X-Treme Dungeon Mastery

[EENick]

Has anyone heard about this?

Apparently Tracy Hickman is putting out a book on ways to be a better or X-treme game master illustrated by Howard Taylor of Schlock Mercenary. Taylor was talking about it a bit on [Tall Tale Feature's pod cast (http://talltalefeatures.com/ttfradio/?p=102).

Sounds like it might be at least interesting to read. I know I have a bit of trouble with my game group when I'm GMing.

[Dr_Horrible]

Tracy Hickman is pretty much the second to last person to take DMing adivce from.

There's exactly one story in the entirety of Dragonlance, and it's not even a very good story and it breaks half the actual game rules for no reason, and the PCs don't actually matter because it's always Deus Ex Machinaed at the end.

The last person is this guy though:
I was a mean DM.

If players got TOO creative with anything, I had a list of possible 'sitautions' that could happen, with a percentile die.Seriously I had a table with subdivisions for areas and environments and everything.I called it my "NO U" die.

One time, I had my players on a room that had a BIG chasm, and a another platform on the other side.There was a lever on the FAAAR side of the room, on the other platform that extended a bridge.On the bottom of the chasm was a deep magma tram, boiling hot . There was a conveyor belt near the middle on the chasm, that had these bit metal pots carry magma from one side of the room to the other into paths to other room, which were made for the pots.Players were supposed to get to the pots, make some checks, not fall into magma, and then on the other side, make some jumps and get to the other platform.

Easy piecy, a few DC 10 checks, maybe one 15, and crazy players would have a 18-20.No biggie.

Wizard decides to just send his ****ing Mephit familiar to pull the level.Pissed, I roll on my table. It said "Mechanical Bad **** happens".

I made these turrents descend from the ceiling , firing bolts at the Mephit. Mephit died, and the scenario got much harder.The Turrents where still active, firing at players.

Mwahahaha.

[EENick]

And if he was writting a book on "Making good stories" I might agree with you, however he is making a book on being a Game Master and how to make that fun. Tips to make playing any story more enjoyable.

In gaming it is more important to have a good time with your friends then tell a good story and most people agree Hickman's games are fun to play or at least that is the way their testimonials read.

I've played in Dragon Lance and it didn't matter if the story rips of LotR or that the PCs are being shuffled around by gods or what the book were like. What mattered, at least to me, was that once we found which if us was the best DM those games were fun.

[Oracle_Hunter]

Hey now, don't write XDM off so quickly! Look at this post (http://www.schlockmercenary.com/blog/index.php/2009/04/16/more-xdm-prestidigitation/) by Howard.

I, for one, would like to learn how to do that :smallbiggrin:

[Dr_Horrible]

And if he was writting a book on "Making good stories" I might agree with you, however he is making a book on being a Game Master and how to make that fun. Tips to make playing any story more enjoyable.

In gaming it is more important to have a good time with your friends then tell a good story and most people agree Hickman's games are fun to play or at least that is the way their testimonials read.

I've played in Dragon Lance and it didn't matter if the story rips of LotR or that the PCs are being shuffled around by gods or what the book were like. What mattered, at least to me, was that once we found which if us was the best DM those games were fun.

My point is that his gaming advice would run something like: Railroad, Railroad, punish players for not mind readind, Railroad, Deus Ex the ending.

And that's bad advice. Some people, specifically the people at TSR thought that was good gaming. I think that they are so crazy wrong that no one should take advice from railroading DMs about how to railroad.

[Chronos]

The last person is this guy though:Where is that from?

[Fostire]

And if he was writting a book on "Making good stories" I might agree with you, however he is making a book on being a Game Master and how to make that fun. Tips to make playing any story more enjoyable

How can you be a good DM if you can't make a good story?

[Swordguy]

Where is that from?

4Chan /tg board. I remember watching that thread a couple days ago.

What's being neglected to be mentioned was that the school of thought that the GM had (expressed in followup posts) was that he felt that the players were at his game to have fun by being challenged, and having the wizard bypass everything wasn't a challenge (there were evidently several obstacles such as this in the dungeon, and the wizard Batman'd his way past ALL of them without the other characters getting to do anything), he fiated that the wizard's solution didn't, in this case, work.

He also pointed out that the other players LOVED the resulting cinematic scene, and were none the wiser that he had changed the scene out from under them. I'm pretty sure the thread's 404'd by now, but I'll look for the followup posts.

I may not agree with the GM in question, but he's right in that as long as the players are having fun, he's doing a good job. I can respect him for that. I also can't blame him too much for getting fed up with a batman wizard rendering the remainder of the party pointless.

EDIT: Yeah, thread's gone.

[The Glyphstone]

Wait, and we're using 4chan as a reliable guide as to someone's character? Did I get hit on the head and warped into a parallel reverse universe? If so, where are the legions of hot babes throwing themselves at me?:smallfrown:

[Swordguy]

Wait, and we're using 4chan as a reliable guide as to someone's character? Did I get hit on the head and warped into a parallel reverse universe? If so, where are the legions of hot babes throwing themselves at me?:smallfrown:

Just sayin' - if you're gonna use 4chan to crucify somebody, it's equally as valid to use it to defend somebody. And I disagree with "selective quoting" - only copy-pasting one part of the story - on principle.

[Dr_Horrible]

Really Sword guy? Is lying better?

Because you just lied all over the place. I just posted one single post of his. Though I have a couple other exerts I could put up, but you just lied.

1) He never claimed at any point that the Wizard Batman'd through any other obstacles. In fact, he explicitly claimed that he immediately disallowed all sorts of solutions, and that for example, Walls of Iron were never able to prevent enemies from attacking, because that would be unfun.

2) He did very clearly explain that he felt they should be challenged. By which he means roll a bunch of dice. Because any time someone came up with an actual solution, he would immediately negate it in favor of rolling dice.

3) He never once claimed that the other players were not getting a chance, in fact, he did state that he had to negate other players solutions, because you know, any solution to a problem that didn't involve the solution he had already decided had to be countered.

So yeah, how about you don't lie about what's been said in the future and then criticize me for only posting part of the truth, when you post nothing but lies.

[Swordguy]

The hell?

I'm not going to fight with you. I'm out. Everybody else, believe what you want.

[Tsotha-lanti]

What is an "X-treme" game master, and why does one need to be one? Do I have to set myself on fire when the Balrog attacks, or will narrating while bungee jumping from my roof suffice?

[kjones]

I thought this thread was going to be about the highly underrated d20 game X-Crawl, in which dungeon crawling is an X-TREEM sport...

Dr_Horrible: Take a chill pill. Does it really bother you that much that maybe someone is wrong on the internet (http://xkcd.com/386/)?

[Oracle_Hunter]

What is an "X-treme" game master, and why does one need to be one? Do I have to set myself on fire when the Balrog attacks, or will narrating while bungee jumping from my roof suffice?
Well, judging by the blog posts, it seems to be one who works really hard on creating an atmosphere for the players; so stuff like music, props, voices, etc. but turned up to 11.

I imagine it'll be clearer once the book is actually out.

[Waspinator]

One that side note, yeah X-Crawl is awesome. Embrace the absurdity of the dungeon setting by making it a contrived creation even in-game!

About this book, I might have to get it. Schlock Mercenary is rather awesome and I like his art. Plus, the dice levitation trick sounds neat.

[Sir Giacomo]

Tracy Hickman is pretty much the second to last person to take DMing adivce from.

There's exactly one story in the entirety of Dragonlance, and it's not even a very good story and it breaks half the actual game rules for no reason, and the PCs don't actually matter because it's always Deus Ex Machinaed at the end.


Well, you apparently do not play the game for that long. The original dragonlance series had a huge impact on the way sold adventures were layouted, structured and helped the DM to achieve something unprecedented: keep suspense in dungeon-like adventures AND at the same time have a plot. The subdivision into encounters and events alone was golden (standard now, but completely new at that time).

I daresay, the original dragonlance series from this viewpoint were unsurpassed. Ravenloft (also by the same authors btw) came close to it. And some adventures as well that tried to introduce plot threads.

If you just railroaded in those adventures, you were definitely doing something wrong.

- Giacomo

[bosssmiley]

How can you be a good DM if you can't make a good story?

The DM does not "make the story"; the players do.

The DM sets up events and situations (tricks, traps, puzzles, combats, talk encounters, etc). A good DM is one who offers his players interesting, exciting and memorable situations, and then arbitrates the interaction of the PCs with the game world fairly and impartially.

The story of the game emerges from the interaction of the PCs with the situations presented to them (sometimes the story is "the saga of the heroic dragon slayers". Other times the story is "the day we got curbstomped by a dragon"). This interaction is entirely directed by the players. Never forget: the players are the prime movers in a game of D&D, without them there is no game.

On-topic: Tracy Hickman writes a DMing advice guide? Simply do the opposite of everything it recommends. :smallamused:

[MeklorIlavator]

As someone whose not familiar with Dragonlance or Tracy Hickman, why are people so down on him/why is a series of books considered evidence of poor dming skills? This is a serious question, I really have very little knowledge of Dragonlance besides it exists.

[Bayar]

Ever heard of Kender ? They are from Dragonlance.

[MeklorIlavator]

Ever heard of Kender ? They are from Dragonlance.

Yeah, but I've heard/experienced mixed things about them. Granted, most of my info is from the Kender handbook(an online PDF), but it seemed to me it's more the fault of Dms or players being idiots than the race itself.

[Dr_Horrible]

Yeah, but I've heard/experienced mixed things about them. Granted, most of my info is from the Kender handbook(an online PDF), but it seemed to me it's more the fault of Dms or players being idiots than the race itself.

Though Kender is a minor point for me, and my contempt is mostly around the type of DMing that evidences railroading, Kender really are that bad. The official first ever description of Kender is, "They steal things all the time, from their own party especially, they are never afraid and always blindly rush ahead, they never think that any amount of stealing is wrong, they never apologize blah blah."


Well, you apparently do not play the game for that long.

I have no idea what this is even supposed to mean. You mean the Dragonlance modules? Yeah, my DM in 2e never used modules.


The original dragonlance series had a huge impact on the way sold adventures were layouted, structured and helped the DM to achieve something unprecedented: keep suspense in dungeon-like adventures AND at the same time have a plot. The subdivision into encounters and events alone was golden (standard now, but completely new at that time).

None of which has anything to do with DMing skill, and everything to do with making modules more railroady until some authors pulled out of that rut by recognizing that players do things the module doesn't predict, and so they actually explain behaviors instead of orders of encounters.


If you just railroaded in those adventures, you were definitely doing something wrong.

So you mean an ordered series of encounters and 'events' aka plot branches that always (and usually immediately) looped back into the main plot, designed to tell a very specific story in a very specific order doesn't count as railroading?

[MeklorIlavator]

Ah. My only knowledge of Kender is from the handbook, which downplays that aspect, I guess.

[chiasaur11]

Ever heard of Kender ? They are from Dragonlance.

The monster!

[EENick]

How can you be a good DM if you can't make a good story?

The same way you can be a good actor if you can't write a good script, you get a good story from someone else.

Keep in mind, in addition to what bosssmiley said, the art of DM is being a good story teller, not being a good writer. A lot of DM's can do both, and it is a good skill to have, but you can be a perfectly good DM running other people's stories provided you can make it interesting to your group.


So you mean an ordered series of encounters and 'events' aka plot branches that always (and usually immediately) looped back into the main plot, designed to tell a very specific story in a very specific order doesn't count as railroading?

In point of fact no. That is writing an adventure. Railroading is when you refuse to improve if your PCs take it in unexpected directions and force them back on that path through stunningly illogical events which has nothing to do with writing a scenario it has to do with how you play out said scenario.

Besides being a good player is a two way street. Just as a good GM will react and mold the adventure around the PCs action good PCs will cut their GM a break and try and throw themselves into the adventure. If the bad guy has the princess hostage and the PCs shoot the princess in the head for laughs then typically the PCs are being ****s.

Obviously you are pretty bias against Hickman for some reason, which is fine, but given how subjective the subject of a good IE fun DM is it really doesn't matter. After all if I enjoy Hickman and his advice lets me have more fun with my friends does it matter if he railroads or introduced kender etc. I personally had a lot of fun with Kender in adventures when the right DM was at the helm and that is the point. This is a book about how to make your games more fun and fun is subjective. Railroading while not something I enjoy, is perfectly fine if you have a group that likes to be lead around by GM. I've played with groups who do like to be taken from point A to point B and get a strong liner narrative in a game.

So far you seems to be assuming this is Hickman’s book on how to write adventures. From all the snippets posted online it seems to be the opposite. If focuses on how to add flair, atmosphere, engage your players. I mean how does Hickman suggesting good atmosphere music of outlining contact juggling as a way to make the game more immersive advocate railroading? And even if other parts of the book do why shouldn’t people just use their good sense and learn from the good parts and ignore the rest?

Unless you’ve personally played a game with Hickman or something you seem to have rather made some sweeping assumptions here about the book based your feelings towards TSR which so far seem unfounded based on what samples of the book have been released. At least that is the way your posts read to me. Since this is the internet after all I'll just let you give your own closing thoughts on the matter and move on. There is really no point in going back and forth on this issue of railroading any further until the book actually comes out and I'd much rather discuss with people the snipets already released unless you have a problem with contact juggling. :smallbiggrin: