[OS(ish)S(ish)R(ish)] XDM

[fectin]

Quick overview, to avoid clogging the other thread.

This is credited as "Tracy and Curtis Hickman's X-treme Dungeon Mastery" and "illustrated by Howard Taylor". Some familiarity with their respective styles and with the blogging when this came out makes me thing that Taylor had a lot more hand in the direction than that credit would suggest. This book doesn't take itself too seriously, and that's a good thing.

The introduction section has 5 snarky and deprecating footnotes on the first page, six on the next. It opens describing the authors and assigning them arbitrary and arbitrarily large "XDM levels", with ridiculous titles. It would be extremely difficult to read this book and come away thinking that MCing is some sort of sacred calling, and that's mostly because of presentation.
That does come at a bit of a cost though, in that a very large amount of this book is basically MST3k-style riffing and self-mockery. After the intro, there's a six-page "history" of RPGs, from Socrates to present. Then a chapter break, then a faux-test that takes another two pages, then a faux-initiation ritual, etc., etc.

Then, finally, on page 22, a boxed list of do/don'ts. It's fairly representative, and fairly mixed. It does have the unfortunately standard "never cave to rules-lawyering", "never refer to rule books", etc. However, it also includes listen to your audience, never cheat the players, play out consequences/ethics, know the difference between a story and a joke. Like most advice, take the good parts and leave the rest.
However, there are five lines that stand out as unexpected to me:
- Don't make up the story as you go
- Never read adventure description text
- Don't start fires you can't put out
- Use stagecraft, pyrotechnics, sleight of hand and lasers (spoiler: he means literally)

Next section is "theory of XDM," and this includes the part I like most:
XDM breaks players up into three types: warrior, social, and thinking. Warriors want to fight and kill stuff. Social players want to talk to stuff. Thinkers want to win stuff. They're all presented stereotypically, but immediately afterwards, it explains that no-one actually fits into these categories cleanly. Nonetheless, it rolls on from there to briefly discuss how each mindset informs encounter design, and how to balance these competing demands in running a game. Using this as a retroactive lens, the times I've been most successful at MCing have been when I played to this balance, and the times I've failed have been when I failed to maintain it. So, while obviously and explicitly not accurate, this model is still useful.

Next chapter is "Story is everything". That's not a call to railroading, it's an observation that we contextualize events by placing them in a narrative. Also, the opening paragraph specifically says that "if there was vampire in the dungeon, then there should be a pretty good reason why here was a vampire in that dungeon". (A footnote claims that Ravenloft was a direct result of this insight. Make of that what you will.)
Then it goes through a three-page summary of the Campbellian monomyth. Um, okay? It's honestly not a bad paradigm, but a little short on advice for applying that to designing or running a game. Then, a couple different takes on asymmetric info in games. Then a very simplified story seed generator (My quick result: near the lost grotto, a forbidden tome is being discredited). Eh, it's good enough to break writers block, but not much more.

Chapter five suggests a couple of different ways to organize a story, and to organize your notes for that story. It also has advice for railroading - sort of. It suggests that if the Macguffin is west, and an Evil Army approaches from the east, then if the party goes east, they should run into progressively stronger signs of the Evil Army (courrier, retreating friendly army, Evil Army.)

Chapter six is riddles and puzzles. Woo. There's some pretty stinky advice here (the wizard wants to fight things? Wizards should be intellectual. Punish the Wizard). It's in the context of asking for players to justify their answers from an in-character perspective, but... no. Traps are also covered, and actually covered well: "Here's the problem with traps: they are most often employed by bad game referees in their supposed struggle to assert their superiority over players." Footnote calls out Tomb of Horrors. Specific advice includes: traps must be foreshadowed, traps must make sense, all traps have a bypass. Also, don't trap the only route to the plot.

Chapter 7 is preparation. YMMV, but as presented, this is a useful and useable approach. Several sections are devoted to urging you to actually consider the implications of the things you design ("geography has a huge impact on civilizations," "how fertile is the ground," "picture people or monsters actually living [in your buildings/dungeons], etc.) Including my local favorite section, "If you ever say 'Because it's magic' again, I swear..." The rest of the chapter covers organization of your setup. It's long on taxonomy, and short on nitty-gritty.

Chapter 8 is how to actually run a game. XDM advocates hamminess, props, multimedia. It goes further, but not til next chapter. A few pages in, we get to that "never read adventure descriptions" advice: that translates to a recommendation that you read it ahead of time, get a mental picture and know what the place looks like, then describe it yourself. That way you keep a coherent mental picture and can answer questions about additional details ad-hoc. Then, spice up your combat descriptions, then another gem: make your players do their part of the work. Let them track bonuses; let them announce how much damage they do, etc. Not eactly revolutionary in these parts, but anathema in other corners of the interblag. Finally, some advice to make your social dynamics verisimilitudinous. It's not phrased that way, and the wrapping is not great, but that's what it reduces to.

Chapter nine is very bad advice about dealing with players having the temerity to disagree with you. Ignore it and be happier.

Chapter ten is Atmosphere. Section headings are: Sound, Lights, Lasers, Holograms, and Fog. Holograms is a bit of a misnomer, as it's actually just recommending stage-magic--style illusions.

Chapter eleven is pyrotechnics. Really. A lot of it is redacted.

Chapter 12 is tricks. Contact juggling, appearing people, card tricks and dice manipulation. There is even a trick for making dice re-roll themselves, which would look cool enough that I would actually forgive it's use (also, it's basically a one-shot deal, and mutually exclusive with some other, cooler illusions).

Chapter 13 is "Killer Breakfast to Go". Killer Breakfast is apparently a paranoia-style roleplaying event that the Hickmans have run often. Sounds fun, but it's completely competitive narration, with success determined by whimsy. The short summary is it's "a parody of traditional role playing games performed in front of an audience, and using audience members as participants." It's neat, but also kind of a non-sequitur.

Chapter 14 is player advice. It's pretty good advice for roleplaying, but some of it may not be good for fun. YMMV.

Chapter 15 is an RPG, with all the charm of *world, though without the fluff and affectation. That's not a compliment, but it's at least well presented. Ish.

There are some appendices, but they're all riffing or reference.

Overall: A- It's entertaining, engaging and useful, but there are also a few really bad pieces of advice. If you hang out here though, they'll stand out enough that you won't get tripped up by them.

[Laertes]

Thanks for this review - I enjoyed reading it. The book looks interesting, and it sounds like the Hickmans have a good understanding of the social dynamics of how RPGs are played.

The "signs of the oncoming enemy army from the east" is indirectly lifted from Robin D. Laws's spiel on how to foreshadow and warn players against a dragon. Like most of Laws, it's good advice.