DISCUSSING
In the Shadow of the Spire – Session 34B: Webs of Ambush and Betrayal

Tor, scarcely slowed by the lightning that had seared him, reached the spider-like creature. He cut a gash along its other side, causing it to cry out. “Gavele! Help me!”

Gavele shook her head. “You’re on your own Ibulli!” She slammed the door shut – thwarting Tee, who had just bounded back to her feet once again.

“Damn you, bell bitch!” The spider-thing skittered up the wall of the tower.

In most RPGs, the players form a team that works together to overcome the challenges that the game world presents to them. The world, of course, is created, controlled, and played by the GM.

This means, of course, that there’s a fundamental opposition between the players and the GM at the table. Yes, the GM is also acting as a neutral arbiter. And, yes, there are other layers of interaction in which the GM and the players are all cooperating towards a common end.

But this doesn’t mean that the opposition doesn’t exist. It just means that, like a high-grade steel, it is tempered and alloyed.

Of course, when the opposition is NOT tempered and kept in balance, all kinds of bad stuff can happen at the table.

One of the most dramatic examples of this is the antagonistic GM or killer GM, who believes their job is to crush, mangle, and destroy the PCs in the name of “challenging” them. This doesn’t work, of course, because the GM controls the world, making it trivial for them to destroy the PCs if that’s their goal.

But there are subtler traps that this fundamental opposition can trick us into as a GM.

For example, it’s quite easy to accidentally transition from GM vs. players to world vs. players.

But the game world, of course, should be more fractured and complicated than that. All of your NPCs may have their actions masterminded by a single puppeteer, but they don’t know that!

I’ve previously talked about how you can place your PCs into a nest of friendly factions, but you can get equally interesting play by making sure your enemies are factionalized, too. (And the difference between friend and foe, of course, may be anything but clear.)

Having enemy factions working against each other can provide a rich engine for generating new scenarios in your campaign. For example, think about how a police force needs to respond to a gang war. Or the opportunities for created for shadowrunners during a hostile corporate takeover. Or the infinite skullduggeries unleashed during a political campaign.

The friction between factions also provides all kinds of grist for the roleplaying mills, as can be seen in the interaction between Gavele and Ibulli above. PCs can obviously also be drawn into these interactions, whether to choose a side, negotiate a peace, or simply try to weather the storm.

Even better, PCs who learn about these divisions and rivalries will have the opportunity to take advantage of them! Dominic, for example, does so in a rather blunt (but nonetheless effective) fashion:

The charge came close to routing them, but then a ratling and a ratbrute emerged from the building. The ratbrute was unslinging a greatsword of leviathan proportions while the ratling lowered another of the dilapidated dragon rifles and—

“Two hundred gold pieces for each of you if you attack the dwarf instead!” Dominic was still struggling in the goopy web, but he shouted out the offer in a voice laced with sincerity.

The ratling hesitated. Then he turned to his companion with a sly grin. “I never liked that dwarf anyway.”

The ratling started to lower his rifle and turned back towards the building.

“TRAITOR!” the ratbrute cried in a thick, lumbering voice. It brought its greatsword crashing down towards the smaller ratling, who barely managed to turn the skull-crushing blow into a merely laming shoulder wound.

The ratling stumbled back, shooting at the ratbrute with his rifle. The shot went wild, but a second shot – coming from the interior of the building – struck the ratbrute in the chest. The stench of burning rat fur filled the air.

As can also be seen directly in this session, adding faction-based play to a dungeon can deeply enrich the experience, adding whole new dimensions to your scenario.

Along these lines, you may also want to check out Keep on the Borderlands: Factions in the Dungeon.

Campaign Journal: Session 34C – Running the Campaign: Ornate Chokepoints
In the Shadow of the Spire: Index

IN THE SHADOW OF THE SPIRE

SESSION 34B: WEBS OF AMBUSH AND BETRAYAL

January 5th, 2009
The 18th Day of Kadal in the 790th Year of the Seyrunian Dynasty

A hideous, spider-like creature with a human-like head and face dropped onto the floor next to Agnarr. It landed softly on its skittering legs, then raised its front claws and sent a bolt of lightning lancing across the cavern – scorching Tor and Dominic, who had just begun to charge across the cavern.

The creature turned back towards Agnarr, but it had underestimated the barbarian’s speed. Agnarr’s greatsword opened a gash along one side of the creature.

Tee, recovering from the enchantment that had been laid on her, stood up—

And the door behind her was swung open. Before she had a chance to turn, a sword sliced painfully into her side and sent her spinning to the floor in pain. Turning she saw Gavele – the cultist she had seen breaking up the fracas over Reggaloch’s corpse – pulling back her blade with a grim smile.

Tor, scarcely slowed by the lightning that had seared him, reached the spider-like creature. He cut a gash along its other side, causing it to cry out. “Gavele! Help me!”

Gavele shook her head. “You’re on your own Ibulli!” She slammed the door shut – thwarting Tee, who had just bounded back to her feet once again.

“Damn you, bell bitch!” The spider-thing skittered up the wall of the tower.

Tee activated her magical boots and began floating up in pursuit, but Ibulli – seeing her – shot a gob of web at her, pinning her to the wall. A few moments later, Ibulli slipped away through a hole near the ceiling of the cavern and disappeared into the tower.

THROUGH THE TOWER

Meanwhile, below, Tor threw himself against the tower door and burst it open. The inside of the tower was bereft of interior walls with a floor of sandy, hard-packed dirt. A broken staircase wound its way around the inner wall of the tower, up to a trapdoor in the ceiling above.

By the time Tor burst in, Gavele had already crossed the entire tower (with seemingly preternatural speed). Tor and Agnarr raced to catch her, but she managed to wrench open the far door, slip through it, and slam it shut behind her.

But only a moment after the door was shut, Angarr was at it. Seizing the heavy metal ring, Agnarr ripped it open. Gavele – who had been trying to hold it shut while slipping a key into the lock – was wrenched off her feet. Tor, who was only half a stride behind Agnarr, cut her down where she stood.

Tor positioned himself in the open door, keeping a watchful eye on the large chamber beyond. This chamber had seemingly been formed by excavating the space between the tower and another ancient building. The excavation was incomplete, however, with only part of the lower building exposed from the wall. Several passages led away from the chamber – two to the north and one to the south. Flanking one of the northern passages were two statues carved to look like humans in robes but with translucent, smoky grey glass spheres in place of heads.

Everything within seemed still and quiet.

While Tor kept watch, Agnarr went back to help Tee. Stuck as she was, she had managed to get a rope out of her pouch, tie it around her waist, and drop it down to the floor below. Agnarr was able to climb up this and used his flaming sword to burn her free (giving her a little pain here and there as he did).

THRALLS & QUASITS

Once the web was burned away, it was an easy matter for Tee to safely levitate both of them back to the cavern floor below. They joined the rest of the group in the tower.

Before they had a chance to plan their next move, however, two venom-shaped thralls leapt from the roof of the partially excavated building and landed on the ground about twenty feet away. These were large, more muscular, and less recognizably human than their brethren above – clearly suffering from a more advanced form of the askara-induced mutations, which seemed to continue apace even after the victims had emerged from their cocoons.

Tor rapidly backpedaled through the door and slammed it shut.

“Agnarr!”

Agnarr quickly crossed the tower to Tor’s side.

And at that moment, Agnarr and Tor were suddenly filled with a supernatural terror. Agnarr managed to shake it off, but Tor – with a horrible scream – ripped open the door again and ran through it.

The thralls, perhaps surprised at the sudden going-and-coming, swung wildly at Tor ran past them and missed as he fled down an excavated tunnel to the northeast.

A high-pitched, cackling laugh filled the tower. Whirling to see its source, the others spotted two small, winged demons sitting on the staircase.

These quasits were laughing almost helplessly at the sight of Tor’s flight, and Agnarr – with a single bounding leap across the tower – cut one of them down before it had a chance to react. Tee took a shot at the other, blasting a large hole in its wing.

Whirling hate-filled eyes towards her, the quasit gave a sibilant hiss of pain and rage… and vanished.

Tor, meanwhile, had disappeared from sight. It was impossible to follow him, because the venom-shaped thralls were closing rapidly on the open door.

Agnarr stepped into the breach… and things turned frenetic. Blows of fang and claw came quicker than the eyes of the others could follow, but Agnarr turned each of them – deflecting some, absorbing others with cunning angling of his body and armor.

And then the seemingly impossible began to happen: Agnarr was driving them back, using their long reach against them by repeatedly stepping in close to their bodies.

Once there was enough of a gap, Seeaeti slipped around the thralls and, with the dog nipping at their heels, Agnarr was able to start landing some blows of his own. The others prepared to follow his lead through the door and engage.

THE RETURN OF IBULLI

But just as the tide was turning, a beam of purplish-black energy struck Agnarr in the back and the strength drained from his limbs. Ibulli had returned – slipping through the trapdoor at the top of the tower.

While Agnarr continued to hold the line against the thralls, the others – still within the tower – fell into a confused response. Tee fired, sending the spider-thing skittering across the ceiling. Ranthir backed away, but prepared to counter any more spells it might attempt. Dominic shouted out a warning to Agnarr.

Elestra raised her dragon rifle… and got a face full of web. Tee moved to assist her and found herself, once again, webbed in place.

The thralls, meanwhile, had become weary of Seeaeti hounding them and one of them turned towards the dog. Agnarr was out of position to defend him and he could only shout in outrage and concern as Seeaeti’s back was ripped to shreds. With a whimpering whine, Seeaeti twisted away from the thrall.

Dominic, hearing the hound’s howl, darted through the door. At the touch of his wand, the wounds on Seeaeti’s back slowly knit themselves back together. Seeaeti happily bounded back to his feet, turned towards Dominic, and licked him happily on the face.

THE RETURN OF THE QUASITS

Elestra started cutting her way out of the web. She’d only managed to free one arm, however, when the surviving quasit reappeared behind her. It clawed its way up her legs and back, leaving a trail of bloody puncture wounds that burned with a painful venom, before burying its fang-like teeth in the back of her neck.

Elestra cut at it futilely with her rapier, but it leapt away and – chittering with malevolent laughter – vanished again.

Dominic was still wiping Seeaeti’s slobber from his face when he heard Elestra cry out. He ran back into the tower. But, as he passed through the door, he, too, found himself stuck fast – another victim of Ibulli’s web.

Elestra was trying to finish cutting herself free, but the pain spreading from the quasit-inflicted wounds was growing more intense. The wounds themselves were rapidly inflaming with an intense, searing heat, but there was also a chilling shake spreading through her muscles. It was poison.

TOR TURNS AROUND

In his flight, Tor had emerged from the first passage into a roughly circular chamber. Into this chamber an underground stream flowed, pouring down into a large circular pit in the center of the chamber. He passed through this chamber and down another passage, finally coming to a stop – as his mind cleared – a short distance from an iron door.

Cursing loudly he turned and ran back towards the fight.

Running the Campaign: Faction v. Faction – Campaign Journal: Session 34C
In the Shadow of the Spire: Index

In 2023, after discussions with Jennell Jaquays, the title of Jaquaying the Dungeon was changed to Xandering the Dungeon, as I’ve previously described in A Historical Note on Xandering. At the beginning of 2024, a little over a week ago as I write this post, Anne of DIY & Dragons wrote a blog post questioning the timeline of events I had described.

There were a number of accusations made as part of this post. Some of these accusations can be ascribed to a difference of opinion, honest confusion, and legitimate grievances, which I will address below. Others, however, were factually false.

After making a brief public statement regarding the factual inaccuracies in these accusations, I reached out to and was also reached out to by members of the RPG trans community, including Anne. Very meaningful and heartfelt conversations have been had, and I am deeply grateful to all of them for their time and their thoughtfulness.

One outcome of these conversations is that Anne has posted a retraction and correction of some of the statements made in her original post, which I encourage you to read to have a better understanding of both why Anne wrote her post and why the corrections we’re making are important: An Update on Jaquaysing.

Revisions have also been made to A Historical Note on Xandering in conjunction with this statement that will hopefully prevent similar confusion in the future.

In addition, I’ve been asked, by Anne and others, to address several specific questions at greater length.

Did Jennell invent the term xandering or ask you to remove her name from the term/article?

No. Nor, to be clear, have I ever claimed that she did.

Did the original version of the article use Jennell’s deadname?

Yes, because the article was written when Jennell was still using her deadname and had not yet identified as trans.

When Jennell identified as trans, I immediately began using her preferred name and her true pronouns in any new writing or conversation, but I did not go back and immediately revise older articles that mentioned her and her work to remove her deadname until Jennell specifically asked me to.

While I still believe there is easily ignored nuance and complexity to the issue of revising extant works, I regret waiting for Jennell to reach out to me because it hurt Jennell. What I should have done, given the prominence of the article, is reach out to her directly. This was an important lesson, and one that I’ve acted on several times since these events occurred in 2018 — e.g., contacting trans authors when reviewing works that were published under their deadnames to ascertain what credit I should use.

What is the specific timeline of your communication with Jennell regarding changes to the article?

In response to discussions with Jennell, there have been two major alterations to both the article and the Alexandrian website as a whole (since both the term and Jennell’s works are widely used and discussed on the site).

The first of these, as noted above, was in 2018. Jennell first reached out via a comment on the site, and we then exchanged private messages. I do not have records of these messages, but the outcome was that Jennell’s deadname would be removed from the site. This included deleting or updating text, graphics, and metadata. It also included deleting comments from readers of the site which included her deadname.

It may be important to note that this project took a little over a year to complete, as it included periodically rescanning the site with search engines to detect any hidden metadata or filenames on both the current and older versions of the site that still contained her deadname.

The second major alteration began in 2023, as I was preparing for the publication of So You Want To Be a Game Master. I’m going to number this sequence of events in an effort to make it as clear as possible:

1. I reached out to Jennell regarding the use of the term “jaquaying.”
2. Jennell reiterated her preference for the term “jaquaysing” (including the final S in her last name), but stressed that it was very important to her that no form of the term featuring her name but missing the final S be used.
3. I let my publisher know that Jaquays wanted the term changed and that we should be careful to make sure no instances of the old term remained.
4. This prompted a legal question about whether or not her name should be used for the term at all.
5. In consultation with others — but, to be clear, not Jennell — it was determined that a new term should be used, and I created the term “xandering.”
6. I let Jennell know that the term would be updated in the upcoming book and that the website would also be updated before the book came out. She thanked me for the update. This final communication took place in April 2023, and it would sadly be the last time I spoke with Jennell.
7. The text of the book was then updated with the new term. I believe this was completed by the end of April, but it may have been early May. (Other proofreading and corrections were also being made throughout this time.)
8. In September 2023, I began the process of updating the article and website.
9. On November 1^st, 2023, the change was announced and the website updated. Significant changes continued to be made for roughly the next two weeks, with additional changes being made thereafter as missed changes were reported.
10. The book was released November 21^st, 2023.

To reiterate, at no point in time did Jennell request the term “xandering,” participate in the creation of the term “xandering,” nor explicitly endorse or disapprove of the use of “xandering.”

Did Jennell know that the term would be updated in both the book and on the website?

Yes.

Would Jennell object to anyone using the term “jaquaysing”?

No. As I noted in my original statement, she preferred this version of the term to the original “jaquaying.”

In my discussions with Anne and others, however, it has become clear that my post was read by some to mean that Jennell was somehow hurt by people using “jaquaysing” or that she was upset with them for using it. This is horrifying to me and was in no way my intention.

To be as clear as possible: Using “jaquaysing” or advocating for its use is not the same thing as making violent threats. It’s the latter that Jennell and I both condemned, not the former.

If you are among those who were led to believe that you had hurt Jennell by using the term “jaquaysing” or that Jennell was upset with you for doing so, I want to reassure you in the strongest possible way that this is not the case and apologize for in any way contributing to that belief.

ADDITIONAL NOTES

Beyond the scope of Anne’s original blog post, a significant number of other accusations have been made. These include:

• That Jennell Jaquays was a co-author of the original article and that I had removed her co-author credit.
• That the article plagiarized some earlier article or book written by Jennell Jaquays.
• That Jennell invented the term “jaquaying” and/or the term “xandering.”
• That the term “jaquaysing” predated my article and I was trying to “steal” it from someone.
• That Jennell demanded her name be removed from the article, or that I had claimed she did.
• That Jennell threatened to sue me, or that I had claimed she did.
• That I lied about being in communication with Jennell Jaquays.
• That I had removed all reference to Jennell Jaquays from the article and/or my book.

To be clear, Anne is not responsible for these false claims. In some cases, they are actually being repeated or created by people trying to “defend” me. It’s therefore important that they be explicitly addressed:

None of these things are true.

I have done my best to call out these mistruths when I have seen them on social media, and if you see them in the future, I’d appreciate your help in giving polite corrections.

However, while these factual corrections are important, I ultimately do not want them to distract us from what I consider a deeper and more meaningful truth that I have failed to address and which I believe must be understood.

It is not my place to express that truth, however, and I am very grateful that Ava Islam has given me permission to share her thoughts. Please take the time to read her words. They are important.

A STATEMENT BY AVA ISLAM

Dear Justin,

I’m hoping to start a dialogue with you in genuine good faith, and try to explain the context behind Anne’s blog post and why people are reacting the way they have. I can see from your end how that would be really blindsiding if, from your point of view, you’ve been trying to act ethically to the best of your ability. Let me share what I think mine and a lot of folks, including Anne’s, perspective and experience has been to cause this kind of reaction

To start on a personal note: I have been reading your blog since I was in high school. I read that original blog post about the style of dungeon design Jennell typified in Caverns of Thracia probably in 2013, at a time when I was really grappling with and beginning to figure out my gender identity. Your article is what introduced me to Jennell’s work.

So, on the one hand, as someone getting started in this community, it was incredibly heartening to see the pioneering importance of a trans woman in this field. Equally, however, it was just as disheartening to see that she was deadnamed in that article, even past the point where her transition was a matter of public record.

The old school scene, at least its centralized forums of conversation, felt decidedly different with regards to demographics back then, and trans acceptance broadly was at a much different place too. It was very difficult to try to have any conversation about Jennell’s work where she wasn’t being deadnamed and/or misgendered, and any attempt at correction was a fucking tedious, emotionally exhausting slog. Or the flipside, when trying to introduce someone to her work and referencing your article which had her deadname, it would inevitably draw questions or “corrections” when addressing her by her proper name and gender identity.

In fact, in terms of specific bad actors with a bigoted, transphobic agenda in the scene where Jennell’s name/identity became contested ground, we have had to contend with people like Melan/Gabor Lux, Prince of Nothing, and many others of that crowd who are explicitly reactionary and bigoted, especially towards trans people. But in Melan’s case especially, he managed to blend in and not get called out for so long until I explicitly had to document how he consistently deadnamed and misgendered Jennell, even while simultaneously holding up her work as an exemplar against which he compared, derided, and mocked the works of often marginalized designers.

In light of this, your longstanding refusal to update the articles until Jennell herself requested it was an incredibly sore spot for every trans woman in this scene I’ve ever talked to; we all noticed this, and to a T we all resented it. When you posted the article outlining your stance on updating her name, it just reinforced this. For better or for worse, you exemplified what all of us faced so often in every avenue of our lives, which is just the constant fight to basic dignity and respect for our personhood.

And you represented it in one of its most frustrating forms. For many of us, the kind of bigotry and transphobia we face from out and out bigots is one thing, but what often felt so much more insidious and hard to combat is the kind of detached, intellectual, liberal dehumanization about what constitutes basic standards of decency and respect when it comes to trans people. Of the attitude that words and ideas matter more than people; of the disposability of being valued for our contributions, but not our personhood. To this day I still find myself trying to convince so many people who should know better that its not okay to deadname someone just because you’re referring to a period in time where they hadn’t transitioned yet.

So when Jennell finally came in and corrected you, from our viewpoint it wasn’t a situation where we felt “good on you for doing the right thing”, it was a “god, fucking finally!” Judging from her tone in that comment, I think Jennell was also quite aggrieved in that moment. It still didn’t feel great though; there wasn’t a sense in which it felt like you understood what the issue actually was, broadly. There was no apology from you. And of course, there was no correction of “Jaquaying” to “Jaquaysing”.

In light of that context, of Jennell literally having to correct you on that matter, you still not fulfilling this ask of hers was baffling. The justifications you gave about the work or logistics it would require again seemed to miss the heart of the issue, getting bogged up in technicalities instead; it wasn’t about getting the record perfectly updated, it was about *acknowledgement* and *respect* and correcting your behaviour going forward; it was for showing up and actually standing by and supporting someone so in every other context where some weirdo or bigot would say “its Jaquaying not Jaquaysing” we could point and be like “Justin has acknowledged himself that he made a mistake in the spelling.”

At the end of the day, its a made up term which you came up with, and there’s no actual, enforceable obligation you had to change it. But in light of having kept it up with her deadname for so long, to not oblige this request felt incredibly disrespectful. And so I think for us in the community, that prevented the wound from how long it was kept up with her deadname from ever really healeing and any instance of “Jaquaying” became a sore spot that over time emotionally became conflated with the act of deadnaming itself.

So, before I move forward to the next part of the story, here’s a point I want to bring up: though you don’t know us, me, Anne, and several others aren’t just your average “internet rando” for lack of a better term. We’re not as well known as you but we are all known community members, as well as industry peers to some degree. Nor are we strangers to Jennell; we might not have been close friends with her, but we were connected on socials, and she was aware of and champions of our work. Genuinely, the high point of a career as my designer was when Jennell reached out to praise me about my book. She meant a lot to us; there was kinship and solidarity and mentorship there. Like Anne said in her post, she was one of our foremothers; this language might seem dramatic to you but in queer, and especially trans community, its not just figurative or symbolic. These things have very real meaning. And along with these also comes certain unspoken understandings and codes of conducts, ways in which we as women and especially as trans women know how to stick up for each other and have each other’s backs (you’ll notice there’s a lot of times where I’ve slipped into using “we”, and thats because, while I obviously can’t truly speak for anyone other than myself, I am relaying what is genuinely a very common experience).

What I’m getting at here is the way in which usage of “Jaquayed” vs “Jaquaysed” became a subject of debate. When you say there was harassment about it, I don’t know what you might specifically be referring to, but again let me give you what was basically my, and Anne, and many others’ experiences. We saw Jennell, herself, on Twitter, Facebook, and elsewhere expressing frustration with the misspelling of the term. We identified with that frustration, and we did what we generally do in this case, which is when one of us expresses her wishes, we carry that flag with us so she doesn’t have to fight that battle everywhere alone.

For my part, I don’t think anything I or any of my friends or peers did ever counted as harassment; we made a point to use Jaquaysed/Jaquaysing in any of our written work, and when we saw someone else using “Jaquayed” we would say “hey, Jennell prefers this.” No more, no less, no drawn out argumentation, and in no stronger terms than Jennell herself expressed. Over time, Jaquaysing with the s was gaining more and more traction in discussion that I saw. If this itself was upsetting to Jennell I’m really, truly, deeply regretful. My gut feeling says that it wasn’t, and she had an open line of communication to me any time if she felt it was; I’m going to wager moreso that the fact that this was conflict had gone on so long to the point that it was interminable. As trans people, so many aspects of our lives feel embattled; even the spaces that should be ours for play and relaxation are perenially marred with conflict. This is true of every trans person, and especially every trans woman, whom I know in this scene. My motivation in reaching out to you specifically is to try to do something, no matter how slight, towards making that no longer the case.

All of this is why “A Historical Note on Xandering” really left a bad taste in a lot of people’s mouths. It felt like, by doing our best to respect Jennell’s public preference and stand in solidarity with her, we were being painted as people instigating a “harassment campaign” (and later being accused of putting words in her mouth). Then, the ambiguity of whether or not she had agreed to the change to the term “xandering” and being unable to confirm that since you were the only source vs her previously stated preferences. And the timing of it with her illness and then eventual death.

Ultimately, as Anne expressed to me privately, in her own words: “For me (and I’m realizing this somewhat in retrospect) the  biggest issue was that what Justin said made people who respected Jennell feel like they could/should no longer say Jaquaysing because they respect her too much to go against her wishes.”

The optics of putting your own name in place of where a trans woman’s was around the time of her death is not good. I know you don’t mean it to be, I know you have no malice or ill-intent, or conspiracy, but it is erasure. I know also, that you wrote the essay, and that its theorizing is often misattributed to Jennell herself rather than you when that is not the case. I know you continue to credit and champion Jennell at every point. But it is still erasure.

You have seen, even in the wake of Anne writing her post and your response, how much information degrades on the internet. We live in a world where signal definitively lost the war to noise. By changing the name of the term itself, you are ensuring vast swathes of people you reach will never know about Jennell’s contributions and influences, will never discover her work the way so many people did prior when the term was Jaquaying/Jaquaysing. It took on a life outside of your post; even absent any mention of the article, just using the term would ensure that some people who didn’t otherwise know about Jennell would find out about her.

I understand why legally, you might want to avoid using her name when your book is going into print, but adopting your name instead of something more neutral like “Thracian” at the moment you stand to profit, which unfortunately coincides with the moment of Jennell’s passing, just ends up reading as the capstone in what has felt like a perennial saga of disrespect. The way you’ve responded to Anne, I think, has also not given people the inclination to give you the benefit of the doubt. For better or for worse, it reads as a continuation of a pattern of you dismissing trans women and their concerns. Charges of disingenousness, outrage farming, or click-baiting are especially egregious for those of us who know Anne, who has been a tireless caring and supportive community leader for many years who has always shunned the spotlight herself in favour of uplifting others, and who does not engage in this hobby in a commercial context or seeking renown. Her only aim was trying to preserve Jennell’s legacy, and continuing to make this hobby a welcoming place for any who might find inspiration in her memory.

I hope that is an aim we can all share.

AN APOLOGY

To Ava, Anne, and the wider trans community: I hear you and I understand.

What has resonated with me through my conversations is that there is a mismatch between my perception of events and the wider community’s perception of events because I have thought of these things primarily in the context of Jennell, and I have ignored the effect on the wider trans community.

So when I privately apologized to Jennell years ago and we mended our fences and then spent years in a distant, but friendly professional relationship — recommending each other for work and that sort of thing — I thought I had reached an understanding and healed any harms.

But I was ignorant of and ignoring the harm to a wider community.

A private communication cannot heal a public harm.

Therefore, to the trans community, let me say clearly and publicly:

I am very sorry for the harm that I’ve caused you.

That harm, and the pain it caused, is also what motivated Anne to write her original blog post. I have apologized to her privately for that, and I would like to now also do so publicly: I understand what motivated you to write your original blog post. I am very sorry that my actions have caused you pain. I am hopeful that these are the first steps towards making things, if not right, then better.

We are also in mourning for Jennell Jaquays, who was tragically taken from us and from her loving wife and family on January 10^th, 2024. It’s a loss and a pain that we all share. But it’s also, as Anne wrote, “a loss to trans women in gaming, people like me, for whom Jennell’s example of how to be out, successful, and admired served as an inspiration, and as a reminder that we have a place, we belong, in a hobby and an industry that can sometimes seem quite hostile to our existence. Even those of us who didn’t know her knew of her, and we could look to her as an exemplar, and as someone whose presence cultivated a safer space. Every trans woman I know in gaming has been affected by her loss.”

Nothing and no one can replace Jennell Jaquays.

In her memory and honor, I ask you to join me in donating to her family’s memorial fund. I will also be supporting the Jennell Jaquays Memorial Game Jam and, at the recommendation of members of the trans community I’ve spoken with, making a recurring donation to Trans Lifeline in her honor.

Never split the party is what new players do to stay safe. But once you get a little bit of experience under your belts, you should ALWAYS split the party. USA Today Bestselling Author and ENnie Award-winning RPG designer Justin Alexander reveals the secrets for GMing on Easy Mode™.

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I can’t do a murder mystery because the PCs will just cast zone of truth!

Awhile back I shared Random GM Tip: Speak With Dead Mysteries, which looks at the particular challenges of designing a murder mystery scenario when the PCs have access to the speak with dead spell (or some similar magical or technological effect). A common follow-up question from people reading this article is, “But what about zone of truth?”

As I mentioned in the original article, you have to start by embracing the fundamental dynamic of a mystery: It’s not to withhold information from the detective(s); it’s about the detective(s) acquiring information.

Insofar as the zone of truth serves as one method that the PCs can use to acquire information, therefore, it won’t be a problem. It will only become a problem if (a) it trivializes all other methods of acquiring information and/or (b) short circuits a specific investigation.

Keeping that in mind, let’s take a closer look.

WHICH ZONE OF TRUTH?

There can be considerable differences in how zone of truth and similar effects work, and this will obviously have an impact on how it affects investigations.

First: Do spellcasters know when the targets of their spells — particularly enchantment spells — make their saving throws?

Personally, I prefer No. (And will often apply this as a house rule even in systems where the answer would be Yes under the rules-as-written or rules-as-intended.) I think pretending to go along with a caster’s domination spell, for example, is a classic genre trope.

This is how zone of truth worked in D&D 2^nd Edition and 3^rd Edition, and it obviously adds a layer of ambiguity to the spell. (If two people contradict each other, is that just a difference of opinion/belief? Or did one of them make their saving throw? Or both of them?) D&D 5^th Edition, on the other hand, adds specific language allowing the caster to know when the spell is in effect, stripping ambiguity.

Second: How often can a character resist the effects of the zone of truth? Do they make a single saving throw when entering the zone? Make a new saving throw every round? Make a saving throw each time they need to make a declarative statement or answer an explicit question?

Once again, D&D 5^th Edition’s version of the effect is the most troublesome for mysteries.

Third: Does the target know they’re in a zone of truth before they speak? If so, it allows them to account for the zone in what they say and how they choose to answer questions.

This has been true for every version of the D&D spell. Wonder Woman’s golden lasso, on the other hand, is usually depicted as surprising those bound by it.

Fourth: Does the effect compel the target to answer direct questions? This would obviously also make the spell a much more powerful tool in the detective’s arsenal, but it’s also not how the D&D spell works.

IDENTIFY THE QUESTION

To paraphrase something Margaret Frazer’s Dame Frevisse once said, the secret to solving a mystery is less about the answers you get to your questions than it is knowing what questions to ask and who to ask them of in the first place.

Often when talking about zone of truth mysteries in a hypothetical sense rather than a practical one, it seems people often default to thinking about an Agatha Christie-style murder mystery where there are eight specific suspects isolated on a country estate. In this scenario, with access to a zone of truth, it’s quite easy to identify both the question (Did you kill Bob?) and who you need to ask (the eight suspects).

But this type of scenario isn’t really common in RPGs to begin with: The plotting of these stories depends on the author having tight control over which questions are asked and when they’re asked in order to create a clever logic puzzle, the solution of which can only occur to the detective at the moment of the author’s choosing. Even if you want to prep a plot in an RPG — and you shouldn’t — it’s still basically impossible to force this kind of sequencing at the table.

As a result, RPG mystery scenarios tend to be built around other structures. For example, it’s not unusual for a mystery scenario to begin at a crime scene filled with physical evidence — e.g., the bloody carnage of a worg attack or the pale gray corpse of a vampire killing — and nary a suspect in sight. Before the PCs can start asking questions, they’ll first need to figure out — as Dame Frevisse said — what the questions are.

To put it another way: Zone of truth can’t short circuit the investigation if the investigation is about figuring who you need to question in the first place.

Next time you’re reading a well-made RPG mystery scenario — like Eternal Lies or Quantronic Heat — take note of how rarely NPCs actually lie to the PCs. Even NPCs who are just withholding information aren’t terribly common. In other words, even without a zone of truth, it’s not unusual for every NPC in these scenarios to say nothing but true things, and the scenario still works just fine.

There is one exploit, however, that clever players can use a zone of truth to unlock:

Can you think of anything that would help our investigation if we knew about it?

Given any kind of limited suspect pool, this question can be used as a quick shortcut for identifying the question(s) they need to ask to solve the mystery, so if you don’t want to get caught flat-footed at the table, it can be useful to prep the clever answer your bad guy(s) will use to evade it.

A good, one-size-fits-all solution here is the incomplete answer: They have to speak the truth, so they do, in fact, have to give the PCs something helpful. But it doesn’t have to be everything that they know would be helpful, nor does it need to be the most helpful thing. Stuff that wastes a ton of time while, technically, being useful is a great fit here.

Can you think of anything else that would be helpful?

Clever player.

The NPC can’t say, “No,” of course, but deflecting back to the first answer is usually possible.

Player: Can you think of anything that would help our investigation if we knew about it?

Bad Guy: I’d check the security cameras.

Player: Can you think of anything else that would be helpful?

Bad Guy: Hmm… I really think the security cameras are what you should check next.

GAIN ACCESS

The other crucial thing about deploying a zone of truth is that you need to (a) get the suspect in the zone and (b) get them to answer your questions.

Returning to our Christie-style manor mystery, if seven of the suspects all readily hop into your zone of truth and the eighth suspect refuses, then the jig is probably up. To avoid this problem, you need to have multiple suspects refuse. The PCs may still be able to use the spell (or the threat of the spell) to narrow the scope of their investigation, but not close it.

The reason for refusal might be specific to each character. The most likely explanation would be some dark secret unrelated (or at least not directly related) to the crime that they nevertheless do not want discovered.

Alternatively, it might be a society-wide condition that can be broadly applied. For example, it might be a cultural more that casting an enchantment spell on someone is unacceptably rude or unethical, such that even suggesting it will likely provoke an outraged response. It could even be a matter of explicit law, with the use of such spells being tightly regulated, limited, and controlled.

This touches on another issue, which is whether or not the PCs have the authority to question people. If they’re police detectives, then it will give them an advantage. (Although they’ll also probably have to abide more closely to the aforementioned laws, in which case they may need to do a bunch of legwork before they can deploy their spell.) If they’re just a bunch of random bozos who have wandered into town, it may be a lot easier for the suspect to dodge their calls.

Which leads us to another obstacle to gaining access, which is just literally finding them. Sure, you want to question Bob. But the door to his apartment has been kicked in, the place has been ransacked, and he’s either been kidnapped or is in the wind. In other words, the mystery — or a significant part of the mystery — can just literally be trying to track down the person you want to use your zone of truth spell on.

Of course, in order to find the person you want to question, you first have to identify them. The manor mystery, of course, still assumes that the list of suspects is immediately obvious, but in a lot of mysteries it’s anything but.

For example, you’ve found Bob: He’s been brutally murdered and his corpse dumped in an alley. You can’t question every single person in the city, so you’re going to have to figure out how to narrow down your suspect list first.

Even once you’ve gotten a suspect into the zone of truth, though, access can continue to be a problem if you enforce the time limit. The D&D 5^th Edition spell, for example, only lasts for ten minutes. That time can vanish surprisingly quickly, so set a timer.

This can be even more of a limitation in a manor house mystery: How many suspects can you rush through the circle before you run out of spells for the day?

If the PCs are trying to rush bunches of NPCs through their zones and you don’t want to play through every encounter, might rule that each witness requires 2d6 minutes or questioning; or perhaps 1d4+1 minutes if the PCs take disadvantage on their interrogation checks.

DESIGN THE CRIME

Imagine that it’s 1850 and you’re anachronistically GMing a roleplaying game. The science fiction game you’re running describes strange devices known as “security cameras” which record everything that takes place in a room.

“How am I supposed to design a mystery scenario when there are security cameras everywhere?!” you cry. “They can just see who did the crime!”

Modern criminals, of course, simply know that security cameras exist and they plan their crimes accordingly. In many cases, the evidence they leave behind while countering the security cameras will be the very clues detectives use to track them down!

An easy solution, of course, is to say something like, “I drank a potion of anti-enchantment that lasts for forty-eight hours,” thus negating the zone of truth entirely. (A clever criminal, of course, will make sure they have some perfectly reasonable pretext for having done so. An even cleverer criminal will have slipped it into the drinks last night and everyone at the manor house has immunity.)

This sort of stonewalling — where the PCs’ abilities are simply negated — is mostly just frustrating, however. It’s usually more fun to find ways that don’t just completely shut off the spell.

To put our suspect at their maximum disadvantage, let’s once again return to the manor house scenario that takes so many other options (access, identifications, etc.) off the table. This, however, is precisely the situation in which the murderer would anticipate a zone of truth. So how would they plan for that?

• They would anticipate the question, “Did you kill so-and-so?” and therefore have planned their crime so that they can honestly say, “No,” (e.g., they tricked them into suicide, arranged for a convenient accident, or hired someone else to kill them).
• They sent a dominated doppelganger disguised as themselves to enter the zone of truth. If the doppelganger’s identity is discovered, the PCs will find the NPC “knocked out” and tied up in their room. Who did this to them?! The mystery deepens. (Meanwhile, the zone of truth has expired.)
• They covertly trigger a dispel magic effect that destroys the zone of truth, possibly while someone else is being questioned. How many of those spells can you cast today, exactly?
• They arrange for a distraction. “Can you confirm that your name is Miguel Cavaste?” “Yes.” “Can you—” EXPLOSION. By the time of the chaos of the explosion is dealt with, the zone of truth has once again expired.

And so forth.

CONVERSATIONAL GAMBITS

Taking all of the above into consideration, there will nonetheless come the time when the suspect is in the zone of truth and faced with the PCs’ questions.

Maybe that’s all she wrote: Either they confess dramatically, surrender meekly, or initiate the final action scene by attacking the PCs, summoning reinforcements, or attempting to flee.

On the other hand, maybe not.

Instead, the zone of truth questioning can become a cat-and-mouse game: a final riddle for the players to unravel.

Let’s take a look at the conversational gambits an NPC (or PC!) might use when trapped, literally or metaphorically, in a zone of truth.

We’ve already mentioned giving incomplete answers. Just because you have to say true things, doesn’t mean you need to say EVERY true thing you know. Questions like, “Did you see anything suspicious last night?” gives the suspect a huge latitude in directing the interrogators’ attention towards any number of useful distractions.

They can also answer a question with a question. A question, technically, cannot be a lie. So if they can slip this past the interrogators, it can often create the illusion of a false answer: “Do you think Robert could have done this?” or “I had drinks with Marcia last night… what time was it? Around six?”

Another option is to simply refuse to answer. This, of course, looks suspicious. However, we’ve previously talked about cultural mores (“I plead the fifth!”) and simply feigning outrage (“How dare you ask me that?!”) can deflect or, at the very least, buy time.

On that note, simply rambling, delaying, feigning confusion, or otherwise running out the clock is also a perfectly viable strategy when you know the zone of truth has an unforgiving time limit.

SOLUTION IS A KEY, NOT A CONCLUSION

If you think in terms of node-based scenario design, the goal of any interrogation is to gain a lead that will point you to another node where you can continue your investigation.

As long as this remains true, the zone of truth only provides a key that you wanted the PCs to get in the first place. And therefore, of course, the zone of truth isn’t a problem at all.

So this can also bring us back to some basic first principles in RPG scenario design: Don’t prep the specific things that the PCs will do. Instead, prep a robust, dynamic situation for the PCs to interact with.

If you try to prep a specific thing for the PCs to do, the zone of truth can thwart you by giving them an alternative method of achieving their goal. But if you’ve prepped an interesting situation, then the zone of truth will often just be one more prompt for you to respond to with all the cool toys you’ve made for yourself.

FURTHER READING
Speak with Dead Mysteries
Three Clue Rule