Robur's House

The following sequence arose from events associated with the Campaign Senex, played April 19, 2010.

The sequence relates to a number of events surrounding a mystery the party has only just understood ~ that being, that there doppelgangers slowly taking over a town in Germany, replacing town officials one by one.  The clues for this have led them to a name: Robur ... and then to the discovery of Robur's house.

At first they don't even see the house, which is part of the plan.  My goal with deconstructing this incident is to discuss revealing a scene, in order to freak the players out a little.  Remember that this has to be done without any pictures whatsoever, just as if I were describing this at a gaming table.

Note that out-of-campaign comments being made by the players will be shown in brackets: [*] and not in italics.  To focus on the main purpose of this post, I will be editing bits and pieces from the original post-and-comment stream.

DM: ... it is just two miles from the Ingolstadt-Nuremberg road that the party stumbles across a disturbing scene.

The first sight is not wholly informative; where the road takes a dip and turns to the left, about twenty yards beyond - below a stout apple tree, and partly concealed by it - the party can see the torn body of a horse. It appears to be quite dead. Just beyond, there is a body hung over a fence stile, on its side and facing away from the party. The body is covered with blood, but there is something familiar about it.

Now, it should be understood that all is relative silence. There are a few birds, and a gentle wind, but no indication at all that anything has happened, except for this awful sight.

This is all film-making 101.   The party can see the initial unpleasantness at a distance.  To press home the point, we emphasize two things: first, that the bodies are in a very unnatural way, even for something that is dead.  "Hung over a fence stile" implies that something really energetic happened, even if the players do not consciously make this connection.

Second, we emphasize what the players can feel.  Any time that we give a description of anything, we always want to list off the five senses.  The first three can be told at a distance: what does a scene look like, what does it sound like, what does it smell like?  We can cheat with touch and taste by describing the way a character suddenly feels ~ a shiver, a sense of their palms sweating, that they are conscious of freezing in place, that sort of thing.  With taste, we can describe the metal taste in the character's mouth (fear, adrenaline) or a sudden dryness.

But we want to pick and choose!  We don't want to load up too much imagery, as that only shows the player we are trying too hard.  Here, I went with the sight and the sound of the birds and wind.  It doesn't have to include more ... but we could have gone with other options (and we will, when we need to do a different scene some other time).

Note, too, that the "sound" here isn't weird at all.  This is what any scene would sound like ... yet mixing it in with the appearance of the horse and body makes this quiet feel disturbing.  But, in fact, only because I take the time to state it.  When we highlight the weird with the normal, the end result is always sort of creepy.

And, of course, the small mystery of the "familiarity" is an extra little hook I've added.

Delfig: I'm loading and half-cocking my crossbow.  "Let us send one person out to look at the person.  Andrej?  Avel, you and I should stay on the carriage and be watchful."

Andre: "Hmmm.  Watchful.  Yes."  Andrej will cross himself and draw one of his maces with his off-hand, keeping his primary hand close to the other, stuck into his belt.  He'll cautiously approach the body sung over the fence, once Avel and Delfig seem ready."

Mmphf.  I just love how players go straight into cop-mode when they see this sort of thing.  They're not wrong to do so.  There really is the chance that something might be still happening.  In fact, in keeping with my agenda to let the reader know what I know as I'm reacting to the players, there is no threat here at all.  The whole point, however, is to make it look threatening, so as to entice the players into the scene and get their blood racing. We don't want, at any time, to give them the least sense that they are safe (even though they are) ~ and so, with our words, and our voice, we want to take it every bit as seriously as the players do.  We CAN'T laugh or make a face when we see them react.

DM: The quiet is very disturbing, although it isn't complete. Upon moving down the slope of the road, Andrej can see a second horse, standing near the decimated remains of a small brick-and-timber house. The horse is alive, but its flanks are soaked in blood. A leg, detached from a body, hangs in the horse's stirrup.

The house has a facing of perhaps twenty-five feet, with a door in the center and two windows. The door has been ripped off its hinges, the bricks on either side of the door have been - to some degree - torn out. One window is broken, and an arm hangs through it, and a stain of blood shows on the wall beneath.

The odor, the color of the blood ... Andrej understands at once that whatever happened, it was within the last hour. He moves forward, and looks at the other side of the body hanging over the stile.

It is wearing the livery of a soldier of the Palatinate of Upper Bavaria.

Okay, so I've satisfied the first mystery.  The body looks familiar because of the livery ~ and because the players were aware there were four soldiers moving on the road ahead of them.  When building mysteries, it is very important to solve them as you create them!  Each time the party learns something, it is key to reward them.  It's a huge mistake to just keep piling mysteries on top of mysteries, without actually revealing anything along the way.  It is not the mystery piling that intrigues ... it is with each understanding along the way that the party's attention is kept focused.  It is positive reinforcement that if they try, they learn.  And so, we solve a mystery, then give them new ones, until finally they are on the hook.

But now the players can see the house, they can see a living horse (which is terrifically out of place, but should be a clue whatever has happened, has happened) ... and they can see a lot of grisly, disturbing details, that really chills them to the bone.

What's happened?  A fight.  That's all.  The detached leg, the blood on the side of the horse, the arm hanging out of the window ... and, most importantly, the odor.  This is me throwing in one more sensory description, just for good measure.  Picking and choosing, and not going to heavy on it.  Everyone knows what blood smells like.

To rip the door off like that, and the bricks out from the frame as well, whatever they fought must have been pretty big.  We want the scene to tell this to the players.  We do NOT want to say, ourselves, "They fought something pretty big."  This is something that it is easy to do, to leap to the conclusion ahead of the players and give it to them like a big neon light flashing above the house ... but this steals away the player's experience.  We never, ever, want to tell the players anything except the most minimal details ... especially when the house is still a good distance away.

It is harder for us to think, "Okay, it was something big ~ how can I say that without actually SAYING it?"  When you learn how to solve this equation, your descriptions will improve immensely.

Andrej: Andrej draws his other mace and returns to the carriage, moving backwards the way he came and not taking his eyes from the house. Assuming he reaches witin a few yards of the party he states "Upper Bavarian soldiers... most likely those four that passed us on the road. More in the house are also most likely dead. Recently."

Avel: "We need to check the house. There could be someone left alive. At the very least, we can gather some kind of identification and report their deaths.  I do not want to debate this. If you both believe it to be too dangerous, I will go ahead and you can prepare an escape for me if necessary."

Andrej: "That's four trained and well-armed soldiers cut down to nothing, Avel, with no sign of who or what did it... consider that before you decide to go, Avel. If you still must... then I will go with you."

Delfig: "Avel, having watched people die all around me, I think it best we leave this alone and move away from it. Death comes quick and you poking around might lead to the death of all of us. I would not have your curiosity be the death of me. Let us GO!"

Now, I must admit, this is the third or fourth time in this particular campaign when the party was met with a particular hook, only to run away from it almost at once.  So my response to the above: "Ah, this party ..."  was a reflection of that.

It is very frustrating for a DM to set up scenes only to have players run away from them.  In this case, it was largely because the players were a very low-level and because they simply got it into their heads that there was a possibility that I would put them in a situation where they might have to fight a merciless party-killer.  I have no idea where this notion came from: I never had any intention but to take care of the party and ensure they always had a chance of survival.  However, in most cases, this particular party tended to think that the "chance for survival" I was giving them was a chance to run away.

Ah, well.  Let's watch as the party expresses their feelings about this:

Delfig: [with the scene you just painted, you can describe me just about crapping my pants ... sheesh!]

Andrej: "We have Dachau at our backs, where harm may await us. We have this grisly bit of business before us, where harm seems almost assured. Perhaps the time for passivity is over. It is time to become more active (slams mace heads together). Avel, let us proceed."

Avel: Avel will draw his sword and shield and lead the way down to the building. The goal is to approach, shield first, through the front door, checking the right side of the room I enter while using my shield to hopefully protect my left in the event something is lurking there. After taking the quick glance into the right side of the room, I will glance at the left, then enter the room.

Delfig: I'll keep about 100 feet behind them, covering them with my crossbow, fully cocked.

I don't encourage players to speak of themselves in the third person; in fact, I believe strongly that it is a means to deliberately not invest in the character or the scene.  Nonetheless, we can see from the above that at least two of the players have decided to dig in a bit and take a risk.

Once they advance, I can flesh out the scene a third time.  First, I will start with a physical description of the room, along with it's purpose ... then I will move on to the bodies in the room ... and finally, end with solving one more mystery, what it is that battered down the front door.

DM: What Avel sees, upon entering the house.

The interior has been torn up. The furniture consisted of two chairs by an extended fireplace to the left, reaching out from the wall, where a pot would have been placed on a metal frame. The location of the pot is, at the moment, in the far, left hand corner of the room. An unmoving body is next to it.

A very large table, 12 feet by four, which would have dominated the right side of the room, is split in half. There is glass, everywhere ... and a few pieces in good enough shape to suggest to Avel’s eyes that there might have been a laboratory.

He can now see the body who’s arm is hanging out the window; it is hung on several hooks below the inside of the window - it is unarmored, in a gray and dull purple cloak. At first glance, Avel perceives that the person is dead ... but he realizes this isn’t so, as the body is, in fact, breathing. And just beyond it, wounded but with eyes open, a guardman glares blearily at Avel, their eyes meeting.

But in the other corner, the near right, the last thing I have not described - is an enormous brown, furred mound. There is a spear buried deep into it, and a bloody sword on the floor next to it. It is, as far as Avel can see, dead. It does not make any movement, or sound of breathing - which it would have to do, were it alive, with the spear buried in it as such.

Again, we're giving information and holding back information.  I could do a jump scare with the big furry mound, but gawd, why?  It's a cheap cliche and it would only serve to punish the party for their curiosity.  We don't want that!  These guys are already freaked.  Let's give them a little air, hm?

Now we've introduced a living soldier and a dead soldier.  A witness!  Like enticing the players to move closer to the house, the witness is yet one more layer the players have to penetrate in order to learn more about what's going on.

This is the whole point: to make the players peel away the scene like an onion, learning a little bit more, and a little bit more, and a little bit more.  Arguably, the entire Game World should work like this.  This one house is in a province, which is in a country, which is in a continent, which is in the world, which is one of many worlds, surrounded by many planes of existence ... each layer being there for the eventual, and infinite, possible discovery by the players.  Just like the real world.

Avel: "Andrej, help the guardsman. I'm going to keep an eye on that... THING over there. See if he can be moved, and get him out, please." Avel will put himself between the guardsman and the brown mound, moving slowly and never facing away from it.

Andrej: "Munich, put that bow down and come. We need your doctoring skills more than your archery skills it would seem." Andrej calls to Delfig from over his shoulder.  He will then put both maces back into his belt and check first the guard and then the man in the robe to see if they are responsive. Can they speak? Do they know their name? Do they know what country they are in? Andrej is trying to ascertain which of them is worse off.

These are great opportunities for role-playing, dialogue and improvisation.  As a DM, you don't know exactly what the players are going to ask ~ but on some level, you should be able to put yourself in the player's shoes and guess what they're going to ask.

This is something like predicting the future.  As soon as the players find that one is alive, they are bound to ask what happened, so we need to have it clear in our heads what the guard will tell them.  But remember!  The guard will know some of what happened, but not all of it.  Just like you or I would be partially in the dark if we witnessed a crime.  There are things he would see and things he would not.  We want it clear in our minds how this will play for the players.

To help there, we need to think, this is a guard.  How would a guard remember this scene?  He's a trained soldier.  He has skills.  This isn't his first combat.  Is he a grizzled campaigner or is he relatively fresh?  We need to know ourselves before we can present his story for the players.

DM: Avel is able to confirm that that furry mound is dead. It is huge, 1200 lbs. or more ... with large, round eyes and a mouth like a beak. Avel cannot be certain what it is - Andrej, with a knowledge of beasts, might know, but of course Andrej is busy. Avel can see there is a body beneath the thing, the head almost removed from the body.

The man in the robe is not responsive at all ... while the man against the wall will manage to say aloud, looking at the window: "help him ..."

We could say it's an owlbear, but we don't!  We want the player to make that connection, because it let's the player feel smart that they interpreted our description.  That is something we are giving the player as a DM ... we need to remember this as often as possible.  Don't pre-conclude what the player sees.  Just say what the player sees.

When we say the thing is dead, we mean it.  We're saying, STOP worrying about this thing ... so you can worry instead why it is there, why it charged the house, is there another one, etcetera.  The player's concerns don't go away!  But by rewarding them by making this concern stop, we make them feel a little better.  That gives them energy to keep digging.

So, the guard's response is to be a guard:  "Never mind me, it's just a flesh wound, help the other guy ..." or words to that effect.

Andrej: when you described the robed man you mentioned he was hung on hooks. Is this to say his clothign is somehow hooked or his flesh. In either case Andrej will want to take him down before casting cure light wounds on him, but will not move him yet if he beleives it could cause further injury.

DM: It is his clothing that is hooked ... but the man is nevertheless seriously wounded; on the very edge of death, in fact, and he is barely hanging on to life as Andrej and Delfig lower him to the floor.

Andrej: Andrej heals the robed man 7 hit points.

Delfig: Since Andrej has healed the man, I will attend to the wounded guard.

We're getting some confusion as to who's doing what because this game is being played on a blog and quite often people offer their actions without reading the action of others, even when they're not posting at the exact same time.  What's interesting is that this happens in real life.  As people get excited or interested, they focus almost exclusively on their own actions and often fail to listen to what others, even the person right next to them, have said.

It's easy to get disturbed by this, particularly for a new DM, but in fact this is just normal human behaviour.  We only have so much attention to give to so many things ... and when we're really excited, and our minds are moving really fast, we tend to discard unimportant things instinctively: such as what other people have just said.

The goal is to clarify, slow the game down a moment and get everyone on the same page, without pushing or chastising anyone for not listening. Clarity is what we want; if we've got them pumped, we're not going to lose that by patiently going around the table and asking one by one what the players are doing, so that ~ without everyone talking at once ~ they have the time to listen and give a little more thought to the moment.

Delfig: I will rip the guard's tunic with my dagger to create a bandage and press it to his wound."  Avel! Grab one of the dead man's tunics, he will not need it. Bathe it in water to clean it off as best you can and bring it here."

"Be still and we will tend to your wounds." I say to the guard. "We are travelers who saw the signs of battle and have come to assist you."

Andrej: To the robed man: "Just a passer-by. Rest now." Andrej will remove his cloak and make the robed man as comfortable with it as he can. He'll then look him over for any wounds not tended by the healing spell.  Simultaneous to tending to the robed man, spoken to the guard "Do you recall what happened? Is there any other danger about besides that?" (indicates the dead owlish-bear)

Avel: Avel will take his clean shirt out of his backpack and hand it to Delfig. "It will likely serve better than a grimy tabard." Avel will move through the rest of the building, making sure there are no other threats or injured.

"Wait, no, on second thought, take this, it's a bit easier to replace than a shirt." Avel takes back his shirt and hands his kerchief to Delfig.

Unquestionably, some good strong role-playing here, as players rush to put themselves in the situation.  But the reader can also see there is some clumsiness here, and I don't mean Avel changing his mind.

In this case, take note of how the players have all seized on my description of the man as "seriously wounded."  Now, I appreciate that in real life, this calls for first aid ... but none of these players have even asked where the wound is, that they are rushing to bind.  Moreover, "wounded" in game parlance means, he's lost a lot of hit points.  But ~ sigh ~ the players want so badly to role-play this scene that they're not really thinking clearly.  They should realize that by adding 7 hit points, he's obviously not going to suddenly die in front of them.  Not unless, as a DM, I'm planning to absolutely ignore rules of the game in order to stage a cheesy death scene.

Not that I would put that past a lot of DMs.  However, it was never my intention.  The rules bind me as much as the players.  Once the spell was used, there was no chance of this NPC dying.

Rather than explain all this to the players, however, I just moved past it:

DM:  The guard, tended by Delfig, will say, "Robur sent us a message - that the creature was coming. We hurried here, found it in the courtyard. It killed Frank, and fully ate Nicolas. Jeroen killed it with his spear, but even then it was too late."  The robed man will say to Andrej, "A stone ... a loose stone ... in the fireplace ..."

There are no other threats that Avel can find.

And then I had to confirm that, yes, it was an owlbear.  The players just didn't seem to trust their own conclusions.  Ah well, we try.

I'm blatantly directing the players at this point, but it's no matter because this is how these scenes often go.  Why wait for the players to search the place (we know they will, anyway), when it is easier just to reveal the secret.

Now, this can be like the pronoun game, where the loose stone reveals a paper that says what the guy on the floor could have just said anyway ~ but in this case the stone reveals an object, and not information.

Something a bit odd does happen here, which the players don't seem to notice for a time.  There are three guards accounted for, with the story the guard tells.  The guy on the stile outside is either Frank or Jeroen.  And Nicolas is inside the owlbear.  Where is the fourth guard?  The fellow hanging on the window was not dressed as a guard.  But the players haven't put it together.  In fact, Jeroen is under the bugbear.

I'm going to skip just a bit, because it is all questions before the guard is willing to give a little more story.  He explains that this is Robur's house; that Robur is the man in the robes, that was hanging with his arm out the window.  Avel finds the loose stone, sees a leather strap, tugs on it and pulls out ...

DM: ... upon the end of it [the strap] is a ceramic bottle, two inches in diameter and five inches high. It is marked with dirt and chilled to the touch, no doubt due to it being underground. There is a cork upon the top of it's narrow neck.

Here, Delfig began explaining the metaphor of The Big Red Button, a Ren & Stimpy motif about needing to push things that shouldn't be pushed, chuckling because Avel didn't hesitate to pull on the leather strap once it was presented to him.

There's a couple of things going on here.  First, it's a sense of trust between DM and Player.  Truth is, I would ABSOLUTELY NEVER include a "Big Red Button" in a campaign, for a bunch of reasons.  One, it's the worst sort of cheesy trope imaginable; Two, it is again a punishment against players who are curious, and I don't want to punish curious players.  I just don't.

See, we don't want players who are afraid to poke, prod, move or investigate things.  If we punish players who try these things, we just make very cautious, VERY BORING players.  Which results in a very boring world.  Which is very bad.

We want players who feel confident, trusting, believing in their own abilities to wrest themselves out of any situation they get themselves in.  We want players who feel empowered, who are not shy little mice afraid of strings that hang out of fireplaces.

One more thing that is going on is Delfig's sudden need to deflate the tension, by introducing something completely out of the campaign into the context.  This is habitual in many players; it is a defensive mechanism.  It is the driving force behind snarky comments and endless jokes, plus (as seen here) a million and one media references.

It is, in fact, a sign of fear.  The tension is getting just too high; the situation is getting too serious.  We could all die here.  I can't stand it any more.  Fuck, this is just a game!  I am actually fucking uncomfortable!

For many players, the "too serious" threshold is abysmally low.  Even the tiniest amount of serious participation can make such a player feel "silly" or "exposed," so that they have to keep a steady stream of jokes going in order to cover up any feeling that they aren't 100% confident here.  When we see it, we have to realize it is really just a form of over-compensation: and we can deal with it in a number of different ways.

We can ignore it and let it run the game for us.  We can boot the player, though that will often seem unjust.  We can restrict all jokes, period, which will make the player a boiling mess of repressed discomfort which will erupt in anger.  Or we can talk about the reality of what's going on, which will seem like a therapy session.

None of these will really "work" ~ we're dealing with a very strong defense mechanism that wasn't learned from playing D&D and probably isn't going anywhere without a lot of real therapy from a real psychologist.  Still, by going with the honest, last approach, the response of the player (most likely a mixture of more jokes, denials and defensiveness) will make an impression on the other participants.  Then, when the jokester IS booted, it won't seem quite as unfair.

Okay, back to what's happening.  The bottle has a cork.  This seems like a Big Red Button, too, which the players naturally understand.

DM: Robur will say, in pain, "open the bottle ..."

The guard Brenden will nod, a spasm of pain gripping him, and fresh blood suddenly soaking the bandage in Delfig's hand. Brenden will manage to say, "the creature, it's claws were poisoned. We are both dead men."

Yes, I know, I said the men weren't just going to die.  But ... I'm not presenting it as a surprise.  And anyway, they're going to be fine, once the bottle is uncorked.

The players are still talking about Ren and Stimpy at this point, ignoring the request, asking information about the bottle, etcetera ... anything to avoid pulling the cork

Delfig: "Is the bottle an antidote or merely to slow the poison down?" I ask Robur. I will attempt to use my meager 3% chance of curing poison to possibly stretch the potion to help both me, if that can be done. Otherwise, if this is a one dose deal...

Andrej: "Where is the nearest town where we could expect help, Brendan, and which way do we travel upon this road to get there?"  Awaiting his answer, Andrej will beckon to Emmanuel and the two of us will go about the business of bringing the carriage closer to the house and pointed in the direction Brendan indicates.

Delfig: Did Robur answer my question as to what the bottle is?

I have no interest in deflating the tension.  They can not pull the cork if they don't want to, but it will mean the men die through inaction.  This is a good hook.  I'm not letting it go.  My role here, then, is to push that tension by stonewalling the players:

DM: Neither Robur nor Brenden are in any shape to answer questions; despite the cure spell, and the binding of wounds, both persons are sinking fast - losing consciousness, their lives draining from them.

You [Delfig] cannot make use of the 3% ability with poisons without actually examining the contents of the bottle ... which was what I thought you meant.

This works:

Delfig: Then I will take a sip of the bottle to attempt to identify it. If it is antivenom or "slow poison", is there enough for two or one?

Whenever possible, we want the answer to be anything but obvious.  In this case, it's a "preserving bottle," a magic item of my own creation:

DM: Ah, Delfig never gets to find out.  Upon opening the bottle, there is a rush of air, and visibly tendrils of light, similar in appearance to spun webbing, is suddenly drawn from the bodies of both Brenden and Robur. Delfig finds his hand clenched on the bottle, his body tense and frozen, unable to move, watching the light-webbing rise in waves, filling the air between Delfig, Andrej and the bodies. The light twists and turns in circles on that side of the room, moves through the bodies of both party members, who are strangely warmed and comforted by the experience ... but as I say ‘through’, I mean that the light does not remain in Delfig or Andrej, but passes from one side to the other ... and ultimately, the light sucked into the neck of the bottle.

Avel, standing outside of this swirl of magic, is more clearly able to see the image of both Brenden and Robur in the light - from his perspective, it is the souls of both persons, pulled from their bodies and into the bottle.  In a flash, it is over; but from the neck of the bottle, a bright blaze shines, making a spot on the ceiling in the dimly lit room.

The two souls of the near-departed are captured and preserved in the bottle, where they can remain until the bodies are restored by any number of means ~ or even until two other healthy bodies are found.  It is a useful bottle ...

Alas, however, the players never did get to the bottom of this mystery.  Something happened soon after the events that I've discussed on this post, that we need not go into.  I wouldn't say it "derailed" the campaign, but it did render any further investigation into the mystery undesirable.

At this point, except for the location of Jeroen, the house had no more mysteries to reveal.  And this being the subject of this post, we are free to call an end to it here.