(TFT) I realized

["David Michael Grouchy II" <david_michael_grouchy_ii@hotmail.com>]

{DEMATRIOUS}


    Master of the Dungeon, gate keeper of hell, that's what I wanted to be 
but its not easy.  First it was a huge range of mountains which a waterfall 
had carved a cleft out of.  The brick walls, windows, and doors faced each 
other across the cool and shadowy air in narrow canyon formed by erosion.  
It was a beautiful setting for a campaign.  I showed it to Robert Flammang, 
and I don't know where this came from but he really let me have his honest 
opinion.

    ``Why is it there?  There are no major ports, no trade routes, no 
source of commerce.  Why is it there?''

    ``Der, um, uh.''  I though silently to my self while I shuffled back to 
the seclusion of my tower.  I admitted to myself that it was there because 
the sketches looked cool, and I though it would be a lot of fun to have 
adventurers swinging in the air on ropes to engage the enemy.  I could see 
bridges and walk ways spanning the distances, and the higher up one lived 
the richer they were (the sun light was up there you know), and, and...  I 
still didn't know why it was there.  And now, I didn't want to finish it.


    I brought the ocean right up to the slope of the mountain range.  As 
soon as someone one hit land they were going up hill.  I decided it was was 
going to be a port city.  Then I put a subterranean lake beneath the 
mountain.  This way if someone got off of a ship and, instead of walking up 
hill, they walked into one of the dock side taverns they could walk all the 
way through to the back door and come to a much darker dock on an inky 
cavernous lake.  The subterranean lake beneath the mountains had little 
wooden docks around the edge with stairs up to; brick walls, windows, and 
doors.

    The adventurers would have endless dark tunnels to explore, but they 
would have to use boats, and barges, and canoes.  This would be great for 
solving the problem of massive amounts of food and equipment because a boat 
can carry so much more than a man with a pack.  It would be more like 
adventuring in a car that one could pull over and park at scenic sights.  
Hey, they could even get food and water from the streams which meant even 
longer expeditions were possible.  There might be entire other cities out 
there, or underwater passage ways to forgotten vaults of gold.  I took 
Edward Ott on a solo adventure to see if he would bite, and I don't where 
this came from but he really let me know what he was biting on.

``{Ji-had!}  This is the Moslem word for {Holy War!} and all worshippers of 
Allah who die in a Ji-had go straight to heaven.  I declare a Ji-had with 
the idolatrous temple of ``xorn,''  For the grievous, and heinous wrongs 
they have done me.  We will wipe the infidels from the face of the earth!''

    Say what?  I had never dealt with a player who was into the role of a 
zealous religious fanatic.  But I especially had never dealt with a holy war 
where the fanaticism was contagious to all who followed.  Those who followed 
turned out to be the other players.  Unfortunately for me, I hadn't put a 
single ``idolatrous'' temple in the subterranean regions.  By the time I 
though of it, the story of the ``Ji-Had'' on the surface of the mountain 
city was just too strong to divert.  Edd had taken the initiative and I 
never got it back.  Back to my tower I went.

    Apparently the players couldn't see around as many corners as I could.  
They could only see the choice at hand, and didn't know that all of the fun 
lay underground.  When Edd got off of the boat he continued up hill.  This 
could work to my advantage.

    But they didn't want to stop, They wanted to keep playing in the city 
on the mountain side.  So I let them.  After all, I am a sucker for 
attention, and they were giving me a lot of that.  I brought the Ji-had to a 
resounding conclusion with a big bang and asked everyone to make new 
characters.  This time I was not going to allow them any freedom or power 
what soever.  They were going to be too busy.  I was going to take the 
initiative.  So I decided that I would have to create a character who I 
would play, and he was going to be a murderer, very very evil, and he was 
going to get them into a lot of trouble.  I was curious to see how they 
would stop him.  I had him join their group and before he had ever proved 
him self in a fight I had him usurp control by taking a leadership position. 
 ``I say we go out, kill everyone, and take over.  Who
needs to go searching for lost treasure, there's gold right here in this 
city.  I say we start with the owner of that bar right there!''  I don't 
know where this came from.

``Yeahhhhaaaaaaaa!  Let's do it!''

``We'll sack the whole tavern!''

``The bar maid is mine!''

``We'll make a name for ourselves!''

``Yeah, we'll get organized and call ourselves, uh.''

``The Wrecking Crew!''

``Yeahhhhh!''


    I guess I should have seen that one coming, but for some naïve reason I 
thought the players would be against him, not with him.  I mean I designed 
and played him with that in mind.  What happened?  It was becoming obvious 
to me that I didn't understand the perspective of the players any more.  I 
particularly didn't know how to motivate them.  I checked with other Mnoren 
and found they were having the same problems.  I decided this was a problem 
of
understanding and there was only one thing for it.  I was going to have to 
go in undercover as a player.  I was going to have to live like an 
adventurer, eat like one, and possibly die like one to.  I knew this was 
grossly unethical.  One of the oldest principals of the Mnoren was that they 
could make a character and play in anyones campaign except their own.  We 
knew instinctively that if anyone was allowed to bring their own character 
into their own campaign that character would always get exactly what they 
wanted.  Well that's what I needed.  I wanted to understand what motivated 
these guys, and more important where all the tangents were coming from.

    I figured I couldn't be choosy, I would probably have to play what ever 
character they accepted.  So I just started introducing characters who had 
heard of ``The Wrecking Crew'' and who ``Wanted to join up.''  They took the 
first one!  But he was always sent up front and soon died.  The second one 
was a back ranks archer who they found to be a great asset.  He saved a 
couple of lives.  And I was still pondering the lack of gratitude when I 
realized that something unforseen had gone wrong.  Darryl McCreary, who had 
come up with the name ``The Wrecking Crew,'' and by extension his character 
had become its leader, took over my campaign.  I didn't know that that was 
what was happening at the time.


    ``I need to talk to you in private.''

    ``O.k.  Lets go in the back room.  Five minute break everyone.''

    ``When I go up to someone and shake their hand in a little bit, I want 
you to let me have a Hammer Touch ready so it will zap them.  And if I can 
actually get them to physically shake my hand, I was wondering if I had to 
make a dice roll to hit since I'm already touching them?''

    ``O.k.  Lets go back in the room.  It'll work.''

    He did it to.  The motives were there.  It was an old grudge, he was 
just waiting until everyone else had forgotten.  It was about money.  I had 
never had players turn on each other like this before and I put it down to 
the fact that I wasn't in control when it happened.  I was playing another 
character and had lost sight of my priorities.  Pretty soon I noticed that 
everyone was getting things cleared with Darryl's character before trying 
it.  Even my character was getting things cleared with Darryl's character.  
I don't know if you understand what I'm saying, but I wasn't wearing my 
Mnoren thinking cap, I was wearing a players thinking cap and apparently 
there is a differance.

    So I put everything aside and started to design a new setting in 
secret.  Eventually I lured them into it by building up a ten thousand year 
old myth about the original builders of the city.  And then I let a very 
powerful character, have the ``time gate'' spell so he could travel back to 
the elder city.  In this, older, ``more original'' city everyone was 
enlightened to the motives of religious zeal and well organized.  They used 
time gates, spatial gates, and dimensional gates to do business with all the 
realities and because of this the port was always full of ships.  I figure 
they could go in any direction they wanted, and I could come up with 
something out of this back ground to entice any player.

    The older, ``more original'' City was just an Island, and not an entire 
range of mountains (I didn't need them if no one was going to explore the 
endless subterranean rivers and lakes.)  It was a volcanic island surrounded 
by ocean and with a lake in its crater.  By having dwarves drill a massive 
ship sized tunnel through the rim, any vessel could sail inside to the best 
harbor in the know world.  This harbor was even immune to Tsunami because 
the rim of the crater was rather tall.

    Unfortunately the time gate spell used to get the players here wound up 
back firing.  Edd's character used a time gate to go back to the ``Age of 
Creation'' when the Mnoren were building the planet.  Now I had broken the
Mnoren rule by being a player, so I figured it was cosmic balance to allow a 
player to have an interaction with a Mnoren.  I don't know where this came 
from, and worse, I don't know why I didn't just say "no".

    ``I want you to send a meteorite large enough to cause an atomic 
explosion down to Destroy the island city of Branya in the year 451 on July 
the fourth just at sunset.  I will pay any price you ask.''

    Edd paid almost all the wealth he had, went back to the city, used what 
he had left to get a boat, sailed out to a safe distance and watched.  Boom!

    Later I performed an autopsy on the island back in my tower and decided 
the only thing worth saving was the ``crater/safe harbor'' design.  I 
decided that the Asteroid was made of pure mithril and now the island was 
also saturated with a precious mineral that normally only fell from the sky. 
 All I had to do now was design a new City and resurrect the island.

    I admit, now, that I was on an endless quest for a permanent setting.  
One that I could design, finish, and play indefinetly.  But I had to do one 
thing before that would work.  I had to figure out how I could design a 
setting that would provide the characters with their desires indefinetly.  
So I bought a commercially available campaign with the most realistic island 
map on the market (Harn) and I tested countless theories about motive and 
control.

    Always start a campaign with a solo adventure.  It is easier to get 
things going in the right direction and then bring in others than it is to 
try to heard a bunch of people all at once.  By bringing in subsequent 
players one at a time it should be easy for them to pick up the spirit of 
the campaign established between you and the first solo player.  This way 
the players will not be able to over power any ``new'' ideas being presented 
in their mad stampede back to the old accepted ways in which they are used 
to doing things.

    Never allow any player to start with a character of any social status 
higher than squire.  Make them earn every inch of progress and you will see 
them relish even the smallest gains.  My favorite angle is to start the 
soloist in Jail, naked, and armed with nothing but their wits.  You may be 
surprised to see how much enthusiasm they exhibit on aquisition of their 
first real weapon.
Prisoners and slaves have to exhibit some extrodinary qualities to get any 
followers, and certainly can not form a religious movement without getting 
promoted to a higher social station first.

    Sometimes have duels of honor, to first blood, or arena fights with 
captured animals so the players can discover the bold new world of not 
killing every single thing they meet.  Give about five percent normal 
experience for these controled events, but allow side bets to stimulate 
their interest.  This way, if there were any buried grudges they will come 
out in a controled setting.

    I then moved away from everyone I knew, rented a room from a Lady out 
of the news paper, saw no one but the people I worked with, and when I got 
off work I went straight to the drafting table.  I set up my tower there.  I 
made the large map of the Island of Brany.  And I did something totally 
radical.  I literally placed my tower on the map.

    It was there for all to see.  Of course I knew that no one would see it 
for what it really was, which suited me just fine.  I was here doing a study 
on what motivated character, and in the tradition of how I got to be a 
Mnoren in the first place I decided to do a study on what motivated the 
monsters.

    I wrote a book called the ``Glamour Trip.'' In it I described my 
adventures in my own campaign on a self directed solo adventure in which I 
was the author, judge, jury, executioner, and the accused.  It was the diary 
I kept while under a simple ``Glamour'' spell that made me appear to all 
outside observers as a chaos creature dwelling in the pits of hell.  I took 
a ``Trip'' with each of the six major chaos races and learned the details of 
their day to day existence.  I learned what they did with prisoners.  I 
learned how to make monsters out of normal people.  I learned how to 
manipulate the actions of people with no more than the threat of monster, 
which works better than the actual monster.  And I learned how to turn the 
most average, boring, and mundane person into a well oiled killing machine 
in the shortest time possible.  That, I would have to say, it the climax of 
the book; the rest of which is just repeated tests and ncidents that 
explored some of the details of what I learned.  I finished the diary 
knowing how to turn even the most average person into an extraordinay bad 
ass in the shortest time possible.  In a word I learned how to motivate.  
The book, unfortunately, was not a success.  It must have been too meaty and 
hard to chew.  The only person who understood it was a Sage named Mr 
Marious.

    Marious had started out as a character I invented to get back some of 
the exessive amounts of loot I was letting fall into the hands of my 
players.  I realized that my single greatest flaw was that I always gave out 
too much treasure.  I couldn't bring my self to just take it away from them, 
so I came up with the ``Information Broker'' who would charge astronomical 
sums for legitimate information.  I found this to be satisfying deep in my 
heart, and as a consequence I started making more and more scenarios dead 
end with a lack of information.  As a result the players found themselves 
seeking out marious for consultation more and more.  I beleive this was the 
begining of the Branya that wound up being the popular.


Unfortunately our readers who are easily bored, tired, or confused; the 
story gets much more complicated before it gets simpler.  Fortunately, 
though, after reading the next paragraph one should feel compeled to take a 
break and digest this meal before going on.

    The more satisfaction I got out of Mr Marious charging astronimical 
sums of money for accurate information, the more I found my self making the 
rest of the island a seething mass of deceptions, inaccuracies, double 
crosses, and out right lies.  But the players, oh God, the players were 
actualy interested in the secrets that I had though up and hidden so well in 
the plots.  And they were grudgingly paying the fees, because in a land that 
was quickly becomeing as infested with hell as Branya was, they needed a 
straight answer every once in a while.  Besides, this tactic produced the 
two most incredible bits of fotune.  The first bit of fortune was that 
reluctance on the part of the players to pay for the ``Straight answer'' 
made the players try much harder at using their heads.  (Thus It could be 
said that understanding doesn't come by gold, because they never understood 
an answer they paid for they just knew that it worked.  But the solutions 
they figured out on their own showed that they were gaining
understanding of the clues and hints being presented to them.)  The second 
bit of fortune was an evolution of my favorite ``pet character'' of all who 
came to be known as ``Kikadale the Mad Hobbit'' and wound up being the 
embodyment of everything that was oposite to Mr Marious, Sage.

Break time!
  I'll try to finish this story on Saturday.

           David Michael Grouchy II

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