The Worm's Economy

"How much treasure should I be giving out in His Majesty the Worm?" I get this question sometimes, and wanted to address it in a blog post I could link to for posterity.

Admittedly, the book addresses this only very briefly to say that boom and bust cycles are both acceptable, and that it wasn't something to worry too much about. I did not mean to be obscure about this. It's probably just a result of how my brain works--I know its an economy that I control instead of, like, danger levels of a monster which are wildly different based on party composition and player strategy. Because I control it, I don't worry about it. But I should definitely broadcast my intentions here!

A game like OD&D cares more about a budget for treasure in a dungeon than it strictly does about monsters because treasure is how you level up. In future editions, this consideration is mostly inverted.

In His Majesty the Worm, both your treasure and monster budget can be a little messy. Characters can (should) have lean times and surplus times. Characters can (should) have hard fights and easy fights. Player choice and strategy will matter a lot here.

Guiding principles

Ideally, characters should get a lot of treasure, go back to the City, spend all of it, and go back into the dungeon broke and penniless. This parallels the lifecycles of stories like Conan or Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser, who regularly win fabulous riches and begin most stories with empty pockets. A lot of mechanics are there to enforce this genre convention. 

Creating a budget

Imagine you are going to rate your adventurers from rank F to rank S. In rank F, players don't engage with anything in the dungeon, run from room to room, don't explore, never solve any puzzles, never press their luck. In rank S, they essentially clear the dungeon level, find every secret door, loot every chest, kick every monster's ass. Now, take your average party. For me, it's about 6 players. In a 30 room dungeon, the average party might go back to the City once, maybe twice. Because S rank should be rewarded with luxurious upkeep, that's a budget of 200 gold for S rank. For each time they visit the City, the players should have some small amount of extra gold for actions like Commission Craft, Research, and Training. For S rank players, maybe its 100g per City Phase. Don't forget taxes. Double your gold that you've earmarked because half of it is going away as soon as you step into the City. So 6 players x 2 (taxes) x (100 gold (upkeep) + 100 gold (extras)) x 2 (average City Phase visits per dungeon level) = a budget of 4,800 gold per dungeon level hidden in every nook and cranny. Assuming players, in general, don't find every cache, every secret, every hidden door, every monster hoard, it basically boils down to "just scraping by." This is back of the napkin math. It is not exact.

The diminishing returns of dungoneering

Caveat 1:  Don't "solve" money problems

One of the big risks for Worm games is messing too much with the essential assumptions of the game. Don't solve "fighting monsters" by giving players a magic sword that kills every monster. Don't solve "tracking food" by giving players a magic lunchbox that infinitely burps out rations. Don't solve "getting broke" by giving players too much treasure. Players who want to set up shop and game the VERY BASIC treasure economy should press pause on their Worm game and start playing a different game instead (I really encourage you to play lots of games!). It's kind of easy to break if you let it be easy to break. 

If players want to buy a house in the City to try and avoid paying for Upkeep...well, don't let them. You bought a house? Sure, you're not sleeping in the inn anymore! Fine! But now you have a mortgage. Some of the City actions are essentially there to just buy doll houses and doll clothes for your dolls. They're not supposed to reflect anything close to a "real economy." 

It is better for the experience that the game is trying to achieve to give players too little money than too much.

Caveat 2: Don't restock treasure (maybe)

Treasure is one of the things that should have diminishing returns as the dungeon restocks. As treasure is stripped away, players are incentivized to delve deeper and deeper to afford their adventuring lifestyle. Elsewise, players will often just linger in the uppermost reaches of the Underworld, and long-term megadungeon campaign play can grow stagnate. As with everything, let your taste and good sense guide you here.

By the way

Have you been keeping up with my course Designing Dungeons: How to Kill a Party in 30 Rooms or Less? Chapter 8: Running and Resting (on boss monsters and empty rooms) just released! Come build a dungeon with me, step by step.

Dungeons & Deconstruction

What is deconstruction?

In 1967, the French philosopher Jacques Derrida published the book Of Grammatology. In it, he reevaluated traditional Western ideas, claiming there is no synthesis in the dialectics of text and meaning. He called this philosophical approach "deconstructionism." 

As J. Hillis Miller, the preeminent American deconstructionist, has explained in an essay entitled Stevens’ Rock and Criticism as Cure (1976), “Deconstruction is not a dismantling of the structure of a text, but a demonstration that it has already dismantled itself. Its apparently solid ground is no rock but thin air.” 

Derrida went through some lengths to say that deconstructionism was hard to define (not a method! not an analysis! not an approach!), but let's keep it simple: 

• Cambridge Dictionary states that deconstruction is "the act of breaking something down into its separate parts in order to understand its meaning, especially when this is different from how it was previously understood." 
• The Merriam-Webster dictionary states that deconstruction is "the analytic examination of something (such as a theory) often in order to reveal its inadequacy."

Deconstruction as literary criticism

Deconstruction wasn't intended for literary analysis. Deconstruction was intended to be a criticism of European philosophy in general, especially New Criticism (which was applied to everything, from literature to music to history). No, it said, you cannot create universal meaning! Even simple meanings break down! And so, literary critics took Derrida's paradigm and applied it to literature. 

In literary criticism, deconstructionism is practiced by "reading against the text." First, a close reading of the text is performed to fully understand and articulate the authorial point. Then, the reading is inverted to demonstrate the author's assumptions and flaws in their reasoning. 

A silly example: "How can you feel sympathy for the protagonist of 30 Rock, Liz Lemon? She is clearly the villain of this show! She holds out for a perfect partner but refuses to act decently to the people she's in a relationship with, she sees herself as a model of liberal values but compromises them consistently, she asks for sympathy from others but cannot produce a sympathetic reaction from an audience that literarily interprets her actual actions in the narrative at 30 Rockefeller Plaza."

The ultimate end of the act of deconstruction was the discovery of "aporias": a conundrum, a paradox, a irresoluble impasse in an inquiry. When reading a text against itself, it inevitably breaks down.

The signified butts head with the signifier

According to Derrida, and taking inspiration from the work of Ferdinand de Saussure, language as a system of signs and words only has meaning because of the contrast between these signs. That is, being subjective, the text has no fixed meaning, so when we read, we are prone to misread. 

D&D is a great example of the breakdown of meaning inherent in a text.

The meaning transcends the author's intent, evolving into a new form with repetition, reinterpretation, and the cultural context in which the text lives on, lives longer than the author. 

Gary Gygax scoured books of mythology for monsters to put into his rules for fantastic miniatures campaigns. He found the word "kobold" and described them as "a type of goblin" (more or less true, in a folklore sense). As supplements accumulated, there were a preponderance of goblins. To differentiate them, Gygax and other authors who came after, put flourishes on the description or art: the goblin had a dog-like bark, or was dog-like, or was horned. The art of the "doglike kobold" was put into the computer game Wizardry, which was a big hit in Japan. While kobolds had further evolutions in America, where D&D3E described them as lizard like, Japan continued with their depictions as dogs. Divergent species on two continents.(For a full discussion on the history of kobolds as a monster in D&D, see Knock! issue 5, forthcoming.)

There are many such cases. Many monsters don't resemble their folkloric counterparts ("trow, or drow, a type of troll" has become "sexy dark elves."). The terms "bard" and "paladin" have outstripped their source material (how can there be paladins without a Palatine Hill?). Even the more modern pulp fantasy inspirations have become misunderstood. What was referential in the text with a wink and a nod for the author and the audience of 1974 is unknown to the modern audience. Obvious references to the alignment patterns of Poul Anderson, the magic swords of Michael Moorcock, the magic systems of Jack Vance, are now obscure to the majority of players. 

Now, when you say "kobold" to an American fantasy adventure gaming enthusiast, the original meaning of "a type of goblin" is gone. If you show them a picture of the kobold in the book that Gygax found the term originally, they say "That is not a kobold." 

Deconstructing D&D

Critics of D&D (of which I am undoubtedly one) have practiced a cottage industry of deconstructionism for many years. Because gaming is mostly a hobby industry not an academic tradition (yet), this deconstruction is mostly done by instinct. Astute readers can tell that a close reading of the text of the game (we'll table the conversation of "where" the text of the game is - game manual? play culture? conversation during play? - until later) reveals inherent contradictions. 

The game says this, but really that. 

The game says its about heroic fantasy, but the heroic actions players are called on to make include "killing pregnant orcs so that the newborn orc will not trouble you later," aka, literal war crimes.

The game says its inspired by fantasy stories (the game is like Tolkien! Howard! Vance!), but the narratives of the modules don't have the same storybeats. Instead, the storybeats are more reminiscent of Westerns, stories loaded with manifest destiny colonialization subtext.

The game says its set in a medieval time period, but the essential touchpoints are all anachronisms (rapiers are Renaissance, the ships depicted are all Age of Sail, and taverns are essentially modern).

We do not name this action, or couch it in literary terms. But both RPG enthusiasts and RPG detractors have unfairly criticized D&D using deconstructionist techniques since its creation.

Unfairly, I say, not because the critiques of D&D are wrong, but if the same techniques for reading against the text were applied with the same rigor equally, every RPG would break down as well. 

However, the methodology for reading against D&D's text is applied so regularly, the components of the argument have become folklore for the RPG community. And people, when learning how D&D's text breaks down when you apply these arguments, think its a problem with D&D. 

It isn't. It's just that you learned the formula that makes that specific compound break down. There are stronger acids out there!

My point

Let me backtrack a minute. I'm not a deconstructionist, and I'm not really making any big claims about the approach. 

I'll quote the somewhat dismissive Khan Academy introduction on deconstructionism: "Junior misreaders worked away, becoming ever more like C.I.A. operatives, decoding false signals sent by a distant enemy, the writer. Deconstruction exalted itself with ever higher pretensions. ... Deconstruction transformed everything into social commentary, easily making affinities with sexual and racial politics, two other militant philosophies that challenge the sanctity of text."

RPG criticism is still fairly nascent as a lit crit movement, and most people doing it are hobbyists not academics. It would be unfair to criticize this labor, especially because it comes from a place of genuine interest in RPGs as an art space. The point of this blog post is not to do so. 

I'm trying to say: If you are interested in RPG criticism, there are traditions of literary criticism (etc.) that you can start from. That by studying literary criticism, you might arm yourself with the vocabulary to use to express your ideas more clearly. By reading other approaches to text, you can say "Aha, of course, that is what I meant all along! I'm so glad someone else has had this thought before and understands me!" 

Different Character Creation Methods at Different Times

In many RPG books, character creation is right in the front of the book to give the new reader a sense of what the game is about, help them picture who they'll be playing and what they'll be doing, and discuss character-facing rules (hopefully with references to fuller explanations later in the book). 

For veteran players, the instructive "new player" language of this character creation section is often glossed over. They've made 100 characters at this point, sometimes just for fun. They don't need the support structures of walking through a character step by step. Indeed, perhaps they have learned advanced strategies--which feats are best in their group's play style, how to create synergies between choices, and so on.

Fair enough.

But what if this was more explicitly part of the game? What if...

• New players or a group starting a new campaign would use one set of rules (new players | new characters)
• If your character dies mid-game and you need a replacement, you use a separate procedure to quickly roll up a new character and jump back into the action (lost adventurers); and
• If your character gets to a high level, you can choose to retire them. Your next character uses a different procedure to create a higher-level character to join the existing party (veterans).

Additionally, all three tiers might have fundamentally different character options!

Let's dig into what this might look like.

Note on system

Throughout this post, the system I'll be using to illustrate my point is Beyond the Wall (frankly, my favorite OSR game). I think it already has some of the best character creation rules out there, and I think riffing on the paradigm would be rad. 

In case you're unfamiliar with the system, here's an example of what a character playbook looks like to get you on the same page.

New players | new characters

If you are new to the game or if you are starting a new campaign, you'll use these rules.

This set of rules is probably what you're used to seeing in the chapter called "Character Creation." 

• It's coded for new players
• It assumes you're starting at level 1
• Explicitly associates players with each other; player characters designate how they know each other, establish bonds, why they're adventuring together, etc.
• Equipment comes in flavorful packs tied to a character's backstory
• Fewer choices to allow for new players learning the system

Changes to the rules

Characters that you create using this procedure are the baseline for the campaign setting. This here procedure is for regular walkin', not fancy walkin'. For example, you can only create humans + fighter, thief, magic-user, and cleric.

In a Beyond the Wall paradigm, use the character playbooks from the Village in the core book: Self-Taught Mage, Untested Thief, Village Hero, Witch's Prentice, Would-Be Knight, Young Woodsman.

Lost adventurers

If your character dies midgame, you want to leap back into the action as soon as possible. It wouldn't make sense to use the normal playbooks: oh, and it's me, your friend from the village, the Young Woodsman. This isn't the time for Merry and Pippin to join the campaign, this is the time Faramir, Captain of Gondor, to show his quality.

• It's designed to get the player to rejoin the game as quickly as possible; mostly random generation
• Character start at level 1, but have a calibration mechanism to "catch up" with the general table level
• Includes some contrivance for the character to show up and join the adventure

Changes to the rules

Characters you find chained to the wall of the dungeon waiting to be released and join the party have an opportunity to be weirder than the people from the Village. Here, you can introduce character options that are further afield from the baseline: elves, dwarves, princesses, talking dogs, etc.

In Beyond the Wall, you can use playbooks that include Dwarves, Elves, Halflings, the Nobility, and even the "Normal Bear" playbook. I'd edit them to cut the "You know the person on your right because" worldbuilding questions and replace them with d100 - Introductions for Newly Minted PCs In Medias Res. 

Veterans

When a character reaches a name level or completes a satisfying arc, I think it's fun to retire them. Why would I go adventuring at this point in my character's story? I did the quest. Let me put my blorbo on their farm with their wife and live happily ever after. But I, Josh, still want to play the game.

These rules are for players who have mastered the game. 

• Characters start at a higher level
• Characters are built in a bespoke way, picking and choosing traits, feats, and equipment from a list
• Start with a number of randomly generated minor magic items to represent their previous accomplishments
• Starting level, wealth, magic items, etc., based on level of retired character

Changes to the rules

Characters that join the game at a high level have an opportunity to serve as mentors to lower level characters in the same way that veteran players can teach newer players how to play the game.

In Beyond the Wall, unlocked characters can be made using the character creation rules from the book instead of being created via playbooks. Options from the Elders playbooks can be made available: the Dungeon Delver, the Dwarven Mentor, the Initiated Magician, the Landless Noble, the Learned Tutor, the Retired Veteran. Let these characters start with higher level spells and some magic items from the expansion books.

Closing notes 

His Majesty the Worm does this, kind of. New characters get XP to spend on cross-Path talents for every XP and arete point your retired character has. Making a character to join a game already-in-progress allows you to utilize a "quantum character" where you answer questions about your talents, what's in your pack, etc., as it comes up during the game. I could have leaned into this harder, though. Perhaps a second edition paradigm advancement?