Tag: Internet Archive

In Tolkien the Elves were not human, and you see this reflected more in the early years of RPGs with Tolkien inspired elves in them. But in the 30+ years since they’ve been increasingly humanized (much like Vampires). Now they are just people with pointy ears (and Vampires are people who sparkle) and they’re written and played more or less like any other human character.

A lot of Elf characters in current media could lose the pointy ear prosthetics and just be a person. There’s really very little that makes them feel that different.

The otherworldly inhuman nature of Elves and other magical creatures is something you see throughout folklore. Here’s an old Irish Fairy Tale about a mermaid (not the half-fish kind, this is basically an Elf that lives in the water):

One spring morning, fisherman Patrick Gannon stood upon the seashore as the sun rose. “Lovely morning,” he sighed to himself. He puffed on his pipe, for nothing could bother Patrick this day.

Except one thing. He wished he could share his pleasure with a wife.

“Ah, a wife would be fine on such a morning,” he sighed again. Just then, he spied a rock upon the shore, upon which sat a beautiful young woman, combing her sea-green hair.

Patrick looked down at the sand. He knew this was a mermaid, a sea fairy. Beside the maiden sat a red cap with a feather—a magic cap, that is, the sort the mermaids wear to find their way home beneath the sea.

Patrick ambled down the shore toward the rock. “Hello,” he said, startling the mermaid. “Don’t be afraid,” he said. “I came only to say how pretty you look this morning.”

When she blushed and looked away for a moment, Patrick grabbed her cap.

“What do you want?” the mermaid asked.

“Mermaid,” Patrick said, “I want to marry you.” The mermaid accepted.

So Patrick put her cap into his pocket, for a mermaid will lose her memory without her feathered cap.

Now Patrick and the maiden returned to Patrick’s cottage. They had three children, and no one was happier than Patrick Gannon. However, one day he forgot to hang up his fishing nets.

Mrs. Gannon was cleaning that morning, and she spied the fishing nets that Patrick had not put away. When she lifted them, she found a hole in the wall, and in that hole she found her red cap.

The moment she found it, she put it on, and she remembered her father and mother and longed to see them. She walked out the door, turning once to blow a kiss to her sleeping children. She walked to the shore and dove into the sea.

So Patrick lost his beloved mermaid. Every day he walked to the shore, hoping that his wife would return, but she never did. Still, he never forgot her, for he knew that she had truly loved him.

The Elf in this story is not human and acts in an inhuman way—just like Tolkien’s elves. Real people don’t lose their memory when you take their magic hat, or walk away from their own children when they get their magic hat back. Humans have more compassion than that. They don’t lose the will to live when faced with tragedy either. What makes humans human is that they’re stronger than that.

Perhaps part of the problem is we’ve gotten so used to characters who are alien on the outside but human on the inside that we’ve forgotten about ones who are the other way around? Or who have an alien exterior as a visual symbol that they are not human and think and act in not human ways. When we take story elements and ideas from older media (like Tolkien) this is where we run into problems with confusion about how humans are depicted and how non-humans are intended to contrast with that.

Maybe we’ve had too many pointy eared humans in our media and not enough Elves?

— Elves, Half-Elves and Humanity – Strange Magic

Author’s emphases.

Thank the gods for the Internet Archive Wayback Machine, else I could not have linked to the source blogpost.

A message from the gods is worth more than a plot of land. A wise party will seek these messages when possible, as they can greatly aid them on their dangerous travels. Messages of…

• …coming blessings from a deity
• …warnings against certain actions or plans
• …judgement against the party or their enemies for an offense
• …indictment for what the party has done wrong
• …instruction on what to do next

…are extraordinarily valuable. Unfortunately for the party, messages from the divine are few and far between for the common person. Even if they were to receive such a message, its meaning would be totally lost on them—they do not have the proper training! All is not lost however, as the gods are not limited in their means of communication.

Official Prophecy

Any king worth his weight in whatever is his most lucrative export is going to sponsor prophets. These prophets are no ecstatic or dreamer, oh no; these are professionals trained in cultivating prophecies and communicating the messages of the gods above. A wise king has many prophets representing many different gods, for where there is no guidance the people fall, but in abundance of counselors there is victory.

These prophets are the king’s advisers, who communicate to the king important information from the gods regarding politics, war, and religion. Besides this, the king has certain responsibilities, such as maintaining justice and caring for the dispossessed with his domain. A word from above can give the guidance necessary to bring success to the king in these responsibilities. And when the king is successful, everyone is successful.

Employing an Official Prophet

An official prophet has little need to work with such commoners as the party. Even if the party should be successful and gain lands, herds, flocks, and servants, the king is far greater, and the king is the prophet’s sponsor. The prospect of successfully buying an official prophet’s prophecy has a 1-in-10 chance.

However, all is not hopeless. Should a party member be of a noble background, the chance increases by 2. Should a party member be of a religious background, the chance increases by 1. If that same party member happens to be a strong follower of the same deity of the prophet, the chance increases by 2. In the right circumstances, the chance of successfully buying an official prophet’s prophecy in a 4-person party could be as high as 9-in-10.

That being said, it is a rare case indeed for such a high chance. The best way for the party to gain an audience with an official prophet is through the big guy himself: the king. Kings often give incredible gifts to loyal and proven servants, and a prophecy from an official prophet can be of great worth in the dangerous occupation the party has chosen.

Informal Prophecy

The gods don’t always use the “official” lines of communication. They are mysterious and their activities are hard to discern; that they use ecstatics and dreamers from both priests and laypersons is not surprising. Despite their lack of training and inability to cultivate messages from the gods regularly, their prophecies are no less important or informative.

A wise king has a few ecstatics in his care at all times. They are not reliable in their frequency, but are more like hot springs in the deserts: they do nothing for long periods of time…and then a sudden burst of energy from the divine! These do not function as the more learned ones, but enjoy the hospitality of the palace, if also experiencing some hostility from the temple.

Employing a Dreamer or Ecstatic

Dreamers and ecstatics are not always in the king’s care. Often they are found within the community the party finds themselves in. However, employing them for the purpose of prophecy is a gamble that may never pay off. Should it, the party will gain what they seek: a message from the gods. Should it not, the party will have naught more than a leech on their resources. Any offer above the current living conditions of the dreamer or ecstatic should be enough to gain their employ.

Those NPCs designated dreamers have a 5-in-100 chance of gaining a message from the gods during their rest. Those NPCs designated ecstatics have a 1-in-100 chance of gaining a message from the gods normally. When ecstatics are in a heightened state, whether through drugs, sex, or some other means, the chance increases to 5-in-100. Both dreamers and ecstatics will know the proper interpretation of their messages.

Those within the party have a 1-in-100 chance of receiving a message from deity when they rest or achieve a heightened state. Those of an academic, magical, musical, or religious background have a 2-in-100 chance instead. However, they will not know how to interpret the message from the gods, for the symbolism is deep and requires intense knowledge of their meanings. The party will need to gain the service of a temple consultant to discern its meaning.

Incubation

The party has another means of gaining a message from the divine, but the means of doing it are incredibly dangerous for anyone other than the king or his highest officials. If the party can enter the sacred space of the deity they wish to ask a question—that deity’s temple, garden, or ziggurat—and sleep there overnight without being killed for their irreverence and sacrilege, they have a 1-in-10 chance of receiving a message in the form of a dream.

It would be safer to gain entrance into the sacred space rather than sneak in. Gaining entrance is hard, but the best way to gain it is as a gift for services given to the temple or palace. Along with the gifted opportunity to incubate will come the offer to then interpret the dream’s message. As always, it is best to be in the good graces of the king and temple priests.

Other Means

There are other ways of discerning the will of deity, but that is through deduction, not inspiration. For a truly inspired message, directly from deity to man, one must use prophets, dreams, or periods of ecstasy. There simply is no other way to get a direct message from above.

— Discerning the Will of Deity by Inspiration – Stepped On a d4

Alas, that blog is gone, and the Internet Archive does not have a copy of this blogpost. I have copied the entire text here for posterity.

…[A] common lacking I’ve seen in many role-playing games with clerics [is] the lack of importance of a holy ground. While in a lot of fantasy media and historic folklore there is a strong importance of being on holy ground, not so in most games.

In Piecemeal, holy ground is a prime consideration for using Priest Miracles. Most healing and damage spells are given a re-roll, or reduced piety cost when cast on holy ground. Weapons wielded by the faithful on holy ground count as magical (making the town chapel an ideal place of refuge when the werewolves attack) and those of enemy faith’s cannot heal on holy ground.

This makes being on holy ground (and not being on unholy ground) very important to consider. But how prevalent is holy ground? “Consecrate Ground” is a priest miracle, any PC or NPC priest who wants to spend the piety may use this miracle. It turns a shrine, temple or church into holy ground for as long as the shrine , temple or church remains undefiled. Thus in conflicts it is often important to make sure you destroy the unholy sites of the enemy.

Why is this good?

1. On a tactical level this adds a spiritual element to the terrain. When fighting an evil cult to Baphomet, deep in the woods around the base of the JuJu tree you need to make some decisions. Do you focus on fighting the cultists and the high priest first and destroy the shrine afterwards? Doing so means your priest is at a disadvantage and the enemy priest is at an advantage. You could also focus on setting the JuJu tree on fire first, letting the high priest use more infernal miracles against you. And a third option is to perhaps have a thief sneak in [beforehand] and set fire to the JuJu tree as a signal to begin the attack. It adds choices and more strategy to terrain.
2. It makes the local temple or church more of a “safe house” from the supernatural and occult shrines that much more foreboding of a place to venture.
3. It allows priest characters the ability to add permanent additions to the world that will have a lasting and recurring benefit to them.

— Be Careful on Holy Ground – Unofficial Games

Thank the gods for the Internet Archive Wayback Machine, else I could not have linked to the source blogpost.

Something that always interested me about undead creatures in certain systems is their XP-drain or level-drain. I enjoyed the concept because it made something as simple as a zombie unique mechanically. Other types of monsters didn’t have the same effect—a badger didn’t drain your levels, nor did a goblin. Among all the fodder available for adventures, it provided something unique mechanically that set undead apart and made them slightly more dangerous at the low level and extremely dangerous once you were dealing with vampires or liches.

I had a conversation awhile ago with a few others on the glog-ghetto discord channel about XP-draining undead and I recently remembered this conversation. The discussion included the mechanical side of things and its complexities, but what interested me more was the narrative side of things. How did losing experience from being damaged by an undead creature look in-world?

The Unbecoming-ining

Chances are you’ve read, watched, or played something that involves undead, probably zombies. Within popular media, they are an ever-present monster, though their popularity has waned somewhat in recent years. Usually, during the story involving undead, someone gets “bitten”. This is a problem because “undeath” is spread by undead-ness getting inside the body. This is usually done through being wounded, such as a bite or scratch, and the infection quickly overtaking the body, though there are occasions where it is spread through the air or water instead.

Once the infection happens, there is very rarely a chance to stop it. Few stories involving undead have a “cure” readily available, and if one does it exist, it exists too late for our dear secondary character. Instead, over time our beloved secondary character becomes worse and worse, to the point where they are no longer them but something else. Then they are dispatched and left behind. It is this “unbecoming” that is closest to the narrative progression of XP-drain.

You-ness and Experience Points

It isn’t that you are losing experience, per se; you are losing “you-ness”. When the zombie scratches you, narratively you slowly are becoming “not you”. You become an undead version of you or “you-adjacent”: like you, but not. Slowly or rapidly, the infection takes over and the same flesh sack is no longer inhabited by you, but an undead abomination.

I believe this narrative change of “you” to “you-adjacent” is best expressed through experience points. For those systems which use levels and experience points, experience points are a representation of your character’s past experiences. You only get experience points from battle you’ve won, not battles you will win. Thus, slowly, your character becomes better, stronger, wiser, smarter, whatever-er because they accrue more experiences and therefore more experience points.

In real-life, hopefully those who have more experiences under their belt are better than those who have less experiences. Hopefully they are wiser, smarter, stronger, whatever-er than someone with less experience. But as these experiences take place, the person changes as well. You are (hopefully) not the same you from 5 years ago, and (hopefully) the you of 2025 is different from the you of right now. Experience points then represent this life journey of growth, in a word. Just as in real-life we become someone different and hopefully better, so do our characters.

Not You, But Them

Your character grows into a better version of themselves, hopefully. More “whatever-er” than when you started. The growth is a positive change—something is being added to our characters to change them. Narratively, undeath is a negative change—something is being removed from our characters to change them. Mechanically, this is experience points; narratively this is you being converted to “not you”. And this is not a static process, but a slow bleed.

Undeath is converting living cells into undead cells, to the point where you die because of it. Except you don’t die as many think of it; you turn into the undead abomination. So when an undead creature drains your XP, they are taking “you” and converting it into “not you, but them”; they are taking your XP which is going to your levels and putting it into their levels which are now inside you. You are losing your “you-ness” and becoming “them”—same flesh sack, totally different entity. Those experience points become undead experience points, and once you hit the threshold to “level up” you “convert” into the undead abomination. Thus, you are not so much losing experience as you are converting experience into something else; in this case, undeath.

Be Afraid

Hopefully, everything I wrote above makes sense. It probably doesn’t in such an abstract form, but I tried. This narrative of slowly converting into something “not you, but them” is, to me, horrifying. It is a slow, nigh-unstoppable creep which will eventually claim you, like time! Having the narrative understanding alone makes even a zombie something any sensible adventurer, regardless of level, would avoid without proper protections or preparations, like holy water or a holy flamethrower.

That a single scratch, a single gulp of tainted water, or a single inhale of unfiltered air could begin the process of conversion is realistically terrifying. The closest analogy to the real-world I can think of would be radiation and cancer. Few would willingly go into a highly irradiated zone even with proper protections; fewer still without any protections. The radiation would produce something perhaps similar to undeath—cancer—which would slowly kill you if not treated. It isn’t body horror or jump-scare horror, both of which are lazy and uncreative derivations of horror. Rather it is something to be rightfully afraid of, for one does not want to become them.

— Narrative of Undeath – Stepped On a d4

Author’s emphases.

Alas, that blog is gone, and the Internet Archive does not have a copy of this blogpost. I have copied the entire text here for posterity.

“Struggle is part of fictional conflict.” (Mikael Persson)

The struggle and change of your protagonist is what makes a story a story. Many writers get caught up in giving their readers details of crisis when the true draw of a story, the thing we as readers want to know, is the metamorphosis of the character.

Conflict Versus Crisis

The difference is that crisis is usually a circumstantial event or action, such as a car accident, a robbery, a break-up in a relationship. Conflict is the choices or struggles the character has to make, sometimes because of crisis. Conflict happens inside the character. Dennis Jerz, Associate Professor of English at Seton Hill University does an excellent job of defining and simplifying conflict versus crisis on his weblog.

The two biggest mistakes new authors make are weaving in too many conflicts or focusing too much on crisis. Well-written novels and essays strike a balance of crisis and conflict. The perfect balance will evoke empathy for your characters from your reader.

When an author truly encompasses good conflict, the reader is left thinking about the story for days after putting down the book; left wondering what would happen next.

These are the Basic Types of Conflict in a Story:

• Inner Conflict: The character is struggling within themselves, with what they want or what they do
• Relational Conflict: The character is struggling with someone else
• Social Conflict: The character is struggling with a group
• Survival Conflict: The character is struggling with fatality
• Situational Conflict: The character is struggling with a situation—in this case, the character’s problems involve the interests, problems, ambitions and situations of others and their affect on the character.

Other struggles may be found in your character versus nature or your character versus God or religion.

Different genres can focus on different types of conflict or incorporate several. It makes sense to realize that romance is going to have Relational Conflict and a thriller is going to be Situational.

Conflict can also be described as internal and external. However you want to think of conflict, the struggle and growth are the main infrastructure of fiction. Without conflict, there is no story. Conflict is the suspense and the excitement that makes your story move from the beginning to the climax, the turning point. The resolution.

Simply put, the main character in a good story has to evolve, has to struggle, has to make choices to effectively transition or change. They may or may not succeed, depending on your direction and imagination. But if your character isn’t evolving, then your story isn’t going anywhere either.

— How to Write Conflict – Elizabeth Richards

Alas, that blog is gone, and the Internet Archive does not have a copy of this blogpost. I have copied the entire text here for posterity.

A few weeks ago, we talked about Stamina points as a resource players can spend. Today, we’re going to look at a different method, namely burning hit points for effect in more heroic games.

One of the oldest topics of D&D is what Hit Points actually represent, and while it’s inconsistent and imperfect, it’s generally accepted that it’s a vague mix of health, luck, endurance, luck and general good fortune.

Under these rules, characters can elect to sacrifice hit points to obtain rerolls and other benefits. By definition this will mainly benefit more experienced characters but it serves to give players another, mechanical, escape valve in a bad situation and it presents an interesting decision. While losing a hit point is almost always preferable to losing a saving throw, it will still leave you worn down by the end of the adventure.

These all reflect things that can come about through extreme efforts, whether pushing yourself physically or presenting a supreme effort of will.

Only one option from the below list can be selected in any given combat round. DM’s discretion if they must be spent before or after actions are resolved (in the case of rerolls)Please note that you could assign higher costs to some items. I elected to keep it simple.

By spending 1 hit point, a player may do any of the following:

• Make an additional melee attack.
• Move an additional 20% of their movement rate.
• Leave a combat without taking a “free swing” from the enemy.
• Reroll a failed saving throw.
• Take a hit for a comrade in the same melee (or adjacent if missile fire)
• Reroll a failed thief skill.
• Act before any other characters in a combat round (and simultaneously with characters that magically act first)
• Negate the effects of surprise for 1 combat round.
• Inflict 2 additional damage with a successful hit (melee or ranged).
• Reroll the damage dice or healing dice for a spell.
• Reroll any skill or proficiency check.
• Get one clue from the GM regarding a puzzle or situation.
• Reroll a reaction roll.
• Negate the effect of a critical hit.

Too radical? Not radical enough? Other things that should go on the list? Let me know in the comments!

— Hit Points As a Resource? – The Daily OSR

Alas, that blog is gone, and the Internet Archive does not have a copy of this blogpost. I have copied the entire text here for posterity.

As I read more classics I find that different mythologies seem to present entirely different worlds. The world of the Iliad, for example, is so different in certain ways from that of the Irish Fiona, that the systems which run these mythologies would have to be in some ways intrinsically different. For example, the handling of magic. In the Irish World of the Fiona, magic is imbued into the very living substance of the universe, and the question is how easily one can migrate between our world and the Otherworld (tir na nog). In the Iliad, however, there is no sense of humans transporting between worlds, but rather it is the Gods who step down from on high and invade ours. Rare is the hero who enters the Otherworld in Greek Myth. Common is he who does so in the Celtic Mythos.

Were I to create a world for running an “Iliad” game, that world would have Gods of non-infinite powers, who act directly in the game, who can be wounded by mortals (such as Diomedes, who causes Aphrodite to bleed the famous Ichor of the Gods), and who scheme and connive their way throughout the entire fabric of the story. In fact it is a story about the competitions and victories of the Gods, and almost incidentally about the Heroes. This world would require strong rules for handling God-like Powers, and for it to be reasonably sporting, the Player Characters would pretty much need to be Heroes and the children of the Gods. Conversely, you could play it low level, in the same world, where the Player Characters come within approximate range of the Heroes, get occasionally swept up (dangerously so, I should think) in their Quests, and perhaps return to the village either a richer or wiser or stronger somehow. Either way, it would be an interesting world, but the rules would have to support it.

On the other hand, when we look at such fairy tales as Kil Arthur, the son of the King of Erin, I think we’d find that a different set of rules would be required. Or if not the rules themselves, at least the parameters of those rules in which our game would operate. It could certainly be played at almost any level, as what influence the Gods may have in these stories, there is little obvious to tell. An impulse to go here, a ship perhaps sent on the wind to a magical island, or the appearance of a giant over the edge of a hill…none of which seem named to occur by the dictate of any particular deity as in the Greek mythos. No, rather it is the Character who has chanced to enter, perhaps, the Otherworld, and knowingly or otherwise, has entered upon some quest. The mood is mysterious and vague and clouded, unlike the Greeks, whose tales were starkly brilliant in their divine clarity. We know each of the Gods and all of their motives, arguments, stratagems, and follies with the Greeks.

I wonder if anyone here has attempted to put these kinds of worlds to the test in their RPGs, and how did you go about GMing for it, and how did it work out?

— The Iliad as Source Material – Literary RPG Society of Westchester

Alas, that forum is gone, and the Internet Archive does not have a copy of this post. I have copied the entire text here for posterity.

Many fairy tales revolve around castles and courts. These places are filled with wonder and awe, horror and debauchery. They are both simultaneously filled with dark and light. Capricious nobles, strange and incomprehensible to us born outside their world, are ready to take advantage of us, to be overtaken by us, to destroy us and to be destroyed, to give us blessings and curses, to reward treasure, take treasure, and have treasure taken. There are secret places in here to explore, to hide in. Ways in, ways out. People in there of all kinds, different factions with different interests, all revolving around the mystery and mysticism of the castle.

These are dungeons, but less dirty, grim, and abandoned, more poetic, mystical, strange. In a dungeon, cobwebs fill hallways and the dead shamble around. This can happen in castles as well, but in fey castles or gothics, you have animated suits of armor, strange servants, weird guests.

Let’s look at two examples: Bluebeard’s Castle (fairy tale) and Dracula’s Castle (gothic).

Bluebeard’s Castle is a place of horror and mysticism. It is beautiful, and the castle’s owner, Bluebeard, is charismatic, attractive, groping. He invites you in, barrs one secret room, and gives you keys to the other. You stumble from fairy tale room into fairy tale room, dancing with strange servants, surviving strange riddles and puzzles. But there is that secret room, that dark room, that strange room with the potential treasure and horrible curse. In all ways, this is a dungeon for fey.

Dracula’s Castle is much the same. Surrounded by direwolves and spectres and will-o’-wisps, filled with vampiric brides and hiding peasants trying to escape their damnation. Locked doors that hide darker secrets that must be explored so that you know you can leave. A haunting, stalking, loping master of the castle, a threat coming through the walls or into your room.

And yes, keep in mind, there are rooms to rest in within the castles. Places to regain your faculties. Or, places in which even weirder encounters can happen. Dracula’s brides invade and you must fend them off through wit until their husband returns to calm them. Bluebeard returns and you must hide from him, keep it secret that you’ve been in that Dark Room, survive his hunting of you when he finds out.

Yes, castles are dungeons, but with more active threats. Intelligent dangers that know you are there and want to interact with you.

Strahd’s Castle is a dungeon, but an Archfey, an Elven Prince, the Winter Court can all have a similar one.

Whenever I see fey adventures, I always see forests that, glades this. No one ever really makes adventures around the castles. But it is here that the fairy tale is the most powerful, and where the gothic can be wedded to it.

It is this wedding that I think has a lot of creative potential for dungeons and modules in the future. A castle that takes both fey and gothic elements to make something. Like the 5E Raven Queen, who is at once a god, an archfey, and a gothic horror, who resides in a Castle of Memories. This is the perfect dungeon place. Invade and plunder the memories of countless tragedies to learn secrets to defeating enemies, or finding rare treasure. Hide from the Raven Queen and her elven servants, and avoid the gloom-beasts that manifest here too. Every room can have a new puzzle or encounter or secret with ease. Other factions can be in here, perhaps adventurers or elves or those seeking audience with the Raven Queen

And let’s talk audiences. For a game about adventure, these are often glanced over. But an audience with a powerful gothic-fey (or a normal fey or a gothic creature) can be a great puzzle. You must at once dodge around their ego, have wit-duels with other members of courts, gain allies to help you, present treasures or plan how to escape, potentially have a crazy battle, potentially hoodwink or trick whoever you are having an audience with—there’s lots of potential here.

Now with this all positioned, I guess the next step is to actually make a castle-dungeon adventure. I’ll have to sew on that though.

— Castles are the Dungeons for the Fey and the Gothic – Hmmm Marquis

Author’s emphases.

Alas, that blog is gone, and the Internet Archive does not have a copy of this blogpost. I have copied the entire blogpost text here for posterity.

Low level D&D play is about struggling against the [ever-present] specter of Death in a dark, lonely dungeon filled with monsters.

High level D&D play is about the monsters trying to survive the PCs.

High level play should be about your PCs having fun and going nuts with their power. Too many DMs and system designers don’t get it and don’t like it, and try to find ways to bring PCs back down to the relative power of beginner characters. Players, on the other hand, have an instinctive desire to make their characters ever more wildly powerful.

— Low level vs High level chars – Farooq’s Gaming Blog

Thank the gods for the Internet Archive Wayback Machine, else I could not have linked to the source blogpost.

The dice only exist to give players a chance to fail at something. The dice do not allow you to do things, you do that yourself when you declare your action. Rolling dice only gives a chance of hindering the players, not helping.

D&D is at its core, a dice game in which you declare your action and then roll dice to see if you fail. If you don’t, then you continue onward to gain power and glory.

— The Dice are Not Your Friend – Farooq’s Gaming Blog

Author’s emphasis. Alas, that blog is gone, and the Internet Archive does not have a copy of it.

Motivation is the reason your characters do the things they do. Characters need to have a solid motivation for all the decisions they make throughout the story, but…the most important motivation you need to give them is the motivation to participate in the story in the first place. Motivation is the reason the stakes matter.

[Harry Potter’s] goal is to destroy Voldemort.

Voldemort will take over the wizarding world otherwise—this is what’s at stake.

But why does Harry want to stop Voldemort himself? Why not step back and let someone else do it? Because Voldemort killed Harry’s parents. That’s Harry’s motivation.

Motivation is the emotional investment in the story for both the character and the reader. It gives the characters depth, which makes them more engaging. The reader wouldn’t be very interested if, at any point, the protagonist could decide that the stakes aren’t such a big deal after all and go home. Motivation locks the character into the story.

— 5 Places to Look for your Character’s Motivation – Jackal Editing

Author’s emphases.

Thank the gods for the Internet Archive Wayback Machine, else I could not have linked to the source blogpost.

There really is no such thing as a block in traditional martial arts, at least not in the commonly understood sense. You see, the Japanese word uke means “receive” rather than “block” as it often incorrectly translated, a very significant difference both mentally and physically. Your defensive technique receives the adversary’s attack and makes it your own. Without this vital context you’re merely fending off a blow knowing that another is on its way, staying behind the count, whereas a “proper” block can end the fight all by itself without the need to throw what is commonly thought of as an offensive blow…..

— There Is No Block – Kris Wilder

Alas, that blog is gone, and the Internet Archive does not have a copy of it.

Once Orcs are not about the ancient threat of Neanderthal dominance,

Once Vampires are not about the nightmare of rape and the violation of our sanctity,

Once the immortal Lich is not about horror of structures of law and tradition which were invented by men who were dead long before we were born,

Once Werewolves are no longer about the terror of our inner animalistic impulses overwhelming us,

Once Zombies are not about our innate and unending fear of the implacable advance of gluttonous death,

then they are just housecats that we can kill from behind the safety of our +2 blade that adds two to our to hit roll, allowing us to strike at the monster if we roll an 8 or higher.

— On Cultivating the Fantastic – Hack & Slash

Author’s emphasis.

Thank the gods for the Internet Archive Wayback Machine, else I could not have linked to the source blogpost.

8. “Race you can’t win rule.” The game’s monster difficulty should increase slightly faster than the advancement of the [character], given average stats and default equipment, so as to force him to rely upon items and tactics.

The reasoning here is that if the player doesn’t have to rely on randomly-found stuff then [that stuff becomes] unimportant to play. However, if it’s required to have specific items to be successful then many games will be outright unwinnable. The balance between these two poles is what makes random dungeon generation difficult, but it’s also part of what makes random dungeon gameplay interesting….

— @Play: The Eight Rules of Roguelike Design – GameSetWatch

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…A sorcerer uses their arts and powers to live off peoples’ fear of them. In myths and folktales, from sources as widely spread apart as Russia’s koldun and the mangkukulam from my own country, the sorcerer or witch is depicted as making demands backed up by threats of curses, essentially blackmailing the community. In other words, terrorism….

— The Sorcerer as Terrorist – Hari Ragat Games

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Corrosion from perspiration, skin oils, blood, and exposure to the elements are the problems we need to know well. In the case of carbon steel, these culprits can cause severe discoloration and rust very rapidly if neglected. I own swords that literally will rust before your eyes if left un-oiled. During a take giri (bamboo cutting) demonstration my students and I were performing, I had a drop of my perspiration land, unnoticed, on one of my Rapier (thrusting sword) blades. In just a few minutes, I was shocked to see a bright orange spot of rust on my hand-polished sword. This is a very serious problem the martial arts student must know how to combat. Even breathing on an un-oiled sword blade can begin the dreaded process of corrosion. The edge is the thinnest part of a cutting implement and the most vulnerable to neglect. If allowed to rust, a razor-sharp weapon will become dull in a short period of time. Genuine katana [are] famous for their polish and [mirror-like] finish. This is not for merely cosmetic appearance. Steel has microscopic surface irregularities that can collect moisture and corrosive elements. A finely polished blade has smaller irregularities and sheds blood much more easily than an unpolished one. Hence, the more corrosive agents that collect in the pores, the more tarnish and rust will accumulate.

— Care And Feeding Of Swords – Austin Bujinkan Tanemaki Dojo

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