DISCUSSING
In the Shadow of the Spire – Session 42A: Rat Mothers

But Ranthir, upon hearing the word “flee”, whirled around and webbed the far side of the room: The mothers, the albino, and Berq were all helplessly caught – except for one mother, trapped in the corner, who futilely screamed for help in her despair. Tor closed on her and ruthlessly killed both her and the baby ratlings.

With the other mothers still trapped in the web. Tee was able to broker a bargain in which they would be freed if one of them would lead the party to the southern sewer entrance. While the mothers were carefully freed from the web, Tor started discreetly taking ears and fingers from the dead as trophies. Meanwhile, Elestra distracted the ratlings with small talk to keep them from noticing Tee looting the coffers of the nest master (which were filled with gems, jewelry, and large amounts of coin; although given the bones and skulls dangling from the ceiling, Tee didn’t want to spend too much time thinking about where it had all come from).

“Killing orc babies” in D&D is a trope not so much because DMs are deliberately trying to present their players with this moral dilemma, but rather because it arises pretty naturally out of the standard D&D adventure type: Dungeons inhabited by X. “Inhabited” leads to community; community leads to babies. And, of course, it’s not just orcs. In this session it happened to be ratlings.

Now, there’s a whole discussion to be had about the colonialist themes in D&D and also the degree to which the traditional fantasy tropes of “species which is inherently evil” and/or “humanoid species with sub-human intellects” are manifestations of and/or informed by real world racism, but I’m going to put a pin in that.

What I’m focused on at the moment is less the specific moral dilemma, and rather the phenomenon of emergent moral dilemmas.

There can sometimes be the impression that moral dilemmas are something that GMs need to specifically create, frame up, and present to the players. But the real world is filled with moral dilemmas with nary a GM in sight, so it’s not really surprising that they’ll also crop up more or less unbidden in our simulated game worlds – whether that’s ratling babies in the ratling nests; the decision to betray a friend; or the opportunity to profit at the expense of others.

Whether a particular moral dilemma is crafted by a GM or emerges from the narrative of play, it can offer a rich opportunity for roleplaying, allowing players to explore their characters at a deep and meaningful level. Like any form of play, it can also be a way to safely explore complex issues.

Or, alternatively, being a form of play, it can also provide an escape from the complexities of the real world.

This is where moral dilemmas can create strife at your table: When some players are approaching the game world as a place of deep meaning and other players are approaching the game world as an ephemera of casual play, this can easily create discordant perceptions. To some extent, of course, this is always true, but when it comes to moral dilemmas, the inherently heightened takes – e.g., killing babies! – will naturally amplify the discordance.

(The issues of how much a player’s actions/beliefs are separated from their character’s actions/beliefs also complicates this, but I’m going to put a pin in that, too.)

Not only will different players have different responses to these situations, the same player can easily have a different response depending on the nature and context of the moral dilemma.

To use a video game analogy, I’ve never seen anyone seriously object to Mario curbstomping koopas to death, but change the context to running down pedestrians in Grand Theft Auto and now there are many people who would find it distasteful. But some of the people who object to running down pedestrians have no problem with stealing cars in the same game! Others who will happily go on mass murder sprees in the game will draw the line at running over a sex worker you just paid so that your character can get the money back.

Why?

Because people are complicated.

In the case of the ratling babies in my own campaign, what happened was a combination of several factors:

• A general coarsening of the group’s morality in the face of hardships. (Something which has been commented on several times in recent sessions.)
• The perceived moral positioning of ratlings, with some of the players/characters perceiving them as being more like worgs or cannibalistic apes than human-equivalent sentients.
• The moral importance of the game world. The group was largely on the same bandwidth here, but there were definitely some players with a slightly more casual approach.

Because the players were mostly in alignment with each other – and also because they all had the same clear understanding that character actions were not player actions – these factors kind of balanced each other out: While one player might be slightly more cavalier than another, a player who was taking the world a little more seriously could nevertheless interpret those actions as being consistent with the other character “losing their moral compass,” and it would all sort of muddle out in a collective experience everyone was happy with.

Of course, this will not always be the case! It’s quite possible for disparate reactions to a moral dilemma to cause serious strife!

And the broader point is that, because moral dilemmas will naturally emerge from your narrative, you can’t dodge this issue by just saying, “Well, I just won’t include any moral dilemmas in the campaign, then.” You need to be aware and stay aware of what’s happening at your game table, and when player expectations get out of alignment you need to be prepared to hit the pause button and help everyone get back on the same page.

Safety tools – i.e., structures for having these conversations in clear and productive ways – are obviously helpful with this, and I particularly recommend using them if you’re playing with someone for the first time or with familiar players in a new genre. But a lot of safety tools are focused on identifying topics or themes, and moral dilemmas can often hit the group from unexpected angles and in unanticipated ways. So keep your eyes open!

Campaign Journal: Session 42B – Running the Campaign: Scouting Dungeons
In the Shadow of the Spire: Index

SESSION 42A: RAT MOTHERS

October 17th, 2009
The 23rd Day of Kadal in the 790th Year of the Seyrunian Dynasty

They burned their way through Ranthir’s web and passed into another trash-filled chamber. Rising out of the trash on the far side of the chamber, however, was a ten-foot-tall stone statue of a ratling. Its head was lowered, staring into the dark depths of a wide sinkhole that lay at its feet.

They were wary of the statue – thinking perhaps that it was cursed, enchanted, or trapped in some way – but ultimately chose to investigate it. In a hidden compartment at the rear base of the statue, Tee found three scroll cases: One contained a stack of gold and silver coins; another a copy of the Truth of the Hidden God; and the third an arcane scroll.

Uncertain of what might emerge from the sinkhole if they left it at their backs, Tor quickly tied a rope around Tee’s waist and lowered her into the darkness. The sinkhole bottomed out into a large, conical cavern. Near the limit of the light she carried, Tee could see a couple passages twisting away from the cavern. On the large wall nearest her she could see cave paintings: Rat-shaped humanoids worshipped a huge, bulbous rat. Gouts of flame seemed to erupt from the rat’s sides, and in the midst of the flames Tee could see white rats dancing in the infernos.

Something about the painting disturbed her deeply, and after studying it for a few long moments she tugged twice on the rope – giving the signal to draw her back up.

After Tee had described what she had seen, they discussed their options. Ranthir, as was his wont, strongly opposed delving deeper before finishing the exploration of the current level of the nests. Besides, they suspected that they were on a level with the Midtown sewers – delving deeper into the caverns beneath the city wouldn’t get them where they wanted to go.

THE MOTHERS

Leaving the chamber with the statue, they passed through the far end of a long hall filled high with even more of the rats’ garbage. Tee passed silently over the surface, but, of course, Agnarr and Tor made an unearthly racket wading their way through. In the process, they attracted the attention of several large rodents which emerged out of the trash heaps: They had pale, chalk-like fur and eyes which glowed like fierce embers of flame.

“Who’s there?”

The voice came from the direction they had been heading. A huge, lumbering ratbrute emerged from the shadows.

Tee turned to face him. “We’re looking for the sewers.”

“Who are you?”

“Silion sent us to the southern sewers. We have business with Porphyry House.”

A befuddled look passed over the ratbrute’s features (which was surprising, considering how befuddled they already looked). “I guess if Silion sent you…”

“That’s right,” Tee nodded encouragingly. “Now, where can we find the sewer?”

“There’s an entrance beyond the mothers.”

“Where are the mothers?”

“Right over here.” The ratbrute turned and started lumbering back the way it had come.

Tee looked back at the others as if to say “I can’t believe that worked” and then, with a shrug, followed the ratbrute.

The passage he took them down was relatively broad and surprisingly free from debris. They passed another of the tattered blue curtains, and Tee took a moment to poke her head through it: The chamber beyond was unnaturally chill and contained a variety of bloated corpses – dogs, birds, cats… and a few humans. The bodies had been variously dismembered, with a few pieces here and there having obvious gnaw-marks on them. (Ranthir identified the chill as coming from a simple cantrip, most likely cast here to permanently keep the room cool enough to preserve the “meat”.)

“Are you coming?” The ratbrute looked at them curiously.

“Of course,” Tee said. Hurrying after him, she drew her sword and pointed it at the ratbrute’s clueless back.

Pushing through another blue curtain, they emerged into a large chamber containing several of the now familiar ratling nests… along with half a dozen female ratlings. The mothers. Everyone froze: Ratlings staring at humans; humans staring at ratlings.

“Tattum! What have you done?!”

The mothers scattered. Tee stabbed Tattum in the back.

Tattum, roaring in pain, drew his greatsword in a massive sweep that caught Tee with the flat of the blade and sent her staggering.

Nasira, meanwhile, noticed that several of the chalk-white rats from the hall of refuse had been following them. She was about to call out a warning when the melee broke out.

And then the chalk-white rats burst into balls of bright flame.

As Tee fell back towards Nasira, one of the flaming rats – pouring inky black smoke into the air – spit a ball of fire at Nasira, catching her full in the chest. Agnarr and Tor, meanwhile, were moving up to form a line against the enraged Tattum.

Several of the mothers had dashed out of the room through other exits, while others circled around the melee shaping up at the cave mouth – dashing in and delivering blows whenever they found an opening.

Tor managed to inflict a few deep wounds on Tattum’s massive frame, but then one of the mothers managed to latch onto his arm. Another, going low, sunk her teeth into his leg. Tattum, seizing the momentary advantage, found a chink in Tor’s armor and, ripping the blade free, caught Agnarr with a devastating back-swing.

Elestra dove forward, pouring the strength of the Spirit of the City into Agnarr’s wounds. Tattum, thinking Agnarr dispatched, stepped over him to take another swing at the badly injured Tor—

And Agnarr plunged his blade up through the ratbrute’s crotch.

(Which was becoming something of a habit.)

Tattum stumbled backwards as another ratbrute pushed through the curtain on the far side of the room. “Tattum! What the hell is going on?! If you’re in another—Oh shit! Fudd! Get out here!”

Fudd, a third ratbrute, pushed his way through the curtain. “What has he done now, Berq? … Oh shit!”

As Tattum fell for the last time, Fudd and Berq rushed Agnarr and Tor. Agnarr, however, was in the full heat and flow of the battle. He stepped forward and in a series of smooth blows that looked like perfect arcs of flame dropped Fudd in his tracks. Berq was more cautious, however, and moved into a careful dance of blades with the two fighters.

The blue curtain swept aside once more, revealing an aging albino ratling. He lowered a dragon pistol and fired, but Tor narrowly dodged the blast (which passed harmlessly over Tee, who was finishing off the last of the ash rats with Ranthir and Nasira).

As the separate melees raged, punctuated with blasts from the albino ratling’s dragon pistol, the mothers who had fled into a side-chamber returned – each bearing ratling babes in her arms. The albino ratling cried out to them, “Flee! Run as fast as you can!”

But Ranthir, upon hearing the word “flee”, whirled around and webbed the far side of the room: The mothers, the albino, and Berq were all helplessly caught – except for one mother, trapped in the corner, who futilely screamed for help in her despair. Tor closed on her and ruthlessly killed both her and the baby ratlings.

Agnarr, meanwhile, was finishing off Berq. This gave the albino ratling enough time to rip his own way free from the web. Cutting another mother free, he took her and ran for it.

Tor and Tee chased him down, but before he was killed, the albino managed to buy enough time for the mother to escape into the effervescent chamber of the true temple. Tor and Tee skidded to a halt and cautiously retreated back the way they had come.

Several of the mothers were still trapped in the web. Tee was able to broker a bargain in which they would be freed if one of them would lead the party to the southern sewer entrance. While the mothers were carefully freed from the web, Tor started discreetly taking ears and fingers from the dead as trophies. Meanwhile, Elestra distracted the ratlings with small talk to keep them from noticing Tee looting the coffers of the nest master (which were filled with gems, jewelry, and large amounts of coin; although given the bones and skulls dangling from the ceiling, Tee didn’t want to spend too much time thinking about where it had all come from).

Running the Campaign: Killing Orc Babies – Campaign Journal: Session 42B
In the Shadow of the Spire: Index

DISCUSSING
In the Shadow of the Spire – Session 41E: Return to the Lower Nests

By the time Agnarr had forced the board aside, Tee had joined him. She ducked through first, finding the ratlings waiting with another volley of fire that she narrowly dodged.

If she worked her way carefully down the tunnel in an effort to avoid the traps she knew were waiting, the ratlings would tear her apart with their rifle fire. Throwing caution to the wind, Tee threw herself down the hall – trusting to her instincts and reflexes to avoid the seemingly never-ending stream of dangers.

In Rulings in Practice: Traps, one of the advanced techniques I discuss is combining traps with combat encounters to make them more dynamic and fun in play. It’s a tip you’ll find — either implicitly or explicitly — in a bunch of GMing advice. But if you’re wondering exactly how to do this effectively, you can see on simple recipe for success in the current session: Position the traps as a dilemma gauntlet.

1. Fill a space with traps so that moving through that space becomes a dangerous gauntlet.
2. Put some or all of the bad guys on the far side of that gauntlet.
3. Give the bad guys the ability to attack the PCs while they’re on the far side of the gauntlet or moving through it. (This doesn’t have to be terribly fancy; any effective ranged attack will get the job done.)
4. Make the PCs aware that the traps exist. (Which may simply be accomplished when the PCs trigger the first trap and realize it may not be the only one.)

The PCs will now be faced with the simple dilemma of rushing through the trapped area (unleashing the fury of the traps) or trying to work their way carefully through the trap by detecting and/or disabling them (but also enduring the attacks of their enemies).

And here are a few ways to make things even nastier:

• Have some of the trap effects push them back to the beginning of the gauntlet. (Or set things up so that the NPCs can do the same.)
• Stock the gauntlet with traps that reset. (This prevents, or at least complicates, the strategy of having one character brute force their way through as a human mine detector, clearing the path for the rest of the party behind them.)
• Create the gauntlet in multiple stages, such that — when the PCs penetrate the first stage of the gauntlet — the bad guys can fall back through another section of traps and present them with the same dilemma all over again. (Or, rather than having the bad guys move from one stage to the next, simply position different groups of bad guys between each stage.)

Use them to season your dilemma gauntlet to taste.

You can set up dilemma gauntlets like this when you prep an adventure, but one of the great things about the simple dynamic of this setup is that it’s easy to deploy during play when you’re using adversary rosters to actively play the opposition in a scenario: Simply make note of where traps are located in the complex, and then have your bad guys position themselves to take advantage of them (or even lure the PCs into the gauntlet).

Even more fun is that the PCs can almost as easily create their own dilemma gauntlets: Once they learn where the traps in a dungeon are located, they can similarly force bad guys into the gauntlet. This may work less well, of course, if the bad guys know where the traps are located, but just knowing the traps are there may not help much when you’re getting pelted by ranged attacks.

Creating a dilemma gauntlet can also be useful when you’re restocking a dungeon area to reflect defensive measures being taken by the inhabitants: While the PCs are taking their long rest, the abeil are buzzing away setting (or resetting) layers of traps to help them defend the hive.

Campaign Journal: Session 42A – Running the Campaign: Killing Orc Babies
In the Shadow of the Spire: Index

SESSION 41E: RETURN TO THE LOWER NESTS

August 15th, 2009
The 23rd Day of Kadal in the 790th Year of the Seyrunian Dynasty

With a roaring battlecry Tor and Agnarr rushed down the tunnel. The ratbrutes – having turned to follow Tee’s forward dive – were unable to turn back and block the door in time. Tor and Agnarr burst between the ratbrutes, driving them apart. While Tor pushed his back into the corner (raining down blows in a stinking cascade of frying rat-hair), Agnarr quickly circled the other and drew him down the length of the room. Once Tor had finished with his, he joined Agnarr and the two of them together were able to harry and eventually cut down the other.

Unfortunately, until they were finished the ratbrutes made it too dangerous for Elestra, Nasira, or their healing magicks to reach Tee. By the time they did, she had almost bled to death from her wounds.

Once Tee (a little paler for her ordeal) was back on her feet, however, they were able to head down into the lower nest. With their thoughts filled by the dangerous cranium rats, they were hoping they could grab a kennel rat and then quickly find an exit into the southern sewers that they could use to follow one of their maps to Porphyry House.

Instead they found more guards posted. Tee emerged into the first room of the lower nest and was immediately fired upon by four ratlings. They missed, but Tee was pelted with shattering stone from the tunnel walls around her. Agnarr and Tor pushed past her and moved to engage the two nearest ratlings. Tee drew her dragon pistol, shot a third, and taunted them: “This is how you shoot!”

For a moment it seemed like a complete rout, but then two larger ratlings pushed through the curtain leading to the next chamber. The ratling nearest the one Tee had shot grabbed a dragon pistol off his fallen comrade and began firing from both hips. This time Tee was caught by the unexpected hail of fire.

But although Tee was painfully forced to a position of better cover, her sharp-shooting provided enough covering fire (while killing two more of the ratlings) for Tor and Agnarr to make a killing-ground sweep of the room with their swords. Then they briefly debated their next course of action: They knew what lay to the west (“Death,” as Elestra aptly summed it up), but there was another passage to the south.

Thinking of the cranium rats and their milky-eyed masters, Tee described the chamber with the chasm of effervescent green fluid as the True Temple of the Rat God… and she had no interest in tangling with it again. Plus, they were looking for a southern route through the sewers: The other passage would at least be taking them in the right direction.

The next cave-like chamber, however, was filled with more heaping piles of unstable garbage and offal. With a little sigh, Tee started heaving her way over the first of the piles towards the exit on the far side of the room—

And a swarm of black-furred rats with gleaming green eyes rose up out of the garbage around her. The very stench of them – a thick, unnatural musk of terror – suddenly struck the air, sending her senses reeling.

Tor rushed forward to help her—

And plunged through the refuse, between a set of loosely gapped wooden slats, and into a twenty-foot pit or chasm that ran across the width of the room.

Agnarr, seeing what had happened to Tor, ran forward, too. He jumped over the spot where Tor disappeared—

And also dropped into the pit, which was considerably wider than he had anticipated.

Ranthir, looking for a quick solution to Tee’s distress, dropped a fireball into the heart of the swarm – trusting to Tee’s reflexes to avoid the worst of it.

… but the rats were completely unaffected by the firestorm; the flames seeming to lick their way through the fur like some sort of elemental conductor. (Ranthir spent the next several hours cursing the waste of such a powerful spell.)

Tee – finding her mind hazed from the thick stench of the swarm and her flesh burning from their incessant, poisonous bites – fell back towards the others… taking the swarm with her.

In the flaming chaos and chittering madness of the scene, none of them had noticed a ratling priestess slipping into the far end of the room. Nasira, overwhelmed by the swarm, collapsed. The priestess surveyed the situation for a moment and then surrounded herself with a scintillating field of multicolored light.

A mad tittering filled the air and their eyes were drawn to the far end of the chamber as two large, white-furred rats came up to join the priestess. As they entered the room, their titters climbed into a shrieking peal of hideous laughter, ripping through the chamber and blasting insanity across the thoughts of those that heard it. In the chasm below, Tor suddenly turned upon Agnarr in incoherent madness and pounded his fists on the barbarian’s head. Agnarr, for his part, was driven into a panicked frenzy and fled to the end of the chasm, cowering as Tor continued to beat him about the temples.

Following in the wake of their shrieking laughter, the white rat-dogs raced towards the party. Fortunately, as they joined the melee, the madness of their tittering howls faded somewhat. Tor, regaining his senses, stumbled away from Agnarr (who, thick-skulled as he was, was only slightly the worse for wear). Hearing the screams from above, Tor knew they needed to get back in the fight. He unstrung the rope from his belt and hurled it over the wooden slats above. Quickly securing it, he began climbing up. Agnarr followed.

Above them, Elestra, calling upon the Spirit of the City, tried to force her will upon the mind of the priestess. For a moment she succeeded, but as she tried to force the priestess to attack the rats she felt her control slip away like grease from fur.

But Elestra had brought the priestess closer to the melee. And when Tor emerged from the chasm, he found himself directly behind her. Although his first wild swing (dragging himself up over the trash-filled lip of the chasm) missed, the priestess quickly found herself hemmed in between Tor, Tee (who had finally managed to beat herself free from the remnants of the swarm by using her boots of levitation to float a few feet into the air), and (shortly thereafter) the emergent Agnarr.

One of the white rat-dogs, however, leapt up and bit into Tee’s foot, swinging itself up to claw at her calf with its poison-drenched talons. Tee knocked it free, but not before the priestess slipped through their line.

Ranthir, meanwhile, had summoned a giant bombardier beetle with a carapace of glowing white light. The beetle’s powerful acidic attacks were able to rout the last of the swarm, driving it back into the chasm at the center of the room.

The priestess withdrew to the far side of the chamber. Tor pursued her. He tried to keep a careful watch on the placement of his feet, but still slipped and nearly fell back into the pit – only narrowly catching the lip.

Agnarr, on the other hand, roared ragefully and leapt across the entire pit. The priestess might still have escaped as she nimbly darted across the surface of garbage drifts through which Agnarr was forced to shove his way—

But Ranthir dropped a web across the entire width of the far passage, blocking her escape entirely.

The priestess, caught on the edge of the web, ripped her way free and tried to defend herself against Agnarr (and Tor, who caught up only moments later)… but she could do little against the cold steel (and fire… and lightning) of their blades.

Meanwhile, with the swarm gone, the others were able to rally and pound away at the laughter-mad white rats until their last titters were lost in gurgling blood.

Running the Campaign: Tactical Traps – Campaign Journal: Session 42A
In the Shadow of the Spire: Index

DISCUSSING
In the Shadow of the Spire – Session 41D: Back Amongst the Rats

They returned to the temple and found four watchmen standing guard before the outer door. The surrounding buildings had been evacuated.

When Tor went to speak with them he learned that a major operation involving watchmen from across the city had attempted to “root out those filthy rats”. But eight watchmen had been killed in attempting to explore the areas below the temple and now they were simply bricking up the basement to seal the problem away.

The watchmen weren’t supposed to let anyone through, but since it was Tor they didn’t think it would be a problem…

The PCs are called to adventure; they venture forth; they triumph over evil or claim the treasure or kiss the prince… and now it’s time to move on to the next adventure.

Something we don’t often think about, though, is the often-quite-literal wreckage that the PCs leave in their wake. In this session, for example, they return to the site of their previous adventure and discover that (a) the city watch has attempted to clean up the site; (b) failed rather badly; and (c) is now boarding the place up.

This establishes that the world is in motion — that stuff keeps happening even when the PCs aren’t there to see it. It also shows that the PCs’ actions have consequences. (Would those watchmen have been killed if you’d finished clearing out the rats?) Plus it’s an opportunity for exposition (as the PCs learn more about the watch and how they handle the dungeon access points within the city).

You don’t need the PCs to specifically “return to the scene of the crime” to make this work. For example, if they burn down a house while fighting gangsters in an urban campaign, you could add that to your list of landmarks (as described in So You Want to Be a Game Master) and have them notice it while traveling through that district in the future.

Such locations can develop over time: The house is rebuilt. A new family moves in. And so forth.

How things change over time will help set the theme and tone of the campaign. At the broadest level, are things getting better or getting worse? (Either in general, or in response to the PCs’ actions.)

MOVING IN

One of my favorite schticks along these lines is to look at a dungeon freshly emptied by the PCs and ask myself, “Who would move in here?”

In a previous session, we saw this happen with an ally when Sir Kabel moved into Pythoness House. We can also imagine infrastructure being claimed (or reclaimed) by local authorities: The town reopens the mine now that the skeletons have been cleared out; the tunnels discovered under the tavern are repurposed as a granary.

But it’s just as likely that the answer is a new villain! “Thanks for arresting all of Dr. Cairo’s minion,” says the Red Death. “A good secret lair is so hard to find these days!

The activities of such a villain, of course, will quickly vector back to the PCs, intersecting their path and creating new scenario hooks that will pull them back to the familiar location.

Done too often, of course, this can become repetitive and frustrating. (“We have to go back to the old lighthouse again?”) Used judiciously, however, or as part of an open table, this can be a delightful way of, once again, showing the players how their actions are affecting the game world. It’s also a fun experience because the players can take advantage of their existing knowledge of the location while also being surprised by how the new tenants have remodeled the joint.

(For similar techniques, also check out (Re-)Running the Megadungeon.)

Of course, sometimes the PCs will gun down all the cartel members at a mansion in Miami and then they’ll never see or think about the place again. (It was probably bought by some incredibly boring, but very rich, neurosurgeon.) If you want to evoke a living world, the loose threads are important, too. Not everything should play out as a closed loop.

Campaign Journal: Session 41E – Running the Campaign: Tactical Traps
In the Shadow of the Spire: Index