Victims of Torture (Gaming Edition)...

Ok, so death happens in games.  That's a given.  But maybe there are fates worse than death, at least while it's happening.  And maybe instead of death, your character is tortured, whether at the hands of their enemies or even the long arm of the law...  

Torture.  The very word conjures up horrific images of racks, thumbscrews, and the iron maiden (not the band, we're good with that).  Humans are very good at hurting one another, that's for sure.  But as bad as we are, most fantasy worlds are inhabited by creatures that personify evil itself.  Think orcs and giants driven by cruelty and the love of violence.  Short of that, there's plenty of human villains who delight in the suffering of others, especially when they hold a grudge and a hated nemesis falls into their hands.

But it wasn't just the bad guys.  In a medieval society, torture was a tool of local law enforcement; and those caught stealing or instigating a barroom brawl might end up in the stocks (if they're lucky) or maybe receive lashes (not so lucky) in the town square. 

Which is to say, unlucky characters just might find themselves tortured... 

So first off, let's be clear that many tortures were really executions designed to prolong the suffering, although ultimately ending in death.  Here, the goal was to kill, and the best a victim could hope for was to die quickly or somehow be rescued.  And we'd be remiss in our duties if we didn't list a few here (not a complete one for sure, but a decent survey):

RAT TORTURES (gasp!) involved tying the victim flat on their back and placing an iron basket full of live rats on their chest.  Delightful, but we're not done.  Next, the basket was heated, causing the confused and panicked vermin to tunnel through the softest, most yielding surface (i.e., the victim).  Not a good way to die.  And it's easy to imagine sadistic GMs having a captured character subjected to this.  Maybe 1-2 damage per round until dead or rescued?  The thought of playing this out might seem unnecessarily cruel, but if the possibility of imminent rescue exists, why not pull out all the stops?

And there's the additional challenge that if the victim is recovered, they'll be injured and probably too weak to  walk (or maybe reduced to 5'-10' per round with help).  For the victim, troubles don't end with mere rescue.  And assisting an almost helpless friend through an enemy fortress teeming with alerted guards can be a challenging experience.  All of this is gaming fodder on steroids.  And the stuff of Game of Thrones and actual history...

SAW TORTURES were just awful.  Really.  The victim was hung upside down and sawed from the groin downward in hopes that blood going to their head would keep them from losing consciousness.  Ouch.  And while a daring rescue was theoretically possible, once the saw hits the pelvis, the victim is off their feet for weeks and, barring miracles, slowed (again, 5'-10' per round) and permanently out of the adventuring business more likely than not.  Just for fun, let's say 1d6 per round, with the pelvis breached after 1d6 minutes of work, which means it's definitely not for the squeamish or the faint of heart.  Or anyone, really...

Of course, other tortures were meant to extract intelligence, although the victim was often put to death once the desired information was obtained.  Standouts here include:

THUMB SCREWS were vices tightened around the thumbs (or other appendages) and gradually tightened until the subject spilled the beans.  Deliver 1-2 damage per turn of the vice (once per round as the interrogator plies their trade), with saving dice (vs. poison or maybe a wisdom/willpower save, where applicable) each round after the third to avoid saying too much.  And assuming the character is eventually released or somehow rescued, fine manipulation is out of the question for 2d6 days (+1 per turn of the screw).

Finally, and perhaps most relevantly, other tortures were designed to keep the victim alive and deter future indiscretions.  This was often the case with law enforcement or in the military, especially, and most infamously, the navy.  And the big winner here is:

FLOGGING (feared by all) was administered by having the victim's hands tied to a post, baring their back, and then having at it with a whip!  Typically, it was something like 20 lashes.  Enough to get the point across, but not enough to kill, although it probably did feel quite a bit like death.  Assume here 1 damage per blow, and if the victim gets to zero hit points, they fall unconscious.  Barring magic, a flailed victim cannot easily walk without some assistance, per the above, or perform any feats (fighting, stealth, or spell casting) for 2d6 weeks, pretty much putting them out of commission.  Oh, and they cannot heal more than 1 point per full day of rest.  Period.  Gives a person time to think, doesn't it?     

Now imagine a band of marauding orcs attacking a party, triumphing, and robbing them blind.  But instead of killing them, they string up one unlucky character, administering the lash before departing with their possessions.  Now this really is the stuff of nightmares...

Of course, all of this is just a survey.  There were many methods of torture.  Too many, unfortunately.  But the important takeaway here is that (1) torture happened, (2) it had lasting physical impacts, and (3) it was clearly traumatic.  And if your game seems right for this, torture is an alternative to death, albeit a terrible one, and a source of gameplay challenge!

On the Origin of the (Demi-Human) Species...

Face it, most of us in fantasy games (sci-fi is another matter) imagine humanity, and the various non-human races, as products of a special creation by their gods.  Mankind has many competing deities, so it's easier to see them as them arising through natural processes and being fought over.  But demi-humans, perhaps by virtue of their more homogenous pantheons, almost have to be specifically created beings.  But do they really?

This week, we explore the idea of demi-humans as the products of evolution :    

DWARVES arose well before humanity (but after the elves) from a species of cave-dwelling hominids (subterrapithecus) selected for survival underground.  Their tool-making abilities were put to use expanding the natural caves they called home and shaping them into what they would become.  Given their mining prowess and racial love of precious metals, they've excavated far from their place of origin, digging deep and going north.

ELVES evolved before dwarves or men from an arboreal (and probably nocturnal) primate species (silvanopithecus) in steamy jungles.  Their need to evade enemies and navigate the treacherous canopies selected them for greater speed, keener senses, and their superior empathy for the natural world.  This allowed them to master magic and the ability to employ signs, symbols, and certain material components in the endless pursuit of it.          

GOBLINS/ORCS, like dwarves, are subterranean and probably evolved from a cannibalistic variety of cave-dwelling ape (the foul horridipithecus), although some speculate that their subsequent evolution was shaped by evil magic.  This fact probably accounts for the many humanoid species inhabiting the underworld and their aversion to light.       

HALFLINGS are a variant human species that are reproductively non-compatible, although in Pits & Perils, hill dwarves (i.e., halflings) are a completely dwarven strain.  

Of course, the GM can flesh this out as their campaign requires, perhaps going so far as to introduce remnant populations of prehistoric demi-humans.  But what about the supposed gods?  Perhaps they, too, were the products of evolution who ascended over time and sought mortal worshippers for whatever reason.  Worship has its benefits, after all, among them the fact that the soul, untethered at death, can reach the afterlife with surety.  The possibilities are endless, and the GM can decide how to map the trajectory of their own setting's history...

The Sad End of a D&D Era (in Art)...

In my 39 years of gaming, I've seen a lot of artwork.  And as far as D&D is concerned, I've identified discrete periods that define the illuminations of the game:

THE CORE RULES (1974): To call the art in the original D&D rulebooks amateur is an understatement.  Sub-amateur better fits the bill.  The pictures alternated between clever doodles and stuff that was clearly lifted from Marvel Comics.  But there was a primal charm as well; one that conjured images of enthusiastic amateurs making their own fun.  Fun, incidentally, that transcends the physical appearance of the finished product.

Although the artwork depicted fantasy, it wasn't necessarily a fantasy that mapped well to the game's subject matter, and it never defined the experience in my mind.

One of my favorite images from
the original rulebooks.  It really nails the intro...

THE SUPPLEMENTS (1975-76): Starting here, the artwork got better.  The illustrations depicted specific monsters, like beholders and umber hulks, as well as adventuring parties plugging away in the dungeons.  The amateur aesthetic was still there, but these were talented amateurs, including the likes of David Sutherland (!), who, by now, were heavily involved in a hobby that was developing its own culture and conventions.

This, to me, in D&D's true artistic history.  The artwork was wedded to the game's subject matter while preserving a sense of enthusiastic amateurs doing their own thing.    

THE HARDCOVERS (1977-79): At long last, the work laid out in the supplements was gathered into a coherent whole.  The expanded ability modifiers (Greyhawk), assassins and monks (Blackmoor), and druids, demons, and additional magic items (Eldritch Wizardry) coalesced into a complete and unified system that would define the state of the hobby for the next decade.  The production values were excellent, and if you'd been using the original booklets and photocopies of Dragon Magazine articles, the new hardcovers were mana from Heaven.  Artwork-wise, Dave Trampier joined Sutherland, among others, to offer up a balance of professional delivery with an amateur ethos.  And it really worked...  

By the supplements and early AD&D,
the artwork began to capture its subject matter and
did so with an amateur flair that underlies
everything that makes our hobby feel accessible...

Imagine getting really into D&D in 1980 and seeing the same artwork you remembered from the booklets your first DM (a guy I'll never forget) had in '78.  Ancient history, man...

MAINSTREAMING (1980-1988): Here at last, we see the Great Schism: D&D and AD&D and all the legal horseshit that followed.  But it sure did yield some great art:

THE B/X SET (1981): Jeff Dee and Bill Willingham (by then, TSR staff artists) introduced artwork that was increasingly professional while preserving an amateur ethos, and Erol Otus delivered his trippy art for added flavor.  There were others, but these stand out...

THE BECMI SET (1983-85): Larry Elmore's art came to predominate by now, with Jeff Easley and (much later) Roger Raupp adding their own flourishes.  Fewer artists meant less variation and, overall, the rulebooks were increasingly slick and well-produced.  The visual link to the game's distant past was severed at last.  A precursor to the next edition...

Elmore is (rightly) held in high regard, but I've always thought his stuff looked too much like He-Man with too many nods to 1980s fashion.  Sorry about that!

Wait, is this from He-Man?  While
obviously talented, Larry Elmore's art never
really clicked with me.  Perhaps it was
D&D's growing outreach to younger players and
it's departure from its amateur past...   

As the decade wore on, Elmore, Easley, and others came to predominate in the AD&D lexicon and finalized the game's transition into a fully professional context.  Fortunately, these artists had already been a fixture in the pages of Dragon Magazine, so it felt like a natural evolution.  I was never into Snarfquest, but it really was a gradual transition...

SECOND EDITION (1988): I remember rushing out to buy the Second Edition Player's Handbook and how my smile faded as I flipped through its pages.  Yes, there was some great stuff here.  Non-weapon proficiencies, in particular, were an excellent idea that followed intuitively from AD&D's weapon proficiency system.  But the artwork, although attractive and professional enough, felt bland.  Lifeless.  I already missed the earlier rulebooks, although I still had (and would continue to use) them, happily incorporating the new rules while rejecting what I didn't like.  But it was the end of an era and weirdly heartbreaking.

At this point, D&D had ascended into the sky, where its blessing would fall in the form of innumerable sourcebooks that would, eventually, drive TSR into the ground.  Make no mistake, I had some great times with this edition (including a lost-world campaign), but in 39 years of gaming, it always goes back to what I now call the hobby's true Golden Age...

No, the DM Is NOT Your Peer...

Some (more than a few?) gamers are profoundly uncomfortable with the greater agency and judgemental authority referees are given, especially in old-school games.  Or, as my brother observed way back in 1979: "But the DM could say anything and the whole thing just breaks down and becomes unfair over time".  It was a fair point, but I countered with the fact that lots people obviously were playing these games, and that unfair DMs will find themselves without players pretty quickly if they abuse their authority...

He was forced to concede my first point and eventually, my second too.  

And the fact is, old-school gamers willingly submit to the DMs authority because it provides them with a specific gameplay experience.  But the DM (GM/referee) also lives by a code of fairness (and reasonableness) that their players will hold them to! 

To underscore the trepidation of some, consider a review of our Barons of Braunstein, which said: "[B]ut I think the "low definition, high trust" nature of the rules could make this game a bit rocky with players that like crunchy rules or tricky character builds."  Of course, the whole simple versus complex divide is a matter of preference.  But the concept of trust in a GM to fairly execute their authority underlies the essential old-school experience... 

Players want the experience of becoming a hero in a world of sword and sorcery, and the only way to do this is to put much (most) of the setting beyond their direct control. I mean, how often can we control the weather or world events?  Sure, we can control our personal choices and decisions.  But not who moves in next door (usually), or what family is in the car next to us, or who we'll meet in a gas station on vacation.  And there would be nothing particularly heroic about our circumstances if we did have power over these things.

The DM/GM isn't a coequal peer
and, for optimal results, they shouldn't be...

So players change things through their choices and get to earn their victories and take pride in their accomplishments - just like we do in the real world!  That's what they get out of it and what they should seek going in.  Now, this is strictly my personal opinion, but if you really just want to write stories and the ending to those stories, become a writer instead...

Narrative control over certain aspects of a character's performance?  Sure.  Clever resource management is a challenge and constitutes the sort of strategy we need to execute in our own lives.  Spend LUCK (or MIGHT) improving rolls?  You bet.  But you still won't know what's hiding behind that door unless you have a spell or, better still, a plan.

But what about the DM/GM/referee?  What do they get?  Well, they get to build a world and exercise unparalleled narrative control as the guy (or gal) who does know what's hiding in the shadows (or behind that door) and/or the necromancer's secret plan to rule the world.  
  
An unearned place of privilege?  Maybe.  Except they don't get to become a hero and hear their name spoken in awe.  And they pretty much have to be responsible for everything else and make the hard decisions when others don't.  It's a labor of love and involves its own form of personal sacrifice.  I love it.  But I remember plenty of times I was frustrated that everyone else wanted me to run when I just wanted to make a character and dive in.

And implicit in this arrangement is the understanding that both sides have to agree to certain terms to make things work.  Players agree to play well, make good decisions, and earn their success.  They also agree to submit to any agreed-upon rules and the judgement of the referee when justly rendered.  That said, the DM/GM/referee agrees to fashion challenging adventures and be fair, impartial, and reasonable in their dealings with their players, and that means being open to negotiation in the interest of mutual fun.  It's a win/win thing...

Of course, while the DM/GM (or whatever) isn't your peer, they or should at least be your friend.  And it does no good to forget that in a hobby ostensibly played for fun. 

Some modern games (and groups) treat the rulebook as the final, ultimate arbiter and reduce the GM to a peer with authority mainly over the monsters and NPCs and do so with the best of intentions.  But for greater challenge and dynamism, old-school values are unbeatable!