Hex Crawl 23: Eryptos 5, Low Life

 Lurking under the surface of life in Eryptos and indeed all of Wahattu are two secret societies. The Band of Bronze is more familiar with the Scarabs. This society started out epochs ago as a heresy who believed in a single deity and an afterlife beyond the official and somewhat gloomy one, in which the faithful would enjoy eternal joy in perfect remade bodies. This credo was spelled out in the frescoes of the chambers adjacent to the so-called River of the Dead in the lowest level of the Shroom's caverns.

Now the Scarabs have forgotten these beliefs and dedicate themselves to the clandestine struggle against Chaos' powers which already have engulfed Dulsharna. They will pay well for relics of the earlier sect, for it is thus that they validate themselves. However, they are most concerned with the doings of the Serpent, who are believed - rightly - to have infiltrated the court of the King of Wahattu.

The Scarabs seek out possible allies or threats through a number of low-level agents, like the short, stout and brusque young fellow, Shallilum, whom the Band of Bronze first met. If the contact warrants serious dealings, however, Nikanur himself will appear - the most active among the inner circle. A tall, bald man, skin darkened and seamed from long familiarity with the sun, in simple dusty-colored clothes and with hard hands, he is tough but measured and fair, and teaches a style of unarmed combat among other mysteries.

The Serpent agents are more shrouded in mystery, and may indeed include some of the shape-shifting serpent men of ancient lineage. What is clear, though is that Eryptos has no petty crime, for fear of the influence of these societies. If someone is killed or something is stolen in Eryptos, it is because someone wanted them killed or robbed. Even the Scarab are not above a little targeted crime to benefit their operations and thwart the schemes of the Serpent.

Of course, sin is not the same as crime, and all sorts of indulgent whims are catered to in the semi-respectable Lantern District and the no-at-all-respectable Furnace quarter on the other side of town. The custom among the aristocracy is to wear veils or masks when visiting these places, Now, while the upstart trade class proudly wish to be seen in the Lantern, in the Furnace they mimic their betters and hide their faces -- to the great chagrin of the latter, but who would want to make a scene in the Lantern, in a bawdy-house almost certainly run by the agents of the Scarab or the Serpent?

Hex Crawl 23: Eryptos 4, Trade and Commerce

Unlike Gesshed, the business of Eryptos is not done out in the open. Indeed, there are markets for common food, common cloth, and whatever else is hawked to common people. But the business of the noble and trade class is not advertised. It takes place in shops that occupy the time-worn houses of Eryptos, and only reputation and word of mouth can direct the visitor to the finer opportunities for buying and selling.

For example, there is a district of precious goods near the streets of the Mongoose and of the Dove (as might be guessed, street names have nothing to do with the shops. Here is the high-end jeweller's establishment run by Hunca, marble-fronted, and the less prestigious gem shop of Warassa, of the red awning. Both are notable for their utmost discretion, and goods found or burgled from outside Eryptos can be passed off there in perfect confidence.

Notable also is the establishment of Lishlim, with a lapis-lazuli door lintel. Heir to a traditional business of gilding horns, patronized by the Black Gazelle legion and other status-strivers who ride around pulled by horned beasts, she has also branched out into decorative dentistry for humans and canines, and can fit you with a golden smile, or your pet wolf with a silver bite. It was in dealing with Lishlim that the Band of Bronze found out the Eryptan taboo and phobia of shapechangers, with no opportunity to explain that their sandwalker was of the good kind and merely wanted a set of silver tooth-caps for her wolf form to deal with the real, bad, werecreatures.

These shop-dealers form a kind of staid secondary society in Eryptos, their dealings sealed by family marriages. Around them in that social circle dance the more exciting and volatile travelling merchants, among whom Mery-Tina, friend to the Band of Bronze, is a rising star. The divans and salons of the shop and merchant set ape the events of the true nobility, with more high-minded exotica from the merchants' far-flung and exotic connections, and a studious avoidance of vulgarity that is, itself, a kind of vulgarity.

Hex Crawl 23: Eryptos 2, High Life

At the apex of the Eryptan social pyramid is the Prince and Heir, the Radiant Gemsbok of Autumn, who will receive a proper name on his eighteenth birthday. More or less invisibly, a network of protectors, tutors, and informants surrounds him. Because the kings of Eryptos distrust their sons while they are alive, the network is also a restraining and distracting one, indulgent of the Prince's hunting and carousing. The main guardian of the Prince is a tall eunuch (Wahatti custom recognizes self-castrated men as a third gender), Gugalanna the Precious Fragment, with a cutting, no-nonsense style about them, and feared as a poisoner and anatomically skilled assassin. His tutor and advisor is Belzarbi, a philosophical greybeard who holds the lad back from dissipation to prepare him to rule as much as he can, given that Gugalanna actively encourages it.

The opposing faction favors the ten-year-old Exultant Cricket to inherit the throne, son of the King's oldest concubine Kishar (as opposed to his legitimate wife Aa). It is led by one Gahal, the Hissing Peacock, a vain and histrionic man of wealth currently on his sixth wife. Quietly and secretly, the machinations of the Cricket faction are carried out by the supreme crafter of innuendo, the white-veiled widow Kug-Bau nicknamed "[Who Scatters] Infamy like Dust." Their supporter in Mu-Asharru is the Royal Minister, Zakirum, known as the "Bitterest Teardrop."

The Prince himself has three dwellings: the towering and mostly empty Palace that  rises above the city, where he conducts official business; a secure compound next to the District of Lanterns, where he stays when in party mode; and a secluded and mostly unknown pied-a-terre at the end of the Street of Goldsmiths where he goes when he wants privacy. A large piazza surrounds the Palace, and the mansions of the great and noble families cluster with their front gates to the piazza, observing the comings and goings from the seats of power. The mansions are massive, but necessarily lower than the Palace, and unlike that austere building, their owners compete to furnish the lushest and most fragrant gardens on the property.

A second ring around the mansions holds such establishments as academies, old and dignified temples of Set and Mitra, libraries and archives, and the seasonal residences of visitors from the capital, Mu-Asharru.  It is in this isolated environment that the high and mighty circulate, a delicate dance between the Prince and his detractors, a duel of innuendo and power moves carried out through exclusive invitations to salons, high-minded musical concerts, poetic and philosophical symposia, and the privileged offices of worship services. 

Servants and tradespeople live outside this circle, and the nobles do not treat with them directly, but through their household staff. Adventurers? Just another kind of servant. Only through great favor, or through deception and infiltration, will visiting wanderers see the high life of Eryptos.

Hex Crawl 23 General Lore 4: Urig Society

Society

These notes refer to the culture of the central Urig area, which sometimes sends wanderers into the vassal kingdoms such as Wahattu. These visitors are viewed by the provincials with a mixture of fawning, resentment, and dread, much as a "proper English" visitor would be seen in 1860 outback Australia.

Urighem is a human empire, which over millennia has incorporated a number of other kindreds into its society as well-regulated minorities: Kabir dwarf metalworkers, the desert lizard priests of the True Sun, and the occasional demon-blooded tieflings that pop up in the grand old wizard families. Gnolls and dekanters (the snout-horned goblins of the desert) are sometimes brought in as slaves. Rare specimens of the Ayotochin race (armadillo-folk) are in high demand as jesters and entertainers.

The skin of most human Urig is light to deep brown, with straight or curly black hair. Some city and rural districts have well-understood exceptions, showing ancestry of paler Northerners, or of the black folk from upriver who are known as persuasive bargainers.

A shaven head in both males and females is a sign of high rank, although sometimes covered with an obvious wig signifying particular offices. Most garments are of white linen, showing much skin in the warm climate, with jewellery and accessories marking out status and fashion. Soft goat-wool cloaks see citizens through the few chilly nights in winter, and are also worn as protection from the sun by folk in the outlying vassal lands.

Until adolescence Urig children are treated somewhat as housepets -- possibly commanding affection, but liable to be sold or adopted up, down, and across society, the only way in which mobility can happen. At the coming of age all Urig are tattooed with marks of social station and household on forehead and dominant hand. They will occupy that station for the rest of their life, until death or exile take them. Those who turn out less than competent in their assigned profession often find nominal inferiors, well-rewarded, to help them. Marriage is arranged. Ideally it takes place between adoptive siblings. A rigid code of etiquette and honorific language governs every interaction outside of one's immediate household.

Although nominally patriarchal, in practice Urighem is closer to equality of the sexes than most of the kingdoms to the North. Its long history is full of female Ilu-Barag who reigned from behind a false beard. Any woman who avails herself of a like accessory will find that even military command is not closed to her. Perhaps the unsentimental approach to child rearing deserves some credit for this liberty.

The line of the god kings, the Ilu-Barag, is deeply incestuous and depleted from frequent intrigue. The current Ilu-Barag, Harganossar XXVII, has never been seen in public and conducts official business from behind a yellow veil. The other high offices of state are nominally hereditary, but in practice these families are always on the lookout for gifted children to adopt from the lower orders, the secret of the state's robustness over millennia. A substantial bureaucracy deals with the waterworks of the river, the growing and distribution of crops, and every aspect of civil life. Many of these roles overlap with the priesthood of the Dead Gods.

The official magistrates, known as the Eyes of Hawk and Vulture, have secret agents everywhere. Any public show of dissent is assumed immediately to be one of their traps. The eight armies, one at each road terminus and two in the capital, are fighting forces in theory only. The officer corps serve as fraternities for rakes and wastrels whose respectable families long ago decided against an industrious way of life. The ranks are packed with criminals, misfits, and barbarians. Anyone who can see clearly knows that it is only geography and a few historical accidents that protect present-day Urighem from disaster.

Alignment II: Complications and Excuses

Revisiting my musings on the D&D concept of alignment ten years ago, I stand by the observation that conceptually, it's a mess. Is alignment:

* A force that guides great destinies, setting mortals and monsters at opposite ends of the cosmic chess board?

* A political ethos that rules the morals of states and societies, and those who follow them?

* A style that shines through in the tactics and personality of individuals?

I made these observations about the Law vs. Chaos dimension, originally. But on reflection, they also apply to Good vs. Evil. I missed that originally because people in Western culture, raised on Western stories, will believe that good and evil nature goes through and through. Good people live in good realms and follow good faiths of good gods. Evil people likewise stick to their zone.

But storybook morality falls apart in the real world. Cruel and power-seeking worldly systems can and do serve noble ideological goals. A society supposedly dedicated to tearing down the universe can sweeten its appeal to the outcast by giving them kindness and understanding. Kind and power-hungry individuals can each find their place within those systems.

Yes, the three levels on the average reinforce each other. But the really interesting cases are those where the morality of ultimate ends, worldly means, and individual character fall out of ... alignment.

Think of a repurposing of the I Ching hexagrams, not a system to define characters, but a way to generate possibilities. The first three are the three levels of GOOD --- and EVIL - - : cosmic ends, worldly means, and personal character. The second three do this for LAW --- and CHAOS - -.

Using a site such as this one we first get:

- - EVIL END
--- GOOD MEANS
--- GOOD PERSON
--- LAWFUL END
--- LAWFUL MEANS
- - CHAOTIC PERSON

Here's someone who, like most in their society, upholds a cosmic order where the strong rule and everyone knows their place. Although the gods of this order are cruel, the church and state who serve them are set up to cushion the blows as much as possible, seeing the diabolic as the only effective bulwark against forces that would utterly wreck the world. Despite their strictness in rule, the powers that be find it expedient to hire less constrained agents. Such a one is our hero, who believes in rules -- for other people -- but is otherwise good-willed and magnanimous.


--- GOOD END
- - EVIL MEANS
--- GOOD PERSON
- - CHAOTIC END
--- LAWFUL MEANS
- - CHAOTIC PERSON

Here is a harsh contradiction -- a lawful evil social order served by a chaotic good person while the order itself serves a chaotic good metaphysical cause. Can anyone believe in all three layers simultaneously? Does this example break down and force us back into the seamless view of alignment?

No, not necessarily. Consider, through the dark arts of social psychology, the many ways in which people deftly reduce the cognitive dissonance from incompatible elements of their belief system. The ease with which people go from hugging their dog to dining on pork, or the ways belief systems put qualifications around "respct for human life", prove that excuses and rationalizations are everywhere.

We can put all of them to use in our example.

• Means-end separation. The dictator is only taking charge to preserve the dream of freedom and benevolence! When its enemies vanish then the true end state will be possible! (But the enemies never vanish, do they...)
• Denial of responsibility. The system is too big to change, I can try to make it better from within, if I didn't do this someone worse would.
• Advantageous comparison. Say what you will about our kingdom, over there they have it much worse!
• Euphemistic labeling. Come with me to the Cells of Liberation where the truth will be extracted from you in the Palace of Joy.
• Selective moral concern. Oh yes, it may seem that we are mean and oppressive, but only to subhumans / criminals / malcontents who deserve it. To our loyal people we are liberal and fair!
• Straightforward fingers-in-ears denial. What? Nonsense! We don't torture people. I don't know what you're talking about. Those are all lies spread by our enemies.

None of these excuses are ironclad, and each of them can be toppled over time. Then you have personal evolution or a social revolution. But the fall of a tower of mutually reinforcing rationalizations should never be taken for granted. Its tensions and dynamics contain the seeds of situations much more intriguing than the storybook goodie/baddie distinctions that alignment by-the-book encourages. 

Next and finally: Everyday morality and alignment.

Distracted, Nobody Noticed The Consultants Are All Men

I know, right? While arguing over the contagiousness and toxicity of two personalities on the list when it comes to gender-and-sexuality issues, nobody - at least looking at the first 20 google hits for "D&D 5th edition consultants male" - has commented that all eight consultants, plus the seven designers, developers and writers, appear to be male. Female names appear in the credits in editing, art direction, and artist roles - and yes, art is important, but also a different post.

I think this hasn't been commented just because it is so obvious and so usual. After all, a recent study identified 85.5% of published tabletop RPG creators as male by name, while only 6% appear to be female. Still, if you are drawing from that pool at random for 15 people there is a 60.5% chance that you will have at least one woman on the team. (Imagine rolling percentile dice for gender 15 times, calculating the odds you will roll at least one 06 or below.) So it's not unimaginable that there could be at least one solitary woman on the panel just by chance. Also not unimaginable that a woman game author or commentator could have, you know, been included on the panel intentionally to give her perspective.

Because for D&D and old school RPGs in particular, there is a thunderous statistical skew towards male creators. Now, when people celebrate gender equality or bemoan its absence they point to people at the table. Indeed, discussing roleplaying with a curious sci-fi fan at a professional conference last week, I was able to answer her gender question quite creditably: my main campaign has 3 women and 3 men and my side game, 2 and 4.

But left aside in that conversation was the almost unrelieved maleness of the top RPG creatives in my blogroll (as of this writing, only Gaming as Women hanging on with a 1 day old post), the module authors I read and use, the gamemaster role that women are less often seen in, and so on.

Often observed: it is easier and more rewarding for our primate social brainbits to personalize inequality, to make it be about pointing out who is a racist or a sexist and so on, than to take on the evidence of inequality that persists even when nice people are making the decisions, and raise hard questions about what accounts for it.

Perhaps after 20 years where DMs who would inflict rape upon their female players' characters are viewed with the same loathing as DMs who would climb up and take a dump on the table so that their otyugh miniature can have a "realistic" nest ... 20 years where most of the mostly male creators mostly "get it" in their writing ... 20 years of having as many men as women at table, as many all-female as all-male groups ... we can have a clear view of which one of these things is true:

1. Creating material for adventure role-playing is just one of those things that average men statistically tend to get into more so than average women, for whatever reason (nature, nurture, culture...) and that reason is mostly legitimate.

2. Creating for adventure role-playing is one of those things that average men authentically enjoy more than average women, but this is for a reason that should be questioned - such as women being put off by games that involve math or complex procedures, as a result of socialization that also forestalls their interest in prestigious careers and science topics.

3. Women would gladly create adventure role-playing stuff as much as men currently do, but they are kept from doing it by the implicit and explicit sexism of men in the field, as well as the message that the sausage-fest sends - that "people like you are not welcome here."

I'll just note that even if you believe #1 is true, that does not let you off the hook for women's participation and representation in the hobby. That just means you treat the 10% of creators who are women with the same consideration that you would treat the ~10% of people who are non-straight, or the ~10% who represent a local ethnic minority.

There's Cool, And Then There's Cool

When I say D&D is fundamentally uncool, what do I mean anyway? The word "cool" has shifted around so much that it's hard to know. It needs explanation.

A key text here is Robert Farris Thompson's article An Aesthetic of the Cool, from 1973, the journal African Arts. What is cool to the Gola of Liberia? Thompson quotes Warren D'Azevedo:

Ability to be nonchalant at the right moment ... to reveal no emotion in situations where emotion and sentimentality are acceptable - in other words, to act as if one's mind were in another world.

You may protest that transportation through fiction, fandom or gaming is just that, putting one's mind in another world, but this misses the point. Cool implies that the other world is a calmer, less emotional place. To travel to another world in order to excite the passions is the opposite of cool. "Coolness" by Thompson's definition is a poised posture, a place without conflict. By removing expression outward, you remove the possibility of interruption or ridicule inward.

Other writers on the aesthetics of cool among African Americans and its general percolation out to the world culture - such Mintz, Billson, and Pountain & Robins - have remarked on its potential as resistance. For Black men in America, cool has been a way to negate the clownish features laid on them  by racist iconography, to mentally check out from an environment unresponsive to their dignity and needs. The appropriation of cool, in the service of musical and other aesthetic trends, is laid forth in Pountain & Robins' 2000 book, auguring in the hipster era. Ultimately for them, cool is a "permanent state of private rebellion," a state that vanishes once it calls attention to its own coolness.

This reminds us that D&D is "uncool" in a more superficial sense, that of the well-known American high school hierarchy with its "cool kids" and "uncool kids." But in any high school there are two kinds of cool kids. You have the popular kids who show their passions for socially approved costumes, games, and fields of expertise like cheerleading, school spirit and sports. Another kind, though, set their sights outside the high school walls. They are cool toward school but this form of resistance masks their passions, aimed elsewhere: alternative cinema, drama, music, art. In high school and college I played RPGs almost as much with a set of punk rockers as with the more overtly enthusiastic nerd crew. They were socially uncool and yet - in the anthropological sense - truly cool.

In McLuhan's well-known distinction, roleplaying is one of the hottest of media, requiring hard mental and imaginative work to achieve the immersion that is its goal. Contrast this to "cool" media like television which ask for only open eyes. People who grow self-conscious or dissatisfied about roleplaying's hotness reach for the bottle of cool to cut it down.

By a nice coincidence, I recently returned to the RPG Site forum after some days absence to find an argument brewing, relevant to all these points. The initiating question was whether anyone enjoys playing RPGs in costume. As I pointed out last post, this activity is the quintessence of the FUDD (Fundamental Uncoolness of D&D) and so not surprisingly sparked off heated protestations. Many posters spoke of their desire not to look like even more a geek than they already were, under the watchful eyes of sarcastic co-workers or Bible Belt society.

But in an age of ubiquitous popularity of the Lord of the Rings films or Game of Thrones show, the uncool thing is not liking fantasy, but liking it in ... that way. That hot, immersive way that puts you at risk of disappearing entirely into the fantasy world, of regressing into childhood. That play-acting, masquerading, feasting and wassailing that Puritans have always sought to ban, that sensible people indulge in only at certain times of the year and in certain cities of the nation.

Bad enough you read the books instead of consuming media (getting hotter ... look what happened to poor Quijote). Bad enough you play a game where you take the role of a character (getting hotter ... look what happened to poor Black Leaf). But to run around wearing the costumes? To unselfconsciously declaim in a funny accent, your lineage as a noble dwarf? You're hot as hell and most people can't take the heat. They have to turn up the cool - in one of several ways.

Next: "We're Normal, Honest!"

Why People Argue

My last post argued for coming clean and admitting that people's foundational beliefs (rather than using the correct logical arguments or respecting other people's existence and experience) are boundaries for moderation in online discourse. In comments, noisms brought up the idea that we're all just ultimately arguing to show off, attract a mate, and spread our genetic material.

What's going on here?

To which I say - "partial credit." The mating idea can't explain, for example, why mostly-men argue in the mostly-male space of gaming forums. But the social goods available from successful argument go beyond scoring direct and immediate hookups (I hope you knew that).

One idea, from Henrich and Gil-White, argues for the importance of prestige as well as dominance in social ranking, resource distribution and mate selection. According to them, successful argument is a clue to good quality of information resources, and attracts a sycophantic clique of deferential individuals - although to me "sycophantic" is overly cynical, as most people in awe of prestige genuinely feel those likes and +1's. Put into internet arguing terms, your arguments may not necessarily impress a mate in themselves, but the entourage of loyal hangers-on you attract will, and they'll also support your survival to reproduce and the good future of your offspring.

But what, you may say, of sweet reason? Another viewpoint says it's overrated. Although the debate-society rules for argument require us to avoid bias and logical fallacies, Mercier and Sperber say that's putting cart before horse. Instead, the way we actually think and reason is set up to help us convince others to act in our interest. The biased and often incorrect nature of reasoning is well known to social and cognitive psychologists, but the adaptive benefit of arguing powerfully - and you argue most powerfully when you yourself are convinced - may outweigh that of being able to think through problems dispassionately like a computer. The theory is not without critics (see responses after the linked target article) but overall the responses acknowledge that argument is an important, if not the only, reason to reason.

So, this analysis paints an even more pessimistic picture of argument. We are all just arguing to advance our cause, or at the very least the cause of our parochial group. We completely exclude points of view from legitimate consideration, and stack the deck in our arguments' favor, and all this is just to score points and climb the monkey ladder. If the truth ended here I should just stop writing, or keep on writing in bad faith.

It doesn't end here, though. Feeling good when you help someone doesn't mean that your helping isn't good, and likewise, getting acknowledged for good arguments doesn't mean their purpose is entirely selfish. Indeed, Mercier and Sperber stress that reasoning is meant to reach a rational solution through a social, not individual, process. The biases of each arguer cancel out, or at least they collectively sort themselves out and come to represent the arguing group's interest as a whole.

As intentional creatures who are aware of higher levels of social organization than our genes, we can choose to support this function. I'm not just doing this posting for the offspring and the sycophants (PLEASE SIR MAY I BEAR YOUR BLOG BABY) but so that the "higher level of social organization" known as "gamers" can stop wasting time and good will arguing in unproductive ways.

In order for this function to work, though, people have to be convinced occasionally; the needs of lower-level groups have to give way to higher-level concerns at some point, or we never get beyond the house of endless war. In this process, too, I am skeptical that deductive reasoning plays much of a role. The whole point of deduction is that if you accept the premises, it is easy and in fact inevitable to accept the conclusion. The whole point of arguing is to convince people of the premises. And most often, I think, coming to accept a premise turns on something as simple as interpretation. But more on this, next post.

Vanceburgs, for Jack

News of Jack Vance's passing, a few days delayed, is now hitting the old-school gaming sphere. Although I could wax in already-waxed ways about his fantasy, his science fiction, or for the n-teenth time about the vision of magic in his Dying Earth novels, there's a less obvious way his fiction has influenced the world of my campaign games.

In whatever genre, Vance's fantastic fiction excelled in the creation of a specific kind of society which I'll call the Vanceburg. Assembling some elements from Robin Laws' analysis of Vance's fictional elements in the Dying Earth roleplaying game, the Vanceburg merges "Strange Customs" with a "Crafty Swindle." Specifically:

1. The community projects a fraudulent myth to outsiders and visitors.
2. The myth is shrouded in some obscure custom or activity.
3. The custom or activity is presented as advantageous to outsiders.
4. This is not the case; a situation of exploitation obtains, in which outsiders are easily ensnared.

Vanceburgs from the Dying Earth novels are legion, but include the gruesome ponzi scheme of the rat-men; the town of Vull, where Cugel is set on watch for Magnatz; and Master Twango's scale mining operation. The Planet of Adventure series arguably describes a series of Vanceburgs, from society-scale to the intimate scam of the eel-race at the end of Chasch. In Lyonesse, one is reminded of fish dishes sold at a "seasonal price."

In my own game, the memorable Vanceburg was the far northern town of Parmentell, peopled by bluff merchant factors  and evasive townsfolk, and dominated by a secretive citadel. The authorities' constant fees, levies, regulations and imprecations lent a Vancian air to the proceedings. The town billed itself as a prime base for adventuring parties to hunt the secret stores of purple worm ivory and even the Purple Worm Graveyard itself, scattering maps throughout the realms.

In reality, few adventuring parties found any ivory, but their activities concealed the actual source of the town's wealth, for the Graveyard itself lay underneath the citadel. The mysterious ceremonies were actually farewells to desperate citizens daring to descend to this vast cavern, which promised unimaginable wealth but also speedy death at the hands of lesser worm guardians and worse. Thus, a double-tiered Burg, with the townsfolk persuaded that their knowledge of the truth and chance at upward mobility gave them an advantage over the visiting rubes.

While the Vanceburg is at high risk of being overturned in one way or another by its perceptive visitors - and my campaign was no exception - I should also mention an inversion-variation on the theme that sometimes pops up in the Vance corpus. In this concept, the inhabitants of a place have themselves become deluded by their own myth, and so ripe for upending, exploitation, or outright robbery by the canny interloper. Shining examples are the villagers of Smolod who lived in the paradise granted them by the cusps of the Overlord, or the pilgrims of Gilfig on whom Cugel practiced a memorable deception. The Burgvance, perhaps?

Although I've shied away from this kind of adventure plot because it seems too easy, I'm sure it could be put to work, with the primary risk being the awakening of the inhabitants themselves ... Perhaps this is a good way to tone down the threat of monsters stronger than the party can defeat toe to toe. Imagine a society of hallucinating minotaurs, or a revival tent meeting of altruistically deluded mind flayers?

Gnolls Are Weirder Than You Think

Gnolls have long been my favorite D&D humanoid. They're great villains, based on a foul and baleful animal. What's more, they're a whole-cloth creation in the game. There's no legendary or fictional precedent apart from Lord Dunsany's "gnoles" -- to which they bear only a homonymous relation.

But if you study up on hyena anatomy and society, gnolls get weirder. "Gynocracy" is maybe too weak a word to describe the social structure of an animal where the female is larger than the male and the lowest female outranks the highest male.

Then there's the hyena's genitalia, (warning: not safe for work or lunch) which led Pliny and other ancients to classify them as hermaphrodites. This is not strictly true, but the females do have non-functioning organs that look like the male equipment, and get in the way of reproduction. And that makes life no laughing matter.

Reaper Bones mini (I'm painting 3 of these)

In addition to inverting the more usual gender roles, hyenas are violent among themselves, and often cannibalistic. What would humanoids evolved or created from such beasts be like?

As chaotic evil creatures, gnolls would be warlike, with the larger, dominant females as the warriors. Males, which in the hyena migrate to other packs to mate, would in the gnoll society most likely be seen as chattel, good only for one-time mating and subsequently a food source.

Their tough-brutal mentality can only be helped along by the anatomical facts: mating and birth for gnolls are painful and dangerous. Perhaps any given gnoll lair will have about 5-10% of the warrior females convalescing from either of these activities, having taken d4 (mating) or d4+4 (birth) damage in the process. And this can't make their attitude toward males any kinder. They might see their male chattel as a way to prove themselves in the ultimate way, fusing sexuality with a form of self-mutilation, but ultimately - as with men who take that approach toward women - they would feel nothing but contempt toward these objects of acquisition.

Last night one of my players remarked on the tendency of my adventures to include content rated "raw and gritty" after they did some exploring of a dwarf latrine in the dungeon. I don't think I overpedal these elements, and have no desire to continually throw "flies and dung" in players' faces. But if I'm running a game where players confront the monstrous, I reserve the right to play all the keys of that concept, including the hyenas' "monstrous" gender politics that invert the worst human tendencies.

The Order of St. Hermas

So here are details on the secret society/level titles/ advancement costs hybrid I proposed earlier.

Click to enlarge

This will certainly work best if the Society is the only reliable source for all these goods and services, which adventurers in laxer worlds have come to rely upon as their birthright. Henchmen can be obtained elsewhere, but may not be loyal or brave in the heat of the moment, and may shun a boss under whom too many have failed to return. Banking and treasure identification can certainly be presented as precarious enterprises in a savage world. Clerics, prophets, or whoever do not usually offer their services for a fee.

The four branches are identified with the four iconic classes of D&D but can also substitute for their absence in a party. It is reasonable for a wizard to join the Sword path wanting henchmen as bodyguards, or for a cleric to serve as the party's money handler, joining the Pentacles.

Can you spot the third idea from AD&D this draws on? Yep, alignment language.

More on St. Hermas here.

Level Titles as Money Sink

Level titles are cool. They give the same sense of achievement and specialness as the level titles of real-world secret societies: the Mithraic cult, the Freemasons, the Golden Dawn.

Advancement training costs suck. Why do you gain experience points from adventuring but then need some poncey sword instructor to validate your hit points? And wouldn't you rather come by 50 gold pieces while keep them, than 5000 gold pieces while knowing that in your GM's warped economy, most of that is going towards training costs?

But what if you paid money, not to level up your character, but to give him or her the cool level title?

Granted by a secret or not so secret hierarchical organization, level titles represent your social advancement by dint of your donation of loot to their worthy cause. As an adventuring member, not tied to any place but useful to the society, you can only have a level title equal to or less than your actual level.

Benefits from societies vary. One way to model this simply: having henchmen requires membership of one society or another. Other ideas: they can be approached for interest-free loans proportionate to the title, are a source of equipment and adventure opportunities, provide "death insurance" in the form of raise dead spells, are necessary to the ultimate endgame by giving land or political capital for the characters' stronghold.

At this point there are two ways to go:

1. Separate society choices for different character types and classes. One character rises in the Thieves' Guild, another in the Wizards' Academy, yet another in an order of knighthood.

2. The same society for all, an adventurers' freemasonry - perhaps with different titles for different professions, but without the party-dividing drawback.

I think the first option is more "realistic" but the second option has more game advantages. It binds the party together, removes the worry that one guild or cabal might be more advantageous than the other.

If I get enough response I'll whip up a sample adventurers' society that gives out level titles - the Order of St. Hermas.

Unsexy Matriarchies

I’ve been vacillating about whether to include feminist/intersectional gaming blogs like The Border House and Go Make Me A Sandwich in my blog roll. 

On the one hand, it’s important to keep up awareness of these issues.

On the other hands, a) most of their articles are about computer gaming, which is not my focus here; b) a lot of the content boils down to outrage at the latest example of dumb and obvious sexploitation in the industry, which is a bit like writing about Hooters and saying “Boy howdy does this place objectify women.”

I really appreciated, then, this recent post on Border House that breaks away from both molds. It’s a breakdown of how a lot of fantasy matriarchal societies are unrealistic reflections of patriarchal male fantasies, centering on that ever-popular Gygaxian invention, the Drow.

The Underdark, as cast by Rick James.

Zaewen's line of argument: a real society in which women hold the power wouldn’t have them dressing up all sexy in thongs and 1980’s pirate boots. Flaunting sexuality is soft power, on those occasions when it even constitutes power. 

Which then raises the question, what would a more realistic society dominated by women look like? I think the answer to that question falls one of two ways depending on how much you want to incorporate la difference ... the biological differences between men and women ... as a part of this hypothetical female power.

Star Trek: The Next Generation ... well, tried, and failed famously, to flip la difference in the episode Angel One. It presented a society where women were big matronly amazons, men were little twinks, and everyone had feathered hair. Of course the whole setup ended up collapsing like a house of cards when some real men showed up, so the episode ended up being more regressive than progressive. But the squicky feeling at seeing those little guys with bare chests and earcuffs was a pretty good sign you weren’t just being treated to another Sexy Matriarchy.

Canadian writer and artist  Dave Sim took another obvious tack when he created a feminist dystopia in the latter half of his decades-long Cerebus comic book. Instead of reversing the gradient of physical strength, he based supremacy in Cirinist society on women’s ability to bear children. We get a pretty credible, if caricatured, matriarchal society from this convert to Islam and admirer of Oscar Wilde who explicitly hates women with every shred of his being (except for those who in Sim’s estimation carry, instead of extinguish, the creative spark that he associates with men ... like, uh, Coco Chanel ... I can’t make this stuff up). Men who don’t submit to female authority and take part in family life are confined to the company of other such men and encouraged to drink their life away in bars. This of course has nothing, I mean everything, to do with Sim’s own personal history.

What these random examples show, perhaps, is that even the most imaginative writers prefer to see female reign as just as morally bad as male domination. And that stereotypes run deep. The Star Trek episode plays with the discomfort of reversed sex roles but eventually upholds the Federation perspective which turns out to be only as semi-enlightened as 1980’s America. Sim’s world only feels plausible because it’s built on such solid stereotypical bedrock, where women entrap men sexually into becoming dads while men oscillate between creative genius and drunken dissipation.

I hear Joanna Russ did a better job of this, so I really need to pick up The Female Man.

Player Alignment

Here's part of one of the great comments from poster limpey, that had me rethinking my last post:

> If it were ME (not my fantasy character), I would tend to want to show mercy, but maybe that's just my 'real world' morality intruding into fantasy world ethics.

See, limpey had earlier described a system where players get bonus xp for fulfilling their character's alignment particularly well, and lose xp for breaking alignment. I had an initial allergic reaction - hadn't I posted not long ago that I don't like xp rewards for role-playing?

But then I remembered my own take on moral psychology. According to one book that's been very influential on my own thinking, emotions like guilt, sympathy or shame are hard to control for a reason. These feelings are morality enforcers. They provide an incentive to act in a way that helps other people and most times will only pay off in the long term. After all, why doesn't the first level magic-user cast sleep on all his colleagues in camp after their first big haul, slit their throats, and make off with the loot? Fear of punishment can't be the only reason. The real reason most people don't try stuff like that, sleep spell or no, is that they like these people and they would feel bad even contemplating doing it.

It then occurred to me that in a character-driven game there is no system, other than alignment or something similar, to take the role of these emotions. After all, there is nothing in the game to reward real-life pleasures like getting drunk or getting laid, which is why house-rules for carousing are ever-popular. Without these rules, a perfectly rational player of D&D, seeking to maximize his or her character's gain, should never drink enough to lose control. So wouldn't the same rational player need the punishment-reward structure of alignment rules in order to behave morally through their character?

This reflects a long-standing cultural anxiety about games, drama, fiction: that by entering an imaginary space, people will learn to let go their moral hang-ups about sex, gore, violence, witchcraft ... and then take their new-learned immorality back to the real world. An early illustration expressing this concern is, in fact, the header of this blog.

Gamers who are religious believers, secular ethicists, or just trying to run a group including kids they're trying to raise right, have obviously gotten over moral anxieties about the act of gaming. But they might very well wonder - "how do I make my game a positive moral force?" How can the game be a sounding chamber for morality, and not its opposite?

Now, I'm not sure that alignment rules for all are the answer to this. When alignment rules are vague, antisocial players will bend them to their own will, playing a paladin in a holier-than-thou way that is as surefire a way to annoy other players as if they were playing a party-robbing thief. And when alignment rules are specific, loopholes will be found, and morality becomes just another set of rules to exploit.

But with all the Old School recovery of "player skills" why not take a look at "player morality"? Unlike boozing or debauchery, the player can feel what the character does in the game, when it has moral consequences. This is most likely to happen when players are immersed in the game, rather than taking a cynical, manipulative approach. What's more, veteran gamers keenly appreciate the need to avoid players who run their characters completely amorally. This suggests that players in a good game will have some kind of moral sense that carries through to the running of their characters - will flinch from playing out torture just as they would flinch from actually doing it.

I'm not super happy with the system I outlined last time, where neutral players still have to live by a couple of scraps of the Good and Lawful codes. It seems clunky and at odds with the idea that neutral players should be free and unaligned. I thought at the time that only Evil players could be completely free - without reckoning with player morality. Now, I offer this view of Neutrality:

A Neutral character is not constrained by codes of alignment. His or her moral judgments and feelings are supplied by the player. The Neutral's intuition and personality can range from kind and honest to sneaky and self-promoting. But the Neutral has enough concern for others to stay in a group without being kicked out - something that Evil characters lack, and therefore something that makes them unsuitable as player characters.

Those who are familiar with Christian theology might recognize something of the virtuous pagan in this Neutral - a person who follows his or her view of natural law (read "player morality"), which might turn out well or poorly. The Christian in this scheme, however, is saved through knowledge of God's laws (read "the principles of Law and especially Good"). Now eternal salvation doesn't really figure in to the D&D game. But more pragmatically, remaining true to a Lawful and/or Good alignment should be especially important to those receiving benefits directly from heaven - clerics and paladins, if they exist in your game.

All right. Next up: alignment, spellcasting classes, and spell list seeds for Sorcery World ... where Good, and Christianity, have not come to pass.

Sword and Axe: Social Naturalism

The following couple of posts on social and military naturalism are a compression of recurring observations from writers on the history and recreation of pre-gunpowder warfare. I'll give a few of my key references at the end.

Axes were cheaper. There is less metal in an axehead than in a longsword. Don't think of the ridiculously inflated weapons wielded in computer or miniatures games; battle axe blades were narrower than that, playing to their main strength of delivering compressed force, as we shall see. More importantly, a longsword blade that is resilient and not liable to break has to be forged according to arts that must have seemed almost magical, with repeated layering and folding of the blade by a master smith. An axe head just has to be hammered out of a block of metal and sharpened; you can even make an axe out of stone.

Axes were more common, too, in the social sense of the word. In Iron Age societies and other places and times where metal was rare, swords required so much expense and craft that they became prerogatives of the ruling class. Looked at another way, a sword has no use except in war and dueling, while most other weapons including the axe have a civilian use, either as tools or in hunting. So, an axe is a good investment for a yeoman soldier in peace and wartime, while a sword marks you out as a professional warrior. Even when swordcrafting became more widespread and almost industrialized, as happened eventually in Europe and Japan, aristocracies promoted their association with the sword, to the point of legislating it out of the hands of commoners.

If we stop here - roughly at the point of OD&D, where axes are equivalent to swords in damage but cost less - social and material reasons favor the cheaper axe over the more expensive sword. A campaign, though, may want to give the sword some of its social meaning back to compensate. So, wearing the more expensive sword may be a claim to aristocratic status, which adventurers can buy or loot their way to. For example, axe-wielding barbarians and woodcutters may not be welcome in a certain tavern or town, while sword-wearing folk are presumed to be gentility and allowed to pass.

If social class is used to distinguish players in the game, having to use more expensive things, like swords, may be a drawback of the greater resources available to upper-class characters. At the same time, upstarts wearing swords may draw the respect or fear of common folk, but the wrath of those who feel more properly entitled by birth to do so, and may even fall afoul of the law. All these options are suitable for a campaign that wants to keep its combat simple but its social world fairly rich. As long as the advantages and drawbacks are communicated to players beforehand, that's perfectly OK.

Real commitment to super-simple combat would stop here. But I also want differences between weapons to count in combat, even if expressed in only a couple of features. So, more next time.