Especially when I inform them their elf or dwarf still can't see in the dark because they were gazing straight into torch/lantern/coin with continual light just moments ago.
Now their eyes need time to adjust to pitch black.
How long? Alas, only one way to find out. Will you stand in darkness until you see once again? Or would you prefer to light another torch and see the horrors that await you?
Why am I grateful for encountering Robert Conley on my path?
I am grateful for meeting a great deal of people on my gaming path, but today I wish to share more about my encounters with Rob. When I set out to run a new campaign, I was mesmerised by Wilderlands of High Fantasy, one of the original D&D settings.
That was quite recently, in 2022, and I quickly realised I have arrived to the party quite late. Judges Guild was gone, courtesy of ill behaviour from its owner, print copies that were once cheap, were now difficult to get, and digital stuff mostly existed as fan made supplements. But I found Rob was selling his updated maps of the Wilderlands. I bought them all! And then I picked Barbarian Altanis as the campaign starting point.
Besides that, I found him to be generous with his time and insight, which is indeed vast after playing and running open-ended sandbox campaigns for over forty years. How could I not be grateful to be able to learn from such a fellow!
I must confess that I prefer minimal flavour. I am not interested in accessories with pages and pages of fluff, heck, I am not interested in any item that has multiple paragraphs of fluff unless there is a very good reason for it. Now, I understand I might be conflating fluff with flavour, and that might not be entirely fair. But then again, minimal fluff is what makes flavour more palpable to me, and therefore, more exciting.
Good question. I am always curious about the provenance of a rule at hand. Is it from the author themself? Did they take it from someone else? Is that person credited? Can I trace the rule all the way back to its origin point?
I wonder about those not because of ownership but because I wish to understand how much playing has the rule seen. I am not a professional game designer. I play role-playing games for fun and recreation. I am confident in making a ruling, and even writing it down. And I respect rules that came out of thousands of hours of play.
Gary and Dave played a lot. I will always give their rules the benefit of doubt, even if something they wrote doesn't make sense to me at first. I will extend the same courtesy to any author that convinces me their rules have seen actual play. Especially if they have been tested by competitive players who actively tried to break and exploit the rules.
What lesson has recently excited and inspired you?
This will be silly, but lessons on making websites in plain old HTML and CSS. I am a big fan of static, simple websites, but never had the time to learn coding them properly. This year I finally set aside some time, and decided to go the old school way—thick book instead of video lessons.
Who would benefit from contemplating on lessons learned from their exploratory expeditions?
That would be players!
They stand to gain the most by learning from their past expeditions. This helps them avoid failures and repeat successes. A simple & quick reflection protocol goes as follows:
What did we expect to happen?
What has actually happened?
Discuss all differences between the expected and actual outcomes.
Note down all recommendations to avoid or repeat actual outcomes.
This can be done between the sessions (via play-by-post) or at the end of the session in some 10 to 15 minutes.
Wilderness adventures and overland travel play a big part in our campaign. OD&D introduced simple rules, based on the Outdoor Survival board game. A wilderness turn lasts a day, within which player characters are able to move a number of 5-mile hexes based on their encumbrance and terrain they are moving through. Judges Guild then developed a more detailed “campaign hexagon system,” which broke down the 5-mile hex into smaller sub-hexes, and then once again into smaller sub-hexes. This allowed us to zoom in until turn could be an hour. AD&D updated the rules, introducing a number of clarifications, subsystems, so on and so forth.
When I worked on our wilderness movement rules I wished something that would work well with the five league hexes, the size Wilderlands maps were originally supposed to be. That's why I turned to HarnWorld, which uses metric leagues (1 metric league equals 2,5 miles equals 4 kilometers) as default. Next, I decided to use a four-hour watch system, naming each period as described in the AD&D DMG (midnight, pre-dawn, morning, noon, evening, and night). Number of daylight watches depends on the season. Next, I made a table with all Wilderlands terrain types and calculated how much leagues can one travel on foot, horse, cart, and wagon.
Above would not be possible without a wealth of existing resources, which I am immensely grateful for.
Who gets excited about rules for role-playing games? Well, I guess I do. The rules that excite me the most have a mix of qualities that is difficult to put in words, but I'll do my best.
First, rules with strong authorial voice that is passionate, slightly naive, confident but relaxed. Second, rules that are elegant, i.e. they are simple, succinct, and clever. If I cannot remove or add anything, if I don't need to re-represent it, if I keep getting back to it as it was, unadulterated, then it might indeed an elegant rule. Third, rules that are internally consistent. When the internal logic is consistent, then I can adjust the rules to my taste without breaking the overall game. I can also use the same logic to build what I wish to build. Four, rules that are backed with sound research, logic, and extensive play testing. I do not care much for simulationism, but I care a lot if the rule was pulled out of someone's ass, or if it was the result of meticulous research play tested with dozens of players.
The motivation for always reading new (and old) rules is much simpler. I am always interested in rules that could / would / might support me better in both achieving the desired tone and fiction of the game. Even when reading rules that I reject is helpful—because then I am able to better articulate what is it I do not desire.
