The DM with Two Brains

It’s a busy life DMing a session; even more so when you’re trying to keep kids in order as well. Sandbox sessions with their extra workload of extemporising from sketchy notes at a moment’s notice leave little time for keeping an eye on how the players are organising their character sheets, hit points, resources, oil bombs, magic item charges etc, etc.

To begin with, I sweated it all; I kept one half of my mind on what was going on behind the DM’s Screen and the other half on whether the party’s thief had remembered that he’d picked up a +2 short sword, +4 v Undead three months ago and should be using it, or making sure that the noobs used the right dice, or that everybody had taken their second bow shot that round.

After a while, I began to realise that this second role wasn’t really that important; if the players, who had been gaming for several months, couldn’t keep track of their magic items, or forgot to maximise their attacks, that was not for me to worry about. If the magic user cast more spells than they were entitled to, or the fighter used the Large damage dice when the target was Man-sized, the world wasn’t going to come to an end. My responsibility was to keep the adventure on track, make sure I used the right monster stats and delivered an enjoyable session for all (within reason).

Of course, I have an advantage – I have two brains.

I’ll explain. When Team Adventure first started, Mummy Grognard sat in -  partly to chaperone the first two players and partly to see what this D&D thing was all about. As the campaign progressed, she became a true part of the team, actively recruiting for places at the table and keeping things under control when the lads started to get distracted and perhaps a little bit…well, laddish.  As things have got more involved, I’ve also allocated her the role of caller so that we don’t have five boys trying to shout over each other in order to get the DM to listen to them. She also keeps track of the magic, gold and XP I hand out and makes sure that at the end of each session, the players’ totals are up to date, accurate and confirms if anyone has levelled up.

All this and sorting the pizzas and milkshakes as well. All praise to her for what she does and the way she stays cool under pressure. To assist her further, I’ve printed out her spell book and a contents page so that she can check more quickly what her magic user can do, what effect it has and how long it lasts without flicking through the entire PHB each time.

In a way, her administrative activities in keeping five boys under control and organised lift a heavy burden from me and ensure that the game progresses fairly and enjoyably. She also manages to bifurcate her MG and Elysia personae very effectively.

Has anybody else had experience of situations or groups where one player clearly takes over part of the admin for the DM? Did it work or was it eventually more trouble than it was worth?  Or are all your players superbly organised and need no administrative support?

Are children intuitive railroaders?

A couple of years ago, I was reading an article which discussed the tendency of children to ascribe purpose to everything and pondered if this effectively hardwired them to a theistic view of the universe. Whilst that is in itself a very interesting article and worth a look, it’s not what I want to discuss today, although I have purloined and slightly altered the title.

The recent account of the Christmas dungeon run by Junior Grognard will have shown just how railroady it was, although this is not to take anything away from his achievement in writing it and running it. All I’m saying is that there was a specific goal, a pre-determined path and no substantial deviation had been planned for.

This surprised me at the time, since he and his friends have been playing a very sandbox, player-agency driven campaign for a number of years and I had thought that this playing style might have rubbed off on him to a certain extent. The reasons why it hadn’t intrigued me.

It may be that since birth, children are exposed to story, either in the written format or in the televised version. The stories they encounter in this fashion are very linear; A leads to B, leads to C, concludes at D. There’s no concept of the possibility of alternative outcomes; the text is inviolable, created by an unseen source, presented as a given. When children begin to write or otherwise create their own stories, they often adhere to the beginning-middle-end format, not necessarily examining motivations but letting actions fuel their narratives. Indeed, to change anything about the narrative alters the end and this is not something that children find easy to contemplate unless alternative resolutions are addressed by a specific exercise. 

Since the emergent story is often hard to discern from the pre-planned, pre-existing version whilst running dungeons, particularly if the DM is skilled in making random events mesh seamlessly into a coherent and unfolding experience, the existence of other ways of creating stories may not even be apparent to child players. That the party was ultimately victorious against the giants in the fire chasms seems to them a logical outcome, their destiny fulfilled. Something that was always meant to be. Returning to the nexus points where specific decisions turned an entire adventure onto another (and unexpected) track can show how player agency affects outcomes but it seems not to sink into the child mind.

Another possibility is that sandbox is by its very nature formless, unpredictable and places a large amount of responsibility onto the players for their own fates. I don’t know about your family but in my experience, a childhood is not often the place where there is a lack of predictability, a feeling that anything could happen (good or bad) and a whole shed load of personal responsibility dumped on a child (well, not until they get into their teenage years.)  Junior Grognard gets up at a particular time, goes to school at a particular time, eats what I buy and cook, goes to bed at a particular time, takes holidays we choose, has specific areas where he enjoys freedom and others where he knows not to venture (often involving hot, fragile or sharp things). That might seem controlling but he’s only nine and he’s the only one we’ve got. Asking him to suddenly take on the responsibility for the choices, actions and fate of a character, even a fictional one is a big leap. It’s possibly why players become more adventurous in their teenage years as they begin to realise that what they do affects what happens to them and they are allowed to do more. A campaign where there are few choices, things are set up so that they know where they are going and the outcome is predetermined does give a fair degree of security.

There’s also the possibility that the child’s mind as it grows is just not equipped to handle the kinds of uncertainty and choice that sandbox presents. It’s documented that the frontal lobes don’t fully integrate into the brain as a whole until the early twenties. These are the parts of the brain that deal with outcomes, judgements and controls a person’s impulses and emotions. Being able to make informed choices from a range of options and to estimate the consequences of those choices is much harder without fully formed and integrated frontal lobes.  However, whilst the frontal lobes are the parts of the brain that take longest to develop, the nucleus accumbens is a part of the brain that plays an important role in reward and pleasure. Children are biologically prone to seeking out experiences and activities that give the most reward for the least amount of effort; one reason why child RPG players are very easy to hook with shiny magic items and piles of treasure, leading to XP!

So, given the preceding, is it worth running sandbox games with kids?  Should we just switch to adventure paths where the amount of player input is minimalised?  I’d say no; my players, as I’ve said have been adventuring in a world where, unbeknownst to them, events are being driven by the choices and actions that they take. That they don’t entirely realise the mechanics behind the world in which they are playing is immaterial; the philosophy of choice, player agency and lack of constrictive DMing is seeping into their still-forming minds and come the day when they can handle the concepts that underlie sandbox in its purest form, they will be ready for it, rather than addicted to the quick fix and the easy option.

That’s my take on the issue; I’d be interested to know if other DMs who play with kids in their groups have encountered the same things or if other evidence is going to blow my hypothesis out of the water.

Untimately's 20 Questions - and my answers

I've had a glass or two of wine tonight so I thought I'd have a go at the twenty questions to be found here. These answers all relate to my current Team Adventure campaign, where rough edges have been hammered into shape so that the kids don't catch themselves.

Ability scores generation method?
3d6 in order. Three times. Pick the best character. There is no other way. Alternative methods are heresy :)

How are death and dying handled?
Characters can die but there is always a chance to get them raised. If they want. I usually rule that only damage that takes a character down to lower than -10 in one round results in deader than dead. Anything between 0 and -9 renders them unconscious and they stabilise at 0, unable to do anything until healed.

What about raising the dead?
5000gp per raise and there’s usually a favour to be done for the clerics

How are replacement PCs handled?
If a PC is deader than dead, the player is offered the option of raising or rolling a new character, who is often started at perhaps two levels behind the average for the party

Initiative: individual, group, or something else?
Individual and that goes for the monsters too

Are there critical hits and fumbles? How do they work?
Crits are “Roll a 20? Then roll again and if you exceed your ‘to hit’ then you do double damage. If you roll another 20, you decapitate the monster”. Fumbles, roll 1, roll again, if you get another 1, you lop either your own limb off or do some baaaad damage to a comrade

Do I get any benefits for wearing a helmet?
No. Kids have enough trouble remembering their XP without faffing around with helmet bonuses

Can I hurt my friends if I fire into melee or do something similarly silly?
Of course you can.

Will we need to run from some encounters, or will we be able to kill everything?
Engage, ignore or retreat. The choice is yours. Just be prepared to live with the consequences.

Level-draining monsters: yes or no?
Yes. So remember the ‘retreat’ option.

Are there going to be cases where a failed save results in PC death?
Already happened

How strictly are encumbrance & resources tracked?
The former on a very casual basis, the latter less often unless the party is in the wilderness for over a week. My reference to kids and their shaky attention to detail refers.

What's required when my PC gains a level? Training? Do I get new spells automatically? Can it happen in the middle of an adventure, or do I have to wait for down time?

No training, but the PC won’t gain any new HP or spell capability until they “get back to town”

What do I get experience for?
Monster kills, gold pieces, good ideas.

How are traps located? Description, dice rolling, or some combination?
Mostly description but only if the party say they are looking

Are retainers encouraged and how does morale work?
It’s not come up yet.

How do I identify magic items?
Cast Identify

Can I buy magic items? Oh, come on: how about just potions?
Of course you can’t buy magic items. If people have them, they cherish them for the rare and wondrous things they are. Then they swap them with their friends and forget that they have them. (sigh)

Can I create magic items? When and how?
When you are a very powerful wizard. So not yet.

What about splitting the party?
I tell them not to, but they ignore me. And they pay.