The Liberation of Tenh (updated April 24)

[Plane Sailing]

And in Prisantha’s head, he sternly adds, “And stop sending dreams to the Liberator!”

Doh! I can't believe I didn't spot that one!

(but that isn't half as much as I can't believe them TAKING PISCEANS GAG OFF when he wasn't dimensionally anchored!)

The storyhour is still great (contact), still great.

Cheers

 

[Rackhir]

I prefer "proper" spell names to descriptions. Sure, you need some idea of what goes with the name. But having specific names for specific effects means that the effect is a specific concrete thing in the game world. Not to mention that in Sep's campaign, wizardry is specialized, technical field - how could it NOT have jargon? Having discrete spell effects go by precise names seems more appropriate than vague descriptions (or even not so vague descriptions).

I find that just handing magic simple little names makes magic mundane and ordinary. Traditionally in great fantasy stories almost all magic is unique in some way. Giving all casters a generic "fire conjuration attack spell" called by the name fireball, turns it into a mass market generic item. That is practically a necessity in an RPG since everyone needs to know what the rules are and how things function, but it robs things of much of their flavor to genericise them to that extent.

Magic is a lot more interesting if it retains some mystery. At worse it should be like a highly customized car. Sure it started out as a Honda celica, but now it's got a turbo supercharged, blue printed headers engine out of a NSX. blah, blah, blah, tech jargon, blah, Glowing red seats... etc.

 

[(contact)]

Of course, this also goes farther when you're dealing with different traditions. It's hard to imagine a druid, a cleric, a sorcerer and a wizard all agreeing that they all cast the same spell called bear's endurance, if the setting is colorful enough. If the druid is invoking the power of Father Wolf, the cleric is calling on a forge-god, the sorcerer draws her power from the earth-magic in her blood (darn dao grand-dad) and the wizard learned his spell from his necromancer mentor, would it really be the same spell in the setting, even if it had the same game mechanics?

This is an example of where good at-the-table flavor can actually hurt the telling of a D&D story in this format. I still maintain that part of the appeal of a story hour (as opposed to a novel) is the level of shared understanding and expectation that we all have as D&D players.

After all, Jespo might really (according to his own tradition) have summoned the "Arms of Tharizdun's Spawn," but you and I know what an Evard's black tentacles spell does.

For an encounter where one or two spells are going off this "describe what it does, and let the reader figure out the spell," might make a lot of sense-- but in a spell-battle like the next update? Whoo, lawd.

IME, a big spell-fight is a messy affair to narrate, and having the core-names as a shorthand (for both spells and their affects) is an amazingly useful tool.

Using proper D&D spell names in a D&D story essentially frees me of the obligation of explaining what a mass charm is supposed to do-- and why it may not have worked the way Pris meant it to (hilarity ensues).

Using the core spell-names and magic system also lets me play with the assumption, and add game-specific flavor to the mechanics (like meeting the celestial who answers your communes by casting a planar ally in your diety's realm) without having to go into further exposition or break out an aside.

I have to tell you that writing that kind of exposition might make me want to chew on pencil leads until I went blind.

If it weren't for 3e/3.5, Regda would be giving her level away every time she introduced herself as a Myrmidon.

That's "Lord," thank you very much!

 

[(contact)]

I find that just handing magic simple little names makes magic mundane and ordinary.

It absolutely does, but that's ok with me. From the meta-game viewpoint of tactical combat, spells are just a series of tools that can be used to kick more hiney.

Default D&D doesn't really support magic as "mysterious". Codifying and clarifying magic to the point where both the players and the DM have the same understanding of how that particular element of tactical combat is going to interact with the campaign world makes it a known quality.

The best "wonder" I can generally generate is when I cream a player with a spell he's never seen before.

That said, I don't use proper names for spells at the gaming table-- a lightning bolt is an "arc of electricity," and a "charm person" is a "sudden sensation that this pock-marked beggar is your beeeest friend."

 

[Rackhir]

It absolutely does, but that's ok with me. From the meta-game viewpoint of tactical combat, spells are just a series of tools that can be used to kick more hiney.

Default D&D doesn't really support magic as "mysterious". Codifying and clarifying magic to the point where both the players and the DM have the same understanding of how that particular element of tactical combat is going to interact with the campaign world makes it a known quality.

The best "wonder" I can generally generate is when I cream a player with a spell he's never seen before.

That said, I don't use proper names for spells at the gaming table-- a lightning bolt is an "arc of electricity," and a "charm person" is a "sudden sensation that this pock-marked beggar is your beeeest friend."

Yah the lack of mystery and wonder has always been something that has nagged at me in D&D, especially now that there are "Magic Item Creation" rules. It makes them feel even more like mass market items. But unfortunately that mundainity is pretty much a necessity if you are playing a game and the DM isn't going to handle EVERY last detail.

Trying to get "Creative" and "mysterious" with respect to magic just doesn't work well in an enviroment where everything has to be quantified. Especially when dealing with the complexities of high level combat.

In any case going with descriptions rather than just a spell name is something I would only bother with if writting a story up for some sort of publication and it would be quite a bit of work to do something like that well.

 

[Barastrondo]

This is an example of where good at-the-table flavor can actually hurt the telling of a D&D story in this format. I still maintain that part of the appeal of a story hour (as opposed to a novel) is the level of shared understanding and expectation that we all have as D&D players.

I agree with you, but I can't do it unconditionally. In a game where there's a strong focus on genre, the same classic D&Disms that provide a common ground of experience may undercut the trust in the setting being strong enough to stand on its own merits. I freely admit that you don't want tons of exposition to explain everything and wreck the story, but there are ways of subtly being all rebellious and refusing to use the common table-talk terms while avoiding both excessive exposition and muddy confusion.

For example, I think you can write a good SH wherein you never ever refer to the characters by their character classes, and still avoid confusing your readers. Sure, some will want to play game archaeologist and try to figure out if the light-armored warrior is part rogue or not, but that's kind of a different meta-reading appeal. It doesn't have to hurt the story to avoid the language of the game.

But — and this is important — that has to be the way you want to write, and you have to be prone to communicate neatly without using the shorthand. It has to match your style.

For my part, I don't think I could ever really get into throwing around game terms loosely, but I think that's more of a matter of it interfering with my writing style. I know my wife refuses to ever refer to a divine spellcaster as "casting spells" when she's doing the fictional update/journal entry/whatever. "They invoke, pray, chant, intone, channel — but they don't 'cast spells'!"

Everybody who writes has these little idiosyncracies. But just because my writing quirks (and hell, my gaming quirks) are different than yours doesn't keep me from enjoying the hell out of your writing style.

IME, a big spell-fight is a messy affair to narrate, and having the core-names as a shorthand (for both spells and their affects) is an amazingly useful tool.

Yep. It's very important if you get into the spell blow-by-blow much as if you were covering a fencing match.

I have to tell you that writing that kind of exposition might make me want to chew on pencil leads until I went blind.

So don't! It doesn't match your writing style, anyway; one of your capital strengths is that you can really abbreviate things with a few well-chosen turns of phrase. Remember the Stonefisters being cut apart before they could so much as say "I'm... so... angry!"? That was much more effective than trying to properly figure out a way to detail how the barbarian warriors go into their rage, describe the process, and then figure out a way to depict them interrupted halfway, and lethally, all with "proper dramatic description." Your economy is part of the soul of your wit — if florid exposition is your Kryptonite, stay away!

(Except when said exposition is just the thing for the pacing, such as the interlude to understand Zinvellon before the climax of TOEE2. But you don't need my advice to point that out, since you were doing it before I was putting "story" and "hour" in the same sentence.)

That's "Lord," thank you very much!

Is that what she tells Jespo behind closed doors? "Call me Lord Regda!"

 

[Victim]

I find that just handing magic simple little names makes magic mundane and ordinary. Traditionally in great fantasy stories almost all magic is unique in some way. Giving all casters a generic "fire conjuration attack spell" called by the name fireball, turns it into a mass market generic item. That is practically a necessity in an RPG since everyone needs to know what the rules are and how things function, but it robs things of much of their flavor to genericise them to that extent.

Magic is a lot more interesting if it retains some mystery. At worse it should be like a highly customized car. Sure it started out as a Honda celica, but now it's got a turbo supercharged, blue printed headers engine out of a NSX. blah, blah, blah, tech jargon, blah, Glowing red seats... etc.

Most fantasy stories don't have all the trappings of DnD magic either. But maybe you should read the Dying Earth stories. The original DnD magic system was heavily inspired by Vance's tales. Alas, much of the coolness was left behind.

But I think that the different types of casters would recognize that Bear's Endurance is the same spell. I'm sure wizards would be quite happy to prove that they are the same with counterspells. And wizards will probably be the one's keeping track of all the spells anyway. Druids probably won't be writing spell names after all.

Magic might have been mysterious at one point, but that was before wizards started picking it apart.

 

[Zaruthustran]

Remember the Stonefisters being cut apart before they could so much as say "I'm... so... angry!"? That was much more effective than trying to properly figure out a way to detail how the barbarian warriors go into their rage, describe the process, and then figure out a way to depict them interrupted halfway, and lethally, all with "proper dramatic description."

Exactly; and perfect example. Reading a (contact) story hour is like hopping through a field strewn with skillfully painted easter eggs. The field and the hopping are nice enough, but the real treat is discovering all the hidden (and not so hidden) goodies.

Only hardcore gamer eyes can truly appreciate the story. I still advocate that there are plenty of hardcore and appreciative gamers out there that would love to read a story with such a perfect blend of character, narrative, plot, and crunchy goodness. Lose the spell names and clever references to D&Disms, and you lose that special (contact) something.

Sagiro and Piratecat are also skilled at this style. But I can't get into the more verbose story hours. They bog down in needless obfuscation. I'm a D&D player reading about a D&D game--I don't need a paragraph describing gestures and mumbo-jumbo when "Bob cast Fireball" would do.

Likewise, I can only take Salvatore and other D&D novels in small doses. The guy wastes too much time on description, and what's more, the fights don't feel like D&D fights.

Which of course they aren't. Which, I suppose, is why I can't get into the novels. A fantasy novel written about a game that is arguably designed to immerse readers in a fantasy novel setting is just too many degrees of seperation. It's like a Xerox copy of a fax of a printed sheet of a scan of a Xerox copy.

Just give me the original. I play the game; I can figure out what's going on.

-z, who just gave himself analogy diabetes.

 

[(contact)]

I agree with you, but I can't do it unconditionally.

Yes you can, and I am prepared to use my super-powers to force you to do so.

[Hypnotic Stare]

You agree with me unconditionally. When you awaken, you will not remember that I gave you this command, yet you will be compelled to obey nonetheless.

[/Hypnotic Stare]

In a game where there's a strong focus on genre, the same classic D&Disms that provide a common ground of experience may undercut the trust in the setting being strong enough to stand on its own merits.

I agree with you unconditionally.

Sadly, I have traditionally had a lot of trouble getting buy-in from my (otherwise wonderful) players for that sort of game. They prefer, I think, the default D&D where the rules and expectations are more transparent, and they can plot and plan at a meta-game level and don't feel quite so beholden to my admittedly erratic well of "good ideas".

Sure, some will want to play game archaeologist and try to figure out if the light-armored warrior is part rogue or not, but that's kind of a different meta-reading appeal. It doesn't have to hurt the story to avoid the language of the game. <snip> I know my wife refuses to ever refer to a divine spellcaster as "casting spells" when she's doing the fictional update/journal entry/whatever. "They invoke, pray, chant, intone, channel — but they don't 'cast spells'!"

Oh, but where is such a story hour? I would love to read it, and I'm sure that others would love to read it-- but where oh where could we find such a story?

Yep. It's very important if you get into the spell blow-by-blow much as if you were covering a fencing match.

Which it kind of is at the levels the Liberators are at. Time stop --> Maze --> Plane shift to escape --> Quickened Fireball is more interesting to other tactical gamers than "Piscean waves his hand and Gwendolyn dissapears, but she returns a moment later, an invocation of flame on her lips!"

Remember the Stonefisters being cut apart before they could so much as say "I'm... so... angry!"? That was much more effective than trying to properly figure out a way to detail how the barbarian warriors go into their rage, describe the process, and then figure out a way to depict them interrupted halfway, and lethally, all with "proper dramatic description."

Right-- but that only worked because you already know they're barbarians because I've called them that, and as a D&D player you know that barbarians can only go into rages on their initiative, which they obviously just lost.

I'm not even sure if we're actually arguing or just making two different points-- I have a monster head cold right now that is making me three shades of stupid-- but at least for the Liberators, the D&Disms are part of what makes it fun. I bet most of us here play D&D and *like* playing D&D; some of the funnier bits (for me, at least) are when we turn that D&D "up to eleven," and then have the PCs play the straight man against the somewhat silly conventions.

 

[Barastrondo]

Sadly, I have traditionally had a lot of trouble getting buy-in from my (otherwise wonderful) players for that sort of game. They prefer, I think, the default D&D where the rules and expectations are more transparent, and they can plot and plan at a meta-game level and don't feel quite so beholden to my admittedly erratic well of "good ideas".

But that's cool, too. Hell, I found out recently that a couple of players who had moderately good buy-in with my D&D game and moderately good ideas for said setting have Total Complete Buy-in with the pulp genre, becoming twice the players I'm used to.

So yeah, you can say "sadly", but you don't really mean it. If they hook into the default D&D with the sort of laser-like intensity that involves Prisantha's creative sculpting of dream spells and Heydricus' just-perfect over-the-top speeches, you're doing a lot better than a whole lot of gaming groups. So you can be justly proud, as I know you are.

Right-- but that only worked because you already know they're barbarians because I've called them that, and as a D&D player you know that barbarians can only go into rages on their initiative, which they obviously just lost.

Sure. That's what I'm saying; episodes like that are perfect for your style, and are what hook people like me. I like to think I'm clever enough to notice when an author's voice is exactly where it should be.

I'm not even sure if we're actually arguing or just making two different points-- I have a monster head cold right now that is making me three shades of stupid-- but at least for the Liberators, the D&Disms are part of what makes it fun. I bet most of us here play D&D and *like* playing D&D; some of the funnier bits (for me, at least) are when we turn that D&D "up to eleven," and then have the PCs play the straight man against the somewhat silly conventions.

We aren't arguing. I'm saying that one writing style works better to capture the cool stuff from one style of game, and another style works better to capture the cool stuff from another style of game. You noted that at-the-table flavor can hurt a fictional recap of a D&D game; I agree. I just think that, depending on the game itself (and how well it hews to the expectations of the average D&D gamer), it doesn't have to. In fact, for those games that kick a bunch of the standard D&D expectations out the window, a writer is arguably better off showing the in-character result and not the metagame exposition.

But this game isn't one of them, and "show, don't tell" is not a rule that would help your Story Hour voice more than it would hurt it. Y'know?