Check out this long-awaited interview I did with the Wouldbuild With Us crew. We talk about stuff like the modules that inspired me the most and Scarface-inspired werewolves.

Episode #81: An Interview With Justin Alexander

What are the three types of scenario hook? How can you twist them? Why should you have more than one? What’s a bait hook?

We have a new Advanced Gamemastery video today. I’d mentioned last week that I was hoping to test pilot some fancy new features in this video. The result? Onscreen titles! My hope is that they’ll increase the clarity of the presentation.

Good gaming! And I’ll see you at the table!

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Think back over all the roleplaying games you’ve played and run.

Why do NPCs always fight to the death?

If you take a moment to really think about it, this is odd behavior. Even in actual warfare, the outcome of a conflict is rarely for one side to fanatically fight to the last man. Animals don’t do this, either. When the tide of battle has clearly turned, armies rout and people run away or surrender rather than being slaughtered.

Yet in most RPGs, every fight ends only when every last person on one side has been laid in the grave.

First, there used to be morale rules. But GMs (and the industry in general) moved away from morale rules because of the “roll vs. role” mentality which, in part, maintained that mechanics shouldn’t govern character interactions. Thus, the NPCs’ decision of whether to run away or stay and fight became solely the GM’s purview.

(The other reason GMs abandoned morale rules is because they mechanically prompt all of the following stuff.)

Second, most GMs start by running dungeons. Dungeons are an appealing scenario structure, particularly for new GMs, because each room is firewalled from other rooms, making them easy to prep and easy to run. You don’t have to worry about the whole scenario, just the current room.

NPCs who run away break the firewall.

Where are they running to? What are they going to do there? If they’re looking for help or trying to summon reinforcements, where are the other enemies located? If they reach those enemies, what do those enemies do?

To handle willy-nilly monsters cascading through your dungeon like free radicals, you need advanced techniques like adversary rosters, and most GMs don’t have those techniques.

(Conversely, if you’re using the My Perfect Encounter™ school of adventure design where every encounter is hard-coded to a specific location and fine-tuned to a razor’s edge of challenge, the whole adventure actually falls apart if monsters from one encounter start running around the place. This becomes even more true in a game like 4^th Edition D&D, where this is hard-coded into the system.)

Third, taking monsters prisoner ALSO breaks the firewall, because the PCs are going to want to question them about the dungeon. This, again, requires the GM to break out of the current room and think about the entire dungeon as a whole. (Which, again, is more difficult for a new GM.)

Prisoners also create a logistical challenge which is perhaps interesting once or twice, but then quickly becomes boring.

Fourth, the desire to avoid boring logistics will prompt players to solve the problem by murdering their prisoners. This is morally repugnant and, therefore, often undesirable. Similar calculations will also motivate the PCs to shoot anyone running away in the back (which may also be aesthetically/ethically undesirable).

For a non-RPG example of the difficulty in taking prisoners, check out The Raid (2011). The main characters try to take prisoners, but the logistics overwhelm them and a lot of people get killed.

Once you move away from raid-type scenarios (which a typical dungeoncrawl is closely related to), bad guys running away are usually easier to handle. (If nothing else, they can just run off into the night and exit the scenario.) And the prisoner logistics, along with the tough choices accompanying them, usually become more interesting to explore.

But by that point, most GMs have already developed “fight to the death” as a habitual practice, so it tends to just kind of stick around.

Fifth, there’s also the influence of video games. The designers of video games face similar challenges in implementing bad guys who run away and so they also don’t do that, creating a cultural perception of what game-ified violence looks like which GMs carry into their tabletop games.

TO THE DEATH!

On the flip-side, very few systems provide a viable system by which PCs can reliably flee combat. (Ironically, the original 1974 edition of D&D is one of the rare exceptions.)

Mechanically, this strongly incentivizes the PCs to also fight to the bitter end, because the alternative systemically boils down to begging the GM not to kill you: Players like to feel as if they’re in control of their own destiny, and staying within the clear structure of the combat system lets them do that.

(An effective mechanical structure for retreat must (a) be known to the players; (b) have a concrete resolution method which clearly sets stakes and provides an unambiguous and definitive outcome; (c) allow players to make meaningful choices which have a substantive impact on the success or failure of their retreat (and are, ideally, shaped by the specific of their current situation and/or resources); and (d) resolve success or failure for the group as a whole (players don’t want to risk leaving one of their own behind, and such systems generally suffer from a rolling to failure problems in any case). But I digress.)

This whole meme-sphere – in which both PCs and NPCs fight to the death – then feed back into game design and scenario design, which, for example, balances combat encounters around the assumption that the bad guys are going to fight to the bitter end.

GMs who try to break away from that assumption will find that the result is systemically unsatisfying: The PCs don’t really feel challenged when the bad guys logically run for it, which leads to everything feeling like a cake-walk in which the last few rounds are just mopping up bad guys who aren’t even fighting back.

No challenge? No satisfying conclusion?

That’s a bad encounter.

Which, of course, encourages the GM to abandon the whole “running away” thing, leaving the bad guys engaged until the bitter (yet mechanically satisfying) end.

SO WHAT?

If having the PCs and NPCs fight to the bitter end is so much easier, what’s the problem? Why not just keep doing that?

Well, as you’ve probably already noticed in our discussion so far, it takes a lot of interesting situations off the table. The Matrix probably wouldn’t be improved with Neo needing to figure out how to manage a captured Agent, for example, but Pitch Black demonstrates the unique challenges and amazing roleplaying that can emerge from shepherding even a single prisoner.

Another prominent example are the Principles of RPG Villainy: Running away to fight another day isn’t just something bad guys logically do, it’s the process by which truly memorable, campaign-defining villains are created.

I’ve already mentioned adversary rosters as a tool for running strategically active environments, but if every encounter mindlessly defaults to the NPCs fighting to the death, this tends to stunt the development of these more complex styles of play.

And, of course, none of this is to say that NPCs should never fight to the death. But variety is the spice of life. (Or, I guess, the spice of death, in this case.)

So what’s the alternative?

Well, obviously, you can just start making different choices.

But, as we’ve noted, there are systemic factors that affect these choices. We’ve already talked about how you might implement a mechanical structure for retreating, but there are other options to explore.

First, revisit how you design and think about encounters. My opinion is that the My Perfect Encounter™ method of adventure design is a hyper-developed dead end. It takes the training wheels that are useful for first time GMs and quadruples down on them, trying to make them the best goddamned training wheels you’ve ever seen. But you don’t get better at riding a bike by strapping on a fourth set of training wheels; you get better at riding a bike by taking the training wheels off.

Second, consider implementing a morale system. A good morale system won’t just mechanically prompt you to break your existing habits, it can also provide a structure for players to pursue combat tactics other than “stab them to death.” In other words, finding ways to rout your opponents is a viable way of achieving your tactical goals.

Third, speaking of tactical goals other than crushing your enemies (for example, you might also drive them before you and hear the lamentations of their women), another option is to define 0 hit points to mean something other than death. And I don’t just mean unconsciousness. I mentioned how “balanced encounters” in an RPG are designed around enemies fighting to the death. But it would be more accurate to say that they’re designed around enemies fighting until they run out of hit points. If we define that as death, then they fight to the death.

But if we broaden that definition so that your foe(s) being reduced to zero hit points simply means “the fight is over,” then we open up the possibility for fights to end in other ways. Depending on genre and circumstance, for example, this could be explicitly framed as anything from “they run away” to “they agree to join you in your quest” to “they surrender the golden phoenix of Shar-Halad.”

I’m running a few days late with this week’s installment of Advanced Gamemastery.

I’m actually planning to modify my recording rig, but before doing that I wanted to get some raw footage in the bag, so I actually ended up filming the next three videos this week. It took a little longer than I’d hoped to finalize the scripts, but this way if the new rig doesn’t work for some reason, I’ll have some time to figure it out while still being able to roll out the other videos.

The next two videos have also been designed to test some “fancy” new features (like onscreen bullet points), but in a way that allows me to abandon those features and still have a good video in case it all goes horribly wrong. (If next week’s video doesn’t have any new stuff, you’ll know that something did, in fact, go horribly wrong.)

The videos so far, and in the upcoming slate, are mostly bouncing around the topics of mysteries and sandboxes in RPG scenario design. If you’re familiar with the site, I’m guessing that won’t come as a huge surprise to you! Advanced Gamemastery — and the channel as a whole — will continue branching out, but the Three Clue Rule and active play are fairly foundational concepts to a lot of the work that I do, so as new viewers discover the channel I want to make sure we’re all working from the same base.

Good gaming! And I’ll see you at the table!

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When spellcasters prep a spell, they are creating an entanglement between their souls and the quantized fields of ley energy which permeate the cosmos. (Or, more accurately, they shape their spiritual valence – the “surface” at which the soul’s energy interfaces with the rest of reality – to create specific desmata, or channels, which are entangled with the ley fields. Hence, channeling magic.)

This process is incredibly dangerous. If the entanglement goes wrong, a spellcaster can essentially “ground” themselves – becoming (very briefly) a living conduit through which unrestrained magical energy pours into the Material Plane. At best, this can burn out some or all of the caster’s magical potential, creating a scar on their soul. Usually such events simply kill the caster outright.

In practice, arcanists have learned very stable configurations of entanglement. Different bodies of arcane theory feature different stable patterns through which they progress, but, for example, wizards have perfected patterns for creating two entanglements with the first sphere of energy (1^st level spells), another for four entanglements with the first field of energy and two with the second field, and so forth.

Magical theory believes that the nature and shape of the ley fields are due to the configuration of the major planes. The “turning of the Great Wheel” or “branchings of the Great Tree” are really just metaphors for how arcanists believe energy flows through the multiverse. (This is also why you may hear some arcanists referring to the “first sphere” or “seventh sphere” of magic, while others refer to the level or branching or so forth.)

If you were to truly “blow up Hell,” or whatever, the quantum levels of the energy field would shift, completely disrupting all magical theory: A 3^rd level spell slot would no longer have the same amount of mystical energy. There might even be more or less discrete layers – i.e., spell levels – in the ley field.

Ley lines can be thought of as “cracks” in the skein of reality where this interplanar energy is pushing through into our plane of existence. They are a sort of obduction where magical energy enters the Material Plane, similar to how new crust is “pushed up” through ocean rifts. In any case, this means that a given ley line can be associated with one, some, or all nine of the energy fields (spell levels).

THE EVOLUTION OF MAGICAL THEORY

It used to be the case that each desmata had to be carefully customized to a specific flow of energy. (In other words, you had to prep a specific spell into each spell slot.) It was always known, however, that this was merely a theoretical limit: There were creatures with natural desmata, for example, who could use them to flexibly cast a variety of spells.

Some individuals were similarly known to be born with or later manifest natural desmata. In some cases, these desmata would become “active,” allowing these “natural spellcasters” to create variable magical effects without any formal training. However, this was an uncontrolled, dangerous, and incredibly unstable process. The spontaneous alignment of any desmata could go horribly awry. It might kill the spellcaster, burn out their magical ability, or, in rare cases, cause the desmata to become stuck “open” – basically spewing forth wild magic in a chaotic torrent.

These spontaneous spellcasters were basically walking cataclysms that could be unpredictably triggered at any moment. As a result, they were usually social pariahs. (People don’t like it when their neighbors randomly blow up.)

In the last century, however, significant breakthroughs in arcane theory made it possible for these spellcasters – or sorcerers – to, first, wield much greater control over which spells they could cast through their desmata (allowing them to learn specific spells instead of just manifesting random abilities) and, later, safely activate their dormant desmata in stable configurations.

Sorcerers stopped exploding. Some of the old prejudices remain, but over the past several decades they have mostly been reintegrated into society.

These theoretical breakthroughs also led to a greater understanding of the structure (or “weave”) of desmata. Studying the flexible desmata of sorcerers allowed other arcanists to perfect the design of non-specific desmata aligned to each ley field.

This was a revolution in magical theory!

The first flexible desmata to be perfected was actually for the third sphere of magic, but over the next decade arcanists rapidly perfected flexible desmata for each quantized field. You still had to study and master specific spell effects, but you no longer had to create one custom desmata for a fireball and a different custom desmata for a lightning bolt – you simply had a single flexible desmata of the third sphere which could be used to channel energy for either effect.

The insights gleaned from these new breakthroughs, however, also spilled into general field theory to arguably even greater effect. To fully understand that, however, we’ll first want to take a closer look at cantrips.

CANTRIPS: GENERAL FIELD THEORY

It has long been understood that in addition to the large, quantized ley fields, there is also a pervasive field of discordant, low-level mystic energy that appears to permeate all etheric and material matter. In older texts it is often referred to as the Discord. In bardic traditions it is sometimes referred to as the “unchorded song.” We’ll refer to as the general field.

The energy levels of the general field are so small that they’re generally “washed out” by the nine spheres of magic. As a result, the general field was first detected by elven arcanists studying the ambitus (or perimeter) of antimagic fields. (It is now widely recognized that certain arcane traditions of the beholder magi-lines had been aware of the general field for centuries before it was “discovered” by the elves, but, of course, beholders are infamously secretive about their arcane traditions, even with each other.)

The low energy of the general field severely limited the effects which could be created with it. In addition, the cumbersome desmata created to interface with the general field actually interfered with the far more useful desmata of the first sphere, reducing the number of such desmata that could be safely entangled!

However, the low energy and pervasive nature of the general field also made it considerably safer to manipulate. The general field spells – which became known as cantrips – were ideal for training new students in the arts of magic. The success rate (as opposed to the “messy death” rate) for apprenticeships soared, greatly invigorating arcane studies.

Huge tomes of cantrips were developed for apprentices, but due to the interference effects most magi abandoned them entirely once they were ready to master more powerful desmata, although it was not unknown for some to maintain a cluster of four or so of their favorite cantrips despite the sacrifice.

The next major breakthrough in cantrip theory came when Xylarthen perfected a spell form of the first sphere that could be used to flexibly channel any cantrip known to the caster. Ironically, the complexity of this form made it unsuitable for apprentices, but it did mean that more powerful magi who were nostalgic for their old cantrips no longer needed to maintain a disrupting cluster of cantrip desmata to practice them.

Hidden within Xylarthen’s cantrip spell, of course, was an alternative theory of flexible desmata (which, at this time, had not yet been perfected). This was widely recognized and any number of experimental arcanists began trying to expand the theory. The general belief was that it would be possible to create desmata of a higher level that could be used to flexibly cast less powerful effects: Just as a desmata of the first sphere could be used to flexibly cast cantrips, so a desmata of the fourth level, for example, might be able to channel spells of the third level. Various theories were promulgated, many of them featuring increasingly baroque arrangements of “resonance” (i.e., the idea that a fourth level desmata might be able to cast any second level spell, but not a third level one; or vice versa; or only a third and a first; and so forth). There was another school of thought which postulated that flexible desmata might be able to achieve stability within specific schools of magic.

All of these theories ultimately proved unsuccessful. There was a single desmata of the eighth sphere that could be used to cast spells of the fifth level and lower, but it proved to be incredibly unstable. After several spectacularly lethal disasters, the form was abandoned. The wizard Rary did eventually manage to construct a deserata of the third sphere that could be used to cast mixtures of lower level spells, but its use was highly specialized and he was never able to generalize the somewhat fluke discovery back into general principles.

The next true breakthrough in cantrip-related theory actually came from a completely different direction: Minor desmata were perfected which could be used to prepare cantrips powered by the “zero-level” field of mystical energy without disrupting higher level entanglements. These were not flexible desmata (each needed to be prepared for a specific cantrip), but it meant that arcanists could now continue using cantrips throughout their careers. They were also closer in theory to other desmata, making it easier for apprentices to transition from their early studies to more powerful spells.

When the theory of flexible desmata was later perfected, however, the old Xylarthenic theories were revisited. The new models made it clearer how Xylarthen’s cantrip spell had been using higher orders of magic to create a flexible construct that could channel energy from the general field. What was even more interesting, however, was that the new theories of desmatic creation suggested that it should be possible to create a flexible cantrip desmata which, due to the pervasive properties of the general field, would not lose its entanglement with the general field when used to cast a spell.

In other words, once a spellcaster had entangled their soul with the proper desmata, it was possible in theory to cast a limitless number of such spells.

It took some time to perfect, but that was more or less what the arcanists did, creating the order of magic as we know it today: Flexible desmata for spontaneously casting of spells of the first through ninth sphere and clusters of cantrip desmata that have no limit on often they can be used.

A MISCELLANEA

A few miscellaneous thoughts:

• The really interesting element of modern arcane theory is that there’s theoretically no limit to how much energy can be pulled from the general field. This means that a grand unified theory of magic would theoretically allow ALL magical spells to be powered by the general field and, therefore, cast without limit. At the moment, however, arcanists are limited to “solving” each spell individually. But each new spell that becomes a cantrip is a major achievement!
• Don’t get too excited: Elven arcanists will point out that the “grand unified theory” is always just twenty years away (for humans) or a hundred years away (for elves).
• Insofar as “magic” is the interface between a caster’s soul and the ley fields, psionics cannot be properly understood as “magic.” Psionic abilities are the result of manipulating, focusing, and multiplying the energy of the soul itself.
• Warlocks don’t have level-associated slots because they don’t actually entangle with the ley fields. They are instead directly entangled with their patron, which simply feeds them the ley energy. (This is why other arcanists often look at them with roughly the same terror that you might look at a high-capacity power line dancing around on the ground and shooting out sparks.)
• Divine mystic traditions used to be based on very different theories of how magic worked, allowing an interface with only seven of the spheres (although the particulars of that interface allowed them to create effects similar to arcane traditions using different ley fields). Over time, mystic theory has become more unified, with divine traditions tapping into arcane theory to create desmata that can entangle with all nine spheres.
• What hasn’t changed is that clerics are generally dependent on the connection to their god to create and entangle their desmata. This means most clerics are significantly less familiar with the fine details of arcane theory. These divine desmata, however, still have unique properties which make certain magical effects (like healing) possible that are still beyond arcane theory.
• There are magical “viruses” that can interface with desmata. Most only interface with spent desmata, but there are also some that can attach to entangled desmata. (These tend to be more dangerous.)

FURTHER READING
Spells: Parasites of the Mind
Scrolls: Bonds of Power