The Advice to “Kill Your Darlings”

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“Kill your darlings” is a bit of writing advice heard rather often in writing. In short it means to be willing to destroy elements of your have worked hard to create. To be willing to discard even your most cherished creations. This does not mean that you will get rid of those elements, but you must be willing to do so. This is because otherwise we can be blind to the problems that our “darlings” create in relation to the whole project.

So, why do I bring this up? Simple. “Kill your darlings” applies to much more than writing.

Programming Darlings

Early on in my project I created the randomized levels. With that I of course created the controls. A drop down window for difficulty and simple “New Level” button. But I also added a “Custom” difficulty that allowed the player to input their own target number. This, the “Custom” setting, was my “darling”. It has stuck around for far longer than it should have. I have for quite some time that the dropdown menu would need to be changed. But doing that would necessitate a significant rework of the “custom” setting, and so I put it off.

But eventually, I recognized that the “custom” difficulty setting had outlived its usefulness. And so, I removed it. And in doing so, removed the last thing holding me back from removing the dropdown menu and converting it into a spinner design.

In any creative endeavor, from writing to programming, to painting, and beyond, one must be willing to remove our favorite parts of a project. All in service of making a greater whole.

Baldur’s Gate 3 Controversy

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Around a month ago Baldur’s Gate 3 got its full release. Before that it had been in “early access” for a few years. With its full release a few things have cropped up around the game. Most of those things are comparisons to the rest of the so called AAA games industry. The main thing being said is that Baldur’s Gate 3 is, or should be, the new standard that AAA games are held to… and a bit of backlash against that idea.

So lets talk about what is being said, and what I think is actually being expected.

What is Being Said

So, as I said the feedback from consumers can more or less be summed up as “Baldur’s Gate 3 should be the new industry standard”. This has garnered some backlash from more established gaming companies. They complain that making a game of the length, complexity, and polish seen in Baldur’s Gate 3 is near impossible. And I can kind of see where they are coming from.

Baldur’s Gate 3 is the type of game that can take 100+ hours for a single play through, with lots and LOTS of potential for re-playability. From character customization, to multiple ways of handling situations, to full on branching story lines. It is obvious a lot of work went into this game. And all that work is a bit of a risk. A game of this length and complexity is easy to get wrong. And so, publicly traded, risk adverse companies can’t/don’t want to take that risk.

What was Actually Meant

Having said all that, there is a disconnect between what is being discussed and what was meant originally. I believe that what was actually meant by “Baldur’s Gate 3 should be the new industry standard” is not its length, complexity, or even polish. What was meant was the state the game launched in. On launch the game worked. Were there bugs? Of course there were bugs, in a game this big they are unavoidable. But they are being addressed at an astoundingly rapid pace. So what was it that was so good about Baldur’s Gate 3?

A few things. First and foremost, assuming your computer could run it, it simply worked. Few if any game breaking or ruining bugs/crashes. No major graphical glitches. A few performance issues in the late game, but those have/are being addressed in patches. This can not be said of all (or even most) AAA games now. SO many come out in terrible states that are borderline unplayable (if not outright unplayable due to things like crashing).

Secondly, Baldur’s Gate 3 is a complete game on release. No on release story DLC. No pay to progress faster mechanics. Not even a cash shop of any kind, not even for cosmetics. Many so called AAA games now a days try and nickle and dime their players via micro transactions (some of which are not so “micro”). I do not care if a company charges for cosmetic items that do not affect gameplay. But I do care if a company holds game play elements hostage behind a pay wall, when I have already purchased the game. The only way Baldur’s Gate 3 does this is an optional “Premium Edition” that includes a few cosmetic items. And it is not pushed or even available in game.

Smoke and Mirrors

But this disconnect between what was meant and what is being discussed is intentional. The games industry is desperately afraid of being called on their BS. They insist that things are the way they are because they need to be. But then Baldur’s Gate 3 comes along and disproves that notion. So the big names in the games industry need to reframe the narrative. Rather than the reasonable things that were meant, they framed the discussion as “unreasonable consumers wanting the sun and moon”. When really we just want finished games that work on launch and not to be charged extra for a good experience.

Final Preperations

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The Dungeons and Dragons campaign I am in is about to come to a close. 2-4 more weeks of games for this campaign (DM says 1-2 but when do things go as the DM plans?). Then it will be my turn. My campaign should officially begin in less than a month. What do I have left to do?

Session Zero Prep

There are a few last things for me to put together for the session zero that will kick off my stint as DM. First is a questionnaire. The questionnaire will be about what topics the players are comfortable encountering. These will range from slap stick comedy, to romance plots, to much darker topics. I don’t have plans to use most if any of the things going onto the questionnaire, but it is much better to know where the lines are well ahead of time.

The next step of session zero is to help my players make their characters. This step has already begun. Some of my players are throwing character ideas and backstories at me so we can work on them.

Populating the World

I know where my players are going and what they are doing, but I have a sparse few NPCs for them to interact with. I have the main quest giver, his wife, an idea for a pudgy shop keep, and a fun bar keep. But I don’t have much else. So I am going to have to make more characters.

And of course, I am going to have to design some dungeons and other encounters for my players. I have a few early encounters for my players, but I need to flesh out the layout of the actual dungeons.

Presentation

Finally, we come to how we are going to play the game. I have a play mat that can be drawn on… but it takes some work to erase a given map to make a new one. So, I am reconsidering the idea of using Roll20 to run my game. The main problem being getting maps. But that is a relatively easy to solve problem. Even if I have to make the grid maps myself.

Changes: Visual, Functional, and Programmed

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Changes are happening in my game. Lots of those changes are minor UI layout tweaks that are uninteresting to talk about. Bit of experimenting, little movements to make big differences, that type of things. But I have been making some more substantial changes too.

First Biggish Change

For the pre-made levels mode, there is a visual indicator of if you have previously completed a level before and if you have solved the level optimally. At first the indicator was a big “X”, but that had always been a placeholder. Next I tried a star shape to go with the twinkling star effect I put in the background, but that didn’t mesh as well as I had hopped. Then I settled on a circle that was filled with a dot when the appropriate condition was true. But recently an idea was suggested that I should have tried much sooner.

The idea was simple: Just have the word disappear and appear as needed. Having the entire word showing up and disappearing will draw the user’s eye, showing the change. I may add a few subtle effects to the appearing (very subtle animations to help draw the eye), but just goes to show that I should always strive to follow the K.I.S.S. principle. Keep It Simple Stupid.

Upcoming Change

The next change will take a bit more untangling and reworking than the last one. I am reworking the difficulty select for the randomized puzzles. Currently it is a drop down with the options of: easy, medium, hard, or custom. The rework is three fold.

First and foremost I am changing the dropdown to a spinner design. Originally I didn’t know what platform I would be releasing on, but now I have narrowed down to a mobile release. I light of that, I am trying to eliminate dropdown boxes wherever feasible, to avoid people fat fingering the wrong option.

Next is to remove the “custom” difficulty option. I liked the option at the start, but in light of various design decisions I have made, I have decided to scrap it. Which leads to the third change.

Up to this point when you selected a easy, medium, or hard difficulty puzzle it would give you a puzzle with a preset number of moves needed to complete it. This change is to add a small randomized element. So instead of always giving a puzzle that needed 4 moves to complete an easy puzzle will need between 3-5 moves to complete. This will be reflected in the Target # the player can see, so they know how many moves they are expected to make.

Beyond All That

Those are the immediate changes I am making to my game. But some other things are in the pipeline that I have planned. But I can’t talk about everything all at once. Besides, if this project has taught me 1 thing it is this: Plans need to be fluid and you can’t stubbornly hold onto one idea.

Designing a New One Shot

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As the current Dungeons and Dragons campaign I am playing in draws closer and closer to an end, my campaign draws closer to its beginning. But before that happens, a few weeks may come when we don’t have enough players to progress the story. In those cases, we have generally run one-shot adventures. This works out great as it also gives me some experience as the Dungeon Master. Only one problem, what do I put in the adventure?

Seed Idea

Given the nature of the campaign I want to run I have plenty of ideas I can turn into adventures. One of the big problems is that a lot of those ideas have restrictions that prevent them form easily becoming one-shots. Some of the ideas are character specific (If I have a character that meets X requirement this dungeon will be good) or perhaps the idea will simply take too long to tell a good story for a one-shot. Whatever the case, I have to be specific with the base idea I grow into my one-shot.

Then I remembered an idea I have been throwing around for a while. This idea actually had some of the opposite problems. It didn’t easily fit into a campaign, but a quick “one and done” session? Works great. Honestly, the only reservation I have with using this idea is if I should keep it for a Halloween special. It does have a few creepy parts to it, plus plenty of zombies and such.

Ideas. Thoughts. And Wild Imaginings.

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I have many thoughts on what I can do for my upcoming Dungeons and Dragon’s campaign, so I figured I would write some of them down. Some of these are almost certainly going to happen. Others?… Who knows?

Almost Certain Ideas

Dragons

I may have mentioned in a previous post that I have created a group of dragons for my campaign. This group considers the island to be too dangerous to be left in mortal hands unsupervised. As such, at least one magic item the party retrieves will be deemed “too dangerous” by the dragons. As a result, one of the dragons is dispatched to retrieve the item. This encounter can play out in one of several ways. Diplomatically, as the dragon does not seek to harm the players they will be willing to trade. Chase, the party may try to flee, and based on what magic items/spells they have this may be an actual option. Fight, if they players are reckless and don’t hear out the dragon they may attack. Whatever they do, they will become aware of this secondary faction and may have gained a new ally or enemy.

Unicorn

One of the dungeons I have in my back pocket was born of two simple ideas. First, I want a relatively low level encounter with a creature that has a lair. For those unfamiliar, some creatures can permeate an area with so much magic as to make it their own. This alters the terrain and adds some potentially nasty effects to deal with. The other idea was as follows: Didn’t Europeans in olden times mistake Rhinos for Unicorns? That might make a fun encounter. So the primary hunt is for an evil Unicorn, with all of the positive traits of a Unicorn flipped to negative. But also in the encounter I want the party to see a shape in the distance, and if they don’t roll well enough mistake it for a unicorn. But it is in fact a couple rhinos charging them at full speed.

Assault

At several points in the campaign I am going to have something attack the adventure’s town. In one case it will be a “Trojan Horse” monster, an outer shell designed only to breach/bypass the walls so those inside the creation can get in the town and wreck stuff. The Player’s objectives will be to mitigate damage and then help deal with any aftermath. But another time, the threat perceived will very much be real. What is the thing? The terrifying Tarrasque? A mighty demon? A horde of chittering abominations? I am uncertain what the party will be facing, but it will certainly be out of their weight class… at least if they faced it alone. But whatever it is, it is attacking an entire town of adventures, so the party will have plenty of back up.

Less Certain Ideas

Now for something completly diffrent

One of my early ideas for a “dungeon” was for the party to be transported to a manor. Complete with guests, servants, and all the amenities expected of such a place. BUT, someone has been murdered, and suddenly the party is in a murder mystery. They must solve the mystery and apprehend the killer if they wish to acquire the magic item at the center of this dungeon. But are these people even real?

Suspicion

Another idea is for the party to enter the dungeon and be forced to go through some portal/teleportation circle/contrived conveyance one at a time. And once they are on the other side, they discover that at least one of them has been replaced with an imposter. The imposter is a perfect replica with all the abilities and memories of the person they replaced. And at first they may not even realize they are the imposter. How will the party find the fake? Will they need to rescue the displaced party member? Is there even a fake in the first place or have they been lied to? I have no idea how I would pull this all off, but I would love to do it.

Creating Characters

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Back for some more Dungeons and Dragons campaign design talk. This time about how I have crafted what characters I have already, and how I plan to go about making more.

Starting With the Beginning

The first character I created for this setting was a result of a simple question: How do the players know where to go? Giant island, randomly spawning dungeons, unmapped (possibly changing) terrain, they need some kind of guide. This is when pulled from a backstory I had written for a past character of mine. This character had come from a clan that studied magic, believing that no magic had inherent morality. So, this new character had two traits: guides the party and studies all magic regardless of “risks”. Obviously I needed them to be a Wizard. Of elven ancestry because of the clan (more background, don’t worry about it). And I needed him to be in a position of authority. And so I had my first character.

You may be asking “what is this character’s name?” A reasonable question, to which I reply “Does it matter?” Because honestly, does it actually matter what the character’s name is at this point? At some point, sure, he needs a name. But at the point of populating a location the character’s individual names don’t matter that much.

Fleshing things out

So I have a character to drive the main plot forward, what now? First was to develop this character a little with a second character, namely his wife. Where my elven wizard was very intelligent I wanted his “other half” to be very wise. Given the wizard’s family his partner would have to be some flavor of spell caster or magical being. Then I had a character build idea that just fit everything I needed from this character and just slotted that in. And so Wroxi was born.

Wroxi is a Fairy Druid/Monk, this fits all the requirements. Spell caster? Check. Magical being? Check. Wisdom being a prominent stat? Check. Now I may hear some of you saying “Why does she have a name already and not the Wizard?” Quite simply because I played this character in a one-shot and she needed a name. I ended up liking the name and stuck with it.

But from here things get a bit harder.

Everyone Else

While I have a few ideas for other characters I don’t have much in the way of fleshed out characters. Mostly I have roles to fill and the outline of a character to fill some of them. Some of these character ideas include: a bearish barkeep that is almost exactly what he appears to be. A jovial fat man of a merchant that is almost certainly hiding something. A roaming goblin that is just trying to get by. And a group of dragons trying to make sure the adventures don’t unleash anything too dangerous. A few more positions need to be filled, but I don’t even have an outline of what will take that spot: civilian leadership, defense force leadership, other adventuring parties.

Changes. Implemented and Planned

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After another review of my game (and more importantly its UI layout) a few things were found to change. Some of these are a result of recent changes, some were ideas I had before but either never implemented or changed to something else.

First Change

The first change I made which led to some of the other changes was actually a programming change. In the play scene for pre-made levels there is a level select element. The up and down options could be held down to cycle through the levels without constantly clicking/tapping. But it only went at one speed. I changed that so that it sped up as time progressed. Took a bit of coding to get all the proper flags in place, but now you can get much farther much faster than the old version, without sacrificing accuracy for short jumps.

Knock on Changes

The first big change that the improved level select caused was to the “Next Level” and “Previous Level” buttons. Previously I had those two buttons in the lower corners of the screen so you could jump to new levels freely. But back then the level select was… clunky. Now that level select is more smooth those buttons don’t need to be available all the time. But I did still have a use for a “Next Level” button. It now shows up during the “Level Complete” state of the game, around the center of the screen. This is to give the player a direction to go after they complete a level.

Planned Changes

A few other minor changes have also been made, but two major changes/reversions are also being considered. First is one likely to happen and stick around: auto level changes from the level select. Right now, after navigating to the desired level number the player must press another button to actually go to that level. The proposed change will cause the level change to occur as soon as the level up/down button is not being pressed. The second change is a bit less likely, removing the Main Menu level select.

Right now I have a level select screen in the main menu before starting pre-made levels proper. But that screen also has some useful info about uncompleted levels that can guide the player on what level they want to do. So I am very reluctant to remove it. More likely is that I will change the select method to match the one in the play area scene.

Creating a One Shot

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Ahead of my campaign starting, our group is going to have a session with about half the members missing. The three options for this day are as follows. Don’t meet up, play a different board game, or let me run a one-shot adventure as practice for my campaign. I would prefer to go with the last option, but what should I do for it?

First and foremost, for those that don’t know, a one-shot adventure is a game of D&D designed to be done in a single session. No or limited ongoing implications, fast and fun, wrapped up in a bow in one sitting. It allows for players to try out new characters and for DMs to try out new… anything they want really. No long lasting consequences mean if things go pear shaped everyone can laugh it off.

So What About My One Shot?

There are several paths that can be taken when sitting down for a one-shot. The first, very common, option is to find a pre-written one. Plenty of them exist online, just a matter of finding the one you like. The other much more difficult option is to design your own. Lots can go wrong with this approach, but that is half the point of a one-shot. Of course you can also hybridize these approaches. Find an existing one-shot and edit it to your liking. But I am going with the “design your own” method.

The primary reason for this is that for my eventual campaign I am using my own setting, and I want a practice run in that setting. But also, I want the challenge and freedom that comes with making my own one-shot.

The Nitty Gritty

After some thought, I have broken the one shot down into something of a 3 act structure. I didn’t realize it was a 3 act structure until I was writing this, but it works out to that. Each of the “acts” will see the party faced with an entirely different set of problems to solve and decisions to make.

act 1

The first act sees my players on a ship heading to the new uncharted island. let my players introduce themselves and get their bearings. Meet the crew, see the other adventuring party, notice those clouds on the horizon… wait. A squall suddenly hits the ship. Now for the first bit of “conflict” each of the players will take turns describing how they use their skills to try and help the situation. This is something I am stealing from a D&D twitch stream I am watching. But it does not matter how well the players do, the ship is going to run aground on a deserted part of the island.

So what is the point if the players can’t effect the outcome? Based on how well they do they may get certain perks in the rest of the adventure. Maybe they did enough that the captain gives them each a healing potion, or maybe less of the crew is injured and can be more helpful latter on. I won’t punish my players for messing up this part, but I will reward them for doing well.

act 2

This act is fairly short. Ship is a wreck and most of the crew isn’t going anywhere for a while. So they need to make contact with the main settlement on the island for aid. That means someone needs to go and get the help. There are two adventuring groups, my players and a more seasoned and of higher level NPC adventurers. My group now has a choice, either go for help or stay and keep the sailors safe. Whatever they don’t do the more seasoned adventures will do (and probably better). This is a branching path and determines which of two third acts I use.

act 3

If the players decide to go for help, I will have them do some survival based checks to navigate the island (if they did well enough in act 1 a map may have survived). But the culmination will be a big fight with something nasty before they can get to the aid they need. weather they ambush it or it ambushes them will be determined by how they proceeded to this point.

If the players decide to play bodyguard they will have to post a watch. Over the course of several “days” they will have chances of seeing what is about to happen coming, or losing supplies if they fail too badly. With all of this culminating in a Goblin raid. However, if they players did well enough in act 1 (or helped enough in the “downtime” days) the sailors won’t just be dead weight. They did have a ship after all, and ships have cannons.

Creating Dungeons

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So, my campaign has no set “theme” for what the players will be facing. This is a double edged sword. On the one hand I could throw a wyvern at the players one week. Goblin raiders the next week. And wrap up the month with a murder mystery involving creatures from beyond reality. But on the other hand I have no guiding light on what to use. No pre-built encounters, no dungeon layouts, I have to make everything.

Making Everything

So yeah, I have to design every map, every encounter, every twist and turn. That level of freedom is both liberating and terrifying. Because I can make whatever I want, but if it goes poorly I am the only one to blame. It is also terrifying because I have no limits on what I can use, except those I impose on myself.

limits make things better

If I approached each dungeon with truly no limits on what I could use I would never get anything done. Two things come to mind in this regard, the first being “analysis paralysis”. Analysis paralysis is when you have so many choices you could make and spend so much time debating them, that you never actually do any of them. With no limits, the number of possibilities becomes overwhelming. So limits help narrow down those possibilities.

The other saying that comes to mind is this “an artist’s greatest nemesis is a blank canvas”. The meaning is very similar to “analysis paralysis” but slightly more specific. The hardest part of a project is often starting the project, once you get going you pick up momentum, things fall into place. You might hit snags that bring things to a grinding halt, but getting started again won’t be as hard as when the canvas was blank. And limitations can, if constructed correctly, be the first brush strokes on an otherwise blank canvas.

Crafting Limitations

My limitations for a given dungeon can be almost anything. Restrict the setting to a classical castle dungeon, a cave, a forest, or a noble’s mansion. What types of enemies show up in the setting? Goblins? Skeletons? Mimics? All valid options, but I need to pick one as a starting point. Maybe even just a theme. Like illusions, labyrinth, battle gauntlet, or even murder mystery.

don’t have do do it alone

One thing I have been planning basically from the word go, is for my players to have some input on this process. Not in the actual design of the maps and monster placement of course. But in what shows up. My intention is to have them all write down things they want to have show up in dungeons, themes they want to encounter, and some enemy types they want to fight. For example I might get puzzles, gothic horror, and goblins from Player A. Player B might give me traps, survival gauntlet, and fat Dragons. While Player C could give me illusions, nature, and slimes. And I could mix and match them as I saw fit, or even include ideas of my own. The idea is to get a starting point and to give the players a sense of investment.