2 thoughts on “Brutal Dungeons & Dragons Story”

  1. Now that was a story worthy of the Storyteller System – Chronicles of Darkness and its related titles. It’s excellent horror storytelling, and it does the DM extreme credit, because that’s quality all the way.

    I too DMed for a lot of years – 31, to be precise. And I was one of the few DMs I’d ever encountered who tried really hard to make the adventure about the story, and minimised combat in favour of story elements. D&D’s fundamental rules were poorly equipped for this, and I had to make up a lot of house rules on the fly to properly manage this, including in 3.5E giving CRs for defeat without slaughter – such as defeating a merchant in a sales negotiation. It made me the perpetual DM, as everyone wanted to play at my table rather than run the table themselves: I was the superior storyteller, and so my table was more interesting and fun.

    And then I was introduced to Mage: The Awakening Second Edition. Pretty much overnight, I abandoned D&D and immersed myself in the Storyteller System; because here at last was a system based from the very start on the story, where combat was entirely optional and had literally nothing to do with the means of advancement. Damage and injury were also more realistic and frightening, with rules for limb loss and permanent character injuries such as D&D never possessed.

    It was a system that allowed, and indeed even encouraged, existential terrors like the ‘brother monster’ dilemma of this tale, where even the BBEG might be less BEG than you expected in the end. Still big, but not really bad or evil – in fact, possibly even the complete friend and ally caught in the crux of a horrible bargain that means the final fight leaves no-one happy however it concludes. It allowed and encouraged truly creative tales, and took the shine off of heroism and villainy both in a way that challenged the concepts of both in players’ minds.

    Since then, I’ve been a resolute player of the Storyteller System; and for D&D players, I’d encourage that they get a good look at it. It’s fine if they don’t switch systems; but looking at Storyteller and the ways it does things will provide you with a suite of new ideas that will make your D&D games that much richer. Those tools will make stories like this one easy for you to replicate, or to make your own tragic versions of. And that’s good for any gaming group’s story diversity, regardless of what system they’re using to play.

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