Finding Your Own Meaning in the Dungeon

Why do the adventurers care? Why are they here? Why are they in the dungeon at all?

“Weak hooks” are a common point of criticism in adventure reviews. The reviews are not wrong, but I’m sympathetic to the adventure writers here. It is difficult for a standalone adventure to hook players. The product is implicitly available to drop into an existing game. The writer is trying to come up with something that will be specific enough to foreshadow the adventure and motivate the players toward it, but at the same time general enough that it can be dropped into any game with minimal modification. That’s a narrow target to hit. Good hooks are hard!

Good games are powered by motivation. Even in the grottiest old-school game, where the PCs aspire to little more than shivving goblins for copper coins in a dank hole in the ground… play that game long enough, and those PCs are going to develop some kind of purpose or goal. They may not set out to save the world, but they’re going to organically come up with some kind of goal, whether it is stick it to their rivals, get rich, build something cool, make history, or simply find out just how deep this dungeon goes.

So here’s another idea. This has big story game energy, so it’s not going to be for everyone. But… I would be curious to try it. 

Write five hooks (rumors, leads, whatever) for your adventuring scenario. One for each of the following categories:

• Wealth: The accumulation of resources, from common coins to unique works of art.
• Status: Importance in the eyes of other creatures, whether mundane societies or mystical peers. 
• Knowledge: Secrets, lore, or new discoveries about the world and its wonders.
• Purpose: A belief, cause, or principle that gives meaning to life and justifies risking danger.
• Change: Altering the world in some way, whether to effect a very particular change or simply to leave one’s mark. 

Gif by jonreytrevino

When the PCs decide to take up the scenario, each player chooses one of the five hook types. The hook that the most players pick is the party’s shared motivation to pursue the adventure. If a player is indifferent or otherwise doesn’t want to choose, their vote defaults to Wealth. Wealth also always wins ties. Ties between non-Wealth categories are settled by a roll of the dice.

 Even those who voted for something else share in this motivation as long as they are a member of the party and the group pursues the hook. One or more characters might vocally dissent, but if they’re not quitting the group over it, they're implicitly going along with the shared motiviation.

Here’s the twist. Each PC has a one-time ability they can choose to use at any point during the scenario associated with the hook the GM provided. When they use it, they change their motivation from the party’s shared motivation to a different motivation. If they are switching to Status, Knowledge, Purpose, or Change, they have to be able to explain what that looks like in-world – status in the eyes of whom? What kind of knowledge? Which purpose, and why does it matter to them? What specific change? (If they switch to Wealth, they don’t have to provide any elaboration).

When they do this, they can reroll a failed roll. Or get some equivalent bennie, depending on the system. The mechanical payoff should be something big enough that it might turn the tide in a specific dangerous situation, but not so great that it overshadows the characters’ conventional abilities. This idea is more about the implications of the process and less about the award itself.

For example, a party made up of five PCs votes on the five motivations. Two players choose Status twice, one chooses Wealth, and two choose Purpose. The GM says that odds means Status and evens means Purpose, then rolls and gets an even number, so Purpose wins. The DM gives the PCs a Purpose hook, explaining that wyverns have migrated out of the mountains for unknown reasons and are terrorizing the populace. The PCs agree to help, with the two PCs who chose Purpose perhaps leading the interaction, describing how the situation applies to their characters’ values.

While scaling the wyvern’s spire, the party thief is in danger of being grabbed and carried away by a wyvern. They use their one-time power to reroll a failed result, avoiding capture. The thief changes their motivation to Wealth, deciding that they’re only sticking with this boondoggle if there is some treasure involved. 

Why do this? Two reasons. 

First, there’s a very rich vein of media where characters set off with goals that seem clear and straightforward, but change as they learn new information or endure challenging circumstances. In narrative media like movies and books, this is pretty conspicuous, and part of enough stories to be a widely recognized trope. TTRPGs cannot and should not try to force “beats” taken from narrative media, but plenty of story games have proven that it can be done organically. 

Second, it can create some interesting friction between the mechanical payoff and party unity, because the party starts off with the same motivation, but their motivation splits once someone uses this power. The GM should use split motivations to inform challenges and choices for the players. What happens when the thief chooses Wealth instead of Purpose? What happens if the spire lacks treasure? Or if there’s an opportunity to grab the treasure without dealing with the wyverns? What if another PC changes motivations? What happens when the Purpose group loses its plurality? Answer those questions, and you've found your own meaning.

Power Can Come With a Cost for Every D&D Class

What does power cost the players in your game?

Consider the druid and their emblematic wild shape ability. D&D 5E players shift between forms with the gleeful ease of Beast Boy from Teen Titans. The D&D “Honor Among Thieves” movie includes a scene where the druid rapidly shifts from form to form in the same manner, and this scene, like much of the movie, is very much shot using superhero logic, not sword and sorcery logic.

That’s all well and good for a game that wants a superheroic tone. But what if we want a darker or more weighty feel? Consider the following:

As a boy, Ogion like all boys had thought it would be a very pleasant game to take by art-magic whatever shape one liked, man or beast, tree or cloud, and so to play at a thousand beings. But as a wizard he had learned the price of the game, which is the peril of losing one’s self, playing away the truth. The longer a man stays in a form not his own, the greater this peril. Every prentice-sorcerer learns the tale of the wizard Bordger of Way, who delighted in taking bear’s shape, and did so more and more often until the bear grew in him and the man died away, and he became a bear, and killed his own little son in the forests, and was hunted down and slain. And no one knows how many of the dolphins that leap in the waters of the Inmost Sea were men once, wise men, who forgot their wisdom and their name in the joy of the restless sea.

-“A Wizard of Earthsea,” Ursula Le Guin

Incorporating this idea immediately changes how wild shape feels as a druid ability. Can we build power-with-a-cost into each of the 12 classes in 2014 5E? Let’s find out. This is a concept only, and definitely does not attempt to balance these costs against each other.

Druid. The Earthsea example above guides the way; it’s just a question of which criteria informs the cost. How long the character stays in animal form is an easy one. But it could also weigh how often the PC assumes the same form. That could disincentivize just falling back on the same few animal forms over and over again. Another type of cost would be to scale it against the power or unusual nature of the animal in question. Transforming into a dog is relatively safe; transforming into a tyrannosaurus rex seriously risks the druid’s ability to hold onto their humanity.

Warlock. This is the easiest to do given how naturally the fiction of the patron implies that being a warlock should mean power-at-a-cost. The rules don’t really support it mechanically, but I believe many 5E games have informally steered into this aspect of the warlock. Critical Role’s second season delivers on this fiction, without any explicit mechanical hook obligating the players to do so. A patron could grant and retract powers in relation to how much the PC is fulfilling the patron’s desires. It could even be the basis for milestone leveling in the right game. 

Sorcerer. This one also emerges organically from the fiction. A character’s bloodline provides their power, but they do not master magic the way a wizard does; they are riding the tiger. Simply allow sorcerers to go into the red on sorcery points, and bake in some risk of their powers going haywire. It’s easiest to visualize for wild magic sorcerers; the wild magic table provides plenty of room for a cockup cascade. But it’s not too difficult to come up with consequences for the other bloodlines as well.

Wizard. Wizards seek spells through study and knowledge, but the modern game has gradually given them more and more control over their spell selection, such that finding a scroll in a modern game is not nearly as exciting as in an old-school campaign. In a game that much more strongly incentivizes wizards to learn spells diegetically, it is much easier to provide a cost. Transcribing a spell to the spellbook carries risk, and not just the risk that transcription will fail.  Will it take longer to transcribe?Will it be an unreliable variant of the spell? Or could it be something worse? Is the spell like a living thing, a malevolent entity now making its home in your spellbook? 

Bard. Relative to the other full-casting classes, the bard’s spellcasting seems to come with the least implied risk, labor, and commitment, so let’s not focus on their spells. Instead, consider bardic inspiration. It’s interesting that in 5E’s oops-all-magic approach to character abilities, bardic inspiration is actually a non-magical effect, which implies a world where mundane motivation can propel people to greatly improved performance. Bards could themselves endure wild swings from excessive exuberance to sinking depression that mirrors the swingy outcomes their inspiring words produce.

Rogue. The costs for the rogue are the most obvious in some ways, but also the hardest to implement due to modern play’s promise that players are free from many kinds of social restraint. Some kind of reputation or "heat" mechanic would serve as a natural cost for a rogue. Ideally it would create risk in the same places where many of the rogue’s abilities shine, i.e., cities and other bastions of civilization. 

Cleric. Modern D&D has gradually shed many of the restrictions that once characterized classes like clerics. Simply bringing back some of those limitations would produce a cost that would go along with their power. Use Knave 2’s relic system for inspiration.

Paladin. The paladin is like the cleric, but their complication is less of a personal relationship with a particular divinity. Instead, they are defined by oaths and quests – socially mediated principles, whether as shared aspects of chivalry with other paladins, or a more personal code. D&D 5E’s oaths are all upside, a collection of archetypal powers; but they do include tenets that imply restrictions or downsides that would limit the paladin’s power or constrain their actions in interesting ways.

Barbarian. This is another class that once featured more costs and restrictions, but they too often constrained the player’s choices rather than presenting interesting drawbacks. A barbarian who blindly attacks allies in a frenzy -- or abhors magical items -- fits the fiction, but it doesn’t make for interesting play. Instead consider a barbarian who must decide, when they initiate a rage, how long they will rage; and rule that they can't retreat until it is over, even if they overestimated the length of the fight.

Fighter. As the “most straightforward” martial class, it is difficult to apply costs to fighter. The second wind and action surge abilities suggest endurance, so allow the fighters to tap into those resources more aggressively, with exhaustion as a consequence. This kinda steps on the toes of the berserker barbarian… but I’ve never actually had a player choose the berserker barbarian, so that would be a theoretical problem more than an actual one for me. 

Monk. This one is also challenging. To separate the monks from the fighters, we can imagine monks overclocking not on actions or HP, but on defense and maneuverability. Consider tying costs to more extreme usages of slow fall or evasion abilities, or even lean into the diamond soul ability by allowing them to spend ki points to pass otherwise-failed saves, with a penalty to future saves proportional to how emptied-out their chi pool is.

Ranger. The hardest of all? A ranger could lose their civilized self, but it’s hard to imagine it as severe as the druid’s transformation. If we presume that many rangers are loners whose mastery of the wilderness came in relative isolation, we could make their ability to navigate and survive progressively harder the more people they are trying to guide or protect. 

Counterspell Hacks for More Interesting Worldbuilding

A few ideas for hacking Counterspell in D&D. I can imagine more extreme alterations and I'm sure there are games that have experimented more broadly, but I'm keeping this post relatively close to the rules as written.

You Can Counter Any Spell You Know

D&D has occasionally tried to model knowledge of the spell as part of the countering process, but it usually just adds another annoying ability check to a process that is already disrupting the normal flow of gameplay. Instead, just say that no roll is required if you know the spell that you're trying to counter. You just counter it automatically.

This more closely models a lot of Appendix N fiction that inspired D&D. If you try to attack a wizard with a spell they have already mastered, they’re going to laugh in your face. This gives wizards a much more concrete reason to hoard knowledge and keep spells to themselves, to ensure that they are the only ones who know a particularly useful spell. 

This also incentivizes PCs to learn about their opponents before fighting them. Knowing a wizard’s spell list in advance is a big part of fighting them; by avoiding casting spells they know and prioritizing spells they don’t. 

Many D&D systems offer spell research systems, but my experience is that few players take an interest in them. The official spells in the book are too enticing, and the idea of creating new spells is too open-ended and abstract for a lot of players.

But what if we're using this option? And the PC is trying to fight an evil wizard who knows most of the same spells as them? Suddenly, coming up with their own new spells is a much more appealing option for prevailing. 

You Can Counter a Spell of a Lower Level

D&D 5E.2014 already partially models this idea by allowing Counterspell to automatically counter spells of the same level or lower, plus a roll when Counterspell is used to counter a higher-level spell. We could simply remove the option to roll and say that Counterspell either works automatically, or not at all. In other words, Counterspell cast normally can counter a first- through third-level spell. Want to counter a higher-level spell? You have to use a slot of that level or higher to do so.

This obviously nerfs Counterspell, but I don’t have a problem with that. It’s already one of the most powerful spells in the game. What’s good for the magic goose is also good for the gandermancer, so this change would also help players frustrated at seeing their high-level spells counter-spammed by enemy wizards.

You just know this guy is going to Counterspell you. From Ena: Dream BBQ

You Can Counter a Spell of the Opposing School

I’ve written before that the schools of magic are an underutilized source of worldbuilding in D&D. What if those rivalries define what a wizard can counter? This gives some mechanical teeth to an interesting worldbuilding feature.

If limiting Counterspell to only these rivalries makes the spell too niche, we could simply say that on top of the normal language of Counterspell, countering a rival school's spell counts as if it was done with a slot two levels higher than what was actually used.

Combine All Three

You could create a system where the baseline is that a third-level slot can counter a first level spell, but if the caster knows the spell, that reduces the cost by one, so that they could use a second-level slot. Same thing if they are a member of an opposed school. But countering a spell of one’s own school would add a level, making it more difficult. 

I don’t really recommend this, because it’s crossing the line from “reasonable homebrew” to “oops this is a new magic system.” But go where your heart takes you, wizard.

No Game Needs to End Without an Ending

We’ve all been there. The game is going great. The players are excellent, the GM is doing a great job, everyone is excited to see what happens next. Who knows how this crazy story will end? We can’t wait to find out.

Then the group takes a short break so several players can handle some real-life stuff. The short break unofficially becomes a long break. Months pass. Everyone quietly realizes that the break is permanent and that the game is no more. We’ll never find out what happened next. We’ll never get our ending.

It happens. I understand that. But I think we give up on our endings too easily.

And I’ve decided that at least for games I run, where it is my choice, there will always be an ending. 

We can do things like make sure endings are an interesting part of the game. And embrace restarting a dormant game. But sometimes that’s not enough. Here are ways to end our games.

Plan A: Conventional session-by-session resolution. This is how most games aspire to end. You just keep doing sessions until everything is over. This is easier if you do “seasons” or use another mechanism to forecast endings. This is great if you can manage it. It’s probably the ideal way to end most kinds of games. But it’s not the only way to end the game.

Plan B: Zoom out. Maybe there isn’t time to resolve the story session-by-session. Time is tight. Maybe someone is moving out of town or starting a new job or going back to school or having a kid. There’s time for a few sessions. Maybe just one. How do we conclude without it feeling rushed?

Remember that time in RPGs is fluid. Just as the GM can narrate days or weeks of travel in a few minutes, nothing stops the group from collectively adjudicating entire adventures and arcs at a zoomed out level. They can either use freeform roleplay, or a collaborative system like Microscope, which is specifically built to enable zooming in and zooming out on game events.

Anatoly Fomenko

Plan C: Communal or individual writing project. There isn't time for even a single session, as detailed above for Plan B, no matter how zoomed-out it is. But if the players have time individually, they can end the game in writing. This could take the form of separate parallel efforts, or a single collaborative resolution, perhaps through taking turns, or editing a shared online document. It can be an exquisite corpse. Writing is the most obvious way to do this, but players could draw, write songs, whatever they want. How canon all of this is up to the group, particularly if players are writing different aspects of the ending that touch on others’ characters; but generally, it is a good idea to keep it loose.

Plan D: Solo writing project. Whether due to external circumstances, waning interest, or something else entirely, sometimes the players are simply done before the story is. Even Plan C is not going to happen. 

The GM still has the option to write the conclusion to the game themselves. 

Solo RPGs are great here. Even a simple oracle system can provide enough outside input to resolve the story in an interesting way.

To the degree the players may still care about their characters, the GM can frame this as head canon or merely one possible version of events. Some of the characters could be offscreen. The GM’s conclusion doesn’t even necessarily have to follow the players, per se. An NPC or even an antagonist could be the viewpoint character for the resolution of the story.

This is the last resort because it doesn’t involve the group; it’s just the GM (or really, whichever participant in the game cared the most about the ending). But it’s still better than no ending at all.

Maybe no one will ever even read it. That’s OK. Put it on your blog, if nothing else (if you don’t have a blog, now is a good time to start one). The point is that if you spent dozens (or even hundreds) of hours playing a game that kept you and your players interested for that long, it deserves an ending. You deserve an ending, and there’s more than one way to get there.