Why Alignment is Flawed and Several Ways to Fix It

I remember when I first sat down to try D&D for the first time, there was so much to take in. It all seemed interesting, and I struggled to keep it all in my head at the same time. The classes called to me, the feats beckoned to me, the table of weapons sang its siren song--but one thing struck a different tone for me. Classes and feats and tables are about combat and other abilities. But the two things that broke through the overwhelmingness of it all: the section on gods (I still remember all these years later that the pages for the gods in 3.5 could be found on pages 106-108 in the Players Handbook, so often did I reference it) and the section on alignment. The gods thing made immediate sense to me. Here was the first real taste in in-game fiction I saw, and it showed me this glimmer of hope that I wouldn't just be hack-and-slashing monsters, but also in a rich fantasy world. But the alignment fascination vexed me. What was so interesting about a 3x3 grid? 

But it did stick with me. As I got more experienced with the game, I started seeing my characters and others' player characters and NPCs alike as a question of alignment. "Why did that NPC do that?" "What's going on with my party mate?" "What would my character do in this delicate situation?" These questions could be addressed with alignment. "That NPC is Lawful Good and wouldn't tolerate that behavior." "Their character is Chaotic Evil and can be unpredictable." "My character is pretty Neutral, so I guess this action is in character." It seemed to have answers, and more importantly, interesting answers, and more important than any of that--alignment added philosophy to the game. I had been cheered on by seeing the gods section because it meant fiction. But philosophy would mean engaging on a whole deeper level. And so I became, admittedly, a little obsessed. With friends, I would attribute alignments to literary characters and tv show characters and even occasionally bizarre people. I would make challenges as a DM that would stress my players' characters' alignments. I reveled in discovering the expanded 5x5 alignment chart because it was even more complex and interesting. Right?

To a degree in certain situations, yes, it absolutely does. I remember reading the graphic novel Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons in grad school, and my friends and I assigned alignments to each main character; it required us to really think about the complex and sticky moralities of deliberately obtuse characters which we'd needed to learn inside and out. It was a good little exercise. And for beginner D&D players and especially younger D&D players, alignment is complex enough to yield some fun observations and help players roleplay. But for experienced adult players, alignment usually starts to get a little off the more you look at it. Allow me to use an example via one of my characters to show how alignment sometimes falls more flat than it does add interest and nuance. (And yes, I did write about how to understand D&D alignment in the past; I've reconsidered alignment's role in the game after some reading and conversations about the topic.)

My most recent player experience was with a character who turned out to be my favorite I've ever played: Asp, a clever con artist with a complicated past and little tying her down to any one place.  By the time the campaign ended, that character had changed paths and became a healing-focused cleric just dying to help people. So I reasoned that she began with one alignment and changed alignments as we went. To start, I reasoned that she was Neutral, otherwise called True Neutral. My idea was that when it came to Good and Evil, she neither particularly enjoyed helping people nor did she go out of her way to hurt people--this is the alignment definition of Good and Evil. And with Law and Chaos, she was a fairly organized planner, but she also thrilled and succeeded by improvising when necessary; she was neither particularly Lawful or Chaotic. But I arrived at True Neutral by elimination. Was she really a neutral observer? Not really--she took action in others' affairs constantly. Did she take no stance on things? Not usually since her cons required firm positioning on matters. Did she advocate or fight for some middle path? Absolutely not--she was unconcerned with any agenda aside from a comfortable survival. So was she True Neutral? Not in any meaningful way. 

And when Asp changed paths? She became a committed and daring healer who constantly helped others with problems besides sickness or injury. So she was Good, and that was pretty inarguable. Every action she took was intended to help people or to maintain good things for people. That's out-and-out focus on helping people, the alignment definition of Good. But the Law and Chaos axis was even more complicated now. Lawful indicates that a character lives by rules and order. My character lived by the code that helping others was always the best thing to do. That is a pretty Lawful behavior. She also had come to exist within the world of legal action rather than evading legal detection, and the comfort she found in living freely and without fear put her towards Lawful. Chaos, on the other hand, means that a character makes decisions not by a code, but what would be individually best in that particular situation. And as it turned out, she did always choose to help people, but that was the only rule she lived by. She still lied to and manipulated people she perceived to be evil. She made her choices about each individual situation based on the context, not a rule. She was still the improvising, unpredictable woman she'd always been. Those traits are all pretty Chaotic. So does that make her Neutral Good? But doesn't that obscure the fact that she lives by this heavy and important code and also thrives on disorder while really thinking through every situation? To me, she's not Lawful enough to be only Lawful, Chaotic enough to only Chaotic, or Neutral in any way that matters. 

[You might be saying, "But what about that 5x5 alignment chart? Maybe she'd Social Good or something." To which I say, if the characterization of this character shows her being very Lawful and very Chaotic but not Neutral, the 5x5 chart doesn't fix that. It's an averaging of moral positions, and that's not how we understand people.]

So if alignment is flawed, so what? Why should that matter? It's just a silly nine-option grid; we can't really believe that it describes human philosophy well. I've met plenty of people who really do see alignment as solid and unshakeable, and I say that as someone who myself fixated on alignment for a long time. And it's honestly a loss. Asp is a character I got to play after immersing myself in roleplaying tabletop games for more than half my life. I've gained a confidence that I can know my characters well enough to ignore the alignment chart instead of asking "What would a Chaotic Good character do here?" But if I'd still been a beginning player? Asp would have been a struggle to play. I'd have been trying to apply an alignment label to her that didn't fit, and that would lead me to make choices that weren't really her. And given how radically important Asp has become in my life, the thought of her being any less than she is would break my heart. I really do believe that players making roleplaying choices based on alignment are shortchanging themselves in this way. The alignment chart just isn't complex enough to give real philsophies to characters. 

So what do we do? I'll be the first to acknowledge that alignment isn't useless. When a character is just a rough outline, still a sketch in your head, and you don't entirely know what motivates them or where they draw certain lines, alignment can be like the bumpers they put up at bowling alleys. Feel your character designing and brainstorming going into the gutter? What does alignment say about it? It's especially helpful for first-time roleplayers, but anybody can benefit from thinking about their character with a little conceptual help. So I'm not saying to throw out alignment because it doesn't need to be there--not at all. Most players really benefit from some guidelines about how the imaginary scenarios in the game relate to the real world, and something like alignment can achieve that. So here are four possible ways to get around alignment's narrowness and put some philosophical frameworks in the game. [Note: These are arranged from simplest to most difficult to manage, but all should be within reach of a veteran TTRPG player, and several should be accessible to a beginner.]

1. Look to the Class/Species/Beliefs You've Already Decided On 

I recommend this as the most basic option because it tends to require the least high-power thinking possible, and I also note that this option is fairly meta--it requires you to use what you know about D&D clichés and then either embrace or subvert them. What I mean is this: you've already chosen some element of your character--maybe a class or a species or whatever appealed to you--so ask yourself what that detail might say about your character. If your character is a Barbarian, for instance, you imagine what a Barbarian would be like in the gameworld. A common cliché about Barbarians is that they're hulking, stupid, aggressive, and uncultured. So perhaps your Barbarian will be like that. They are violent, and they really don't know much about polite society. What does that tell us? It tells us that your Barbarian might be loud and brutish, perhaps intimidating on purpose, may have little idea of table manners. And those things tell us what matters to the Barbarian--they think physical strength is a virtue, they think power over others gives them the right to treat others however they like, they find polite society pointlessly convoluted and prefer to spend time in nature--things like this. You could end up with a stereotypical character, but they'll still be fun to play, and you'll have arrived at their philosophy without trying to shove them in a box they don't fit in. 

There are other ways to approach the cliché, though. You could go the opposite route with your Barbarian and break all the stereotypes. Now your Barbarian is well-read and plays the violin. Although they're talented in combat, they hate fighting and don't want to start a fight. They've read the great philosophers and believe in the unity of all people brought together by one common cause. They've trained their combat prowess so that they can defend the common people and try to spread culture so others can become enlightened. Or you could take a middle road, and your Barbarian becomes a meeting of opposites. Now they love to intimidate and threaten people, using their physical strength to get what they want, but they're also incredibly well-respected in high society as a connoisseur of arts and writing. Their values are different now--they're really all about themselves, using their prowess on the battlefield and in intellectual arts to gain renown and power. So now the Barbarian is actually more selfish than ever (arguably), but they also buck the cliché with Barbarians. 

The process isn't entirely over at this point. We have some broad conceptual information about what matters to them. The downside of this approach is that it won't yield as complex a philosophy as some of the more complicated approaches, but this is also something that just about any player can do without practice or experience. You'll still be missing a direct statement about your character's philosophy. My best recommendation would be to then move onto the next option in the list, Five Values, using this step as brainstorming. But if you're new, developing a character quickly, or just trying something new out, this is a good place to start. 

Briefly--I know it probably sounds like I'm positioning this method as nonideal, but it really just suits a purpose well. I recently got invited to play a one-shot over text message and told to roll a character. I said to myself, "I've never played a Druid, and I want to try." And so I went with a bunch of really straightforward stuff for Druids--my character, Daylight, is good with plants and animals, has keen senses, and regards herself as a protector of nature. This is direct information from the class info paired with the common cliché. But I wanted her to be really deranged--I thought it would be a fun twist. So I took the Haunted One background and made the rest of her personality and philosophy reflect her trauma, her paranoia, and her intentional hiding from society in nature. So while Daylight does play into the common Druid thing of loving and protecting nature, she also has this deep darkness in her that I don't really imagine with Druids. She's afraid. She's unable to control her social interactions after years of hiding away from everyone. She doesn't really trust anybody. In the one-shot so far, she's come off as capable but unpredictable and just kinda off. I got to that point for a quick improvised character using this method, and it took about ten minutes. It's not a bad method if you can use it right, and as I said, new players, quick characters, and experimenting with character creation are all excellent places to work from character design to philosophy.

2. Five Values

This is a relatively simple way to guide your character building and some roleplaying in early sessions with a character. Once you have a general concept (be that name, goal, fighting style, backstory, or whatever appeals to you), ask yourself what your character feels about the following five values. 

a) Do you trust yourself to accomplish something more alone or with a team?

b) Once you have decided on a course of action, how do you react when it is blocked? 

c) Would you go out of your way to help someone for nothing in return?

d) Do you regard tradition as something important or restrictive?

e) How much would you be willing to sacrifice to achieve your goals?

These five questions don't cover every philosophical stance that might come up, but take a close look at these questions. A gauges a character's individuality, and that's something that comes up in TTRPGs constantly--knowing if your character will go out of their way to work with others, or to avoid it, will matter, and it will also impact how much your character trusts others. B shows whether the character is principled, determined, or even obsessed with their own convictions; it also captures a little but of the Law-Chaos axis's concept of how much someone sticks to one idea versus being versatile. C does admittedly handle what alignment does with Good-Evil, but without the baggage--calling a character Evil or Good is very black-and-white and doesn't tell us much meaningfully about the character, but seeing if a character is considerate, selfless, or noble is a better position to brainstorm and roleplay from. D gets at one of the more interesting elements of Law-Chaos, tradition versus rebellion, which is a very important thing to have in a game that routinely has longstanding traditions; this iteration of it also allows players to see past the often confusing Law-Chaos association with laws of the land to this more important and interesting note about your character. And finally, E asks just how committed to their big goals your character is. We often create characters with these overarching, massive quest-sized goals like "restore the honor of my family" or similar things, but with Asp, I really went in with just the intention to make enough money to be comfortable and get some social power out of it if I could. For her, sacrificing for her goals would never serve her because her goal was comfort. I would know this about her while brainstorming if I used the Five Values, but alignment never would have revealed that to me with its focus on narrow philosophical issues. 

It's important to note that these questions should take time to answer. Not only that, your answers may change as you keep brainstorming and playing. This is a simple method of cracking your character's philosophy, but it is not necessarily a quick one. Really give yourself time, and I promise that you'll have a better sense of your character's mind and philosophy than if you tried to pigeonhole your character idea into the alignment chart. So while it's a little abstract, that's actually a strength--philosophy is abstract.

3. Hypothetical Situations 

This is an extension of Five Values in that we're going to take the idea of that type of question and make it more specific. Then, after we've considered a handful of hypotheticals, we'll be in a position to better understand our character. It's important to note that the biggest difference between Five Values and Hypothetical Situations is how you, the player, have already started to imagine them. Five Values is good for people with very little idea of who their character is, so the vagueness of those questions lets them answer in a way that immediately gives you the character's philosophy directly; your answer to those questions is the defining point of the philosophy. With Hypothetical Situations, you'll need some idea of the character's personality in at least a broad way, but you'll need to work to derive explicit values from them. I know that makes it sound like two disadvantages, but some people tend to work this way. I personally often have ideas for characters' personalities before I settle on a class or anything mechanical, so this method works well for me, and it may work well for you too. 

In terms of the hypothetical questions themselves, my foremost recommendation is to use character questionnaires. Here are three that I really like along with some notes about each, bearing in mind your enjoyment of the list is the most important thing.

• 365 Character Questions for Writers and Roleplayers by Heather Grove - This is the questionnaire I recommend the most for this exercise. It's true that it has a great amount of questions, but I must say that the kinds of insights you'll have with it are exactly what this method is about. The questions are organized as a calendar, one question per day, and the whole year of questions does a great job of both shedding light on the humble details (Does your character typically remember her dreams?) and the very sweeping details (What are your character's beliefs about death and the afterlife?). Notably though, many are hypotheticals that are excellent for both philosophy and more general personality (Your character wakes up to find a poisonous spider on his pillow next to his head. What does he do?).
  
• The Mother of All Character Questionnaires by Roleplaying Tips -  This massive list is not entirely focused on hypothetical situations, but many of the questions outright ask about your character's beliefs, morality, and preferences in life. That is not to say that there are no hypotheticals; most of the second half of this long list are questions which directly ask for opinions, positions, and tastes on various topics, which does the same as a hypothetical. It's worth noting that this questionnaire includes very big questions (Did you ever become disillusioned with a former hero?) and very small questions (Do you cook your own dinner?), and you'll note that both of these questions give some pretty interesting details on your character, how they live their life, and what matters to them.
  
• 100 Warm Up Questions by DND Speak - The questions here are less hypothetical situations and more detailed questions about your character, but they achieve the same goal. Many of these, though, are questions about your character's past and tastes, and these are essentially hypothetical situations posed in your character's past (What would you character have done in terms of their greatest mistake?) or hypotheticals that are very specific about feelings on things (What makes your character feel safe?) which could be answered in a variety of ways, all of which show some of your character's philosophy.

So once you've answered these questions, you'll already have a pretty good idea of your character's values. But those other details, too--the small notes about what their everyday life is like, the childhood memories, and the reactions in hypotheticals--they'll have formed the foundation for a real personality and philosophy.  And from there, you'll be able to start making explicit statements about philosophy: since my character would do this in this situation and that in that situation, I can tell that they believe this and that. It's a more labor-intensive process, but it's intuitive for some of us, and the results are certainly more comprehensive than the alignment chart.

4. Magic: the Gathering Colors 

This is actually the main idea that got me started on this article. I was reading on tumblr about Magic: the Gathering's take on alignment in a long thread with many contributors, and you can and should check out the source for a more comprehensive amount of detail than I can or am going to give. This is an idea that's new to me, but its obvious strengths make it something I really want to use and spread around. First, though, the basics. What's going on with M:tG alignment, and how is it different from D&D alignment? 

Well, the chart layout is quite different. D&D alignment uses three rows of three, meaning there's an up-down axis and a left-right axis. With the M:tG layout, though, there are five axes instead since it's set up like a big star. Here's what it looks like drawn out (credit to the original thread), where the five colors all have axis relationships with two of the other colors:

There's a lot to take in about this alignment chart. One thing that will be immediately obvious is that it's far more complicated. That's a big strength! Morality and values are complicated things, so having a system that honors that is important. You might need a moment longer to recognize that there is no good vs. evil axis at all. In fact, the only vestige of the D&D alignment chart that remains in this one is the order vs. chaos axis between White and Red. In other words, even just at a base level, we've eliminated the overly simplistic measure of "good and evil," maintained the order vs. chaos axis for a number of reasons (including that these ideas are core to these colors in the game), and introduced four more axes to measure your character on. That is, to me, a huge improvement already. 

Now, the thread goes into considerable details on how one might apply all this, especially via examples of how each color treats certain hypotheticals (see, they're very useful!). What I'd like to focus on instead is really breaking down this alignment chart and getting into how to really think of it for characterization use. We've got a pretty good understanding of order vs chaos--especially if you read my earlier primer on D&D alignment, which focuses on law vs. chaos--so let's just follow that around the circle and really get into it. 

If we follow White down towards Black, we see the group vs. individual axis. This is an important idea in terms of who a character is and how they act--so important, in fact, that my first question in the Five Values section is about that topic. How should we understand this beyond basic introvert/extrovert stereotypes? This is larger than a personal preference. In the world of M:tG, White is the color of empire and spreading the order of the other axis to expand groups. This is a cultural fact, so many White-aligned characters will have been raised with group-held power, and they are less likely to even think of working alone. Conversely, Black is the color of individual people and creatures, who for various reasons avoid trusting others (if others are also individualistic, they may not be trustworthy in a group; the other Black axis is exploitation, and avoiding exploitation means avoiding people; you can pursue your own goals more easily by yourself than when forced to cooperate with unlike-minded people). So this is again a culture fact. Truly, all these axes are culturally ingrained. So a through-and-through White character will be more comfortable in ordered and grouped situations because that's what their society values, and Black-aligned characters will likely feel more comfortable working alone if only because that's what they're used to. Note: groups can do morally "bad" things like spread fascism, and individuals can do morally "good" things when they align with the characters' desires. There really is no measurement of good or evil, nor are any axes better in one direction than the other. 

Let's keep going. Black leads up to Green on the exploitation vs. preservation axis. Just to get right to it: yes, "exploitation" is not meant as a necessarily bad thing; more on that in a second. So Black values exploitation, meaning being willing to take something from a place or being rather than leave it as it is. Green wants to preserve things as they are, for better or worse--maybe it's the balance of nature or an isolationist tendency, but Green is strongly opposed to taking from someone or something. Characters aligned with Black live in a society that tends to take the most direct route possible, even if that mean putting others at a disadvantage; Green (which can grow anything it needs by itself) wants to preserve things as they are so that growth remains constant. (Don't judge the Black-aligned characters too hard--they live in harsh and dangerous swamps with no plenty to rely on.) And to again address "good vs. evil": leaving a sick and dying person or patch of land to die could be seen as heartless, but that's Green's preference, and interfering in a volatile situation that others find too unstable could mean a Black-aligned hero could be the only one helping someone (even if only for their own gain). 

Green then leads over to Blue along the nature vs. nurture axis. Green's nature perspective argues that we are the way we are because it's in our nature to be that way, and what nature creates is in its best form. Blue instead believes that we are what we make ourselves into, and we are responsible for perfecting what nature created. [I'd like to note that in our real world today, we don't often explicitly discuss this issue, so it may seem like a small matter to make an axis of. However, nature vs. nurture is at the heart of a lot of big issues: why people's genders and sexualities are what they are, how people succeed in their careers or not, and many scientific questions too numerous to address all deal directly with this matter.] So while Green might look at its most marvelous figures and places as wonderful innately, Blue would say that its most important figures became that way through effort. Really think about how different societies would be if they chose the opposite ends of this spectrum as one of their most defining features. Green says you do what you're suited to do, and Blue says you earn your way into what you do; Green says honor what nature made, and Blue says change the world to fit your dreams; Green does not allow others to harm what exists now, and Blue cannot allow things to stay the same. It's easy to see how neither of these is more "moral" than the other--they just disagree on how the world works and how like should be lived. 

As we follow the last axis to Red, we see reason vs. emotion. To me, this is a fairly loaded axis, by which I mean that people tend to see one of these as fundamentally better than the other, and usually, they prefer reason because it seems like the "right" answer. So I want to make a brief aside about why emotion is important too. We chase happiness. We avoid sadness. Bad feelings make us self-destructive, and good feelings validate the work we did to find them. Emotions rule our lives as much as reason can and should, so don't count Red out on this quite yet. Anyway, back to Blue and Red. In M:tG, Blue is focused on knowledge in many ways, even when it's forbidden knowledge; Red chases emotions, whether that means finding a positive feeling or being driven by irrationality. On that note, one can be emotional and knowledge-focused at the same time; they're less opposites in the way order and chaos are and more opposite sides of the same coin. So Blue is raising people in a culture of "know, don't feel," and Red is opting for "follow your feelings." Like nature vs. nurture, this one is clearly amoral. 

Those are the axes; what about each color? White is order and groups, the power of unity and empire. Black is described as individualistic and exploitative, truly the home for lone opportunists. Green is preservation and nature, the isolationist who wants only to keep doing the same thing. Blue values nurture and reason, making it the force of understanding and shaping the world. And Red is emotion and chaos, often volatile and always following an inner compass. This is, you'll note, far more complex than measuring with the 3x3 alignment chart. 

You might be thinking, "Yeah, that's neat, but how do you actually make a description of your character? Aren't the five colors you described less than the nine options in the D&D alignment chart?" I haven't mentioned one crucial detail: you can pick more than one color, blending the values. I'll explain this a bit more and then give an example. So we're trying to make a color-based alignment for a character. We ask ourselves how strong our character's feelings and values are along each axis. Some spectrums will be somewhere in the middle, but some are likely to have extreme answers from your character. Let's say we have a character who revels in the idea of shaping oneself who also wants to shape the world with those who agree with them. That would make this character a candidate for a White-Blue perspective, valuing the order of imposing one's will on an imperfect world through sheer determination and know-how. This might also help to reveal that this character will have strong disagreements with Green- or especially Red-aligned people. And if you're only just building this character (like this guide is intended for), you now have plenty of deeper values to delve into when it comes to Blue and White lore from the M:tG world if you so choose. Even if you don't, a White-Blue perspective would put your character down for positions on four out of the five axes. You could even choose up to three colors if that fits your character, giving them a position on all five of the axes. That is inarguably more complex, interesting, and useful than a "Lawful Neutral" alignment, which could be argued to be the closest D&D's alignment system can get. 

The promised example with another appearance from my character Asp. She began as a con artist and became a healer, and in D&D's alignment system, she was Neutral and then Chaotic Good. (Neither feels right still.) So let's give her a color alignment instead. In terms of groups versus individuality, she's pretty strongly aligned with individuality. In all of my time writing about her and playing with her, she's always most comfortable working alone, whether because she couldn't trust others before or because she doesn't want others taking dangerous risks afterward. In terms of exploitation vs. preservation, she did have a strong position towards exploitation before when conning people, and as a healer, she is constantly intervening with the natural order to preserve life--she leans strongly toward exploitation. With nature vs. nurture, it's absolutely clear to me that she's about nurture 100% of the way. She taught herself to con, and she changed who she was later on--that's absolutely a nurture preference. With reason and emotion, she again has a strong leaning--she's a feeler. As a con, she had to live on tiny social cues and best guess rather than reasoning things out, and as a healer, she needs to connect to her interior emotional space to connect to her goddess, so strong leaning to emotion. And finally, order vs. chaos. As a con, she had rules to protect herself but thrived on improvisation and experimentation; as a healer, lives by a code by worships a chaotic goddess and still is that quick thinker she was before. But in either case, she'd want others to be able to live however they please--so a bit of a learning toward chaos. Let's review and give Asp an alignment: 

Individuality, exploitation, nurture, emotion, and chaos. If we glance at the alignment chart, it turns out that Asp is a very Black-Red character with a touch of Blue. Now I want to really drill this point home: Asp ends up a passionate, selfless, and pretty legendary healer. She's a heroine to basically everyone who knows her, and one of the novels I wrote about her includes a journey around the world fixing the wrongs she made as a con artist. That is an unambiguously heroic and moral person . . . who also happens to be Black-Red, which an incomplete understanding of would make her sound like a villain. But it measures her values on a more complex scale! She's ambitious and cunning and emotional and wild--that's reflected by Black-Red. None of that is covered by "Chaotic Good." And in case you missed it in that last paragraph, Asp's color alignment didn't change at all between her being a con artist and a healer. This system actually got her personality across with these axes of values, and I find that incredibly impressive. So again, for more detail on the M:tG lore and hypotheticals, check out the thread that inspired me, but for now, I'm sold on this method, and I hope you give it a try.

Honorable Mention: Write About Your Character

This option is kind of so out there for a lot of people that I didn't include this as a main method for characterization, but it's worth mentioning after how beneficial it's been for me. It's more or less an extrapolation of the hypothetical question scenario, except you are making the hypotheticals, and you're taking the time to go into narrative detail rather than give a direct answer. Obviously, this is a big investment of time and effort. But let me refer back to Asp one more time; I wrote a few short stories about her which turned into a novel which turned into four novels, and I can promise I know her mind and values inside and out in a way that "Chaotic Good" would never approach. For more details on this, you can check out how using writing helped develop this character.

Why Open Writing Functions Better Than Closed Writing

A few themes come up again and again on this site--the value of player agency, creativity's importance in tabletop games, and how much fun it is to get to shape a world as you see fit as both player and GM are some of the most prevalent. And all of those are key components in what I want to talk about here. Open versus closed writing accomplishes all of those, while closed writing often creates impediments to them. When I say open versus closed writing, I'm talking about how open-ended the structure of a game is. A closed-writing game says "here's a situation, and here are the one or two things that can be done to resolve that situation." An open-writing game instead says, "here's a situation--use your best judgment as a GM to determine whether your players' actions resolve the situation." In a lot of gaming writing, particularly modules, the open or closed writing feature can make or break a player's experience. The advantages of closed writing are clear--you can set defined parameters on what player actions "win" a scenario and which do not "win" or even "lose" a situation, which cuts down on the hard GM work of deciding what works and what doesn't. Some closed writing works reasonably well--combat encounters either end with the enemies vanquished or the players dead, and that's fair. But when roleplaying and creative problem-solving are at play, closed writing is often frustrating and confusing--the players have to think exactly like the writer of the game, which is a lot more like video game gameplay than tabletop gameplay at its best. So I'd like to make an argument for why open writing is the superior option, whether you're writing a module or just notes to guide a homebrew session. 

What got me thinking about this was a module I played with my wife earlier today. I've been DMing a campaign with her as a character for several months--she plays Aurora in my Of Gods and Dragons campaign. And she knows that as much as I adore GMing and managing campaigns, I also get a big kick out of being a player when I can, so she offered to run a short module from a game manual she really enjoys. (I won't name the game manual since most of what I have to say about it is critical.) We'd actually been planning to play the module for several months, but life got crazy--as it does--and it kept getting pushed back. But we finally found the time today, and I was eager to jump in. The module calls for a three-person party as a minimum, and I had created a group of three adventurers I was to control throughout the module. I created an academic bard deadset on discovering a topic worth writing about to gain professorship at her academy, a shifty warlock with a criminal past trying to take advantage of helping the bard search for her work, and a stoic druid who'd escaped military life and tries to support nature while using her one nonviolent skill--being intimidating--to avoid more outright bloodshed while protecting the group. Eager to get started, we dove in. 

It was fairly fun, but again and again, my wife would listen to my choices and shake her head, staring at the module pages. "I didn't expect you to make that choice. There's nothing in here about what to do if you do that." The first time she said this, I laughed--I had gravitated towards a question to help a lonely animated figurehead of a building, and I could see where ignoring some of the weightier quests offered in the manual might be something of a wrench in the cogs. But as we kept playing and I kept hearing that my choices went beyond the module's writing, I started to get frustrated. It seemed that the module only allowed for one solution for each situation, and none of the solutions required (not suggested, but required) were very obvious to me. This was compounded by the fact that I had been told this was a roleplaying-heavy module, and I was handling every scenario by roleplaying as my excitable academic, my smooth-talking guide, and my weary druid guard. We really ran into a dead-end when my guide was fast-talking a troublesome NPC who he did get the better of, but the NPC was written to immediately wipe my memory if I did so. I was very soured on the experience immediately. 

Let's really delve into this situation. I had a charisma-based character who used his interpersonal skills to investigate one of the module's quests and who managed to figure out something notable that would advance that quest. But the module did not intend for me to resolve the situation in this way, and so it instructed my DM to undo my progress. This is to say, I came up with a way to use the game mechanics within the spirit of the mechanics themselves to advance a questline, and the module told my DM to make it as though I had never done that in the first place. I felt defeated. I was roleplaying, I was thinking strategically, I was pursuing the quest, and yet that wasn't enough for the module. I had to do it all in specifically the way that module wanted me to. That's not the tabletop game world I know and love. That's a puzzle. And a single-solution puzzle with hundreds if not thousands of decoy pieces that don't help even if they do fit the puzzle at that. I was unhappy with that particular moment, but we carried on, and I hoped to come up with a different way to solve the puzzle that would be more in line with the module's required solution. 

But again and again, we encountered moments like this one. I would encounter a situation and do what seemed obvious to me, but it would vex my DM because it violated what the module wanted. At one point, I obtained a quest item and thought that the NPC who was infatuated with the other NPC who'd lost the quest item was the obvious solution; I gave it to the infatuated NPC to give to the questgiver to make them both happy. This brought the game screeching to a halt. In fact, I had done something that invoked three different quests and resolved none of them as desired, meaning that I closed out half the module's quests in one action, bringing all three questlines to less than ideal outcomes while closing them to further actions, and one of those questlines was the overall story arc of the module, meaning I essentially failed the overall module, and all because I hadn't asked the right question of the right NPC at the right time so I could know not to do that. And I had obtained the quest item by luring the NPC who'd stolen it into a desolate cave to kill him (he had been scamming and hurting the whole setting for years, and I reasoned that killing him would prevent him from going off to do the same to some other location); it turned out he was a god in disguise, and my DM had to nerf his hit points to a third of the intended level so as not to enact a certain party wipe. (As it was, even with the reduction, I barely survived the encounter at all.) In other words, a random NPC was secretly a god, and the only way to have known this was to break into his private room, find a well-hidden journal, decode it from a secret language, compare it to another hidden text, and speak to the correct NPC about it in order to discern he couldn't be messed with and had to be revealed to the module's population, and even then, I see no reason why a god would simply admit defeat rather than push down harder on the location to maintain his position of power, making killing him the better option anyway. And what's more, the module was designated for levels six through eight, and even four eighth-level adventurers would stand no chance of killing him as written, meaning that the module had a secret condition that the NPC couldn't be defeated except for solving this elaborate and counter-intuitive puzzle. 

To zoom in again, I botched the win condition for half the module by doing something that seemed pretty clearly indicated by the writing, and I should have lost (and would have if not for my DM's quick adjustments and kind heart) because I attacked a lone NPC who was secretly a god unless I made several assumptions that didn't make sense to make. In other words, I unwitting failed the main quest and two other storylines and committed to a suicide mission despite thoroughly investigating the location and the NPCs in it because I didn't divine the exact methods I was supposed to use as determined by the module. To put it bluntly, I was dissatisfied with this adventure. I had a great time roleplaying with my wife, and she made a lot of the failures of the module less frustrating through adjustment--this is true. But the whole point of closed writing in a tabletop game is that the GM is supposed to trust that the module is well-written and well-considered and shouldn't have to make constant adjustments nor improvise hundreds of pieces of new dialogue and reactions from the world when a player does something that makes sense on paper. 

[You may be saying to yourself, but this site has a collection of one-shots. Are you claiming that all of them are one-hundred percent open writing? Not precisely--several of the one-shots I've published here do occasionally push things in concrete, sometimes binary directions that might mean a lot of improvising on the part of the GM. But all of the one-shots that do this are based on movies, and they require some adherence to the movie's plot (and my reinterpretations) to maintain a resemblance to the movie itself. I'm not saying they're perfect--all of them are as much experiments in adaptation as they are genuinely finished tabletop RPGs. But in nine cases out of ten, I'm making them open writing in the sense that anything that the GM decides works, works. The module I'm criticizing here explicitly states that there's only one way to resolve these situations, and that's the bone I'm picking--they're purely closed writing.]

So how could this module have been improved by open writing? Well, briefly put, by trusting the GM to interpret and make choices. I have, in my career as a tabletop game player and GM and game designer, bought relatively few actual TTRPGs. When I do purchase one, it generally tends to be something with a lot of open interpretation. I've never purchased, downloaded, or played a one-shot or campaign written by someone else. Too often, that content features closed writing like the module I'm talking about here. What I opt for are radically open writing games. The manuals for these games are traditionally pretty slim--there's a few pages devoted to simple rules, a few pages about ways to define your character, and a few pages on the lore that impacts the world. These kinds of manuals are traditionally heavily filled with illustrations and have less than thirty pages. It's literally just enough to define the rules and the setting and then grant the rest of the game to the GM. This is an extreme example of granting the GM trust to guide things. But there are also modules that can grant this trust, though they tend to be pretty rare. Some of D&D's earlier modules from the late 1970s and 1980s so this--"here's a situation and who's involved--figure the rest out yourself" tends to be the approach. And before Wizards of the Coast took ownership of Dungeons & Dragons, this was actually the industry standard. I'd go so far as to say that most non-D&D game materials tend towards open writing in that they are more designed to inspire GMs than prescribe to GMs. That's a generalizations which isn't universally true--some D&D materials are more open and some non-D&D materials are more closed--but the generalization is largely true in my experience. 

So what leads game materials to be written in a closed fashion? I'd argue that it's not easier to write a closed adventure--that makes considerably more time and effort than open writing where you can just tell the GM to figure it out themselves. It's also not necessarily from demand--there are countless closed writing game materials out there, and it can feel like more work to find open writing materials a lot of the time. I think the answer is that the core belief of closed writing is that the developer of the materials can come up with something more interesting, compelling, and complex than what a GM can do on their own. And I don't like this position, which I doubt regular readers will be surprised to learn. The strength of closed writing is to say, "here's a situation you won't think of and how to make it satisfying for your players." The parallel strength of open writing is to say, "here's a new way to think of gaming, and I think you should explore that on your own." What this means is, a closed module capitalizes on an established game (hence the popularity of modules for D&D), while open modules are meant to push the boundaries and promote creativity from GMs (hence the popularity of open writing in original games). But even that is a generalization, and it's not the thing that I want to take away from all this.

Open writing promises an opportunity to explore a game as you see fit as the GM; closed writing promises a way to rely on something that's finished without having to do all the work yourself. And that's the hidden secret failure of closed writing. The module I played earlier with my wife was very closed--each quest had one hidden solution with infinitely more "incorrect" approaches than the single "correct" approach, the extreme of closed writing. And if the goal is to provide something that's interesting, compelling, and complex like I mentioned above, we've failed. It's not interesting to play as a game would could just as easily be a novel. It's not compelling to be forced into one way of thinking. And it's not complex to have just one right answer. Closed writing wants you to think that it's giving you a shortcut to good GMing. But it can't do that. The only way for a closed module to be rewarding for players is to have a GM who heavily edits and improvises, and at that point, they're forcing the closed writing to be open writing by ignoring vast chunks of it to reach the players. 

So why not just go with open writing to begin with? I find again and again that players of tabletop games would be great GMs if they tried, even when they're unwilling to make the leap and try it out. The skills are basically the same--creativity, improvisation, imagination. I argue that the difference between an intermediate tabletop game player and a good novice GM is the willingness to try it out. And the difference between a novice GM and a strong intermediate GM is just experience. So, basically, an intermediate player and an intermediate GM is basically just some moxie and a few game sessions apart. 

One of the refrains of this site is the value of homebrew. I preach the extreme of it--craft a world and NPCs and missions and everything else. But I also advocate for a piecemeal approach--take the established things you like, add your own ideas, and go wild. My first games as a DM were in nameless, faceless places with undeveloped NPCs and only a vague idea for quests. What I was good at was responding to the players. And if you can bring an interesting idea--more than I brought to my early games--and bounce off your players, you'll be figuring it out and almost certainly bringing some joy to your players. The worst that can happen is you realize you don't like GMing, at which point--at least you tried and you know now. But the potential rewards are enormous--you could be well on your way to a point where open writing is a welcome invitation to your own creativity and closed writing is something you can adjust and fix with ease. 

That's all for now.

That's all for now. Coming soon: alternate methods to understanding your character's philosophy beyond alignment and guides to clans amongst the Faninites and dwarves. Until next time, happy gaming!

General Mapmaking Tips

I have a passion for making maps for my homebrew setting. But I'm not an artist--I can't draw a beautiful map by my own hand. Instead, I've learned to use photoshop to create maps that achieve the look I'm going for. This does have its own challenges. I've described the general process before in my guide to making campaign maps. That guide, my most popular article on this site as of the writing of this, covers the step-by-step process of how to start with some reference images and end up with a cohesive map. But recently, I grew frustrated with the world map I've been using for the last fifteen years. I decided to revamp that map, and I'm happy with the outcome. 

This map is a recreation of my main continent, Evanoch. When I first started DMing in a serious capacity a decade and a half ago, I had created a very basic map of the continent which I was almost immediately unhappy with: 

The thing is, this older map achieves what I needed at the time. It's functional. It was easy to make. It allowed me to (1) know how to picture my world in a concrete way, and (2) communicate the basics of the location to my players. I don't regret making this map, but it made me sad because I conceived of Evanoch as a beautiful, thriving, diverse place, and the map doesn't show that. It only shows outlines. I wanted something that would capture the feel of my setting, hence the updated map. 

So in celebration of creating this new map, I thought I would share a few general tips on how to make maps like it, things I learned in the process of making this one in particular. I would say that the original region/campaign map article is still the best place to start for learning how to use photoshop to make a map, but this guide will help you take things further and offer some insights on how to focus on a continent map. 

One thing I am very pleased with is the borders of the continent. In the old map, I used just smooth lines to outline the continent, but real coastlines don't look like this. Real coastlines are rough and choppy. When I created a continent map for my wild west setting, I used a real island map and rotated it around to give me a basic shape: 

But Evanoch already had determined boundaries, and I was never going to be able to find a map that looked enough like it to really have a map that looked like Evanoch. So I improvised. I took a coastline map I found online (I searched for "coastline map") and made many duplicates, editing the copies into the shape of Evanoch and erasing overlapping segments. Here's what the process looks like: 

A single fragment of the coastline reference.

An edited addition to created a peninsula on the map.

A mirrored addition to continue the coastline south.

I continued this process for all the map landmasses until I had duplicated the approximate shape of Evanoch as I had already designed it. This is basically an extension of the process I used to create the tree shapes in the campaign map, copying and rotating the reference image until I had the shape I wanted. 

My favorite thing about this is that this new map makes Evanoch look a lot more like a real place. The wavering coastline gives the appearance of a realistic location, and the coastline process was genuinely one of the easiest parts of making this map. I would argue that hand-drawing a realistic coast is difficult, frustrating, and not terribly rewarding for people without the gift of being artistic; duplicating real coastlines to create the borders of your continent is relatively simple, easily customizable, and has a lovely finished look. 

Perhaps my favorite part of the new map is the forest appearance, particularly that of the Liggen Forest in the northeast of the continent. I took a very different approach than I did with the region map because this map's intention is not accurate depiction of geographical features--instead, it's meant to give a sense of the actual appearance of the land there in terms of plant life. So you may notice that each of the several forests in the map have different looks--that's to reflect the different types of trees in each location. Let's talk about the forest appearance. 

 

 

To start, I searched for "forest silhouette" and found this set of similarly-styled depictions of an evergreen forest skyline. I separated each into different layers so that I could work with them individually. This was done so that the look of the trees would be varied and not a repeating pattern that would be visually repetitive or bland. I then selected the pixels of each layer, created a new layer, filled the new layer (still the original's pixels) with black paint, used the "select->modify->contract-> 3 pixels" option, made sure I was selecting the new layer, and deleted the smaller shape. I then deleted the original layer and erased the bottom of the resulting shape, leading to just an outline like this:

This was the process to create individual treelines. But obviously the entire forest had much more, so I repeated the process again and again, adding more treelines on top of the existing one so that the layers together would create the impression of a dense forest. Here are several treelines together to show the collective effect of even just a few:

This is the process I used for all the forests. The northeast for this sprawling evergreen forest, there are rainforest silhouettes in the southwest, the northwest got deciduous forests, and the elven islands of Mishara are signified with mangrove trees, which are genuine to their location.

One thing I did in the map for Ramsey, my wild west location, was created different color schemes for what was land and what was water. In the first large chunks of time I spent on the new Evanoch map, I hadn't done that, and as a result, the map did not look very good. I wasn't sure that I would differentiate the water from the land with a color scheme--I wanted the map to look like a sketch. But this was something I realized needed to be done. Take a look at the difference between the flat one-color map and the water-darkened design: 

As you can see, this is a big difference. In order to create this effect, I did some steps which were simple and others which were more difficult. For starters, I used the eyedropper tool to select the color of the land and then chose a darker color in the same palette (simply picking another color in the same field without moving the color spectrum slider), creating a new layer to hold the darker color and using the paint bucket to fill in the new layer. This was simple. The harder part was getting the actual oceans, rivers, and lakes to look darker than the land. Had I created a design where the rivers attached directly to the other geographical features (like connecting the mouths of the rivers right to mountain ranges, I would have been able to use the magic wand tool to select just the connected water areas. Honestly, if I had created a layer cutting the rivers off (using a copy of the rivers, not the original) with a brush line, I could have achieved that effect. But I was enjoying the detail work process and chose instead to hand-erase all of the water areas from the land color layer, which was labor-intensive and time-consuming, but it allowed me a lot of control over the look of the water borders. Either approach would work and be valid, so it's all about what you prefer. 

One thing I had forgotten about the mapmaking process was how much time is spent re-doing some things. It had been a while since I went for a hand-drawn look with a map, and I had never created a map like that starting from an established design like my original ugly world map, but this map meant lots of finessing. I stretched river and forest boundaries well past the edge of the continent's edges in order to give myself leeway to create borders later on, and that meant that once my coastlines were in place, I needed to do a lot of erasing to make the lines all meet up. With a passion project like this, that's part and parcel of the game. It's better to have to erase a too-long line than to have to extend it later in the process, so know going in that you'll be revising throughout the process. 

One decision I really labored over was showing the lake and river lines. My first draft of this map prioritized forests, which meant that I would draw river lines up to the base of tree shapes and then have the river disappear, reappearing beyond the treeline. But as I continued, I realized this was (1) not realistic since the trees would not grow in the rivers, and (2) fairly ugly because it looked so busy. I ended up redoing most of the rivers in forested areas to address this, and I'm happy with how it came out. But this is another way that revising will enter the equation. I spent about an hour and a half redoing something I spent two hours doing that I decided I did like. I mention this because committing to the finished project, even if it's frustrating, it a part of the process. 

As I did with the campaign map article, I drew up little city icons for each of the ten most important cities in my setting so that the cities weren't just dots on the map. With the campaign map, I was still developing the Eastweald, and the look and feel of cities wasn't already established. This meant I could just use interesting designs that looked good and rationalize that that's what those cities look like. But with this map, I've been building and playing in these big cities for fifteen years. There's a determined character to each one. So I wanted to do something that really fit the city individually. Here are a few examples:

This is Talon Gorge. In my world, Talon Gorge is notable because it was the site of the first serious campaign I ever ran. Talon Gorge is characterized by a high clocktower at the center of seven independent districts. So for the image representing Talon Gorge, I found an image that had a tower, and I added a little clockface while tracing it like I explained in the campaign/region map article. The original image only had two other buildings, so I pulled up another reference image on medieval buildings and traced five more in to represent the seven districts. 

This is Vestry. Vestry is the gnomish capital and the most populated single city in my setting. To represent this, I wanted a really bustling, dense city image. I scoured references for fantasy cities until I found one that looked really populated and architecturally diverse, and I was pleased with this result. I really like the look of this massive city in the middle of the Liggen Forest, suggesting how much space it really takes up. 

This is Torga, another city very important to me--it was the site of Listen Check, the podcast I did in 2010, back when D&D actual play wasn't really a thing yet. Torga is a thriving port city, so I made sure to find an image that had a dock (which I expanded from the reference) and a ship that I could have in the ocean beyond the city. Seeing this simplified dock system and ship with the little city reminds me of all the time spent in Torga's waterfront, not to mention Aurora, a character in my now-current campaign who spent time as a sailor stationed there.

Finally, here's Kruush, the orcish capital. It's worth noting that Kruush is not one of the biggest cities in the world. Even smaller cities which lie between the major cities on the map have more people than Kruush. In my world, a massive elven-orcish war decimated two-thirds of the orcish population, after which a huge diaspora sent most remaining orcs away from the homeland to seek a more peaceful life elsewhere. But Kruush is still the most politically important orcish city and the only real major city in the southwest of Evanoch, so I wanted to include it. You'll notice that the city design is basically just huts and shacks around a campfire to represent the continued tribal tradition of the orcs who remained. 

The finished product of this mapmaking process makes me happy. I spent a decade and a half using a rough, unrealistic, and ugly map whenever my players wanted a sense of the world, and I really hated seeing it whenever I would need to reference it for some geographical issue. Taking the time to really nail down a better version will serve me for a long time, and I'm glad I committed to making this map. Here's the finished version with city labels (they obscure some of the land features, but it's the sort of thing that adventurers might use to get settled in Evanoch):

As always, my big advice here is that spending time working on your homebrew setting always yields rewards. I know that having a visual reference for geography and city feel has helped me connect more with my world, and there's some worldbuilding I got to do as a result. I also realized how dense populated the eastern half of Evanoch is compared to the west--I had kind of vaguely known this, but seeing how tightly packed the east is and then the huge stretches of no cities in the west has cemented that and given me some ideas about how to run things in my world. In any case, having a pretty map to share with my players will make me happy for years to come, and I'm proud of the product of this work. 

That's all for now. Coming soon: why open writing is better than closed writing, alternate methods to understanding your character's philosophy besides alignment, and a guide to clans amongst the Faninites. Until next time, happy gaming!

Expanded Thieves Cant

One exciting but underutilized feature of the rogue class in D&D is the ability of thieves cant. Sometimes, DMs make use of thieves cant by describing a criminal ally as speaking in a manner of code, and sometimes, the ability just gets overlooked altogether. But it's a truly interesting feature which can be used in interesting ways. One way I've utilized is by including it in my novel about my rogue player character. There have been various suggestions in the D&D world for what thieves cant really sounds like, but I had a fairly distinct idea in mind with my world. I've decided that these phrases are canon thieves cant in my world as well, and I'm sharing this terminology here so that you can use it in yours, too. Below is a list of 50 words and phrases with double meanings in thieves cant. 

And lastly, a word on using this material: I recommend having a character who knows thieves cant and suspects a party member knows it just immediately launch into thieves cant. This would mean leaving your players in confusion for a moment, but you actually want that in this situation. After you've spoken a bit in thieves cant, translate to the player character(s) who would have understood it, but remind the other players that their characters just think this person sounds a little off. Once thieves cant is established as an ability, you can allow the party to pass coded messages during interactions with other people. The players will have lots of ideas about how to implement this idea, so be prepared! And most of all, have fun. 

The word on the left is the word or phrase used in thieves cant, and the word or phrase on the right is its meaning in common speech. 

Criminal Terms

1. Baker - Criminal
2. Fingertip - Pickpocket
3. Statue - "Muscle"; an armed, dangerous ally
4. Shadow - Cat Burglar
5. Priest - Con Artist
6. Pursestrings - Mercenary
7. Buck - a "Mark"; a target
8. Bread - Payment or Spoils 
9. Cake - Coins
10. Rabbit - Jewels or Treasure
11. Clicks - Lockpicking Tools
12. Bit - Trap
13. Drain - attacking someone when they're vulnerable or unaware; to "Sneak Attack"
14. Toe - to move cautiously; to use "Stealth"
15. Bid - a successful lie

Communication - Thieves

1. "I've seen several hawks recently" - roughly "I speak thieves cant and suspect that you do too," to which the reply is "I have too--they are doing well" ("I do speak thieves cant")
2. "Weather's been kind lately" - "Hello, I mean you no harm"
3. "You look like you've walked a thousand miles" - "You look like you're in trouble--do you need help?" 
4. "I'm feeling foggy; could you repeat that?" - indicates that the person saying it does not trust the person who they ask 
5. "I recall a story from childhood about a witch" - "You are making things difficult for me, and I want you to stop"
6. "I was just reading about the dragons" - "If you go a step further, I will sabotage or kill you"
7. "Have you ever been bitten by a serpent*?" - "You seem to not realize you're in a dangerous situation"  [*it must be the word "serpent"--"snake" denotes an honest question about snakebites]
8. "I've heard your baking is delicious" - "I suspect or know you've just made a lot of money, and I want a part of it" (thieves will generally add "let me try your [foodstuff related to the reason for demanding a part ("honey tart" - poisoning threat, "oatcake" - blackmailing threat, "ginger snaps" - theft threat)]
9. "They built the fire too close to the tree" - "Law officers are aware of what you/we have done and are on the way"
10. "Quietly now, fetch a pail" - "Don't act alerted or suspicious; there is a law officer nearby"

Communication - General 

1. "Consider the tiny snail" - "Someone is watching us"
2. "The hound only has to catch the slowest hare" - "Someone is planning to target you with some attack" 
3. "Does the sun/moon [whichever is out] look especially large to you?" - "You seem to be feeling unwell--are you?" 
4. "Where did you go last fall?" - "Do you believe what we're being told?" ("I toured the countryside" - "I don't believe it"; "I stayed at home" - "I believe it")
5. "Did you play jacks as a child?" - "Do you think we can handle the situation we're in?" 
6. "I painted a fence a few weeks ago" - "Let me take the lead in this situation" 
7. "That book has more pages than sense" - "I think this situation is too good to be true" 
8. "If they know it, they have the gods' attention" - Whatever information the person is referring to is vitally important; it is implied that the person speaking is suggesting that everyone pursue the information
9. "A teapot with cracks is still pretty" - "We've done all we can, and it's time to give up and try something else"
10. "Stumps are still good for sitting" - "We're almost there and just need to push a little further" 

General Terms

1. Claw - Slashing Weapon
2. Tooth - Piercing Weapon
3. Hoof - Bludgeoning Weapon
4. Hide - Armor
5. Bug - Enemy
6. Vermin - Enemy Leader
7. Glass - Prisoners/Hostages
8. Dream - Monster
9. The Dance - Magic
10. Poke - Steal 
11. "Put Words To" - Lie
12. Flip - Kill
13. Handle - Heal 
14. Hold - Help, especially in combat
15. Mouth - Familiar/Animal Companion/Pet

There you have it--a whole list of words and phrases to use to spice up your game, add immersion, and feature your rogue characters. Or you could use this as the beginning of a much larger list that includes your own additions. It's all possible, but only when you choose to use it as it fits your game. Don't have any rogue characters but still want to use it? Introduce a rogue NPC who uses the language and then has to explain it to the nonfluent characters--it would still add detail and immersion without having a particular character to relate it to. 

That's all for now. Coming soon: pets by D&D culture in my homebrew setting, the 10 most important lessons I've learned as a GM, and parenting by D&D culture in my homebrew setting. Until next time, happy gaming!

List of Interesting Cities

One of the most exciting things as a player is visiting a captivating new place. These can take the form of amazing natural wonders, fascinating cities, and so much more. But building an interesting place from the ground up takes work. So I've created a list of interesting cities you can adapt to your game with just a bit of work. Please enjoy (and use) these cities!

1. Brewer's Dam

This city is situated at the end of a large lake partially created by the dam they built there. But rather than damming the river that runs through the lake and building nearby, the original settlers conserved wood by building the city into the dam itself. Over time, intricate loch systems have been built along the mouth of the river with floating neighborhoods connecting the halfway point of the lake to the city on the dam proper. On the ground at the dam's edge is a small outpost for travelers who find the floating inns to be unnerving, and the city's public office is located there for diplomatic matters, but aside from that, the entire city of Brewer's Dam lies on the foundation of the dam or on floating platforms connected to it. The woods nearby which had been cleared have mostly regrown now, and travelers who arrive in the dark often don't realize that there was a city there at all. Fish are cultivated, and foragers search the nearby woods for supplemental food. Rumors say that the scientists in Brewer's Dam are on the verge of harnessing water-power. 

2. Sky Bridge

This city took nearly three centuries to build, consisting of four tall towers which extend high into the sky. Each tower is made of alternating living quarters/shop accommodations and strengthening brick layers, and every few floors is a bridge to the adjacent towers to upper and lower levels as well as direct links across. Spiraling walkways with safety walls along the outside have been built around the outsides of the towers, allowing more direct transportation up and down. Neighborhoods are formed by tower and floor allegiances. The higher the home or business, the higher the respect afforded to it, and in fact, the highest level is occupied by Sky Bridge governmental officers. Because there is little ability to sustain the city through agriculture, the citizens of Sky Bridge have a complex system of trade relationships that keep the city reliably supplied with enough food for its citizens. Denizens of the lowest levels of the towers have largely resorted to hunting and gathering outside the tower rather than pay the notably high food price. 

3. Freedom Island

This city is a massive boat towing a series of smaller boats, each outfitted to carry the citizens and the necessary supplies to survive at sea. The main ship was to be the first of several like it to haul huge shipments around the continent, but when the first ship was quickly captured by pirates, the company producing the ships reconsidered, and the pirates' crew has managed to evade naval law for decades. Thus, the ship (renamed Freedom Island by its commanding crew) has remained a roving city on the sea, occasionally anchoring near land for personnel changes and supply trades. To sustain its people, Freedom Island has constructed mechanical improvements to standard fishing gear, allowing them to hook and land larger fish than conventional fishing allows for. The pirate crew in charge of Freedom Island maintains that it is an anarchic state with no governmental structure, but they also concede that all citizens of Freedom Island are considered liable for the defense of it against foreign powers. 

4. Lanshire-Down-Below

There are ghostly stories of Lanshire-Up-Above, the town which appears to be perfectly preserved and yet is totally absent of any life. It's a place that children dare one another to go, and one where they frequently fright before the dare is complete. It would not be so if they knew of Lanshire-Down-Below, a perfectly identical city built exactly underneath its surface sister city. Some legends say that the cities were built together, and others claim that one of the cities came first, though they disagree about which one. All that is certain is that one specific closet door in Lanshire-Up-Above hides a trapdoor which leads to a long, winding tunnel that ends in that same closet, but in Lanshire-Down-Below. Through that passage, the people of Lanshire-Down-Below occasionally contact the outer world for emergencies, but mostly, they stick to themselves, paranoid of surface dwellers' motives. They harvest mushrooms and lichens in the caves where they reside, and they hunt the dire creatures who live there too. 

5. The Failsafe

In the days of long-gone history, there was nearly world domination by [whoever you want, but let's say "elves" for this example], who at the height of their power built a series of forts. One was intended to endlessly defensible, a fortress that would never fall. It was called The Failsafe, and it was built at the center of the continent, where it would give the elves a permanent foothold away from their home territory. When eventually the period of war became a period of peace, the Failsafe's purpose was largely forgotten by its mostly new inhabitants. The fortress itself is a series of circles:

Failsafe as seen from above.

As you can see, an assault on the central fort of the city would involve fighting through three more walls as well. The city that has sprung up around the old fortress is a series of neighborhoods which utilize the former defenses into housing and businessfronts. No special needs for food are required, as the Failsafe is surrounded by lovely farmland. 

6. Kettleford Range

There are certainly cities along the mountain range, and even a few that make homes of plateaus along the range. But none have made use of the range itself like Kettleford Range. This city is built upon terraced foundations cut into the mountain range with great ramps stretching from the ground up the mountainside. The buildings (and the terraces they rest on are perfectly level, an achievement by the builders that cut the city into the mountainside. While many buildings are constructed of brick or wood atop the terraces, a great many that lie closer to the back walls of the terraces are cut directly from the mountain itself--that is to say, the buildings there are actually connected to and made of the same stuff as the ground. Kettleford Range stretches along over a mile and a half of the mountain range, and careful efforts at growing crops on newly terraced areas is proving effective enough that the city can reduce its reliance on hunting the native animals. 

7. Dijum

[Note: This city is taken directly from my homebrew setting.] Deep in the grasslands lies a massive rainforest, complete with humid, warm climate, exotic plants and animals, and towering trees. This rainforest is home to a great proportion of the unique wildlife in the world and is known as treacherous to travel through. In the center of this rainforest is a great lake, Lake Chalba. And in the center of Lake Chalba is an island, most of which is covered by the city of Dijum. Lake Chalba is considered to be a holy site of the beginning of sentient life, and Dijum has become the center for the pilgrims who go there. These pilgrims must first face the dangerous rainforest, but the city of Dijum within is calm, accepting to strangers, and idyllic. And yet threats from outside, from those who would threaten the peace and prosperity of Dijum do exist, and a collective of concerned citizens patrol the rainforest to tend to wounded travelers and keep an eye out for those who may jeopardize the city. Foraging provides all the city needs for food. 

8. Valcora

Off the coast are the volcanoes. Some say that their eruptions formed the continent we live on, but across the water lives a city unafraid of the volcanic activity. The city of Valcora rests on a plateau halfway up the highest of the volcanic peaks. The newly-built city was warned against by many, but a mass of headstrong builders and adventurers made their way across the sea in great boats carrying supplies, and though it took a generation, the city was built. It's rested there for a while--long enough for people to become complacent. They've become a trade powerhouse to accommodate for their diets, as nothing grows on the volcanic ground, and have adopted a fairly public system of distributing food fairly. A Valcora scientist says that the volcano may erupt in the near future and needs help investigating how to prevent it--your party can help. 

9. Desert Rose

The desert stretches for miles and miles in every direction, and practically no life grows anywhere in it. Anywhere except the Desert Rose, a sprawling city founded in the middle of a great oasis. Enormous farms span out from the city, a scattered collection of wooden, stone, and canvas buildings. Despite the hardness to come by certain materials, the city has gotten by on a sense of ingenuity and persistence. Many common items which have been difficult to get in the middle of a desert have been approximated with makeshift inventions and substitutions, such as the use of bone as a structuring material in place of wooden beams. And though the physical structure of the city may be modest, it provides a great many social amenities that other communities aspire to, such as a public playhouse, a library, and full school. The only real difficulty in Desert Rose is that the desert lies between two warring factions, which puts it between enemies in a lot of situations. 

10. Hapsfield

Most cities in this region tend to show off their use of nature in building their cities, but Hapsfield had different plans. The eccentric and very rich founder of Hapsfield absolutely detested the presence of plant matter on streets or horse droppings in public, so he insisted that all non-humanoid life in the city limits must be artificial only. At first glance, Hapsfield is a beautiful city with trees and flowers planted everywhere. But closer inspection reveals that each tree is a preserved tree cut off at the roots, each flower and leaf made of cloth. But even closer inspection shows that there indeed are animals in Hapsfield--birds in nests in trees, rabbits peeking out of bushes--only to see that even these are taxidermied and posed to look natural. Everything else about Hapsfield seems fairly normal, but the eerieness of the lack of life is hard to ignore for many visitors. Accordingly, the people who stay in Hapsfield tend to be the ones who have been there a while, where visitors seem to shy away pretty quickly. As a result, the population in Hapsfield has slowly declined, and there is considerable speculation in nearby towns on what will happen with its founder passes away. 

That's ten unique cities you can use in almost any context in your games. We've all done the same few "cool ideas" before, so why not try these twists? You never know what these ideas might add to your game or how your players will enjoy exploring a new place. 

That's all for now. Coming soon: an expanded list of thieves cant, pets by D&D culture in my homebrew setting, and the 10 most important lessons I've learned as a GM. Until next time, happy gaming!