Tremendo Dude

And here we are, cheerfully playing along, sounding reasonably competent — but everyone, when they have the attention to spare, is keeping an eye on the tuba players. They don’t come in for the first eight measures or so, and then when they do come in, what we see is:

[stifled giggling]

[reeeeeeally deep breath]

[COLOSSAL FOGHORN NOISE]

The entire band stops dead, in the cacophonous kind of way that a band stops when it hasn’t actually been cued to stop. The band director doesn’t even say anything, just looks straight back at the tubas and makes a helpless sort of why gesture.

In unison, the tuba players defend themselves: “THERE WERE FOUR F’S.”

which is 8 fortes. We were shocked until,

Dungeons & Dragons is owned by Hasbro. Yes, the same Hasbro that owns Monopoly and My Little Pony.

Hasbro wants D&D to be the only tabletop RPG that anyone plays.

In order to accomplish this, Hasbro needs D&D to be a universal entry-level game.

D&D is not a universal entry-level game.

All game rules are opinionated about how the game ought to be played, and as tabletop RPGs go, D&D's rules are more opinionated than most. This is not a flaw, but it's not what Hasbro needs.

D&D is also on the high end of complexity as far as tabletop RPGs go, and it's complex in a way that strongly rewards system mastery, so it's pretty far from "entry level".

Hasbro could produce a version of D&D that's at the very least less opinionated and more entry-level than it presently is, but they don't want to, because they've determined that certain rules features which run counter to both of those goals are critical to D&D's brand identity.

They also don't want to produce multiple versions of D&D tailored for different audiences, because they want every single D&D group to be a potential purchaser of every single D&D product; they'd be effectively competing with themselves for their own customer base if the published game was actually modular in any meaningful way.

So how does Hasbro square that circle?

Simple: they lie. They insist that D&D is in fact a universal entry-level game in spite of all evidence to the contrary, and back their advertising up with sponsored thinkpieces and podcasts and such to "prove" it.

Further, they've spent decades fostering a culture of play which conceals the gap between the game they're advertising and the game they're selling by ascribing any appearance that D&D isn't a universal entry-level game to the incompetence or malice of individual GMs.

The game the rules want to produce disagrees with the game the group wants to play? Nonsense – even the rankest beginner should be able to produce any experience of play using any set of rules, and if your GM can't, they're a Bad GM.

The game is hard to learn? No, it isn't – your GM is merely gatekeeping you. This wouldn't be a problem with a Good GM.

The upshot is that the published rules are more or less irrelevant with respect to achieving the desired experience of play, because they're operating within a culture of play which dumps 100% of the work of making that desired experience of play happen on the GM.

Indeed, much of what modern D&D presents as GMing best practices are really methods of working around the fact that the rules you're using disagree with you about what kind of game you're playing.

(It's not a coincidence that D&D's entrenched culture of play also insists that it's normal for GMs to be miserably overworked and treats GM burnout as a big funny joke, then turns around and loudly wonders why there's a constant GM shortage.)

The trick is, because you're still at least notionally using the rules of D&D, the fruits of all that GM labour are perceived as the product of "playing D&D", not of the GM's hard work.

In essence, Hasbro's business model for Dungeons & Dragons is selling you your own GM's labour with a D&D sticker on it.

It's a very neat trick, if you can pull it off.

Now, at this point some readers may be asking: well, sure, but not all GMs are doormats. What about "killer" GMs who do gatekeep and railroad their players and otherwise act like complete tyrants? I hear horror stories about them all the time.

As noted above, all game rules are opinionated about what kind of game they wanted to produce. This isn't just a matter of setting (though setting-neutral games are often misleadingly called "universal" games), but also a matter of the basic structure of the narrative which emerges when you follow the rules.

The rules of Dungeons & Dragons are not less opinionated than those of your average indie RPG, and in fact are more opinionated than most. (Again, having strongly opinionated rules is not something that's wrong with D&D; it's merely something that's inconvenient for Hasbro's marketing goals in a way they're unwilling to address.)

In brief, D&D really, really wants your game to be a sword and sorcery dungeon crawl. If the GM is using the framework of play furnished by the rules at all, or if the players are responding to the rules' player-facing incentives even a little bit, it's going to squish your game into something dungeon-crawl-shaped.

(This should not be surprising; it's literally in the name!)

The rules of D&D being opinionated in this way tends to fly under the radar for a couple of reasons, one less problematic and one more so.

The relatively benign reason is that many popular RPG premises are not done any great violence by being squished into the shape of a sword and sorcery dungeon crawl.

A cyberpunk smash and grab caper? Basically a dungeon crawl already.

A special forces op in a modern military game? That doesn't need to be shaped like a sword and sorcery dungeon crawl, but it can be shaped like one and remain intelligible as what it's supposed to be.

Gritty logistics-driven survival horror? Not inherently dungeon crawl shaped, but the two genres are compatible – a game can be both at the same time, as video games like Fear & Hunger and Look Outside demonstrate. (Indeed, Look Outside's apartment building follows the structure of an old school D&D megadungeon nearly beat for beat!)

Thanks to D&D's pervasive cultural influence informing what people expect a tabletop RPG to be, as long as this kind of compatibility is present, many folks won't even notice their intended premise is being squished into the shape of a sword and sorcery dungeon crawl.

If your chosen premise isn't compatible in this way, or if the group notices what's happening and decides to push back against it, though? That's where the sleight of hand I alluded to above starts to come into play.

Remember: a Good GM™, even a total novice, ought to be able to use any set of rules to produce any desired experience of play, right?

So get to work!

i.e., just as much of the game's putative approachability is the product of Hasbro selling the players their GM's labour in a D&D-shaped box, much of D&D's putative flexibility is the product of the GM being sold their own labour in a D&D-shaped box.

To be clear, this is not militating against homebrew content or rules. Homebrew is perfectly cromulent, and certainly, some games are more or less structurally amenable to it (though modern D&D tends to fall on the "less" side).

The problem is that what we've got on our hands is a culture of play that wants to have its cake and eat it too: when doing extensive homebrew is treated as part of the GM's basic, entry-level responsibilities, it's easy to fall into the trap of thinking of the product of that labour as merely being a feature of the game.

Putting the “arch” into “archery”

Obvious disclaimer that you shouldn't have wild animals as pets.

But like, cheetahs are the only large cats that keepers will do free contact with. Hell, even most small cats don't get free contact. (Because small cats can be VICIOUS. They'll have a baby pallas cat wearing thicker gloves than when handling an owl. Because small cats can just be vicious.)

Like I think the only other cat at our zoo where I've seen free contact with was servals? Because I know they've used servals in shows to demonstrate their natural jumping ability. But I know servals can sometimes have a mean temper as well. Meanwhile they'll do the cheetah run and afterwards put the mic by the cheetahs and it's just like an engine with them purring. It's fascinating to watch when the message in every other large animal is "no free contact because it's dangerous even when they're born in captivity".

Fortunately for him, it is a very important communication signal, especially given what he's going through right now. It says, "This is, in some way, unsatisfactory." Unfortunately, it's not very specific and he doesn't understand much about how to deploy it.

You have to understand, the stomach ache that he has right now is the worst stomach ache in the universe, because as far as he's concerned, the universe is maybe a month old and there's been a limited number of stomach aches in it. Or, the loneliness and anguish he felt when he couldn't see you was the most terrifying isolation in the universe, akin to being adrift in the Boötes Void, for the very same reason. He does not have guidelines to cope with these things. He has barely accumulated enough of a dataset to start evaluating things like, "Most times, when people I know go away, they will reappear eventually," or, "that particular stomach ache will go away if I eat something." He doesn't even know which particular problems can be cured and which can't. He just knows that "technique: scream like fucking banshee" does have some sort of a success rate.

Rosamund hesitated. It was, she had to admit, the first time she had ever been given a wish, so she wasn't an expert with this sort of thing, but she felt that this was not part of the typical script. "Sorry," she said. "Is that not allowed?"

The fairy grimaced. When it spoke, its voice came out pained and stressed. "Y-y-y-e-e-e-no," it sighed at last, dragonfly wings sagging. "No, technically no, it's not not allowed, but-" It suddenly brightened. "How about gold? Can't go wrong with gold. Gold's a good wish."

Rosamund frowned. This was really not going the way she expected at all. "Excuse me-"

"Beauty, that's a good one too, beauty's always popular," it went on. "And if there's a ball nearby tonight I can probably-"

"Excuse me!"

The wand was twiddled in chitinous fingers. "Right," the fairy said, sounding scolded. "Sorry, it's just..." Its voice trailed off.

Her grandmother's clock chimed midnight from the mantelpiece.

Then - "I'm sorry," it said, not daring to look up, "I know it's not fair, but - you know what I am. You know what we do to wishes. If you wished for wealth I'd have to turn your hair into silver, so you’d have to tear every strand out of your head before you could spend it. We can't help it. It's what we do. The cost of a wish is that you get what you want, but you don't get it the easy way.

"So if you wish for a child, it'll be - strange. Twisted, somehow. Made of pine or marzipan or have the head of a hedgehog. That's the cost of a wish-child; you'll get the child you wished for, but it'll never be - right."

Rosamund waited to see if there was anything else. She felt a sting to her pride when she realized there wasn't. "Is that all?" she said. "I wouldn't care what I got-"

"You all say that," the fairy said. "You all say you wouldn't care what you got. You all say it, and you really believe it, until the neighbours sneer at you and your hedgehog child for too long, or your back aches because your thumb-high child can't help you in the fields, or your pine child kicks and bites and won't obey, and then you think, 'This isn't the way it was supposed to be,' and then..."

The fairy stopped and looked into Rosamund’s eyes. It was a beautiful thing, all glittering carapace and iridescent wings, but just for an instant it looked terribly, terribly old.

"So be it," the fairy replies. "You will keep your word."

And in one version of that world, she proves the fairy's fears wrong. She loves her hedgehog, thumb-high, surly pine child with all her heart. The child grows knowing it is wanted and loved. It grows knowing it always has a home, that it belongs.

In another version of that world, Rosamund fails. On the evening she gives up, the fairy finds her. "You promised," it says. In that world, the fairy takes her flesh and blood for the child, crafts it a body that will belong. And Rosamund becomes a soft pine doll, waiting to be loved, waiting to be real.

In this world, in either version, the child grows up happy and belonging.

In another world, the fairy's ancient grief stabs Rosamund deeper than her pride. "Where are these children?" she asks, horrified.

"Many are long-dead," the fairy replies.

"But not all. Take me to them."

"Is that your wish?" the fairy asks.

"If it must be."

In one version of this world, the fairy brings her to a household with a prickly, hedgehog daughter. The girl's mother cries, "How can I love her if I cannot hold her?"

"You were given a gift!" Rosamund roars in this world. "Give her to me if you are too cowardly to love her."

Rosamund takes the daughter and gently holds the girl's hands. "You deserve so much more than you've received."

"Are there more?" Rosamund asks the fairy once the girl has fallen asleep.

"Yes."

"Take me to them."

"You haven't even had this child for one night."

"How can I let those children wait? None of them deserve such pain."

In another version of this world, the fairy refuses. "You do not know what you ask."

"And you don't know what you've begun," Rosamund replies. She leads a crusade to find the fae children, to save them.

She lavishes the children with praise and love, but the story becomes twisted. Such brave children they are, daring to live despite such odd lives.

The thumb-high child will never find a spouse, and yet he remains so cheerful. What an inspiration he is.

In another world, Rosamund says, "Let me prove it to you."

"How?" the fairy challenges.

Rosamund does not hesitate. "Marry me. Let me prove I can love the strange and fae. Let me prove my love is stronger than daydreams and gossip. When you believe me, we will make a child together however you wish."

In one version of this world, the fae says, "No. Choose another wish."

"No," Rosamund replies. And the two remain locked in stalemate and the story never ends.

In another version of this world, the fae sighs. "Is that your wish?"

"No. My wish is unchanged, but I am willing to wait for your approval. I wait for bread to rise and rain to fall. Waiting on you for a child will be no hardship."

"And if I never approve?"

"You will."

And in this version, Rosamund and the fae are wed. Rosamund's friends and family harry her with concern. Her meager wealth dwindles as fewer are willing to buy the bread she bakes for fear of her spouse's enchantments.

"Do you regret this yet?" the fairy asks.

"When I was cold last week, you draped a cloak of cobwebs around my shoulders and I stopped shivering. How could I regret such kindness?"

After a long period without rain and the village drives them both out, the fairy asks again, "do you regret this yet?"

"When we had too little to drink, you collected the dew from every blade of grass around our home so we did not thirst. How could I regret such clever diligence?"

And when Rosamund falls deeply ill after too many nights sleeping exposed to every chilled breeze, the fairy presses its cool brow to her burning one and asks, "how do you not regret this yet?"

Rosamund weakly brushes her fingertips along the fairy's cheek. "You're crying for me. How can I possibly regret being loved by you? I told you my love is greater than hardship."

"This is not how these stories go," the fairy argues.

"I'm human," Rosamund says with a cough. "I twisted it."

In one version of this world where the fairy said "yes" to Rosamund's proposal, she dies, and the fairy collects another regret.

In another version, it carries Rosamund home beneath the hill and heals her. Then, together, they make and raise a child.

Wild Magic

Context from our game session below the cut.

Transcript below the break

original post I just didn't want things getting too cluttered since the story is all told in here anyway.