Modern Day Adventurers Avoid Traps, Plot Progression

A brief treatise on the effects of pointy spikes on D&D adventuring parties

Michael Seaholm

Undergraduate/Computer Science

In accordance with a previously unrecognized tradition, this week's article will be about Dungeons and Dragons. To be honest, it mostly concerns a variant of D&D called d20 Modern, which takes place in the present day. Because I enjoy experiments in self-torture, I took it upon myself to run a d20 Modern campaign amongst a group of friends this semester, taking on the mantle of the game master, also known as a GM or, to the players, Double God. Having never GMed previously for either D&D or d20 Modern, I took careful pains to make sure that every possible in-game detail regarding the first meeting would be consistent. Luckily, the players were quick to pick apart the plot like hungry crows at a corpse, questioning the practicality of having a random group of strangers risk their lives for no discernible reason and without reward. It goes without saying that hilarity ensued, and has continued to ensue every other Thursday night, especially when Doritos are involved.

The conception of the campaign started when I was looking through a d20 Modern rulebook for tax purposes. I noticed that the book contained information about fantastical campaigns that featured psychic powers and ridiculously giant robots, both of which are staple elements of badassery. Noticing this, I said, “Screw that!” and opted for a more realistic campaign without all that magic bullshit. The problem with grounding a campaign in reality, however, is that nothing amazing happens and people can die very easily. To remedy this, I added some sweet Hollywood effects such as explosions and not dying to make the game play more enjoyable and less dickish.

This quickly turned out to be an ineffectual strategy. Although players seemed to be okay with the level of action involved, there were repeatedly mentioned concerns regarding the viability of fighting crime syndicates and thugs instead of leaving it to the police. Also, no one was dying, and since player casualties are the primary rubric by which GM efficacy can be measured, this had to be remedied. Ignoring the self-imposed constraints with which I had previously dealt, I decided to plop players into a virtual reality realm so that I could warp the laws of time and space more effectively. Surprisingly, the players did not object to this too vociferously, because when you're dropped into something that looks like a mixture of Quake II and The Polar Express with Tom Hanks, you know that shit has just gotten real and you should definitely not question what's going on, no matter how crazy or impossible it is.

I had brainstormed this hellish virtual world with the help of expert player killers Brandon, Nate, and Matt, who fielded their suggestions with the stony faces of sentinels, guarding ancient secrets and whispering impossible incantations about how best to kill players. A brief list of the ideas borne from this experiment will give you an idea as to the depths of our intoxicating madness: stone fists, electric tigers, gravity wolves, a Room of Instant Death, and the liberal application of fire. Also, instead of their regular weapons, which includes pistols, rifles, and the like, they were given swords – although, for their benefit, they were made of gold and were thus much more sparkly than regular swords.

The players did surprisingly well seeing as they had gotten to the next character level before that session, so about halfway through they were still mostly alive. Then, they entered the gravity forest, inhabited by equally gravitic wolves. The deal was this: whenever the wolves howled, the gravity in the room would randomly change direction, pulling the players every which way every other turn. The room was also full of sharp spikes for the players to impale themselves upon if they so chose. This proved to be quite a challenging room, but all of the players survived with hit point values of 9, -2, -5, and -8 respectively. I should note that players do not actually die until they reach -10 hit points, since dying at 0 hit points wouldn't make any sense whatsoever.

It seemed as if the group was in certain peril. Luckily for them, one new player and one old player who had not managed to make it for the last several meetings entered the fray during the next session, facilitating their collective survival. They even made it through the Room of Instant Death, although admittedly that's just a name used to psychologically weaken the players (it's really more of a corridor). At any rate, now that the adventuring party has escaped from virtual reality, I will have to come up with some explanations pertaining to 1) the environment in which they will next find themselves now that they are in the real world, and 2) the reason for them having been in VR in the first place. As you might recall, my old strategy of planning every detail ahead of time fell through, so I am making up for it by doing absolutely no planning whatsoever. What perils the players next face might well depend upon, say, what I watched on television last night, in which case they will be enveloped in some sort of void because I haven't watched television since they started airing The Cleveland Show, both to make a statement about the lack of quality inherent in many spin-off series and for tax purposes. On an unrelated note, this on-the-fly approach is a good strategy for dealing with the IRS, which routinely rewards such enterprising individuals with bodily dismemberment.