gills. Below is a graphic showing where we have placed them. And further each room is now numbered as it would be in a normal dungeon map. Now it should be looking a bit more familiar, it's not to scale what so ever though. Room size is listed below, the passage length between adjacent organs is 30ft.

Sea-Beast Organ Contents/Dungeon Room Population

The contents of each room are based on the table below and what kind of organ it is. For each room roll a 1d10 for the contents and then modify based on the organ type.

Roll	Result
1-6	Empty/re-roll (a room is only empty if it is rolled as empty twice)
7-8	Monster
9	Guarded Treasure
10	Treasure

Mouth - Entrance to the Dungeon. Filled with massive teeth, parasites within the beast's maw, and corpses stuck in between the fangs. 25% chance of oxygen inside and roughly 20x20 feet.

Throat - Filled with howling wind, dripping slime, and flotsam stuck in the soft flesh of the throat. 25% chance of the Sea-Beast intelligently communicating with the party. 50% chance of oxygen inside and roughly 20x40 feet.

Gills - Exit out of the Dungeon. Massive bleeding slits from which the outside ocean can be momentarily seen. 0% chance of oxygen inside and roughly 20x20 feet.

Lungs - If torches are lit here, there is a 1d6 + 1 per minute per exposed torch chance of the Sea-Beast violently coughing and spasming. Party takes 1d6 damage and each member must save or be shunted out into the throat of the beast. 100% chance of oxygen inside and roughly 30x30 feet.

Heart - Beating irregularly this amalgam of misshapen tumors sends out a pressure wave to those who stand nearby. All those in a heart room take 1d6 Non-lethal damage every 3 rounds. 0% chance of oxygen inside and roughly 30x30 feet.

Veins - Filled with fluid that snuffs out torches. Speed is reduced to half here. 0% chance of oxygen inside and roughly 100x5 feet.

Basically This Level From Super Mario Land 2

Egg Cavity - Home of a sleeping Fetal Sea-Beast which will fight the party. 50% chance of oxygen inside and roughly 40x40 feet.

Air Bladder - Always empty. 100% chance of oxygen inside and roughly 40x40 feet.

Stomach - Filled with acidic waters which will erode PC possessions. If a PC spends more than 1 turn inside a stomach they must save vs possessions being destroyed. On a successful save only 1 possession lost, while on a failure 1d6+1 possessions are lost. If the PC has less possessions than what is listed they instead take the difference in damage. There is a 25% chance of this organ containing a ship. 25% chance of oxygen inside and roughly 40x60 feet.

Bowels - Rather large and surprisingly dry, these massive caverns are filled with the accumulated debris that the Sea-Beast has consumed over the course of the past years. There will always be treasure inside a bowels organ alongside what ever is rolled on the Room Content Table. There is a 33% chance of this organ containing a ruined ship 50% chance of oxygen inside Roughly 60x90 feet.

*Torches can only be lit in rooms with oxygen and when moving to a room without oxygen, the torch snuffs out in 1d4 minutes.

Monsters in a Room of a Sea-Beast

Roll	Result
1	2d6 Crazed Sailors/Pirates
2	1d4 Giant Tapeworms
3	1d6 Spider/Crab/Crustaceans
4	3d10 Giant Isopods
5	Half-Dead Berserk Whale
6	Dead version of one of the above

Wandering Monsters of a Sea-Beast

Roll	Result
1	Crawling Mechanized Shark
2	Crazed Gyre Islander Trapped
3	Marauding Party of 1d8 Atavistic Merfolk Raiders
4	Swarm of 1d4 Winged Squids
5	2d4 Echindaspawn
6	Ningen Wanderer Trapped Inside

Types of Guarded Treasure in a Sea-Beast

Roll	Result
1-3	Monster Squatting above the Treasure
4	Treasure is CURSED!!! (use your favorite curse table)
5	Treasure is trapped (save or damage/poison)
6	Treasure is wanted by someone else

Types of Monster Squatting above the Treasure

Roll	Result
1	Giant Sea Snake/Eel/Lamprey
2	3d4 Undead Sailors
3	Treasure Chest Mimic
4	Half-Dead Giant Squid
5	4d8 Giant Isopods
6	Ghost

Treasure Within a Sea-Beast

Roll	Result
1-4	Bullion + Jewelry
5-6	Trade-Goods
7	Weapons/Armor
8	Historic Artifacts

Ships: Micro-dungeon filled with 1d2+1 Treasures and are a set of linear rooms equal to the number of treasures+1.

Ruined-Ships: Micro-dungeon filled with 1d4+1 Guarded Treasures and 1 Monster from the Monsters in a Room of a Sea-Beast Table and are a set of linear rooms equal to the number of treasures+1.

Art by Roberto Innocenti

Beastiary

Crazed Sailors/Pirates
HD 1, Def 2, MV 12, Dam 1d6, SV 6, Mo 13

Giant Tapeworms
HD 3, Def 3, MV 6, Dam 1d6+Suction, SV 8, Mo 10

Spider/Crabs/Crustacean
HD 2, Def 5, MV 10, Dam 1d6 x2, SV 6, Mo 8

Giant Isopods
HD 0, Def 1, MV 8, Dam 1d4(as group), SV 5, Mo 12 *when taking damage, roll to see how many die

Half-Dead Berserk Whale
HD 8, Def 4, MV 7, Dam 2d6, SV 10, Mo 12

Crawling Mechanized Shark
HD 3, Def 3, MV 15, Dam 1d10, SV 11, Mo 20

Art by Kainsword

Crazed Gyre Islander
HD 1d4+2, Def 3, MV 12, Dam 1d10, SV 6+HD, Mo 18

Atavistic Merfolk Raiders
HD 2, Def 2, MV 10, Dam 1d6, SV 8, Mo 14

Winged Squids
HD 1, Def 2, MV 16, Dam 1d6, SV 6, Mo 10

Echindaspawn
HD 2, Def 5, MV 5, Dam 1d6, SV 11, Mo 12

Ningen Wanderer
HD 4, Def 1, MV 12, Dam 1d4, SV 10, Mo 6 *pacifist and wants to get out

Art By Sergey Kolesov

Giant Sea Snake/Eel/Lamprey
HD 4, Def 2, MV 12, Dam 1d8+Grapple, SV 6, Mo 12

Undead Sailors
HD 1, Def 2, MV 12, Dam 1d6, SV 6, Mo 20

Treasure Chest Mimic
HD 4, Def 4, MV 12, Dam 1d8, SV 8, Mo 20

Half-Dead Giant Squid
HD 8, Def 2, MV 3, Dam 1d6 x8, SV 7, Mo 6

Ghost
HD 2, Def 0, MV 0, Dam 1d4+100xp drain, SV 9, Mo 20

Fetal Sea-Beast
HD 10, Def 3, MV 9, Dam 1d8, SV 6, Mo 20

Art by Kentaro Miura

Sea-Beast
HP100, Atk 5, Def 2, MV 12, Dam Swallow Whole 1d4 Sailors, SV 13, Mo 20 *regeneration 10/round

Sea-Beast Heart
HD 5, Def 1, MV 0, Dam 0, SV 12, Mo 20 *if a Sea-Beast has no heart it begins to sink to the bottom of the ocean at a rate of 100 ft/minute

Unified Downtime Mechanic for Settlements

Once a party reaches a Settlement, they receive a number of opportunities to interact with the settlement (Either by Referee Discretion {Probably Party Member #+2} or other an exploration Mechanic) outside of buying dungeoneering supplies. The purpose of the limited opportunities is two fold. First, it reduces the amount of time spent waiting for PC's do some obnoxious thing while the rest of the party sits in silence by placing a limit of what can be done. Second, it implies a need for pro activity, the time constraints force the party to do "important" things rather than silly ones.

The following list should be accessible for the Players so they know their options in each settlement. Likewise the Referee portion of the downtime mechanic would be settlement specific. I know that when I made settlements based on this mechanic, rather than on "world-building" I was able to make them much more player focused and because it really focused on what the players can interact with. Once in a settlement and after resupplying, the party gains a number of opportunities to interact with the settlement based on the following list. The players must choose who engages in what downtime activity as the more members who do an action the more likely it is beneficial.

Art by Pieter Bruegel the Elder

1. Discover What Lies Past (This Settlement)

Researching information about traveling away from civilization is very important. A character doing this is able to ask about how far away another settlement is (in terms of days of travel), what kind of menaces lie in what direction (both monster and terrain), or even the site of a dungeon filled with treasures. (Previous thoughts on maps here)

2. Make Friends

A character who chooses to go out and make friends has the opportunity to make a charisma check in order to obtain hirelings and a 25% chance to meet a friendly NPC.

3. Carousing

By spending at least 100 silver (or another arbitrary value choice by the Referee), a character gains (silver spent/100)^2 * 100Xp for going out and socializing/drinking and must make a charisma check to avoid a mishap. (I use this mishap table)

4. Find Rumors

This is where you feed your player's plot-hooks. A character receives 1 + their Charisma Modifier in rumors

5. Sight-see/Relax

A character choosing to relax or sight-see reduces his trauma by one point, gains an extra 1HP until the end of the next combat, and gets to have the Referee describe some part of the settlement/surrounding area to him and give him some lore about the area.

6. Go Shopping

A Character choosing to go shopping may either purchase location unique items (such as gunpowder) or spend silver on frivolous things (such as an obnoxious hat) at a rate of 2 silver for 1 XP.

7. Rest and Recover

By choosing to engage in recovery a character gains an extra 1HP per level until the end of the next combat, further they are allowed a new save against any condition or disease that they have.

8. Research/Find a Scholar

By successfully making an intelligence check, a character is able to ask the Referee 1d3 questions (which are to be answered truthfully as the knowledge would be known in setting). Otherwise they may spend 100 silver to consult a scholar and ask the Referee a single question.

Anti-Cartography

I personally hate having to make maps whenever I referee a Tabletop RPG. My players seem to enjoy my maps, when I make them, but I hate having to make them, especially world maps, because I feel it limits my creativity. Now this has to do with how much detail I put into the maps. Ideally, I would just put in very vague locals and simply state what directions they are in. However, players want maps which detail exactly where things are. For this reason, in all of my settings/whenever I Referee. I declare that maps are essentially limited to a 6 mile hex and are essentially treasure maps which show something's locations. Dungeon maps exist but atlases do not. I think I just realized that I'm fine with maps; I just hate Atlases because once made, things have to have a certain spacial alignment.

 I am big fan of non-cardinal directions like upwards, downwards, nearby, faraway, towards the sun, deep, redwards, deathwards, and whimwards. I think that the origins of Tabletop RPG's in war-gaming made an implicit necessity of spacial alignment of locations. Personally, I don't like that. I feel that locations in fantasy don't need to be constrained by only 4 directions. Instead, I prefer to treat my locations as more of a tesseract. If you go north of the tribe of shining men you may find yourself at the mountain of truth, but if you dive deep into the lake in between the two you may find yourself in the cloud castles high above the lands of the shining men. I think that the concept of witch-ways (or at least the thing I imagine witch-ways to be) the ability to travel elsewhere not by distance but by completing an occult algorithm are really cool. Rather than driving two hours to the next city over, you can instead make a specific series paths inside of the local woods, and after entering a storm drain, you end up on top of a skyscraper in the next city over.

One of my favorite things about the OSR style of play is that player knowledge and character knowledge is the same. Players know that dragons have upwards of 10HD and deal their HP when they breath flame. They then implicitly roleplay their character's being scared of dragons because they themselves are. As a Referee one of my greatest joy is the players gaining insight into the world due to character actions such as researching the past, entering dungeons, or interacting with non-human entities. It allows me to "show the setting, rather than telling it", I think this helps player immersion a great deal because as their characters learn something new, they do so as well. For this very reason I tend to have the character's start out as foreigners, and then if they die the players can roll up a native. I feel that this mimics the Player knowledge of the setting and explains how their character now knows so much information that the previous character didn't. I like to do this with maps as well.

Cartography Process

At the beginning of the zeroth session, where the Players and I all agree on certain aspects of the world and make characters. They create the proximal world. I believe this reinforces the notion of the foreign as truly foreign. Players, and in turn their characters, will have an understanding of what is proximal to them because they have been there. However, as the players have their characters travel outwards, they will have no idea what they encounter save for a name.

After everyone rolls up a character, I have the table go around and ask the players questions that describe the town where they are living in. Everything a player says is now a fact. I might disable certain facts or ask to compromise on certain things which I don't feel reflect the tone of the setting to well, but otherwise what they say goes. I feel this also help players by immersing them in the world a bit more and legitimizes their knowledge base. For those familiar with the RPG Beyond The Wall, this is where I got (shamelessly stole) this concept of collaborative world-building.

After their hometown is made I go around the table twice over. Each player will give me a direction and I will have them roll on a table for what type of local they will describe. I will then give them the type of local they rolled and ask them to describe what is there and how they know about it. These aren't facts but instead are inspiration for me to place things in proximity. This populates the region and educates the players in what is nearby.

1d8 Table of what players describe for the referee 

1. Ruins of civilization within historic record
2. Ruins of civilization before historic record
3. Human town
4. Human city
5. Non-human town
6. Mythic monster lair
7. Magical resource
8. Otherworldy entrance

I then make a hex map for myself for purposes of distances, terrain, and geographical encounters. After I have made the mechanical aspects of the hex map I will add thematic elements to match the mechanical such as giving forests, mountains, or oceans names. Then I usually spend an uncomfortable amount of time in front of my computer screen consuming media to steal and tint in order to fill up what the player's described. Then the players decide to visit about only half of the locations on the map and begin writing up my lore/mechanics of each location to put out here so that I haven't wasted all of my time.

Bonus Rant on Creativity

I don't think there is anything wrong with reusing your settings/things you like. In almost all of my settings, I include a sprawling cavern complex filled with fungal spiders and their god. I think it's one of my thematically tightest encounters/dungeons/locals. There is nothing wrong with you doing the same. You can simply take the best encounters/dungeons/npc's/myths/ect and drop them piecemeal into new campaigns. Creativity is a false god. Steal Everything! If you like a character from a piece of fiction, steal him and change his name. If he reacts to the party instead of being just reference, congrats you just made a NPC, you'll enjoy playing. If you like the visuals of a video game/anime/music video/film/comic/tv show/whatever, steal it! Simply put it into your own words effectively and congrats, you have your own aesthetic. I have ran about 3-4 campaigns using the Pokemon Red and Blue setting, all I did was remove 95% of all the Pokemon creatures and used the original Japanese names of things/etymologically similar German/ etymologically similar Norse. No one figured out that they weren't playing a medieval eastern fantasy/medieval western fantasy/viking campaign. Most importantly steal from your own life. If you think your life is boring, then just go out and meet new people/have adventures to fix that. Simply take something that you know well, tint it in some manner, and boom you're a creative genius.

How To Decide Which Black/Doom Metal Album To Blare Over Your Speakers So You Can Ignore Your Players!

One of my players asked me how I choose what background music I play during my campaigns. I thought I could give her a more accurate/honest answer as well as assist other Referees by writing this post. I look at the background music of my campaign as the "score" of my sessions. I'll get into my advice on how to pick out good background music for your campaign below, but I want to explain some concepts first.

In regards to effectively scoring my campaigns, I have been fortunate in two unique ways Referees with the same amount of experience may not have been. First, around my sophomore year of high school I began to try to gain a better taste or appreciation in music. I began to expand my horizons in not only what I listened to, but also tried to listen to the "best" music. I don't currently ingest as much music as I did and I think I only spend maybe 3 hours a week attempting to find new music. I feel that because of this I am simply aware of more music to draw upon than other Referees. Second, I have been exposed to much media which had excellent usage of sound atmosphere. I don't know if I simply chanced upon noticing these things because they all had great usage of sound atmosphere, or if  my diet of music predisposed me to noticing the usage of sound elsewhere.

Like other aspects which go into creating an atmospheric setting such as negative/positive space usage, visual aesthetics, and tempo; a good sound atmosphere can make one's partaking in media much more overwhelming. I use the term overwhelming in an emotional sense, not a sensory one. I'm not referring to music being blared over loud speakers, instead I'm referring to the emotional intensity which results from the summation of a media's individual components.

Examples of good sound atmosphere off the top of my head below:

Donkey Kong Country

Heroes of Might and Magic 4

Sunless Sea

Jojo's Bizarre Adventure Sound Effects and Backing Track

Fast and Furious: Tokyo Drift Sound Reinforcing Visuals

28 Days Later  Climactic Build Up

Soundscapes

If one were to ask me to describe what kind of music I enjoy the most, I would probably list off a few of my favorite genres. Last time this happened I was asked why those specifically, and I got to thinking about how they relate to one another. The majority of my favorite albums fall into one of the following genres: Black Metal, Stoner Doom Metal, Cloud Rap, Witch-house, and Emotive Hardcore. On first glance, one may simply surmise I have garbage taste. Honestly though, each of those genres are dominated by soundscapes. I use the term to mean the increasingly atmospheric composition created as the album/song is played. perhaps the following song may help explain.

Link

Each element of the song builds and coalesces into an overwhelming experience. Now the song itself could not serve as background music. Instead, I would say to think of the song as two separate components. First are the recited lyrics and the second is the background instrumental. The lyrics themselves evoke a certain theme and the background instrumental reinforces that same theme. I would say that each component on its own could evoke the theme, but the combination of them is what makes it so atmospheric. Each component can then be divided into components. The recited lyrics can be looked at in terms of what is said as well as how it is said. The instrumental component can be looked at in terms of the repeated motifs and chants, specific tonalities and slow somber tempo.

Selecting Background Music

There is a fine line between distracting and supporting background music. To quote the musician Brian Eno "it must be as ignorable as it is interesting." The purpose of the background music is to thematically support the tone of the campaign, not be fun to listen to. Think of the campaign as the recited lyrics and the music as the instrumental component.

Side-note: Please don't use any music which has lyrics. Lyrics are too engaging and the players will try to figure out what they are saying. That kind of music distracts from the actual playing.

A great way to get music for your campaign is to steal Original Soundtracks from other media. Those are designed to facilitate a specific theme and you will also get a sense of what it should sound like. Friendly reminder, creativity is a false god!

For the majority of my dungeon background music, I either choose Dungeon-Synth, Post Metal, or Doom Metal Albums. Here are the ones I currently have in rotation for when the party delves: Pig Destroyer - Mass & Volume, Bongripper - Satan Worhsiping Doom, Bongripper - Miserable, HUNTER GATHERER - Regathered, Ufomammut - Idolum, Sans Soleil - A Holy Land Beneath a Godless Sky, Asva - A Game In Hell Hard Work In Heaven, Asva - A Trap For Judges,Sunn O))) - Black Wedding, Lord Wolf - Darklands of Hate, Dolch - Yggdrasil, Depressive Silence - 1996 Demo, Leviathan - A Silhouette in Splinters, Locrain - Extinction, and Locrain - Drenched Lands.

For the majority of my overland travel background music, I go either with folk or ambient albums. Here are the ones I currently have in rotation for when the party travels: Bone Tomahawk Film OST, Book of Eli OST, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. OST, Nebelung - Palingenesis, Black Hill and heklAa - Rivers & Shores, Forndom - Flykt,  Forndom - Dauðra Dura, Wardruna - Yggdrasil, Wardruna - Ragnarok, and Wardruna - Gap var Ginnunga.

For the majority of my battle music, I go with either the songs a film's OST uses for a fight scene, or a four string cover of either video game or thrash metal. For important NPC's and the occasional monster I use leitmotifs. These are often instrumental tracks of a song that remind me of a character. I use sounds of wind, rain, and the ocean to reinforce the locations characters are at. Lastly, I use instrumental covers of songs on harp or actual medieval music for when the party goes carousing.

Missteps into Negative Space

Please note me and M's despair and anguish.

So our past session was a bad session. While people still had a good time in each other's company, the actual tabletop role-playing didn't go well. There were some stellar moments, but in general it was worse than last session. There are two components which probably lead to us being worse off and I hope anyone reading this can learn from these mistakes. Below will be a summary of the session, issues with the players getting into the proper mental state, and my flaws in communication and poor usage of negative space.

Summary

After spending another night in Ozborn, Alexander Exquilin recieved two packages. The first is a letter from Wulgang requesting his assistance, the second was the bloody skin of his old donkey Stupes. Carved in Stupes's flesh was a letter from another assassin from the House of Gossamer and Glass. It identified the writer as the Pangolin and informed Alexander Exquilin that she was going to kill him.

Meanwhile Ramona Watts, searched Ozborn for a blacksmith who would repair her urumi sword. After meeting with several, who were unable to repair her blade, she finally found one who could. While inside she met a woman named Jasmine who wore a cloak made entirely of iron spikes. She spoke with Ramona about her urumi, mentioning that her friend wielded one and that she hadn't seen her in three months. Ramona understood that she had killed her friend and stole her sword. Ramona surmised that that Jasmine works for the House of Gossamer and Glass. Ramona spoke with her longer and learned that she was in Ozborn looking for Alexander Exquilin, Ramona then lied to Jasmine about Alexander's whereabouts and the party met up.

The party spoke and decided why to visit Wulgang and see what he wants. The 6 party members traveled to Fort Woe and spoke to Wulfgang. Wulfgang and Aquarias Kari informed them that Erasmus, the famed mage of Ozborn who has written a dozen grimoires, descended into the depths of the the Goblin Keeps and hasn't been seen in seven months. He often had descended into his tower for months at a time, but he would normally after a period of 3 months with another grimoire written. In his absence, many pretenders and posers have come forth and in his absence fight for the title of the  A E S C E T I C. They practice sorcery openly in the streets, spilling blood freely. Wulfgang offers the party Erasmus's weight in silver for either his return of proof of his death. The party seeing a chance of wealth, have the discussion illustrated below, choosing to descend down to look for Erasmus.

Leaving their War-Cart and hirelings outside of the entrance and  they go forth into the Goblin Keep. Inside, they stumble around in the dark and harass the Ax-Gang. They waste a great deal of time wandering the lengthy corridors and locked doors of the first level of the dungeon and finally discover how go deeper. During this time the party encountered a Grue. I feel that the Grue encounter and it's subsequent following of the party was the best encounter I think I've ever ran. One of the goals of this dungeon was to teach my players the last few important aspects of dungeon crawling. The Grue, with it's mocking of the party; constant following ever so slightly out of their peripheral vision; and 5HD and 3 attacks which only occur when the party has no light source and and get a -4 to their Attack and Defense scores, was an excellent teaching tool. The party began tracking their own light sources, terrified of having a lone member of entering a dark room, and conscious that of all of the resource management integral in going into a murder-hole.

The party then kept going deeper and deeper into the Goblin Keep. They again encountered the shadows of goblin's past but by using their light could keep them at bay. On the third level of the dungeon, they began encountering pretenders of the A S C E T I C and their lackeys. Alexander Exquilin all the while had been using the power granted to him by his Giant's Belt to rip doors off of the walls and was getting frustrated with few answers. He had began throttling the overly verbose pretenders for information. Unfortunately for Alexander Exquilin, they did not take this to well and began fighting back. Most of the party was able to overwhelm them, but when the pretenders began using their magical abilities some of the party became injured. Alexander Exquilin now has a gaping hole in his stomach and his entire left shoulder and arm are stained with a transcendental blue. Alexander Exquilin, bloody and dying on the floor of the dungeon due to the eldritch might of the pretenders, finally asked of Queen Mab, for her assistance. She agreed that for a 50% penalty to all further XP, she would cast him and his members away from this place and heal his wounds.

Player mentality of play

Our groups scheduled time of play is 6 pm every Sunday. Due to a family obligations, we met for the session at 7:15 pm. People came in excited to play and as we prepared to play people were noticeably more rowdy, partially it was the lateness of this session. In retrospect, I usually make an announcement to the group for everyone to get into the Tabletop RPG mentality, but this time we didn't take a pause and simply jumped in with no gap between socializing and playing Goblin-Hack. I think the lack of a "okay guys, stop goofing off let's play" discouraged proper play. In my ideal campaign/my ideal DMing style is one where people are focused on the game, seek to roleplay their characters, characters making jokes instead of the players, and act with sincerity. While two of these happened there was a great deal of issues in my opinion of players being unable to focus on the game and players making the majority of the jokes. I need to figure out how to include a rule/enforce a manner as to how to avoid people shouting over each other/people having side conversations. For the dungeoneering portion of the dungeon itself, I elected a caller; but in retrospect, I realize I didn't properly explain what that meant. One of my pet peeves is players making jokes rather than the characters. M is most often guilty of this most vile sin and what struck me most is that last session he didn't do it at all instead making his character make all of the jokes. The entire time the group was making these jokes and talking over each other. I feel that this greatly contributed to the "we're here to hang out not to play Goblin-Hack". I would suggest to other Referees that they make sure their players settle themselves first for beginning play. Further I would suggest (I am going to do this myself next session) that they pause for 5 minutes for every 55 minutes of play. This would result in a structured release of tension and allow for player's attention span not to decline and get to bored. Further people wouldn't leave the table to get drinks/food/go to the bathroom during play.

Communication and Negative Space Use

So the first major reason for the session being a bad one was poor communication from me (as the referee) to the players. The party gathered no intelligence on the Goblin Keeps or Erasmus before going into the Goblin Keeps. I made sure to ask if they wanted to purchase supplies before entering the dungeon, but looking back I should have asked if they wanted to gather intelligence. Before the party went to the Masked Giants complex, I had their employer pay for them to go to the Library in November and each had a chance to gain information about the dungeon they were going to go into. Looking back not prompting the party with their ability to gain information was a mistake. The party claimed that there were no signs within the Goblin Keep on where Erasmus was and felt lost wandering around a bunch of corridors. They claimed that even the Scooby Doo Gang got clues, and it was poor form of me as a Referee to not give them clues. In my eyes, this is a false understanding of how dungeons work and poor communication on my part.

The following are all assumptions that I thought the players had. I'll make sure to emphasize these to the party next session. The adventuring party is a group of people who enter murderholes (dangerous locations which go into the earth) in order to plunder them for riches. Murderholes are dangerous places and one has to take proper precautions to return alive with riches. These precautions are not purely the accumulation of physical resources of torches, rations, ropes, thieves tools, ect. The accumulation of information about the murderhole you are going into is vital as well. Murderholes are filled with murderous beings of ill intent which have ears, if you are loud inside, they might hear you. Murderholes are proportionately filled with danger the deeper they go. Treasure and danger are also propotional so a floor 5 levels deep will have much more dangerous things guarding greater treasure waiting that for you than a floor 1 level deep.

After the session ended, a few of the Goblin-Hack group went out to get some drinks and I took about an hour to be sad and gloomy and think much to seriously about what I did wrong and how to not have another bad session ever again. With I and G's help I went through all of the aspects of my refereeing/dungeon mastering skills and learned that my usage of evocative descriptions were one of the reasons the corridors were so mind numbing. To quote G: "You have some encounters and moments where we get a whole lot of really good description and generally have an 'oh shit, this is awesome moment' because you usually save those descriptions for something so important. This means that things which lack these descriptions aren't as engaging to us because we don't care about them as much."

Negative Space

After some clarification it led me thinking into the usage of negative space within tabletop RPGs. First I want to make a dichotomy of negative and positive space first. In visual art, positive space art refers to the object or scene depicted. Negative space refers to the the space around and between the subject  of an image. In Tabletop RPG terms positive space would refer to any moment where things are changing or there is an chance of failure, while negative space would refer to moments where things are not changing and there is no chance of failure. A more specific example may be found when looking at the 1e Dungeons and Dragons Dungeon Master's Guide gives a percentage of which rooms of a dungeon are what based on a 1d20 distribution. As 1-12 refer to empty rooms, these would negative space, while 13-20 would be positive space. Interestingly this corresponds with the room being filled.

When I prepare for the session the majority of my time is spent on positive space. I prepare descriptions of monsters, NPC's, vistas, and areas encountered so that when the party encounters one instead of saying "you find a troll" I can say "In the dull light of your torch, you see a hulking figure emerge from the tunnel. His flesh green as grass at the dawn of spring and covered in warts. A nose the size of a cucumber juts from his face and two yellow eyes squint at you. Fetid breath and the scent of rotting flesh spill from his open mouth, filled with ragged teeth. He roars a challenge to you drawing his arms back, and sinking forward as if to charge." In my opinion, there is a fundamental difference in immersion and visualization/engagement between those two encounters. The second one being straight up superior.

However, by not focusing on the negative spaces I unintentionally created a vacuum where those segments wouldn't be as good. In the session which we played, the majority of the time spent in those negative spaces reduced the enjoyment for everyone. Going forward either the number of negative spaces have to be reduced, or their quality has to be increased. I know in the Masked Giants Complex, I made sure to give vivid descriptions of the negative spaces. Perhaps if I continue to do the same, the next dungeon will be more enjoyable. Further negative space in art is a consequence of scale, which would be a good way for a referee to view it.

BUT WE STILL HAD FUN! NO REGRETS, NOT NOW NOT EVER!

Rant 1 and Pyramid of Futility II

Story-time: I got the Dungeon's and Dragons Monster Manual 3.5 edition when I was around 12? I just really liked all the different monsters illustrated and couldn't figure out why the book was around 40$. Some time later I acquired Monster Manual 2 and 3, and at some point after that I realized that these were supplements for a game. I was a freshman in highschool when I tried to DM my first game. I remember having the great idea to set a gothic/oppressive tone after reading Heroes of Horror (a supplement of 3.5 time which tried to explain how to have a horror/darker campaign). I thought it was really awesome that you could rise above rolling dice and playing pretend and elevate it to proper storytelling which could illicit a proper guttural reaction just like music could. Needless to say it went about as awful as I imagine most people's first time playing a tabletop rpg goes. I played with two friends and I remember that I had one of them save against a door and I think they got through a single room before we gave up. I remember that I played most of a death-core album as background music. ¹

2009 was a hard time for me, but pictured are handouts and music for a dnd session

It's been a while since then and I know that I have better skills as a DM/Referee/Storyteller. I wouldn't go as far as to call myself a good storyteller. In my opinion I am better than a lot of the people I have encountered as a player, but I think that's a unrealistic perspective. I know that there is a great difference between an educated group and a non-educated group. As of 2009, 16% of the USA belongs to a gym (IHRSA). Now lets assume that about half of those people actually go to the gym and about half of those people lift weights. That means about 1 in 25 people has familiarity/education in lifting. That 1 in 25 will have radically different views on strength and lifting compared to the other 24. Further within the 4% of people who are lifting, Only a percentage of them is doing so correctly/ enjoys success in it. Their mental schema of benching 225 would be very different from a person's who is not familiar/educated in lifting. I know that the ability to compare oneself to the elites in strength sports, especially with social media, skews one's perception of self. The same way that every model being skinny and tall or every male in porn seemingly having a 10+ inch penis constructs a skewed assessment of what a "normal person" looks like, exposure to the elites skews one's understanding of what a baseline is.

I know among the people I train with whatever your current PR is, its not enough. Everyone has this sense of unworthiness which disallows them to stagnate. I think that all greatness is derived from this same source, but exposure to the elites/ those better than you serves to impart a need to be better yourself. The phrases "Iron sharpens Iron" and "if you're ever the smartest person in the room, you're in the wrong room" come to mind.

Maybe I'm a great DM, but it benefits me much more If i believe that I'm garbage and need to improve in all regards. Not only me, but it benefits my players, and I think it betters the tabletop rpg experience. I know the single most beneficial change I have ever done is to have a "Roses and Thorns" session after each play session. I stole this from my boy-scout troop, where the scoutmasters used as a way to receive feedback from us scouts. The only other time i have seen player-DM conversations about how the DM runs the game is when the player brings it up to express his dissatisfaction. I think by getting feedback after every session I don't let the situation get that far. More importantly, it has let me learn a great deal about the effectiveness of my DMing techniques. I think lifting is a unique hobby because results are so incredibly evident. You lift a weight many times and then you get stronger. Further the effectiveness of what you do is so visible with how much weight you can lift, in contrast to cooking where you may not be able to gage how effective a new method is. We have yet to quantify taste profiles.

This brings me to another pyramid of futility, this one for DMing/running a game.

Figure 1.

______
Worldbuilding
__________
Uniqueness
_____________
Worrying about player agency/railroading, Game "Balance" innate to the system
___________________
Reinforcing the mood via Lighting/Music/Handouts
______________________
Adjectives
_________________________
Quality NPCs/Dungeons
____________________________
Meaningful adventures
_______________________________
Consistent Rules/Theme, Informed Players
__________________________________
Consistent playtime, System-Tone alignment
_____________________________________
Players and DM agreeing to tone/theme/mood, Efficient usage of game time
________________________________________
Players playing with consistency, being able to effectively communicate with the players, the goal of having a pleasurable experience as a group
___________________________________________

I will not try to explain what I mean by each level of the pyramid

the goal of having a pleasurable experience as a group: People shouldn't do things if they are unpleasant, this is the core philosophy of why you guys are at a table

being able to effectively communicate with the players: If your players cannot understand what you are saying y'all wont be on the same page and this conflicts will emerge

Players playing with consistency: If people don't show up they 1. make problems with keeping their character in the narrative, and 2. miss stuff, which harms their enjoyment of the game

Efficient usage of game time: If you spend 3 hours of your 4 hour session dealing with a single player who wants to harass the wait staff and everyone else wants to go in a dungeon, there will be issues

Players and DM agreeing to tone/theme/mood: Its a collaborative game. The DM is essentially the conductor of an orchestra. Agreeing on what music you play beforehand not only puts everyone on the same page, it also allows players to prepare how to roleplay. Don't be the guy playing free-form jazz while everyone else struggles through the Scythian Suite.

System-Tone alignment: The tone of the game needs to be congruent with the narrative. Using pathfinder for a horror campaign is likely to cause issues simply because how pathfinder's mechanics don't reflect high lethality and rewards those who play the character building minigame. (Sidenote,- IMO Pathfinder is only good for a superhero campaign)

Consistent playtime: If you only meet for one session it better be a fantastic session.

Informed Players: If your players don't know what their character's can do then there will be an inconsistency in the challenges you can put in front of them and the challenges they can solve. If you know that your players can fly and they don't then it generally won't end well if you drop them off a cliff.

Consistent Rules/Theme: If one session is grim horror, the next is three stooges slapstick, and the third is guns blazing akimbo your players will probably not know what to expect and will likely end up confused/ their suspension of disbelief will end.

Meaningful adventures: I think a really important concept is that the world reacts to the players, otherwise why give the players the ability to take an action. So they can just waste time?

Quality NPCs/Dungeons: These two components are how you directly interact with the players. The better these are the more fulfilling it will be for players to interact with them.

Adjectives: The more you describe things, the more accurately you put into the player's mind what is in yours. If anything this is just a very specific case of effective communication.

Reinforcing the mood via Lighting/Music/Handouts: This is fairly self explanatory, thought I think you can screw this up more ways than correctly do it.

Game "Balance" innate to the system: Okay lets be real, like .1% of people actually play by the rules as written, and that's not getting into rules as intended. Sincerely almost all of "game balance" issues are not actually playing the game as it was supposed to be run. Even then, if the game systen supports the theme, then you shouldn't be having that many issues.

Worrying about player agency/railroading: Its a game of pretend with your friends as evaluated by dice. I think worrying about illusionism and false choices in a game beyond not real is tantamount of trying to police how people play pretend.

Source: Flintstones Comic

Uniqueness: Whether or not your elves are unique is not going to make or break whether someone has fun at your table. After I ran a super generic plot, my skills as a DM greatly improved, it allowed em to focus on other things below which I believe made it much tighter. 

Worldbuilding: Don't do this. There is literally no purpose. Especially don't write long back stories for your entire setting. All you do is delay actually working on things which make your DMing better. Now, this doesn't mean don't have names for anything, but if the players don't interact with it, its of no use.

In summary, DMing is an art. Fundamentally one makes "good" art by demonstrating their mastery over the medium. Once they achieve this mastery it allows them to express themselves effectively. No artist got good at evoking sadness by practicing evoking sadness, they got good at evoking sadness by getting good at making their art. Its the same for you, you get good at creating an atmosphere of dread and fear in your tabletop RPG game by getting god at running tabletop RPG games. 

1. The album in question was Carnal Reprecussions by Salt the Wound. I still think it's a really good album. (their label Rotten Records has purged Youtube many times so the link was the only one I could find online)