The Fall of the King of Sota: Prologue 1

Atop the Flowering Garbage Heap

 

Welcome back! Today, we talk about the total exhaustion of finding out there's yet more trauma to recover from.

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is when the mind encounters something it can't make sense of, and it squirrels away a part itself that can't make sense of it, for protection. This part, this sub-personality, is then kept going through an unconscious but purposeful and constant expenditure of mental energy. This locked away sub-personality (now hitherto "Sub") is not a separate personality, although the Main and Sub's knowledge of each other is generally hazy.

Complex Traumatic Stress Disorder (C-PTSD) is when the mind encounters multiple somethings that it can't make sense of. The line between Subs and completely different personalities begins to blur, because the mental energy to keep the breaks up is much greater. Most of the time, the Subs take turns “helping” the surface personality, and sometimes take over. It is a wretched life.

Personality Disorder (PD) is when the mind encounters something so awful that it makes a completely different personality, only about that one thing, and then forgets about it. The two personalities then attempt to live independently of each other. It goes as well as expected.

The line between C-PTSD and PD is a lot hazier than you would think. At what point is keeping the Subs in tension harder than just allowing them to drift?

I am pretty squarely in that gray area. I have a laundry list of awful things that go as long as my arm. Literally. The individual counts are so high that it's actually disgusting. And I keep finding large parts of me that are so thoroughly buried that it's a marvel I find anything at all.

But there's sometimes I look at myself, and realize the wreckage.

Miles and miles of what was once a real, working, actual personality.

Not the fundamentally broken and held together by duct-tape... thing... that I run around in like it's a stolen car. It is hard, in those moments, to not fall into despair. You just... you see the damage. Years of mistreatment, codified and ratified and stratified into a mockery of stability.

The words "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me," stick in my throat.

There is nothing here, in this wreckage, that I would attribute to a good and kind and loving God. It's just... what's left. Chaotic rubble. There's nothing that I could imagine the Son of God recognizing as his own. "Mercy"? That word makes the ash in the air sweet. And don't even get me started on asking for anyone to have mercy on me.

For those of you who say God's mercy is boundless.. He will only take mercy on what you let Him. And I can't. I just can't. It's far beyond my abilities as a person. This broken misshapen husk of a personality is a mockery of God's goodness. I want it to burn. And yet, that is despair, the realization that I have judged what God has not.

But what am I supposed to do, in the midst of this? I have a conscience, do I not? Did not God make me to labor in the vineyard? And is this not a ruined vineyard? Aren't we supposed to clear away the chaff for the fire?

And trust me, I am that chaff. Do not doubt it.

It hits me just how fucked I really am.

What is there to do but sit and curse the day I was born? To beg God to strike my birthday from the calendar? To ask the sun to hide her face from that day, so that even if humanity isn't stupid enough to remove it from the calendar, they don't have to witness the sheer absurdity of my birth?

What else is there to do but sit? And ask God why He even bothered?

So, I look down. I don't ask for mercy. I can't bear to. It's too much.

And then I see it.

A hyacinth.

And I curse Wolfe, loudly, because I can never forget this line from Book of the Short Sun. It's burned into me, like a brand. I have literally had dreams of Wolfe burning it into me, and I flinch thinking about it. But friends are kind torturers. And Wolfe may be the best friend I never met.

"Though trodden beneath the shepherd's heel, the wild hyacinth blooms on the ground." 

And it's coming out from between the garbage piles. Unasked for, unlooked for, unwanted, trodden, cursed by me... but growing all the same. With absolutely no regard for my pride.

I look up. I see an entire field of hyacinths. They're popping up between the cracks, but they're there. Mercy is coming, whether I want it or not. I feel, once again, Wolfe's chuckle from the dream I had, years ago: "You're a coward". I can't help but agree with him.

But the hyacinths are there.

So, weary, I get back up. I sway with the wind a moment.

And start clearing away the wreckage.

For the hyacinths.

Wherever you are, Wolfe, fuck yourself. I'm tired. How dare you find me worth saving. 

Fine. I'll see you at the Gate. 

Properly.

Asshole.

A wind not of my making blows. The hyacinths dance. I stop and stare. My heart does something against its will. I stare, for a long time, at the colors moving through the wreckage. But they can't move quite perfectly. Some of them don't move. Not yet.

Someone really needs to move the wreckage. Maybe that someone is me. We'll see. I get to work.

So I was going to end it there, Defender. I was pretty happy with that post. 

And then a friend of mine sent me a book!

Very nice of him! Thank you!

As I was reading it, I found the following passage:

“Your heart is full of fertile seeds, waiting to sprout. Just as a lotus flower springs from the mire to bloom splen-didly, the interaction of the cosmic breath causes the flower of the spirit to bloom and bear fruit in this world.”

It is here that I leave you. If I do not see you next week, I do not blame you. It is no easy road.

The Real Problem of Storygaming

 

So I've been on Twitter for awhile now.

No, come back, trust me, this is going somewhere.

I got involved in the RPG space on Twitter immediately. It's been a lot of fun, and I've actually learned a lot about design. A lot of people, it turns out, are grappling with the same issues I've been seeing. I don't agree with them 100% of the time, but it actually feels like something closer to a conversation than what I would have had before Twitter. Now, by and large, the folks on Twitter are right-wingers who like oldschool gaming. I am a storygamer with some rather deep-seated feelings of resentment against storygaming, so I engaged in some conversations and boy did some stuff get cleared up.

I define storygaming as:

Playing a game that makes a story. As in, by playing the game, a coherent narrative emerges, which the players can derive actual aesthetic enjoyment from as its own object, both in real-time and post-game.

Storygaming can be a roleplaying game (as in, there's people who are strictly playing a limited role), or in a more meta way (which I'm going to define as a storytelling-game). This is similar to how you can have a wargame proper, or a wargame that is a roleplaying game as well (see ODnD).

Storygaming solves a problem that old-schoolers don't want to acknowledge: NOT ALL OF US WANT TO PLAY DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS, SORRY NOT SORRY.

The problem isn't that storygaming exists. That's like blaming wargaming for roleplaying games's problems. Which is absolutely absurd. The problem is far more fundamental.

The central problem of most storygames is that it assumes that simply telling a story is extremely comfortable for adults, who are the majority audience for games. Without an infrastructure to attach to, what should be a very intuitive experience gets awkward, forcing one person to step up and help guide everyone through a process they don't even really know how to do anymore.

Yes, to the storygamers who are currently protesting, I am talking about the average person.

"bUt StoRyTElLinG iS NaTUraL"

Yes, it is, but not in the context of a collaborative game. Most people tell stories to others, and don't consciously collaborate. Most games give events that people craft a narrative with afterwards. Storygaming itself promises a story that you can make, and recognize, in process. 

That's so fucking cool.

It's also the farthest thing from "natural" in the world. It's a really  cool thing to do, but let's not pretend that collaborative storytelling outside of a liturgical or party context is natural.

How Do We Make This More Natural?

There's four ways to address this: more focused rules for narration, mechanical support, ritual, and increased objectivity, without sacrificing thematic depth.

Narration Rules

It all begins here. Narration in most storygames is hand-waved. "Just say what you want to do!" There are two people I know of who, upon hearing that for the first time, did not have a low-grade panic attack. It's not that narration as the core mechanic of your game is a bad idea, per se, but if it's literally just "Well, say whatever"... most adults I know lock up, at least at first. The sheer amount of choice available isn't freeing, it's paralyzing. Adults are so used to not having that many choices that handing them the whole freaking buffet line does more harm than good.

So you use rules to help focus them. Not railroad, and certainly not restrict. Focus.

A good example is my own RPG, Crescendo: your actions have to fit the Setting's Myth and your character's Heart, according to the Weaver (GM). There are standards, some of which you wrote yourself, which you can measure your actions against as you're playing. Everyone has agreed on the Myth, and the Weaver accepted your Heart when you wrote it. Since this is all based on commonly agreed tropes and personally chosen stuff, it's easy to know how successful the outcomes of your decisions will be... and whether you even care. Sometimes players will deliberately fail, because their Heart runs up against the Myth, and they let it be messy and find it fun, because it addresses what they expected in the first place.

Mechanical Support

This is the one that most storygames do a decent, even an excellent job, at. PBTA particularly, with its reactionary Moves, pushes the story in different ways, although it's easy for it to fall into a railroad. Burning Wheel's Beliefs and Artha cycle takes the conversation that is a storygame and elevates it into a complex and emotional story. Bleak Spirit's scene structure and prompts helps push the conversation into places that are easy to run with. Mechanics reacting to narration really is an amazing kick of dopamine!

Ritual

Storygames are okay at this one, by and large, but this is where certain actions are mandated, like beginning and ending session mechanics. These help get everyone into and out of trance more easily, and that cannot be underestimated. Adults have to be coaxed, wooed, into letting go and just enjoying themselves.

Increased Objectivity

This is possibly the biggest actual offender in the storygaming world.  The setting goes from being a real place that may have unexpected edges (lots of them!), to... just be fully at the behest of the players. This is honestly the most damaging thing in storygaming as a genre. If the world is to be fully shaped by player fiat, then the simulation fails one of the fundamental tests of whether it's reality or not: being told "No". This is obviously not true in all storygames, but there's plenty of them where the setting is not a real place, which can push back and tell players "No, you will have to contend with me." This is one of the things the OSR does completely right, just about all the time.

The Good News?

We don’t have to pick sides. Storygaming doesn’t need to abandon its ambitions—it just needs better scaffolding so that normal adults can actually enjoy the thing it promises. We can keep the dream of collaboratively crafting a real story at the table while giving players the structure, ritual, pushback, and mechanical teeth that make it feel exciting instead of paralyzing.
That’s exactly what I’ve been chasing with Crescendo. The Myth and Heart system gives players clear boundaries to play against (and sometimes against each other). The Weaver isn’t a dictator, but they’re also not a vending machine. The world has weight. Failure can be beautiful. And when it works, the story that emerges feels earned—not because we forced it, but because we had enough infrastructure to let it breathe.
The RPG space on Twitter (and beyond) is full of people who love this hobby for very different reasons. Some want the thrill of exploration and danger. Others want something that feels like a story worth telling afterward. Both are valid. The real failure would be pretending these desires can’t learn from each other.
So here’s my pitch: stop treating “storygame” and “OSR” as rival faiths. Start stealing the best ideas from both sides without apology. Give narration focus. Build mechanical engines that reward good play. Add ritual that helps everyone get in the zone. And for the love of all that’s holy, let the world say “no” sometimes.
The result might not be pure storygaming or pure old-school. It’ll probably be something new, a little messy, and a lot more fun.

Dark Souls RPG Reflections

 

Welcome back! Good to see you! Today we go over my thoughts on the Dark Souls RPG, as I start contemplating the next campaign.

The Dark Souls RPG has a lot of promise. Like, the kind of promise I'm willing to hack around to accommodate. So I'm not pretending that this is a perfect game, but I'm not aware of too many games that do this one loop so well. It's half-baked, but the parts that are fully cooked are so good that I can't help myself.

The Way It Actually Works

Dark Souls is a d20 game that isn't about the d20, which is the biggest compliment I can give. D20's are swingy as hell, and this game adds in one wrinkle to the decision: Position (HP). If you fail the roll, you have to decide if it's worth spending Position to succeed. The d20 informs your decision, but it isn't the core decision. Provided the GM provides good information... you now have one heck of a dilema on your hands. Because Position is so fragile in surprise situations, how do you decide which tasks are worth succeeding or failing on? 

The decision wouldn't matter as much if it wasn't for just how brutal the damage is. Damage in Dark Souls is around double the damage of 5e, so screwing up rolls in this game can lead to insta-death very quickly. And there's that freaking Wisdom save whenever you die, that does random things to your character if you fail it.. .and you're almost assuredly going to. Each death changes you, for better or for worse, and you simply don't know what the consequences of death might be.

So the core loop, properly played, is this series of calculated gambles, to either allow the failure or to force a success. Position tells you how much leeway you have, and when you die, it changes you, making the next run different. It is a constant, low thrum of anxiety and dread.

It's awesome.

And there's nothing like it, to the best of my knowledge, in the TTRPG space. Not quite so elegantly built, as your Position is your health. Players have an immediate idea of what they're doing, when they're sacrificing Position. The tension is incredible. And if this one thing was the only thing in the game, it would be awesome. 

The combat spends for Position (extra damage and extra movement) are understated, but they're extremely useful, especially the movement one. Do not estimate how useful it is to have your speed doubled for a paltry amount of Position, especially if you have a reach weapon. It is for this reason I think the Dark Souls RPG is a grid and minis game: players have issue trying to figure out just how useful the movement spend is, unless they're looking at it and realizing "Waitasec, I can legitimately not be around for the monsters, and force them to come to me." Seeing it is better than any reminder. However, the core “how much should I spend before the GM utterly ruins me” is still quite present. 

This Game Has a Right Way to Play It

It is a mudcore dungeoncralwer. You're playing characters who are perpetually stressed-out, pushing their luck, and hoping they can bank up enough souls to level up at a bonfire, before dying. "Muh story" people really need to go find another game. It won't work like that.

HOWEVER.

The rest of the game has a hard time matching up with this loop. Some of it's perfect too. Some of it's... imperfect... and some of it's just outright bad. The fact that the outright bad has to do with the shit editing, making this a book I am forced to write in, is unforgivable. This is a pretty book and I have to mark it up. 

Steamforged, get ready for that rant. Coz it’s coming and I do not intend to be gentle. This is shameful stuff. 

The Souls System

The souls system, wherein XP and money are collected, is just on the right side of detail. The biggest change is that souls are spent to level up, resetting them to zero. This means that going from level 2 to level 3 doesn't require another 600 souls, but another 900. I cannot overstate just how profound an impact this one change has on the game. The stakes were clarified at the table so powerfully and simply, that almost this alone would have made a Dark Souls game. My players would laugh when they died, because the souls were gone, and they knew that they had screwed up. The punishment was so over-the-top and ridiculous that the players would laugh to tears... or at least I think it was laughter. They kept playing! The horrible punishment forced them to try to learn to navigate the environment. 

Skills

Skills is a spot where the game rules definitely needed to be more fleshed out... to the point where I considered just doing the 3.5 skill system, or adapting it somehow. There was some guidance on how to adjudicate challenges outside of combat in the core book... but it's not a lot. Folks, this is mudcore OSR, and that's that. And the rules for adjudicating mudcore dungeoncrawl are... adequate. They're not terrible. But they're not good. I wanted crunch here, to support me as I played. Maybe you won't, but it came up a lot for me, personally. The "talk your way through the puzzle" sounds nice, until you have to do it a lot. I get exhausted of it. I'd rather have rules to look up and learn. "Find what works for you" is nice... until you have to do it all the time. And this game actually has the depth in its loop to handle crunch... and it doesn't have it. And it should.

The Organization of this Book Makes Me Angry

Of all the things that are a sin in this book, it's the absolutely abysmal organization that does it for me. It goes from "why isn't this table featured more prominently" to "THIS IS UTTER GARBAGE".

The biggest offender, by far, is the miserable lack of page references in the Locations section, combined with the utterly asinine monster organization. There's all these tables with monsters, with no page reference numbers. Nothing. You have to climb through, (and this is true of all THREE books) and figure out where the monster is. And, since the monsters aren't alphebatized, but are instead in "groupings" like "undead", "beasts", "denizens"... and I don't think even the monsters organizations are freaking alphabetized either. It's a nightmare finding monsters.

I have to write the numbers into the book in order for the most important section in the book (for GMs) to be usable! The book's poor organization requires it, and that pisses me off. This is a premium book, one I do not want to make marks in, and instead I'm having to scrawl page numbers because the editors were utter idiots. Utter. Fucking. Idiots. Steamforged really should be ashamed of themselves, but we know that that's not something the company as a whole is good at.

It's not any better with the items. The types of items are not necessarily intuitive, and they're not organized alphabetically either. This makes finding things... really really really hard. And I hate it. It's not an absolute deal breaker, but I'm more than a few months into using this book and I am absolutely not used to it yet. It takes me so much work to do what should be a simple look up, and I have no idea why they did it this way.

The Advice is Stupid

There are.... two...?  Two, I think. Lines of good advice in the book.

Do what you want with this game, whatever works for you, is bullshit advice. It indicates a nervousness about having a vision for your game.

The game is clearly mudcore oldschool. It's not a question. The mechanics, if played straight, produce a brilliantly flawed mudcore experience.

And about two lines of the advice serves this.

The rest is just "what do you want your story to be like" and "this game is yours" nonsense.

It is most of the advice in the books. All three of them.

There is no advice on how to make monsters. You have to go find other 5e products for that. Fortunately the monster design itself is pretty darn good, so you don't have to worry about this so much but... this is an outright glaring absence in the game's advice and design.

This Game Is Flawed

There is so much to recommend this game. It is a masterclass in getting players of any experience level invested. When we got done with our short little game, the players all immediately said they wanted to come back to it, after our Pathfinder 2e excursion. One of the players and I swap GMing duties, and you don't pass that kind of thing up. However, we're fully invested in this. I'm making a bigger map. Something we can chip away at as the months and years go on. I'm putting ideas together and I'm really excited. What so few games get right (the essentials), the Dark Souls RPG lands with aplomb.

However, the rest of the game is a mess. A shamefully hard to use mess. Like, the book is fundamentally flawed in its organization, to a degree that is an outright failure on Steamforged's part.

If you're willing to put in the work, you have one of the best experiences you'll ever have for a conventional RPG. If you don't... I really can't blame you, this book's organization is a shame before God and man.

Why Do You Care So Much???

This is a fair question! Why bother?

There isn't a rational answer and I won't pretend otherwise.

However.

I don't have to care if I'm being rational, and neither do you. And the answer may be interesting to you.

Some Things Just Fit

Aesthetics are supra-rational. They are what rationality is derived from. For whatever reason, the visual and narrative aesthetics of Dark Souls is home in a way that no other pre-established setting is. And the game's mechanics for this TTRPG evoke that feeling for me: ruined grandeur, something beautiful turned to something rotted. Which automatically creates this need to make it right again, even if you doubt it can ever be done. For whatever reason this game evokes that sentiment out of me, and I am better person for experiencing it.

One day the flame will return, and all will be well.

Now, that may not be the reason to forgive a game its many flaws for you, but it sure is for me.

And it really does come down to that.

Here I stop. If you I do not see you next week, I do not blame you. It is not easy road.

Atchison: Session Two

Atchison: Session One

Atchison: Session 0