One engineer's style of being a game master

or how to be way technical about subjects that generally aren't seen as very technical

This blog will be about the different tools, methods and philosophies of game mastering tabletop pen and paper role-playing games, including (but not limited to) dungeons and dragons, as well as anything else even remotely relevant I might think of. Because of how I approach thinking about this topic, this will involve philosophy, mathematics, psychology, history and engineering.

I mostly will be writing it as a method of collecting my own thoughts on the subject, and as a convenient reference material if I need to link to something in a later discussion. But I also hope some things I write here may be useful to other people, no matter their level of experience in game mastering.

I use hand-drawn diagrams that sometimes use color to convey information. Some people are color blind, but I didn’t find a convenient and fast way to use only accessible colors in the app I use for drawing. I am still debating re-learning which colors to use, but in the meantime, here is a windows 10 accessibility mode that, according to people in the sub, works well. I am sure Linux has a similar tool.

Here are some of the things that inspired my thinking on the subject (or on related subjects), and that I will surely be referencing in one way or another: 

• Philosophy:

  • The sequences on Lesswrong. Very broad and fairly deep overview of heuristics & biases that happen in the human brain, decision under uncertainty, and other broad issues that affect basically everything.

  • Formerly Slate Star Codex, now Astral Codex Ten.

• Mathematics:

  • Probability Theory: The Logic of Science by E.T. Jaynes. I basically can’t imagine talking about any probability theory without mentioning this book.

• History:

  • A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry, a wonderful blog by a military historian about, among other things, portrayal of historical military in media

  • Seeing Like a State by James C. Scott, a book about the ways states exert economic pressure on the population from the top, how people(especially farmers) historically form economic relationships between themselves, and how this interplay affects society. Be warned though, even though the book is a good one, it does have an anti-modernist bridge to sell you.

  • Grain Into Gold, a very quick primer into the sorts of economic forces that determine the price of goods in a medieval/fantasy world

• Game development (mainly video games):

  • Game Makers Toolkit, a youtube channel about various theoretical fundamentals of game development.

• Fantasy & fanfics:

  • Harry Potter and Methods of Rationality. See also: Lesswrong. Harry Potter fanfiction that has a side focus of introducing readers to various fundamental techniques of thinking.

  • Luminosity & sequel Radiance. Twilight fanfiction (yes, really) that focuses on how a reasonable altruist would behave in a romantic relationship. Mostly here because I find the idea of introducing people to basics of goal-directed planning through twilight fanfiction absolutely hillarious.

• Specifically pen and paper things:

  • Forge of Combat, a lens through which combat in dnd and Pathfinder can be viewed from a mechanics perspective.

  • Assorted posts on the forums, notably Tucker Kobolds and High level demon armies.

I may add more things to the list later on, as I think of them.

In the meantime, tell your friends!