Tales & Trails of a Traveling Wiseguy

The adventure I'm running with my D&D group right now is The Silent Quarter and the House of Black Wood. Or at least that's what I'm calling it. You won't find it published anywhere.... I don't use packaged adventures; I write them myself, sometimes with the help of AI. The result is at least 90% "me", though. I find AI best for helping with the seeds of ideas. It stinks at getting the details right.



This picture I use for the introduction to the House of Black Wood is a good example of a great concept but struggling to get detail right. The pic here is the result of multiple iterations. It wasn't until the fourth try that AI could get the basic shape of the house close to correct, even though I'd prompted with specifics several times. And when it got the shape right, it changed the walls from wood to stone. So I caution my players, it's a good illustration to set the mood, but it's not a map.

In the setting I planned out, there's a lightly graveled lane that leads around to the back of the house. Of course the group wanted to check out the back first rather than just approach the front door. But that was okay because I planned out the details instead of trusting AI— or the author of a packaged adventure— to do it.

They Roleplayed with the Crow 🙃

Oh, but first, Leoghnie's player announced, "Before we go around back I'm going to use my Handle Animal skill to squawk back at that crow."

See? That's an example of players doing creative things they're not "supposed" to. How many packaged adventures include detail like "Dead trees dot the yard, and in one of them a lone crow perches" (100%) but then are prepared for interaction with the crow (0%)? 🤦

Honestly, I wasn't prepared either, but since I wrote the detail about the lone crow perched in the branches of a dead tree I could ad lib this interaction. 😇

"What did the crow say?" all the other players wanted to know.

"He was like, 'Yo, 'Sup?" Jill answered. "And I was like, 'Yo, 'Sup.'"

"Is the crow going to attack us now?" everyone wanted to know, all their eyes turning to me.

"No, the crow is content," I explained. "The crow feels seen." 🤣

Coming In the Back Door

The group continued around back where they saw a carriage house, a small cemetery overgrown with weeds, and
— what they were really looking for— a back door. It took a few tries to get through the door, but they gained entry and started exploring the house.



After trekking through piles of dust and debris in a few rooms they noticed the dust start to swirl. The dust formed into human-like shapes, except with skin pulled tight and bones poking through. Despite empty eye sockets the creatures seemed to see the party, as they advanced menacingly with claw-like fingers outstretched. Zombies!

Now, this picture (immediately above) and the next two I made before the game. I knew that regardless of how the group entered the house— front door, back door, or climbing through a window— they'd be attacked by these dust-zombies in one of the main floor rooms.

The players really got a boost from me having this picture ready to use during the game, instead of creating it afterwards,

"It even has our marching order right!" they exclaimed. Except it doesn't, quite. They sent the NPC rogue in first. 😂



I asked AI to recompose the scene for a POV illustration. Here, at least, it anticipated which of the characters would be up front. 😅



I also asked AI to change the lighting in the picture, to portray daylight filtered through heavy shutters. I did that because I figured the group wouldn't be foolish enough to enter a haunted house at night— but that's exactly what they did! ...Actually, it wasn't exactly at night. It was literally dusk when they entered. I even confirmed that detail with them, just so nobody could later claim I railroaded them. They are going haunted house-hunting after the sun has fallen below the horizon and as night's gloom gathers overhead. 😨

We'll find out in two weeks what happens next!

Earlier today I wrote about how I handled leveling up recently in my D&D game. To make training part of the story without bogging down in minutiae— or, as one player put it, using up group time on four solo adventures— I tried giving the players a storytelling prompt. Think of 1 bad thing (challenge, adversity, setback) that happens and 2 good things. With those elements I'd help craft a narrative for each character, à la the "training montage" device you see in a lot of movies.

I'll share two of the montages we came up with. One came from a great prompt response by the player. The other started with a player who wasn't sure what do to, but when I proposed a challenge, rolled with it and created some entertaining roleplaying moments.

Oh, but first here's an update to the picture of the group leveling up:



In the previous picture, the party's rogue was actually the spy they captured and killed. "Why's the spy leveling up with us?" players demanded to know. 🤣 AI slop. And while I was prompting AI to correct that I figured, "Herran never goes anywhere without her horse...."

Now for two of the training montages.

The Cleric's Unenviable Assignment 

Hawk led off because she had a pretty good prompt response for her adversity. "Kiarana checks in at the temple of her faith... and the high priestess there is a Berenar!"

House Berenar is the ruling family in the realm. The party has gotten itself associated with House Tashara, who are ruling coalition partners. While these noble houses are partners there's also rivalry. Think of it like the Montagues and the Capulets... or, as one player calls it, the Harkonnens and Atreides. In the most recent adventure the party killed a member of House Berenar who organized an attack against them. Berenar couldn't punish them directly for that, since the party's actions were lawful, if grim; but members of House Berenar have learned about it and are hostile.



So Kiarana faced a hostile local leader in her faith. She was assigned scut duties for her training in the temple. That meant, for example, ministering to the poor in Fisherman's Bottom, a seedy district of town authorities are happy to ignore. But that was also really cool because it gave me a place to set the hook for the next adventure, which takes place in Fisherman's Bottom.

The Mage's Strict Tutor

J., playing the mage, was unsure what to use as an adversity element. "Maybe it's hard finding a tutor because they don't like where I'm from," he wondered.

"How about this," I shot back. "You find a tutor easily, and she respects your educational pedigree. She even knows of your first mentor by reputation and is impressed. She adds historical context that you're eager to learn. But she's strict and won't teach you the spell you most want to learn, Fireball."



J. accepted the idea but kept trying to write Fireball on his spell list. I kept reminding him that his tutor refused to teach him that spell. I had fun roleplaying this impromptu NPC as something of a female Severus Snape. She snapped at J. not only about the fact that he'd learn Tiny Hut instead of Fireball but verbally slapped him each time he acted indecisive or forgetful.

BTW this picture I created on my own, no AI, using a found image for a stern-looking woman wizard and adding my own text.

BTW2, when I was roleplaying with J. his harsh task-mistress I didn't just snap at him in character. At one point when I proposed a self-serving trade to him and he worked out that it was an unfair deal, I coached him that he could push back against her. "No," J. said dejectedly, "That'll just make things worse." 😂

I've been writing about a D&D adventure I created and DMed recently, The Collector's Menagerie. I shared in my last blog that a player noted the names/types of rooms in the mansion setting— The Hall, The Library, The Conservatory— and remarked, "This is like a game of Clue!" And how I quipped, "With monsters lurking in the rooms waiting to kill you, it's like Cursed Clue!"



You might wonder, given the setting in a dead guy's mansion and the (twisted) murder mystery element to the story if I conceived this adventure as, "It's like Clue, but things in every room are trying to kill you." Frankly it would be awesome if that's how I came up with it. Alas, I did not. Not this time.

I have, in the past, created memorable adventures that started with the simple idea, "What if X, but also Y?" Or to be more specific, "What if something culturally familiar to us players in the modern day were the setting of a swords-and-sorcery fantasy story?" and fill it with in-jokes to see how soon the players figure it out. My greatest hits in that vein have been "The heroes traverse a magical Gate to a Renaissance Faire circa 1995 (pre-cell phones) but think it's actual early Renaissance" and "All the traps in the lich's lair form the lyrics to The Eagles' Hotel California." 😆🤣🤘

Yeah, it could have been epic if I started with "Cursed Clue". But I think it is kind of epic even though I only kind of backed in to the story being Cursed Clue.

My kernel of an idea for this adventure was simply, "Monsters are in a city mansion". I used AI to flesh out the idea. That got me to the point of it being a variety of exotic monsters (read: magical beasts and aberrations) that had escaped their cages after the owner of the house, a reclusive collector, died recently.

For the mansion itself I already had a map of an actual English city mansion I'd used as a setting in a previous game. I grabbed that to use again here. The names of the rooms on the map reminded me of a mansion map I know well from my childhood....



Yes, Clue! And it was because of the maps that I made the connection. The real-life mansion floor plan had rooms marked Hall, Ballroom, Conservatory, Drawing Room, etc. Those reminded me of the rooms in Clue. BTW, the Drawing Room is the Lounge. The terms are basically interchangeable in historic wealthy Western homes, indicating room a full of lavish but comfortable furniture for withdrawing to after a meal to impress guests.

Once I made the connection myself I thought about how to lean into the idea of "This is Cursed Clue". I tried to think of a way to stash treasure items, some analogue of the candlestick, rope, knife, etc., in various rooms that the heroes would need to recover to complete the challenge. Ultimately I punted that because it seemed too complex. Simplicity was one of the things I was after with this adventure idea. But I did put in some ridiculous secret doors connecting rooms on opposite sides of the map. Shh, the players haven't found those yet!

The title of the D&D adventure I put together most recently is The Collector's Menagerie. This became evident to my D&D players only after the initial combat encounter in the adventure. They'd defeated an owlbear in a wealthy person's mansion. After killing the monster they rescued the man in the tuxedo who'd called for help... and they got to him just in time as he was nearly dead. Kiarana came through with a cure spell just in time to revive him. Then they learned... the rest of the story.



The man in the tuxedo was not the lord of the manor. He was Jenkins the Butler. The lord of the manor, Lord Eito Asano, had died recently. In questioning the butler— who was alive but very weak— and adding in some knowledge from two PCs who knew a bit of background about Asano, they determined:

• Lord Asano died some number of days earlier. According to the butler, he died of old age; not an injury or foul play.


• Jenkins and the household staff were keeping mum about Asano's death as it had been his wish to summon his sons from the capital city before publicizing his death.


• Asano was "old money", having inherited wealth 50+ years ago from a now-defunct noble family. (That family was House Sujin, rivals of Ryuu-Han's ancestors, House Hannam.)


• Asano had a penchant for collecting exotic things— particularly exotic creatures.


• Asano reputedly had "bangin'" parties when Otonio Tashara was a kid and too young to attend but has been a recluse for the past 10-15 years.


• Asano employed some kind of magic that fortified the cages his monsters were kept in. The magic seems to have lapsed, or been countered, or something, as the cages all opened at the same time recently.


• Several household staff are still in the mansion, hiding from the monsters and trying to stay alive.

Especially with other house staff alive and under threat, the group resolved quickly that they needed to conduct a room-to-room search. The butler told them that a few staff were holed up downstairs, in the kitchen. In addition to that bit of info they heard a few noises as clues: a deep male voice begging, "Help! Help me!", coming up from a servants' stairwell as if in the distance; a loud chirping, as if from large birds, coming from the direction of one of the rooms on the main level, and the sound of wood scraping as if something heavy was dragged a short distance on the floor, coming from another room on the main level.

The party let the butler go and lined up to investigate one of the rooms.

Yes, in the mansion of a whodunnit murder mystery, they let the butler escape after the first scene! 🤣

I've kind of lost interest in finishing Better Call Saul. I havn't watched an episode in... checks calendar... five weeks. And I'm just two episodes from the end of the series!

BCS switches gears after episode 5.09. That was the one where Kim leaves Jimmy. Arguably that emotional loss is what tilts Jimmy into going all-in as Saul Goodman. With that the essential character arc of the series is complete. Jimmy has full transitioned from "Slippin' Jimmy" the small-time conman, to "Johnny Hustle", the hardworking young lawyer trying to carve out a career amid various people who won't give him a chance, to Saul Goodman, the no-ethics lawyer who'll break any law to make a buck, as long as he can get away with it.

The writers could have ended the series with ep. 5.09. Yeah, it would've been a ragged ending. We viewers would've wanted some kind of closure, some kind of coda that ties the story back in to Breaking Bad.

The writers give us more than just a wrap-up or coda, though. Like El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie told the tale of how Jesse Pinkman escaped to a new life post- the events of Breaking Bad, they want to tell us what happens to Jimmy post-Breaking Bad. The last 4 episodes of the series switch gears— and years; jumping the timeline from 2004 to 2010— to do so.

And that's where the series lost me. I watched the first two "Jimmy post-Breaking Bad" episodes. They aren't bad per se; they're just... tiring. Not fun. I paused the second to last episode after the opening credits because I realized I'd rather do something else than continue to watch. I paused it, got up from the TV, and walked away. That was five weeks ago now.

There's a saying in writing. Okay, maybe it's not much of a saying. I think one of my friends coined it 30-ish years ago. I call it "The 7 Deadly Words". Those words are Why do I care about these characters? I call them the seven deadly words because when audiences start saying them, it's the death knell for a series.

I saw an interesting article on Gnome Stew, the (roleplaying) gaming blog, last week: Meeting The Villain— And Letting Them Live. It's about the challenge GMs face in a roleplaying game in creating a compelling villain the players don't just mow down in a few rounds of combat. "Well, just make the villain more powerful," is the simplistic solution. But if the villain's too powerful, then what chance do the players have? The story's hard to make compelling if the players can't score any kind of win.

I've made a lot of compelling villains in my D&D games. I know they're compelling because of how the players respond to them. And part of my success has been that my villains have staying power. They remain villains across a story arc, possibly a long story arc; but they're aren't unbeatable. The players always have some way to find victory in the end, even if it takes a lot of time and effort. Here are Five Things I do to make compelling villains with staying power:

1) Do they even know who the villain is? There's a familiar trope from TV and film that the villain appears to taunt the protagonists, twirling an oiled mustache or swirling a black cape while saying something witty. It's definitely okay to play that trope for fun— I often do!— but it doesn't have to come first. I often introduce the villain's story not by showing the villain but by showing the results of one of their plots. The PCs arrive in town just in time to avert an attack by minions, or are called to a scene to help the survivors of a disaster nobody understands the cause of. They investigate and determine that someone is behind it; they just don't know who. Yet.

2) The villain moves fast. One way to block the party from engaging the villain in combat right away and chopping him/her/it/them down in 3 rounds is to give the villain mobility. Think of it from the villain's perspective: a smart villain doesn't loiter at the scene of the crime to be arrested or killed. They're there to see the results of their dastardly planning and escape before facing much risk. Mobility could be as simple as having a fast horse or being a creature, like a dragn, who can fly away. Or it could involve magic or supernatural effects, like teleporting, or turning invisible, or being able to shapeshift and blend into a crowd. In a scifi game, mobility could mean a fast spaceship or transporter technology that's beyond the garden variety bad guy's means. Seeing the villain and seeing them escape really hooks the protagonists' desire for justice.

3) The villain works through minions. Pretty much no self-respecting villain is a solo act. 😅 Even mad egotists who regard no one as being up to their level will still use grunts and patsies to carry out some of their dirty work— and defend them from trouble. The villain's escape á lá #2 is likely enabled by minions keeping the good guys at bay just long enough. The protagonists can still score a partial victory in scenes like this. Defeating minions chips away at the villain's power and is a necessary step toward the ultimate victory (see below); plus maybe they arrived on scene early enough to thwart the villain's dastardly act even though the villain lived to villainize another day.

4) The villain's lair is protected. Going straight at the villain is a simple idea many players will come up with. While as a GM you can't just saying "No" to a player idea, you absolutely can make it clear, through storytelling and action, that this is a tough, uphill battle. The villain's lair, or wherever they hang their hat, is going to be protected. Whether it's magical wards or high tech traps, the front door isn't just open for anyone to come in. There'll be minions here, too, as guard. Oh, and possibly the local law protects the villain! The PCs may well come at the villain this way— and they may well succeed, too— but to do so they're going to have to use a number of different skills and have a plan to whittle down the villain's defenses.

5) The villain is strong— but not insurmountably so. I pretty much always create the villain as being more powerful, even stripped of all their minions, than the PCs can defeat in a fair fight. At least initially. The protagonists have to earn their victory. In addition to finding/identifying the villain, defeating their minions, disarm the traps, etc., they have to decipher what else gives the villain and advantage— and how to neutralize it. That often involves gaining a level or two while pursuing the villain and also figuring out some sort of magical/technological mystery, like how to overcome the villain's weird power armor or antimagic aura. It could also involve convincing reluctant allies to join the fight.

When the group decodes the final pieces of the puzzle, it's time for the big fight— and then, if they're lucky and good, the villain goes down in 3 rounds.

One of my questions early in the Better Call Saul series was, Who's Kim? Specifically, what's her relationship with Jimmy? It was obvious from the start they're friends... but not clear at what level. There was a close camaraderie almost like they were best friends who grew up together, but there was also a sexual tension that was unresolved. Were they exes who'd stayed amicable? Just good friends? Just good friends, but Jimmy was looking to get in Kim's pants? Friends with benefits (already)?

Their relationship did become sexual back in (I think) season 2 and matured from there into one of partners living together. But as it turns out the best description of their relationship is that they're each other's ride or die. And that makes it extra sad that their joint story arc in season 4 is one of growing apart.

The showrunners tell the story poignantly in a split-screen montage at the start of episode 4.07.



Jimmy and Kim are shown going through the mundane motions of life, brushing their teeth in the morning, eating dinner in the evening without talking to each other, and lying down separately to sleep in the evenings. Occasional shots of dates on paperwork show months are passing. Jimmy and Kim still live together, but in most of the clips they're not together together; they just happen to share an apartment.

BTW, many critics and fans criticize the showrunners' use of flashbacks, flash-forwards, and time-is-passing montages. This show and Breaking Bad have used these devices frequently. The complaint is that there's an over-reliance on such devices. It's true, the creators seem to like these devices. But what the "too frequent" criticism misses is that these showrunners routinely do it well. This opening montage in episode 4.07 is one of the most compelling, and saddest, time-is-passing montages I've seen. (The only sadder one, frankly, is the opening minutes of Up!. OMG what a sad way to start an animated feature.)

What's going on here is more than just mundane routine such as eating meals. Jimmy and Kim have actually been growing apart all season, as their careers develop in different directions. The montage shows clips of this, too.



A big part of Jimmy's story in season 4, as I've noted a few times already, is dealing with the one-year suspension of his license to practice law. He finds a job selling mobile phones— but turns it shady and gets into hot water with it. Meanwhile Kim's law career is taking off. She does stumble for a bit early in the season as she questions her purpose in helping regional bank Mesa Verde, her sole client, grow bigger. In her search for purpose she starts doing pro bono work for the public defender's office. It distracts enough from her banking work, though, that it jeopardizes her relationship with Mesa Verde. But she goes to Rich Schweikart, head of Schweikart & Cokely, and offers to bring them a new banking division with Mesa Verde as its first customer. Rich hires Kim as a partner at his respectable firm and makes her manager of a team. So while Kim and her team are working with a senior partner and a bank owner to review plans (left panel above), Jimmy (right panel above) is hawking phones to criminals out the back of a van in a dirt parking lot.

It sure seems like Kim and Jimmy are headed in different directions professionally... and, ultimately, personally. Are they headed to splitsville by the season finale?

The first few episodes of Better Call Saul season 3 continue to tell a fascinating story about supporting character Mike Ehrmantraut. In my previous blog I wrote about how Mike turns the tables on mysterious adversaries who are following him since the season 2 finale. He traces them to the fast food restaurant Pollos Hermanos— which we fans of Breaking Bad know is owned by drug trafficker Gus Fring— but doesn't yet know who's behind this gang.

In episode 3.02 Mike continues staking out Pollos Hermanos to figure out who the bag man is handing off the bags of drug money to. He enlists shady lawyer Jimmy McGill— the titular character who hasn't yet changed his name to Saul Goodman— to pose as a restaurant patron and watch what the bag man does inside. The bag man enters, orders, sits down with the bag at his feet, then leaves— taking the bag with him. Jimmy checks the trash can after the mysterious man leaves, thinking maybe he made a dead drop, but finds nothing. And Gus Fring intercepts Jimmy, asking if he needs help as he rummages through the trash. Gus and his gang are now onto Mike/Jimmy, and the tables turn again.

Mike's tracker device shows that the beacon he planted in one of the money bags is moving from the store. He tails a driver in a black SUV to the desert outside of town. When the beacon stops moving on an empty desert highway, Mike realizes he's once again the mouse, not the cat, in this game of cat-and-mouse.



Mike approaches the beacon carefully, stopping behind a crest in the road and then rolling forward slowly. He sees in the middle of the road the gas cap he planted his beacon in. Sitting on top of it is a cell phone. As he approaches on foot the phone rings.

I've gotta stop right here to say it is amazing that this show— a not-animated, not-science fiction/superheroes, not-James Bond level spy movie show— successfully uses the trope of "Protagonist finds a cell phone in a crazy place and answers a call on it from the antagonist". It's amazing how they make this believable. It took a lot of damn fine plotting and writing to build up to this scene.

The great writing continues as Mike negotiates the call from his adversaries. They inform him they're going to approach him and ask him not to try using a gun. But Mike is ready with one of his acerbic quips.



The adversaries roll up in two black SUVs. Gus Fring, whom Mike doesn't know yet, emerges from one. There's an enforcer on each side of him; but Mike is unbowed. He holds up the hand-written note from his windshield in the season 2 finale— "DON'T"— and prompts Gus, "Care to elaborate?"

Recently I watched episodes 4-5-6 in the first season of Better Call Saul. On the one hand, watching 3 "hours" at a time feels a bit like bingeing. On the other hand, these "hour" long shows are actually 42 minutes— the standard run length for a program that fits in a 60-minute slot with ads. Watching them largely without ads means I can watch 3 episodes in the time it used to take to finish 2. And watching TV for just two hours isn't bingeing. 😅

Anyway, bingeing-or-not-bingeing is not the main thing I wanted to write about here. It's my disappointment that the slow pace of the show across the first 3 episodes continues in the next 3 episodes. Yeah, we've seen some seeds of the to-be Saul get planted, like how Jimmy McGill first met members of the Salamanca drug gang— spoiler alert: he tried to con the gang leader's grandma with a staged traffic accident, and thing went sideways, badly— but it's just moving so slowly.

Episode 6, titled "Five-O" does get really interesting— but it does it by telling the backstory of supporting character Mike Ehrmantraut. It's like my frustration with the crappy writing of the Star Wars spinoff The Book of Boba Fett. The writers couldn't sustain a character-driven narrative around Fett, and they rescued the show by adding in The Mandalorian hero Din Djarin— or, as I dubbed the series at that point, Boba Fett Writes a Book About a More Interesting Character. Here it's Better Call Saul turning into Better Call a More Interesting Character: Mike.

Keep reading: Mike's fascinating back-story in Better Call Saul 1.06.

In the series finale of Breaking Bad, Walter White dies. I say that without revealing spoilers because we all knew from the first episode that's how the story would end. The character has lung cancer, and even the two years he's made it in this episode is a lot longer than he was originally expected to survive. Plus, he's involved in a dangerous criminal enterprise, as a drug kingpin— and now a most-wanted fugitive from justice. You know that if the bad guys don't get him first, the good guys will. Or the cancer will.

One thing I wondered was whether Walt would go out with a bang or a whimper. It's a trope of crime gang stories that when the kingpin is the protagonist, he goes down in a blaze of glory. But the shift in tone late in the series to empire shattered suggested Walt may go out not with a bang but a whimper. Ultimately the finale is a bit of both.

There's plenty of action in episode 5.16 as Walt acts to tie up loose ends before he dies. We've already seen from flash-forwards in earlier episodes that he returns to Albuquerque and buys a machine gun from an illegal arms dealer. Then he visits his old house, now empty and vandalized, to remove the vial of ricin poison he'd hidden inside. Now that the timeline has caught up we see that using these weapons isn't the first thing Walt does in Albuquerque.

( Episode spoilers (click/tap to open) )