The Second-coming of Snow: A Blog Resurrection, Part 1 (The Story of a Deeply Complex Departure)

Last year, I launched my first campaign and became self-inaugrated into the amalgam of amateur dungeon masters. "Hi, my name is Snow. I am a Dungeon Master. I do dungeon mastering.” I could go into what that all meant, with anyone who cared to ask; and my-my, what an earful they might get about what I think I do -- creation, manage, co-exist, structure; oh, and have fun with friends around collections of food/ leftovers. Yet, I decided to do something I’ve longed to do for some years: start a blog. I transferred the energy I had with running a campaign into a complimentary project. So, with that said, would anyone like to guess where my blog went once the campaign started to fizzle? 


The correlation, whether I realized it during the writing freeze or afterward, is a stark one. I didn’t, by the game’s end, feel like an accomplished DM. My flow of topics for the blog, my willingness to write, vanished. Recently, I’ve been granted True Seeing, and I’ve noticed some hidden pathways in my adventure as a blogger. I start this two-part resurrection with an epiphany. If no one else reads, if no one else plays, you’re still a blogger, and you’re still a dungeon master.


Now, I know what some of your are thinking: Umm, without a group, no, you’re actually not a dungeon master. At to that argument, I offer this refutation and a modification to an old movie saying. "If you build it", you are an architect; regardless if "they will come". Towards the end of my final campaign days, I solicited feedback from my players about what they thought about me as a DM, what they thought about the game, and asked them to share some advice for me going forward. Some replied. Some flat-out ignored it. While I would be lying if I said this didn’t shut me down, I would also be remised if I didn’t acknowledge that the silence left room for some much needed introspection. To get my act together as a DM, I needed to have one night of simply doing what I felt was natural. Rather than end the campaign I had been running for 5 months, I created a one shot for the group; but set it up as if the game could continue. In just that game, I validated for myself two points which I knew were true all along: failure with a group happens, and trying too hard as a DM is a fallacy. 


I’ll relate this to my profession. In a teachers’ meeting, a faculty member talks about how students just aren’t engaged with learning, how they have an unhealthy relationship with the education. Straight up, they’re lazy. We’ve been saying this for decades, and we find news ways to say it, new scapegoats to point fingers at; and yet, we never own up to the reality that we may just not be effective at what we do. In the future, I hope I am not a DM who claims to know what I’m doing based on the fact that I’ve been doing it for years. I’ve read so many posts online from DM’s who refuse to shake up their system or cater to their audience. To each their own. May I never abide by the rules of ritual. 


To end this rant, I leave this advice for DM’s, especially new DM’s out there: Try less, Fail to allow failure to continue, and Shake it up. Yay, now I have officially completed my prestige class as Motivational Hippie.

Your party doesn't need a Tank; it needs a chef !

I have never outright awarded any player of mine for food they've brought to game, nor do I think I would; still, I consider offerings to the feast of the DM as almost sacred. If for nothing else, it pays tribute. This Deity of the Dice has been spoiled, and I could not be more pleased.

Let's be clear -- this has largely been true, as far as I can attest from other DMs' confessions: a happy DM keeps his party happy in return. Food just happens to be the schema commonly framing that cycle.

All jokes set aside, I am no "Bacchus of the Orc Throne", but my games are constructed around a great deal of work and effort to keep my players entertained, engaged, and content with setting some time aside for tabletop every week. So yes, I appreciate some gratitude. Gratitude is Chicken Soup for DM Soul (remember that series?).

Pirate Treasure Map themed cupcakes!

Details matter -- the pirate gummy bleed out

I have a particular player who could have been born in the kitchen, next to the warm and fuzziness of an oven's heat, wafting apple pie scents on a cozy Autumn afternoon. Yeah, she's that good. She, famously, goes to great lengths to create and satisfy her friends' bellies; but for her DM's, well, she is probably her adventurer party's greatest ally. 

On the launch night of my new campaign, to which my players had a great deal of story exposition prior to playing, she brought in a tray of cupcakes that completely represented the world the players were in. Oceans, floating kingdoms, rare and magical stones...and all this presentation with an equally impressive taste. In another game DM's pirate game, this same player brought cupcakes that resembled a full treasure map, including swashbuckling gummy bears and Swedish fish infested oceans.

Come on, what DM wouldn't feel completely honored? 

What foodies have been a part of your games? Is there bribery afoot?

I wonder if I should start being bribed? Hmm...

Paper or Plastic: Are tabletop tokens facing a paradigm shift?

So, you're a player, and your character is on the map, charging in for an attack on the boss of the night: what are you pushing/ carrying along the squares? Is it the fine craft of a classic miniature? If so, did you paint it yourself? How much did you pay for it? Have you used it to shape your character, or is it the other way around? Do you even care?

One of my players brought this topic to my attention for the blog, and I've been M.I.A. ever since. I've thought about it, from a player perspective, but more importantly, for the sake of this blog, from a DM perspective.

Let me set the mood: You are a new player being brought into a group. You enter the room, where game is already underway. The table is set: map, characters, monsters, and in full-swing. The table is mounted with all types of miniatures, some medium, few huge, and one colossal.

Now, Replace the image with card board cut-outs, those similar to what you see in classic boardgames, such as Clue. Does this change anything inside of you? Are you less enthused, less impressed, more intrigued, or merely indifferent?

Here are the contenders: miniatures vs. pawns (and every other substitute).

Miniatures, the reigning champion:

Career: Miniatures, what I am calling the fan-favorite, are timeless; that is, they are routed in history and tradition. There is an undeniable nostalgia experienced players have with miniatures, and an aesthetic magnetism attractive to new players who lay eyes on them. Representation wise, miniatures are almost synonymous, both in language and in body with the game of tabletop, itself.

Stance and Style: 3-D models set a tone. I don't care how good your image on paper is, your tower of cardboard is less foreboding than a mountain of plastic. In my experience, there is an "oh s***" moment when your players realize you are carrying over something to the table that requires you to lift with your knees. Exaggeration? A little bit, but you get the idea. Ask those who favor dragons. They're more likely to connect with the "fun" of plopping a breath-weapon miniature onto a map. 

Miniatures, for the most part, hold up. They literally stand, and in some cases, can take a beating before they start to function less reliably. Nit-picking, I know; but for some people, this matters.

Miniatures don't have to be the same. Model-wise, you may own the same mini four times, but a good paint-job not only personalizes your miniature, but it can also show your talent and dedication for the game to other players.

The Right Hook: Merchandise and collection are a huge, immortal component of tabletop as a recreation. Companies thrive from selling them; and players, like with any hobby, have proven that rarities, brand loyalty, and product appreciation is still important to them -- and so, they keep shelling out the clams. And let's face it, when a player-collector shows off their booty, you can help but stare and hope to fondle with care. Sharing moment: While I am proud of my dice collection, I only own six miniatures; and well, that makes me sad inside.

Achilles' heel: Price. Miniatures, to those with cobwebs in the pocket, or simply life-expenses that take precedence, are an unattainable luxury. You can get one here and there, maybe even assemble a small faction through gifts over some time; but, especially as a DM, when that sorcerer mini has been your last 2 NPCs, your enemy from three weeks ago, and the character your new player chooses to play their arcane caster, it can get kind of annoying. 

Pawns, the formidable contender:

Career: The new kid on the block is simply this -- a pawn star. Still, I am cautious to call these contenders new. Perhaps in the lifetime of tabletop, new is appropriate; but pawns have some years of presence under their belt. The "Quiet Revolution" of tabletop, as quoted by a blogger over at The Rot Grub called pawns' introduction back in 2011, started probably most notably in D&D's 2010 Monster Vault release with circular, lay-flat punch-outs, and soon after with Paizo's 2011 Beginner Box (including 80 stand-up, cardboard pawns). When the major game companies offer pawns as the entry experience to their game, they are making a statement about the place of pawns in the industry.

Stance and Style: Pawns are simply a "get what you pay for" product. Like the difference between your crappy printer at home and your best print-joint (FedEx Kinkos, and what not) down the road, at the table, a picture is a picture. You may enjoy the classic monster designs of the companies that publish them, and thus either pirate their design from the internet, or buy direct. You may enjoy, instead, to find appropriate fan-art to the characters of your game and apply them to your own crafted pawns. You may, as I once saw a DM do for 10 of his players in the same pirate world, create pencil drawings on tri-fold cardboard to fit the caricatures of his party; that is, custom design to your own artistic fabrication. Either way, pawns lend themselves well to an open canvas -- the image you want on the table is the one you're going to get.

The Right Hook: Affordability. Whether you're buying a set of 30 punch-out pieces for the cost of one standard miniature off Amazon (free shipping), or printing them out yourself, the bottom-line is you are certainly having more to bring to the table for less financial output. 

Achilles' heel: Impact, and perhaps this is subjective. Beyond the thrill of punching out fresh pieces, these tokens lose their marvel quickly. When you're catching the thin-side of your pawn, you're losing the presence of it adding to or impacting the environment. Imagination and being fully-engulfed in story/ mechanics/ the camaraderie of the game/ etc. may remedy this; but in comparison to its opponent, there's just less pizazz.

So...Who wins this fight in your opinion? Who are you placing your bets on for the future favorite in the game?

A Rose by Any Other Name: Are story crossovers and motifs simply embezzlement?

Recently, one of my players smashed DM's who choose to run story lines for their players that borrow from common motifs. The specific example he gave was the "world is going to end all along and there was nothing your group could do about it" storyline. I wonder was level of storytelling does a DM need to have in order to be conceived as fresh, or at least not a thieving, lazy reciter-of-olde. 

I have been open about my current game's storyline, drawing inspiration heavily from the Final Fantasy series. Kingdoms are names after summons, magical items drawn directly from in-game content, and a storyline that will certainly unfold similar to many of the games. After his rant, which was far from baseless (quite genuine, in fact), I wondered if I should reconsider where the story should go. 

One of the coolest crossovers I've ever seen actually came from my best friend. He created a game around the entire game design and concept of the MegaMan series. His players could only play the Warforged race, or simply robots/ constructs. The idea was we had to take down eight robot masters, each of which had a power we could take from them upon defeating them. The actual gameplay had platforming, puzzle rooms with insta-death consequences, and we players functioned on a 3-life system. Despite his three players (me included) not having much background in hardcore MegaMan'ing, it was easy to see that the essence of the game was a complete rendition of the video game. In fact, I would bet the ending, had we finished, would have had a classic the enemy is defeated, or is he? scene. 

I have included the drawing I did of my Warforged character for the MegaMan game. It was a Warforged Tattooed Monk (etched, I guess). Let me know what you think.  :)

I know, I know, crossing over famous genres (video games, literature, television series, etc.) is not quite the same as relying on motifs older than I have been alive; but, which application is worse...or better...or best received? 

In my opinion, utilizing any of these is in a way paying homage to storying-telling that has had stood the test of time. If told/ experienced in compelling ways, or even in new complex ways, these storylines can still be thought provoking/ dramatic/ tear jerking, and all that jazz. I'll certainly revisit the drawing board, if I aim to impress with this current game I am DM'ing. Perhaps I will find ways to retell what I have always loved about the FF series, but his time, in ways even new to myself.