A Nice Spread

Monsters can lose a battle before it begins if they have bad tactical positions. This is even truer with minions. Even if we assume, narratively, that your minions have no way to know they’re little competition for the characters, the creatures have a reason to seize tactical advantages. Beasts do so by instinct and natural ability, and smarter creatures do so through cunning, inclination, and planning.

Consider where the minions might want to be on the battlefield, just like you would for a monster of similar role. Assuming the monster has the ability to choose its lair or the fight’s locale, you can even build the encounter area to accommodate such a minion group’s terrain needs. Any artillery monster, as an example, seeks favorable terrain that allows it to shoot without direct melee confrontation. They favor high or protected places, such as a ledge or a window, that are hard to get to.

Speaking of hard to get to, movement modes can obviate the need for specific terrain while allowing a minion longevity and some narrative coolness. A movement mode—burrow, climb, fly, or swim—can allow minions to have the run of the combat zone. Skirmisher or lurker minions, or those designed for a specific narrative effect, might even be able to disengage with little risk, and then return to battle when they choose to. Such movement modes also make it easy to fill an encounter area that seemed empty when the characters entered. (Ambush!) The arrival of new monsters during the ongoing fight is also easily explained. In the previous articles I talked about myconid gas spores and kruthiks, both of which can use specialized movement modes to appear in combat from unusual angles.

When designing a space for your minions, take cues from cinematic video games, especially high-action games such as Borderlands. In Borderlands, some creatures (skags) emerge from burrows to join the fight, while others (spiderants) emerge from the soil in ambush. (It’s easy to see kruthiks as spiderants.) Still others (rakk) dive in for a flyby attack, then retreat. You often encounter an interesting array of creatures, weak to strong, that have varying powers despite physical similarities.

Consider that what’s good for the characters is also good for the monsters. Terrain powers add to a combat encounter interesting effects that the characters can exploit. A minion or group of minions might become particularly effective if they try to make use of the terrain powers, too. It’s all fair if everyone has an equal chance to use the terrain. When the kobold miners push the fiery brazier over on the characters, the players might just start to value terrain powers more. Just be sure to adjust the difficulty if it seems likely a terrain power might really favor the monsters.

Ingredients List

Food labels normally tell you what you’re eating so you can make informed dietary decisions. Gamist transparency is the same. It’s telling the players what the characters are facing so smart choices can be made. It’s called gamist because it’s more about the mechanical side of the game than the narrative side. It’s called transparency because the players are allowed to see through the game’s narrative reality, or what the characters might know, into the mechanical reality.

Transparency is a controversial subject. Some DMs prefer to tell the players everything, even if doing so requires giving out metagame knowledge—information the characters can’t really know. Such a DM allows players to act on this metagame knowledge. The DM justifiably assumes the characters are way more competent and informed than the players, so giving the players a little gamist leeway is harmless. Other DMs are stricter. They provide only information the characters have a way of really knowing, allowing knowledge and perceptual skill checks to expand the available data. As with other aspects of the game, the “right” way is what works best for you and your players.

Let’s face the facts. Minion, like any other role, is a game term the characters don’t know in a narrative or in-game sense. The characters can, however, sense whether an opponent looks less competent, poorly armed, or less prepared for battle. A fighter should easily notice that the fighting technique of an opponent is amateurish. An arcanist might note that the arcane power in a magical creature is weak, just like a cleric could be able to sense that an undead minion’s ties to the Shadowfell are tenuous. A ranger surely knows whether an individual beast is too feeble to be much of threat to the characters.

I favor some generosity in the realm of transparency. Sometimes I assume the battle-hardened characters can just tell when a creature is a minion. Other times, I use passive knowledge to determine what the players know. Every once in a while, I require an actual check or wait for the players to ask for such a check. (This is most true when the minions are considerably higher in level than the characters.) I have called for a check when a player is about to use an encounter or daily power on a minion. My inconsistency on this subject is due to conflicting desires, unique situations, and differing narrative needs in a given encounter. I prefer for the players to be able to use their resources as wisely as possible, but I also want to minimize the use of metagame knowledge. It can be an immersion killer. A decent level of immersion is required for me to have fun as a DM.

Robert Howard—a friend, player in my game, fine DM, and master of Pen & Paper Games—has a different perspective. He sees at least some of his minions as fully competent monsters that the characters can’t tell from the mechanically superior counterparts. The characters just happen, in cinematic fashion, to take out some of the fully competent monsters with one shot. Robert is using such minions to create an illusion of the characters’ badassery. To a character in such an encounter, he or she just took out a dangerous opponent in a single, gruesome blow. My difficulty with this tack is that the players see through it too easily; the mechanical reality is usually apparent.

Matters of Personal Taste

The point of all this is that minions, along with the other monsters, can be used in a variety of ways. You can create countless game experiences and stories by carefully employing minions, by manipulating their mechanics, and by engineering the encounter—XP budget to terrain—to accommodate them. You can even control transparency in varied ways, like Robert and I do. The process is more art than science, so experiment and have fun. You are the (evil?) mastermind and these minions are all yours.

• Part 1: Minions Are Spice
• Part 2: Minions of Differing Flavors

Illustrations by Jared von Hindman of Head Injury Theater.
Dragon illustration appears in Sly Flourish’s Dungeon Master Tips.

…that was us seriously underestimating the attraction of Ed, his stories and the general interest of people for tabletop RPGs.  We ended up speaking to packed room of 100+ people. I was impressed!

I wasn’t too sure how things would go but Robin took the lead and proposed that we each introduce ourselves and shared something we had recently learned as a Game Master, given that even the most legendary GMs learned new things.

Thankfully, Robin asked me to go after him but before Ed…

“Hi, ummm, I’m, like, this RPG blogger with a French name you probably didn’t get and, umm, I write stuff and I was a DM for a real long time”

I may be exaggerating a bit here. It got better from there.

New lessons for old warriors

Robin started talking about how he learned that failure in RPGs had to be re-evaluated…

Chatty (Silently): Oh crap, he’s going to say what I was going to say… quick make his head explode with your Scanners powers!

Robin basically outlined that classic, meaningless RPG failures (TPKs, Dead ends, failed spot checks) should not tarnish the players expectations/ time investement in the game. Modern RPGs tend to emulate heroic genres and the GM should make sure that failures fit the kind seen in movies where the heroes get up, dusts themselves up and pick up where they left off.

Chatty (still silently): Phew…He can live, I can add more to what he just said.

I followed about my experiences with Mouseguard and how failures should rather be used as opportunities to make things more interesting, more complicated for players instead of closing doors.

Ed then shamelessly plugged Robin’s new book “Hamlet’s Hit Points”. He said that after making stuff up on the spot for so many years in his games, he was surprised to see that you could still plan emotional rises and falls in your games pretty much like studio creatives and executives do.

Ed: I met these 3 foot tall guys with cigars telling the writers: “No, the hero can’t start caressing the girl until scene 3, that’s when the audience will be hooked!”

I’m paraphrasing here people, I take no responsibility about nor will I even try to quote Ed on anything… ever.

Still, I think I’m going to have a look at that new book.

Robin: How dare you plug my newly published book, available at all fine locations where RPG books can be found!

Q&A about ‘That Guy”

We then started taking questions and it became obvious that Robin and Ed had fielded a tons of those before.  What surprised me was that many, many of them were about GMs asking how to make players conform to some ideal they had internalized.  Here’s a few I remember.

Question: How do I make this one player come out of his shell and start roleplaying?

Answer: He already roleplays by being there. Maybe he’ll come out of his shell but don’t stay stuck on a narrow definition of roleplaying.  Players evolve but not necessarily where or how the GM expects.

Question: I have this guy who always have these crazy plans he wants to trigger at the end of combat, how do I rein him in?

Robin: There we are people, we have the question about “that guy!”

Answer: If you truly are at the end of a session, tell him to keep it in and that he can do it at the next session.  If the player wants to do some crazy stuff like shooting a bazooka in a small room (true example from the room), just let him, at least once in a while, and have all the other PCs surf the explosion wave to safety.  If it’s cool, make room for it.

Question: How do I convince a player to stop always playing the same kinds of character?

Answer: You don’t. You figure out a way to let them play one.

Ed: I like Cat Ninja Bard girls!

This exchange brought the philosophy all 3 of us shares to the forefront: Focus on delivering to players what they want, don’t force your perception of what is proper to them.  Make it work so your motivations and theirs match but be the flexible one.

Question: How do you handle large groups in D&D?

Answers: Play older editions. Impose discipline and skip turns when not applied. Foster a new DM and split group in two, possibly playing in a shared world with PCs switching games.

Question: How do I make my players care about My NPCs/My Stories/My World

Answers: Make them care by creating relationships with NPCs, by being directly involved in the stories and by making them small owners of the world (keeps, inns, etc). Have them make difficult choices about them Foster world creation from the get go by having pre-campaign sessions where players create new NPCs and places and create ties between them and the elements they created.

Great stuff really.

Is the Hobby dying? Ask the kids…

Robin mentions on his journal that the fears of having the hobby die out to video games seem to be unfounded.  Most of the room was filled with 20-somethings that seemed to be genuinely excited about D&D! I’ll take this anecdotal evidence and use it generously from now on!

All in all, I had a great time.  I loved listening to Ed and Robin share their wisdom and I think I held my own and made a few interesting points myself.  I also want to catch more of Ed telling stories, they guy is an awesome font of non-PC, R-Rated stories!  I wanna hear more!

Looking forward to doing it again as I was re-invited for 2011.

This email was about a play he had written called “Of Dice and Men”, a story about a group of D&D players and what happens to them when one of them gets deployed to Iraq. It sounded interesting, but then I hit one quote from Cameron that stopped me dead in my tracks: “I always thought I played games for the games themselves but when he enlisted I realized I actually play them for the people – for the connections you make and the friendships that are formed when you play.” I thought of all the good times I’ve had with my friends over the years around the gaming table, how much I miss the ones I don’t play with anymore, and how at home I feel when it’s finally game night – and I knew deep in my soul he was right.

I’ve got to see this thing.

Sadly (for me, anyway), it’s being premiered at PAX PRIME. In Seattle, WA. Where I am NOT. It’s apparently the first time a “serious” play has ever been performed at a gaming convention (no, the costume contest doesn’t count), much less premiered. That’s pretty rad.

For those of you who ARE in Seattle, WA on September 3, get thee to the “Unicorn Room” of the Washington State Convention Center at 7:30 pm. You will do what I cannot, and support these fine people. Or I will SMASH.

Of course, as effective a sales tactic as physical violence is, I can’t sell this thing nearly as well as Cameron himself:

Cameron was kind enough to answer a few questions for us:

CM: “Of Dice and Men” is a full-length play, written by Cameron McNary, that will be receiving its world premiere at PAX Prime, Friday, September 3rd 2010. It’s about a group of 30-something D&D players, and what happens when one of them enlists to go to Iraq. It has been called “The most brilliant piece of non-Wizards of the Coast Dungeons and Dragons related material since the Dead Alewives.”

It’s important to gamers because it portrays gamers as the kind of people you want to be around, and the kind you want to be. It’s a hip, very funny, deeply touching play that challenges the stereotypes about gamers and gaming. It is geek art without the self-loathing. If you’ve ever wanted to take your mom or your girlfriend or your grandad to something and say, “Look: THIS is why I play,” and have them *get* it, now you can.

Also, unlike the images of what “a play about D&D” might normally conjure up, it is very, very good.

CH: Are there any plans to make this experience available for those of us who can’t see the event live, like DVD or downloadable video?

CM: Eventually, yes, in some form.

CH: Any other plans in the works from Critical Threat Theatre?

CM: We plan to take the exposure and fundraising that comes from this premiere and bring this play to regional theatres across the country, and eventually, to Off-Broadway. We are also taking open submissions for scripts that match our mission of “Great Plays. About Geeks.”

CH: How can our readers get involved in this project?

CM: They can donate money. We’re currently running a capital campaign on www.indiegogo.com (http://www.indiegogo.com/ODaM) where you can become a Critical Threat Rot Grub for just $5. In addition to the various perks you can get (you should see what we’re offering our Frost Giant Jarls), when this show comes to your town, you can point to it and say you were part of making it happen.

If you know of a script we should produce, please send it to us. If you or someone you know is in a position to produce this play professionally in your town, we’ll be happy to forward you the script. You can contact us at info@criticalthreattheare.com.

CH: You guys are clearly gamers. Tell us about how you got started gaming, and how it’s affected your lives over the years.

CM: Many of the people involved in this project are gamers, but a lot of them are just theatre professionals who have become fans of the play. My wife — our Managing Director — won’t touch twelve-siders with a ten-foot pole. Many of our Seattle actors have no gaming experience whatsoever. Our commitment to making quality theatre is just as strong as our commitment to making theatre about geeks.

As for myself, I’ve been playing D&D since my cousin Seamus ran me through Against the Giants and the Lost Tomb of Martek when I was eight. Since then, my tastes have expanded to include just about anything you can play — every tabletop RPG ever, CCGs, videogames, boardgames. Like a lot of gamers, gaming has been the source of some of the best friendships I’ve ever had, and sometimes the only friendships I’ve had. Whatever town I was in, whatever shape my life was in, I knew if I could find a gaming store, I had a home. There have been times in my life when that was incredibly important.

Thanks to Cameron for tipping us off about this event. I’m incredibly jealous of those of you who can make it.

Once again, here’s where to be:

PAX PRIME
7:30 pm
September 3rd 2010
“Unicorn Room” of the Washington State Convention Center in Seattle, Washington.

Please, please, please go and support them. Or donate, which you can do here. Or both. Yes, that one. Just help them out. They rock.

Photo credits:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/carleeaross/2060369281/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rym/2067782076/

Roleplaying For The Severely Disturbed with StupidRanger.com

And now, for the main course:

The unaired sequel to "Invisible Child", set in Eberron.

I’ve spent the majority of my blogging career trying to figure out how to make it easier for people to roleplay better. To get them emotionally invested in their characters. To make them feel and act as their character might. To dance into the danger zone where the dancer becomes the dance. I believe I have finally discovered the secret to doing so:

The Lifetime Movie Network.

Who better understands the human condition than the people who prepare us for the worst life could ever throw at us with their delightful training films? I now have deep insight into how to cope with discovering that I have a secret baby while a serial killer stalks me trying to steal my face. If, in my work as a traveling nanny, one of my clients has an invisible child, I am prepared.

Therefore, I propose a series of similar films be created for gamers. Imagine the unbridled freedom. Nobody is invested in their characters now because there’s no real sense of peril with the mere threat of simple death, dismemberment, undeath, conversion into ettin feces, demonic possession, and banishment to other planes.

These are nothing compared to the sanity-destroying terror of discovering that the mind flayer you shared one night of passion with had your half-Illithid love child and that now grown child is now a fireman, your home is on fire and your wife is sure to recognize your eyes above his tentacle-nubs. THAT is true terror.

That’s just the tip of the iceberg. Imagine having to plan the double shotgun wedding for long lost hobgoblin sisters. Imagine being a wight with Irritable Bowel Syndrome. What if your character’s son had a crippling addiction to drawing cards from the Deck Of Many Things to feed his drug habit? What if you woke up from a coma and discovered all your body parts had been replaced with body parts of Vecna – and your husband, intimidated by your newfound power, doesn’t find you attractive anymore?

If you are not weeping uncontrollably by this point, you should get yourself checked out. You are probably malfunctioning, ROBOT.

Other possible titles:

• Warforged and Pregnant
• Tasha’s Uncontrollable Hideous Addiction To Methamphetamines
• Prom Night Mummy Rot
• His Mistress’s Daily Power
• In Love With A Police Gnoll
• Holy Avenger: The Source Of My Paladinhood Is The Idiot Little League Umpire
• Divine Teen, Arcane Father
• Mindflayer, Homeflayer (with Delta Burke)
• Circle of Lycanthropy: The Wererat’s Mistress’s Wereboar Lover’s Weresnake Mistress’s Friend with Were-Benefits

All we need now is Bigby’s Press-On Nails, Otiluke’s Everlasting Quart of Chubby Hubby, and Leomund’s Negative Gender Stereotypes.

My work here is done. Enjoy the revolution.

Of course, gaming system and computer technology evolved and improved over the years, but the video games continued to take their cues and inspiration from Dungeons & Dragons, their RPG Adam, incorporating experience points and leveling, ability scores and bonuses, coin accumulation and optimization. There was even some effort to incorporate roleplaying, starting with the binary or ternary approach of the “Choose Your Own Adventure” books and building to a faux sandbox environment where you could go anywhere, explore everything, and interact with everybody.

As more and more players come to Dungeons & Dragons from a video game background (and, not coincidentally, were born after I graduated high school), they bring with them a very specific sensibility. The result is that the teacher becomes the student, and D&D players begin to integrate certain aspects that had previously only lived inside video games. For example, video games tend to deal in something I’d call “sense language,” where a scene is set by describing (or displaying) what you see and what you hear. In the same way, dungeon masters don’t talk about the three kobolds, but rather the “three emaciated lizard creatures with fanged dragon heads, hissing at each other in their horrid tongue, turning jagged blades in their clawed hands.” This is immersive, and that’s unquestionably a good thing. Unfortunately, not all of the adoptions are.

Flat Interactions

This is not merely the “I don’t have a quest for you” NPC conversations, but also the supposed in-character discussions between the players themselves. Way back when, entire adventures were built on the first level assembly of the PCs, in the tavern, at the bar, exchanging probing questions and wary looks. Sitting around the table in Mom’s kitchen, we all instantly knew who were PCs and who were NPCs, but we still played it out with an adorable degree of verisimilitude. “And you are?” “I’m Rathren, dwarven myrmidon from the Icepeak Mountains.” “Uh huh. And is that blood I see on your axe?” “Of course it is. Orcish blood. And it may be yours if you keep questioning me, half-breed.”

There’s nothing in the current rules to prevent these sorts of interactions, but it just feels a little silly to drag out introductions when our meta-brains are screaming, “There’s an adventure to get to!” In my recent games, when afforded the opportunity for non-adventure roleplaying, we instead reached a nonverbal agreement, through nervous smiles and nods, just to skip it all. That’s to our detriment.

There is something wonderful about setting the scene, about taking the time to give everyone a proper introduction. Distrust is easy and evocative, especially if it’s based on prejudices. In an old-time game I played, the party’s dwarf took an instant dislike to my half-ogre, which was fairly easy, since we two players didn’t really know each other. We were able to spend most of the sessions growling and grousing at each other, right up until that desperate battle where we were the only two left standing, back-to-back, fighting for our lives. After our victory, the dwarf and half-ogre became friends, just as we players did.

Progressive Difficulty

Assuming all games can be boiled down to moving from Point A to Point ZZZ, each subsequent challenge must be more harrowing, lethal, and devastating than the last. The challenge has to ramp up, since as we all know, the fun comes from playing the bloodied staggering victim. But not really. Video game cheat codes must be a direct response to this, a desire to feel like a conquering hero instead of a punching bag. I know I’ve used them in games, after getting flayed by the seven goblins in the first room, mashed by the two ogres and 11 orcs in the second room, and annihilated by the two glabrezu, five hill giants, and 18 bugbears in the third room.

I’ve yapped about this before, and I’m not going to stop until the message gets through my own thick skull. After a tough battle, there’s nothing wrong with an easy one (or two). Let’s make with the minions, and build encounters that are levels below the party. Trust me, the players will feel great, and probably won’t even pause a moment to wonder about your masculinity (assuming you’re male).

Boss Battles

Maybe I’m alone is this, but I just don’t like boss battles. After slogging through all of that progressive difficulty while burning through your resources and consumables, the level culminates in the melee with the big boss, who is shower fresh and full of deadly. Usually the boss also happens to be wreathed in arrogance, taking every opportunity to deride and humiliate the characters. You pour every remaining power and ability over that boss, who probably avoids or resists most of it because–get this–he’s a boss, and then the battle shifts into a grim and gruesome grind.

Instead of a final toe-to-toe boss battle, I’ve found the highly mobile, multi-combatant skirmishes much more exciting. If there is all sorts of interesting terrain (bridges across rushing water, piles of rocks, gaping pits full of jagged spikes), you will have characters rushing all over the place, regrouping at a rally point, combining attacks for apocalyptic synergy. The defenders lock down the most dangerous opponents, the strikers flash across the battlefield like cobras, the controllers clear out the raging crowds, and the leaders call down support from above. Everyone is useful, active, engaged. This is cooperative gaming.

Cut Scenes

The drama builds and the climax nears, and when you open that final door, when you reach your goal and finally see what you must do… PAUSE. The game simply stops, spinning away from you while it plays a pretty little movie inside frozen time, which you can only watch. There is a certain helplessness here, an impotence, when you the player are transformed into a passive audience. This is a chance for the video game to show off its cinematic aspirations and to take advantage of all that processing power on the system.

In Dungeons & Dragons, it’s a chance for the DM to demonstrate writing, reading, and performance ability, as the big bad (see above) lectures the PCs on just how evil, mean, vicious, and puppy-kicking he really is. Any attempts to interrupt this presentation will be met with furious vengeance: “By Sidney Miller’s left incisor, I WILL finish reading this. Shut up your mouths, and tremble before my glorious text.”

However, the best moments are rarely planned, and are almost always the most memorable. When the DM does start speechifying for the villain, and one of the players interrupts with, “I’m going to bury an arrow in his forehead,” that’s great stuff. Especially if it’s a critical hit… or miss. On a miss, the player might clear her throat and mutter, “Um… never mind. You were saying?” Of course, unplanned, improvised moments like this are only possible when the DM allows it. So to the DMs I say this: allow it.

Ultimately, there’s nothing wrong with finding inspiration in the video games that you love, but I’d encourage you to remember that these are two different forums, and what works well inside one may not work at all inside the other.

I have a confession to make: I dislike boxed text.  I don’t like writing it.  Editing boxed text is painful.  I don’t even like having to read it aloud to my players as a DM.  I understand why it is included in published adventures.  A DM relies on it to set the scene for the characters; otherwise, she would have to scan the entire encounter area and figure out what the PCs can sense at first glance.  The players can get a better picture of what their characters are experiencing when good boxed text evokes the setting.

Unfortunately, the number of things that can go wrong with boxed text often far outweighs the positives.  Before I get clinical on y’all, do me a favor.  Read this bit of boxed text:

“Your trip through the Forest of Demise was uneventful.  The chittering of forest animals and chirping of birds that serenaded you through the forest suddenly ends, as if the creatures of the natural world shun and fear this place. In the distance, you see a tower sticking out of the ground like an evil, twisted tree reaching up to the sky.  As you approach the tower, the crunching of the dead leaves under your feet seems almost deafening in the otherwise silent clearing. As you get within 20 feet of the tower, you realize the place is surrounded by a nearly invisible noxious vapor.  As you breathe it in, its stench burns your lungs and makes your eyes water. The hairs on your arms bristle with terror and your heart pounds as an anguished shriek cuts through the silence from within the tower.  You can feel the palpable presence of evil.  On the door to the tower you see four glowing runes.”

Now picture, if you will, a typical D&D party.  For this example, the edition is really irrelevant.  We have Pedritar the dragonborn paladin, Brark the grimlock barbarian, Clang the warforged cleric, Dirzzelda the Druid, and Rhuul the revenant rogue.  The party is approaching the tower-lair of Lystrango the evil lich of doom.  As they move forward, the DM begins to read the boxed text:

DM: Everyone ready?  I have your marching order?  Great, let’s start with the opening boxed text!  “Your trip through the Forest of Demise was uneventful.  The chittering of forest animals and chirping of birds that serenaded you through the forest suddenly ends, as if the creatures of the natural world shun and fears this place. In the—“
Drizzelda the Druid: Why?
DM: Why what?
Drizzelda the Druid: Why do they shun this place?
DM: [confused stare]
Drizzelda the Druid: I’m a druid.  I ask that squirrel over there why he stopped chittering.
DM: Um.  He tells you that he and all the forest animals are afraid of the tower in the clearing ahead.  Let me jumped ahead to that. “In the distance, you see a tower sticking out of—”
Brark the Barbarian: Nope.
DM: Nope what?
Brark the Barbarian: Nope I don’t see it.  I’m a grimlock.  Got no eyes.
DM: Right, ok.  “Everyone but Brark sees a tower sticking out the ground like an evil, twisted tree reaching up to the sky.”
Drizzelda the Druid: I talk to it.  I can talk to plants too.
DM: Huh?
Drizzelda the Druid: You said there was a tree sticking out of the ground.
DM: It’s not really a tree.  It’s like a tree.  “As you approach the tower, the crunching of the dead leaves under your feet seems almost deafening in the silence.”
Rhuul the Rogue: I don’t walk on the dead leaves.  I try to be silent.
DM: OK, I guess you can avoid the leaves.  But it’s not really that imp—
Pedritar the Paladin: I’m not walking.  I’m flying.  Remember I took that feat that gives me wings and a fly speed.
DM: Got it.  Pedro is flying and Rhuul is tiptoeing around the leaves.  Anyway, let’s continue.  “As you get within 20 feet of the tower, you realize the place is surrounded by a nearly invisible noxious vapor.  As you breathe it in, its stench burns your lungs and makes your eyes water.”
Clang the Cleric: Technically, I don’t have lungs.  I’m made of wood and stone.
DM: Yeah, I guess.  The point is—
Brark the Barbarian: I still don’t have eyes.  They can’t be watering.
DM: Right.  I just mean—
Rhuul the Rogue: As a revenant, I am undead.  Technically, I don’t know if I need to breathe.
DM: OK, ok, I get it.  There’s a mist that is burning the lungs of those of you with lungs and/or that breathe, irritating your eyes if you have eyes, and is generally unpleasant and mildly irritating to the rest of you.  Let’s continue: “The hairs on your arms bristle with terror and your heart pounds as an anguished shriek cuts through the silence from within the tower.  You can feel the palpable presence of evil.”
Pedritar the Paladin: I can.  They can’t.
DM: Who can’t what?
Pedritar the Paladin: The rest of the party can’t Detect Evil.  Only I can.
DM: It’s just a general presence of evil, not an actual specific evil.
Pedritar the Paladin: Seems like only I would be able to feel it.  It’s a class ability after all.
Clang the Cleric: And I have no hair.
DM: Excuse me?
Clang the Cleric: You said that the hairs on my arm stand up in terror.  I’m hairless.  Maybe I have some moss or something that stands up instead?
DM: Sounds good to me.
Rhuul the Rogue: I’m not scared.
DM: What?!
Rhuul the Rogue: Dude, I was once locked in a coffin with a vampire for a week.  A little shrieking from some lich’s tower isn’t going to phase me.  And also, I don’t know if my heart actually beats, so it couldn’t pound.
Clang the Cleric: Yeah, I have no—
DM: Yes, I get it.  Moving on.  “On the door you see—”
Brark the Barbarian: I don’t—
DM: Yes, I get it.  You have no eyes and cannot see.  Let’s sum this up.  “There is a tower in front of you.” What do you do?

As is evidenced above, boxed text can be rife with pitfalls when it assumes character feelings, movements, and actions.  Boxed text also needs to be carefully crafted, or it becomes not only unhelpful, but an actual distraction from the game on many other levels.

"Get near the lich's tower? Are you nuts?"

For those of you who write (or who are interested in writing) adventures and other content for public consumption, the following tips and thoughts are my opinion on the subject.  For those DMs not writing adventures that others will be running or playing, they are equally valid for you.  You still have to describe scenes to the players during play, and some of these points are equally applicable to you.

Tip 1. Move from the second-person point of view to the third person.

I know this is going to sound radical to experienced adventure designers, but it really is a great way to avoid many of the pitfalls illustrated above.  If you do not use the word “you” as the subject of the sentences in your boxed text, it is very difficult to inadvertently include character actions, motivations, or movements that can lead to problems.  By avoiding the second-person (“As you enter the clearing, you notice the bloated corpse of a headless dragon”) and using the third-person (“The bloated corpse of a headless dragon dominates the center of this small clearing”), you have avoided moving the PCs when they may not want to move, and you have even given them the chance to enter the clearing from any direction and in any manner they choose.  This also makes it very difficult to add bits like “you believe” or “you think” that tell the players what their characters are thinking when it is their prerogative to think or believe anything they want.

While at first it can be challenging to write boxed text in this manner, I have found it very liberating.  The process really forces me to think about the encounter in terms of what is there first, and then it forces me to think of all the possible ways that the characters might interact with what is there, rather than making assumptions about how that interaction will take place.  It also helps me think about what other sensory information I can pass to the players.

Tip 2. Avoid the novelist/dramatist urge.

Many of us who DM frequently do so because we have so many great stories to tell.  This has been the greatest joy of RPGs for me over the years, and the stories I have been able to tell with the help of my editors, writers, DMs, and players will stay with me for a long time.  However, boxed text is not the place to unleash that inner novelist.  Nothing slows a game more than paragraph after paragraph of boxed text, especially when the DM has to stumble through prose so purple that not even a rainbow wants to admit association with the color.  There are three main kinds of problem with this novelist’s urge:

2a. “It was a dark and stormy night.”

Relevant details are fine for boxed text, and maybe one or two little poetic flourishes can add to the players’ feel for an encounter.  But piling on the obvious, irrelevant, or overwrought details can make the players lose focus on what is important.  My rule of thumb when writing or editing is to leave in only the details about the environment that the PCs need to know about because they will have to interact with them.  The stench of a bog or a monster is important if those things are going to play a part in the encounter, especially as a terrain feature or monster ability: the bog weakens a creature entering it, or the monster’s stench is an aura.  The smell of flowers in the sunny glade can probably be left out, unless you happen to be DMing for a party comprised solely of elves or florists.

"Please enjoy a light snack, Mr. Bond, while I find a printed copy of my evil plan. It will only take a moment."

2b. The villain’s soliloquy.

I can give this one a bit of a pass sometimes, because it is such a trope in fantasy (and really in much of our popular entertainment).  The characters finally fight their way through the evil mastermind’s fortress, and they come upon him as he is just completing his evil plan.  Then he breaks into four paragraphs of boxed-text monologue: first cursing the PCs for being a nuisance, then explaining what his evil plan is, then describing to the PCs what will happen to them after he rips of their heads the spits down their necks, and finishes by talking about his plans to take over the world.  (Maniacal laugh optional.)  It has taken the evil dude 1 minute, 45 seconds to ramble on , and the upcoming battle is going to take 28 seconds in game time.

As a compromise, instead of having the evil guy do the soliloquy, let him talk with the characters interactively.  Give it a little back and forth.  That way, if the players are hyped up for a little smack talk, or if they want to know what the eldritch machine of doom will do if the lever is pulled, they can do so.  If not, you can get right into the badassery.

2c. The action in progress.

This is similar to the evil soliloquy problem, only it involves action instead of talking.  Sometimes it is forcing the characters to watch while some plot point happens, either leading up to combat, or after combat ends, or just a scene in the overall flow of your game’s narrative.  The characters just saved the prince, and now they get to watch his coronation.  If your players are into it, great.  Let ‘er rip.  However, chances are even the most invested player is going to start to nod off after the 8^th paragraph of text describing the festivities. Again, find a way to keep the passages short, and give the PCs the chance to interact with the scene in some way, even if it is just standing in the crowd and trading quips with each other or an NPC.  Better yet, put them up on the royal stage, trying to hold still during the ceremony while a pesky mosquito bites them. (Endurance checks for everyone!)

This sort of boxed text has prompted countless groups to create actual rules mechanics to avoid it.  I have talked with far too many players and DMs who have implemented “Interrupt Boxed Text” spells, feats, cards, dice, and powers into their games.

Tip 3. Describe everything the characters can sense, but not what they cannot.

While this might seem way too obvious, it happens surprisingly often.  The first is when the boxed text fails to mention something apparent, like the 50-foot-wide chasm between the doorway and the altar.  You would be surprised how many DMs read the boxed text, allow the characters to walk into the room, and then say, “You fall into the chasm.”  When the player complains about not being told about the chasm, the DM replies, “You didn’t ask.”  Yes, this is on the DM, but we writers need to make sure that if we are going to include boxed text, let’s go all the way and do it right.

Less troublesome but equally odd is when the boxed text details things the characters could not know.  They enter a room full of closed crates, and the boxed text describes the room, detailing the “large crates full of mining equipment.”  The characters couldn’t know that without opening them, so at least let the mystery linger for a bit.  Close your eyes and see what the characters are seeing, and let the DM move the characters forward from there.

Tip 4. Avoid “seems to be” or “appears to be.”

Some players are meta-gaming bastards.  I love them, but they are.  Nothing triggers meta-gaming like the words “seems” or “appears” in boxed text.  Those words generally mean that some trick or diversion is in the offing.  If something “appears to be” to the characters, it “is” to the characters.  Wherever you stand philosophically in real life, perception has to equal reality for the characters or you lose too much in the game.  Let those Perception or Spot checks separate the “seems” from the “is.”

Tip 5. Read your boxed text aloud to check readability.

This advice is equally valid for any type of writing you do, but it is practically required for any writing meant to be read aloud.  Trouble areas like tongue-twisters, funny sounding phrases, unintended alliteration, and other pitfalls are hard to spot on the page but easy to hear when spoken.  NPCs named “Eileen Dover” just don’t belong in an adventure.

If you keep some of these tips in mind while writing boxed text or planning what you will reveal to your players about an encounter area, I think you will see an improvement not just in how you present it to your players, but in how you design it is as well.  Unless you are a grimlock, of course.

So soon after Gen Con and after having been at Ground Zero for Pax East, I’m not sure how to set my expectations for the Fan Expo.  I have no ideas what the show will be like nor what I’ll be doing except game for most of the day on Saturday.

Regardless of what awaits us over there, I still have a 5 hour car trip to plan so I thought I’d reach out and share/ask how the travelling part of the trip should be prepared!

Shuffle and Repeat!

First up is the music.  I think its safe to say that most geeks have some form of MP3 player, be it a phone of varying degrees of smartness, an electronic player à la iPod or plain old burned CDs.

I’m not much of a music freak but I really need to have some playing whenever I’m doing something repetitive (or when I write).  While I listen to Last.fm a lot when online,  I yet have to develop a standard practice of bringing a player in the car.  But I’m getting there.

My music selection is mostly techno-pop stuff that makes your head nod hypnotically (I heard the term headnotic coined a few years ago)… PM doesn’t seem to find that Belgian 20-something female signers are road trip material.

Pfff, what does he know?

His selection is more geared toward Rock classics from across the Ameri-Euro 70s-00′s spectrum. From southern rock like Sweet Home Alabama to Northern Indie pop-rock like Metric’s Black Sheep. However, being the nerds that we are, we are likely to keep looping the Scott Pilgrim soundtrack and score and Orbital’s Dr. Who theme.

We usually strike a cool balance when together, so I’m not too worried.

What about you? Whats your favorite music mix for Road Trips?

Snacks & Drinks

One thing I like about car trips once I leave my beloved province of Poutine, fruit juice without sugar and Mountain Dew sans caffeine is stopping at gas stations along the way to pick up the kinda drinks and snacks I don’t get at home.  Now I haven’t been in Ontario in a while, but I suspect that the main difference will be that the margarine in any sandwiches we grab will still be near-mustard yellow (ours is near-white yellow, don’t ask) .

But hey, I’m willing to be surprised!

For the event itself, I pack food in advance (to avoid getting ripped off by the concession stands).  I’m going to be game mastering for about 8 hours straight on Saturday afternoon-evening, so I’ll have high energy foods like granola bars and plenty of drinks like Vitamin Water, sports and energy drinks.

What are your favorite trip foods and what do you ALWAYS pick up when you travel in specific places?

Nerd Topics!

Five hours in a car with another guy can erode the range of subject of even the chattiest of geeks.

Actually that’s not true, but work with me here.

PM and I are both Movies, Geek TV and Tropes nutjobs.  Give us a list of movies and we’ll deconstruct them to sub-atomic tropes and rebuild them into pieces of cinematographic perfection that no studio would touch with an uranium pole.

We’re also going to go into armchair (or rather car seat) game designer mode and critique our games of choice (Mouse Guard, Last Night on Earth, Pandemic, Free Market, D&D Essentials) and compare our relative preferences.

Of course, a French nerd discussion is not complete with a little arguing, so I’ll have to work up a few contentious topics to liven the car’s atmosphere a bit.  Like how he thinks Carcassonne was broken by the introduction of the iPhone version, making all players into competitive bastards (I don’t agree, I’ve learn to play Hearts at an English university, being a rat bastard is fun!).

What about you what are your topics of choice?

The Smart Phone is Your Friend

Cell Phone, MP3/Video player, Camera, Social Media Client, Google Map, IMDb, etc, the Smart Phone is my new favorite road trip friend.  From capturing the sights and stories of the trip to fact checking when PM is being a clueless douche, this little gadget is very useful… If the battery on my new Experia X10 can lasts…

Expect to hear from me through that new toy of mine.

But not when I’m driving… I’m not quite that stupid..

See you Next Week!

I leave you in the safe hands of Dave and the rest of the Critical Hits crew.  I’ll be leaving for the Expo tomorrow morning and I’ll be tweeting and taking pics while on site. Follow me here if you want to share in the sights and mini stories.

See you in a few days.

Sound Off!

Typically when I design a space for use in an RPG, I will go back and forth between these two styles of design at regular intervals. When I begin I might be thinking about the fantasy setting that has led to the creation of a building, then I will go through and design that building as I think about the players and monsters interacting with the locations, and then I will go back through it again and apply an additional layer of setting and history to it. This is an ongoing and interactive process, between you and the design, that should result in a balanced product that is both functional and rich in inspiration.

How are the players going to see this?

There is a very harsh reality that you have to face: if your players don’t experience the environment of your game, then it doesn’t matter how much effort you put into it. Another way of wording this would be that even if you put a month worth of effort into designing an encounter location, if you fail in the presentation of that encounter everything can fall flat and go to waste. A battlemat or dry erase board is one of the easiest ways to convey a setting to your players, but if you’re not using one of those then your best friend has got to be picture references.

If you’re running a Vampire game and the players are going into a gothic church, then showing them a picture of a gothic church is the perfect thing to do. Don’t squabble over whether it is Notre Dame that you’re showing them or if the exact details are not correct, just show it to them briefly and then fill in the details with your descriptions. Unless one of your players is an expert on the gothic order, the specific layout of that church isn’t even important as long as they can experience it and have fun at the same time.

Don’t Be Afraid to Take Creative Control

Let’s say one of your players is an expert on Gothic churches. Let’s say you are running a game for me, and you describe the church and its plan is not the shape of a cross. You don’t know that the church is supposed to be laid out that way complete with narthex and nave. This can be the nightmare for a GM, and indeed this very fear is what has crippled many of my non-fantasy games that I’ve run in the past. Clearly you could do a lot of homework and learn what every single building, location, and environment should look like, or you could have fun and make everything up.

So you’re running the game and I’ve just entered your Gothic church, certainly I could be the kind of player that calls the GM out on these mistakes, but you run with it and agree – this Gothic church is missing a narthex and nave and is not laid out in the shape of a cross. Fascinating! The plot thickens as the players, with added information gained from player knowledge, now investigate exactly why this building is unique amongst the cathedrals. You, as the GM, have taken creative control and designed the environment as you saw fit. Going back to my post about building the foundations of a location, the GM decides who created these locations, why they were created, and how long they’ve been there. By being free with your design of locations, any unique aspect or difference that environment has (whether they are intentional or completely accidental) can be a plot hook or interesting riddle for the players to solve.

Limitations Are Your Friend

Staying with the more modern type of setting for the moment, one of the worst things you can do with a modern building or location is be too realistic with it. Often in an RPG the players will be going into buildings to achieve their goals, but they are entirely reliant on you as the DM to describe the building to them. The way most buildings are laid out would leave the DM with countless doors, rooms, and hallways to describe. This is where limitations will save your life. If the party must go into a skyscraper, you shouldn’t have them search every floor for the person they’re looking for – tell them right away, or let them ask the receptionist, that the person’s office is on the 18th floor. You’ve just established the first 17 floors in the player’s minds with that bit of information, without the need of describing any of them in any detail.

Now the party heads to the 18th floor and you’re still left with a huge amount of information to dole out in the process of play. This is where turning to video games for inspiration is a good idea. Think about any first person shooter you may have played and how they handle level design, the first thought that jumps into my head is “railroading”, but as you should know I’m a fan of railroading when the pace of the game warrants or even demands it. Start with realism and accuracy by having the elevator open into a hallway going both ways and another hallway going straight ahead, but you can save yourself some headache and introduce twists by immediately blocking off one or two of the possible directions. It’s important that you keep the framework of the building in tact, don’t just remove a hallway, but putting locked doors or security check points can provide the sense that the floor is fully populated while saving you the pain of brainstorming every single last detail.

My favorite method of using this trick is using ruined or abandoned buildings and letting the players open a door to a collapsed staircase or out of service elevator. The framework of the building is in tact, but the player’s options for movement and exploration are funneled to the places that I want them to go. This is railroading, sure, but the difference between this and the style of GMing that people often shudder about and call railroading is that if  a player wants to descend the out of service elevator cables or break their way through the locked door / security check point, I try not to stop them out of my lack of preparation for that area. One of the best tricks for letting players do these kinds of things is a willingness to uproot your locations and put them in front of your players.

This Place is Only Anchored in Your Mind

When you design a location or an encounter, you place that environment in your game world and expect or plan for the players to come across it. I can’t think of many DMs who haven’t experienced a game where they designed an encounter and the party completely avoided it or went in a different direction. This is not a new trick by any means, but it is something I had to learn through practice and so I feel it deserves mentioning in this post because a location is only playable if the party actually gets to it! The concept of moving a location might seem counter intuitive to all of my last post about building up a foundation and background for your environments, but it’s better to use what you’ve created than have it go to waste. Even more importantly, it’s better to make the players feel as if the world they’re playing in is real and one of the best ways of doing that is having a location prepared for wherever they go.

One of the ways I’ve designed my D&D dungeons lately is by conceptualizing various rooms and encounters, but never drawing a full plan of how those rooms connect. When it comes time for the game, I will lay out the first room and then completely improvise the exits, doors, and hallways that connect to that room. As the players choose their path, I then pick one of the rooms I’ve already thought about that seems to fit best and put it in their path. Once that room is placed I’ll improvise the hallways and doors out of there and the dungeon quickly begins to take shape. It was a fascinating experience for me as the DM, but I was quite surprised to find out that the experience for the players was exactly the same as if I’d planned the dungeon that way from the beginning. A lot of DMs will debate about fudging rolls during the course of a game, but I haven’t heard much discourse about the concept of fudging dungeons and I really think it is a great way to go about the classic D&D dungeon crawl. The root of the concept is that no matter where you’ve placed a location in your mind, the players only experience that location once it has been described to them and you as the DM/GM can anchor that location anywhere you want whether you planned it that way or not!

The Architect DM Series Continues…

I already have a list of questions or topics that people have brought up for me to address in this series, which I will begin addressing very soon! However now that this second post is up, you might have an even more clear idea of where I’m going with these posts, so please feel free to send me an e-mail and post a comment with your questions or suggestions for future topics.

Things actually started here a bit before my phone interview. I had the privilege of attending Mr.Kaufman’s “Make Your Own Damn Movie” masterclass at Gen Con a few weeks ago, and he was very knowledgeable and willing to answer any questions audience had, but the answers were sometimes surprising. Several people asked what sort of equipment to use, and he would always fire back with some variation on “Depends! How much money do you have? You can get by with consumer-grade equipment.” Then everyone would discuss their shoestring budget success stories and we’d move on. It’s how Troma works. Make your movie the best way you can with what you have. (You can find out way more by buying Lloyd’s book, Make Your Own Damn Movie, Secrets of a Renegade Director!) It was inspiring to see so much enthusiasm and resourcefulness surrounding the making of so called “schlock” movies. I’d find out a little more as to why when I spoke to Lloyd this week.

I started off the interview by asking Lloyd what the word “Troma” meant. He told me a short story about how the word Troma is Latin for “excellence in celluloid”. Having taken 3 years of Latin in high school, and knowing the ancient Romans probably didn’t know what “celluloid” meant, I was inclined to think maybe he was pulling my leg. (I was right. He told the real story when he was doing a guest stint writing for the DVD Talk horror blog.)

One of the very first things I discovered during my audience with the Lord of Troma is that he suffers no fools. I had a few “fluff” questions prepared, stuff like “who is your favorite villain of all time, and why?” Writers like that one. I figured Lloyd would too, being a creative type. I was wrong. He wouldn’t answer that one, and dismissed a few others like it as stupid questions. I also found out another thing right about this time: I gurgle audibly when surprised. Good to know for next time.

Thankfully, I soon started getting into questions that didn’t irritate Lloyd, and we talked for awhile about independent media and Net Neutrality. I was floored by his answer when I asked him why independent filmmaking was so important: “It’s not. It means absolutely nothing in the grand scheme of things. You have kids starving in Third World countries and they don’t give a damn about movies. Cinema is something useless rich people like all of us here do to entertain ourselves.” I suddenly found myself not caring so much about how bad the BSG ending sucked, and being very thankful for the burrito I had just eaten moments prior.

We talked a great deal about Net Neutrality. “Without Net Neutrality, there would be no Troma. There would be no Critical Hits. You’d only have whatever insipid crap the networks decide to give you this week”. Lloyd asked that we link to his Youtube video on the subject, which we’re more than happy to do. The Internets would suck without this.

Probably the single most surprising thing I learned about Lloyd Kaufman is that he doesn’t think his movies are as funny as you probably do. To him, each is “real filmmaking” with a political message. Yes, I thought he was kidding at first, too. His tone convinced me otherwise. That and him calling Inception a piece of crap movie full of plot holes. Them’s fightin’ words, Mr. Kaufman. But who am I to say what a work doesn’t represent? Is art not subjective? Is this less effective than starving some poor attractive vegan celebrity and having them sit naked in a cage for PETA? I’m just a blogger. I’m not equipped for this. (I do, however, ponder the political ramifications of Teenage Catgirls In Heat.)

We wrapped up the interview by talking about some of Troma’s upcoming work. The big news is that the Toxic Avenger is getting remade, big budget style, and he dropped all sorts of names like Tom Cruise and Megan Fox. That was all neat and everything, but I forgot every other detail when he said Justin Bieber was going to play the kid who gets his head smashed under a car. I’m praying he wasn’t kidding. I will weep openly. The film isn’t getting made by Troma, they’re “just accepting a big check”. Despite taking some recent heat over the remake, Lloyd was surprisingly not too concerned with whether they keep the political message of the original intact – his movie would stand on its own for all time.

In the end, I’m honestly still a little befuddled. I can’t decide if he was messing with me or not. Either way, the man marches to the beat of a hideously deformed monster drum with superhuman size and strength, and I very much want to be like him when I grow up.

Chatty’s Ultimate Capsule Review

The first product of the D&D Essentials product line, while likely to be the target of hordes of people who will complain that it is not what it could never be… is what I wished I opened in 1986.

It is an introduction to the D&D game that goes directly to the heart of things:

Here, let us show you how to make a PC while reading a “be your own hero”story, learn about skill checks and let’s end it with a tactical fight. You liked that? Get 4 more friends, make basic characters and play this level 1 adventure that brings you to level 2. Want more? Here’s material for the DM to create adventures to (almost) bring you up to level 3.

Welcome to D&D!

The Box…

…is beautiful.  It features the same Larry Elmore art that featured on the last edition of the Basic Red box (Mentzer edition) from the 80′s and scores a direct hit to the nostalgia part of our gamer lizard brains.

It contains softcovers Player’s and Dungeon Master’s Booklets, a sheet of 2-sided counters (PCs and monsters, including 2 dragons and a Gelatinous Cube) printed on thick cardboard, a set of opaque, white-inked black polyhedral dice, a foldup battlemap, 4 blank simplified character sheets and several sheets of punch-out power cards made of thin cardboard.

Nico, my 8 year old son, had lots of fun punching out the counters while I read the players book intro real fast to start the game. I was so looking forward to this…

The Solo Game

The box expects one player, presumably a kid who got the box as a gift or an adult curious about the game, to create their first D&D PC through reading a “choose your own path” adventure. The booklet guides the reader to make a few fundamental set of choices that will lead to a completed character:

• Class: Fighter, Wizard, Rogue, Cleric
• Race: Elf, Dwarf, Human, Halfling
• A preferred power (or two)
• The PC’s Skill Set

Lets be clear here, as I know this will anger many who clamour for “Basic D&D 2.0″, the starer is what is says on the box, a starter set. It is a complete game, but not a complete game system. Beyond picking among 4 basic classes and the same number of races, a handful of powers and skills, character generation is arguably anaemic (but better than the previous 4e starter set). The task resolution systems (skills/combat) are also simplified while still being very much 4e.

Nico and I played through the players book in 2 sessions. He grew bored a few times as he found we were spending more time setting up the PC than actually playing. He also got frustrated a bit that the skills we choose for his wizard never came into play in the skill-checks part of the adventure.

Nico: Why did you chose these skills if they don’t help me run after the fleeing goblins?

Chatty: Wizards are not very good at running in the wild, trust me, it will get better soon.

I’d suggest parents playing with pre-tweens to make the PC beforehand (with input from your child) and start the solo game with a fully fleshed out PC and ignore the char-gen parts.

Once Nico got to choose the spells (mostly fire-based, as can be expected from a geeky 8 y.o.) and fought against the goblins in their lair, things picked up for him and he loved casting Burning Hands over much of the map.

Speaking of maps, three are supplied: a previously published “monsters lair” from D&D miniatures, along with “‘The crossroads” from the same starter set and an exclusive dungeon map made of tiles reproduced on a full-sized battle map.

Once the lone player has played through the first Player’s playbook, he/she has 2 quests, a basic grasp of the game and a guide to teach it to up to four others (which implies photocopying the power cards if you want to allow multiple players to pick the same classes).

The Full Starter Game

That’s where the second book, the Dungeon Master’s, comes in. It presents the game’s rules, in a simplified form (ex: gone are some conditions like restricted) and with a lot less skill/combat options (ex: no rule 42 charts, no traps, no alternative combat moves like Bull Rush and no skill challenge rules). It also includes a fully fleshed out dungeon adventure covering about 10 encounters featuring goblins, kobolds, drakes, a dragon.

Finally a D&D starter where there is both a dungeon & a dragon in its prepared material!

The book included tips and tricks to run games and does a very decent job to explain what the DM’s responsibilities are. After the adventure, the book provides rules to level up all classes to level 2 (with appropriate power cards). It also describes how to create further basic adventures, including a decent bestiary and dungeon design advice, that can bring PC to the cusp of level 3, including a little DC chart, a list of lvl 2 Treasure parcels and a 2 page gazetteer on the Nentir Vale region, the core D&D 4e setting.

To summarize, the new Red Box is a 20$ starter set that introduces players to the D&D 4e game. The game delivers a 4e-lite experience that most likely should succeed in teasing those interested by the game’s structure of play. It is very much 4e (auto-hit Magic Missile that Nico absolutely loves) with many of the fiddly bits removed.

Oh and there’s a bonus solo adventure you can download by entering a code on the Wizards of the Coast website before the end of the year. That’s a nice little bonus.

Trial by Ice Baby!

I’ve started playing the second part with Nico and my “I’ve never tried RPGs before” wife Alex (Elven Rogue).  They both were awesome roleplayers trying to come up with a plan to invade the dungeon by distracting the guards with illusions and trickery.

When my son declared that a halfling wizard’s Second Chance power (monster rerolls attack on a hit) allowed his PC to turn back time a few seconds and dodge a White Dragon’s breath attack, this power’s flavour text instantly became canon.

Later, when Alex’s Rogue attacked the bloodied Ice Wyrm and missed, she triumphantly invoked her Elven Accuracy power and cried “yes!” noisily when she rolled a 19 on her d20. Not bad for her first RPG session ever.

The Blemishes

Some dark spots appear on this otherwise very well thought of product.  Some incoherences in the rules appear due to what I assume to be incomplete editing. For instance, the rules on teleportation mention what happens to immobilized and restrained creatures that teleport, but the section on conditions makes no mention of the restrained status.

Similarly, the Magic Missile spell mentions that it can be used against up to 2 targets while my sources informed me that this has already been changed by the recent Magic Missile errata to one.

Nothing major… but these easily spotted editing issues are a continuing trend with Wizards product that can and do annoy customers.

That being said, I’m highly satisfied with this product and I would have bought it had I not been offered a review copy. I feel that it’s biggest shortcoming will be its impossibility to meet the inhuman expectations that the emotionally charged community will place behind it. I predict the Internet will ignore the “Starter” tag on the box and try to compare the new Red Box to its legendary progenitor.

This Starter Red Box is not the first step into a parallel line of D&D products, like the 198os editions of boxed D&D were in regards to Advanced D&D back then. The new box is what you should buy your nephews and nieces after they spend an afternoon playing with your minis in the basement. It’s what you should suggest to your coworker who’s always wanted to try D&D but was daunted by the number of books at the game store.

From there, the Essential line will feed this new generation of customers because, let’s be honest here, while we can all enjoy D&D as a game, it remains a brand that pays the salaries of the designers, writers and marketers that put all of this together.

I don’t know about you, but I much prefer an approach like Essentials, which I can stay away from if I so choose, than getting tricked into another 3.5. But that’s an editorial for another time.

Final Score?

Now Nico wants to get his friend Felix and Charles to join us as we get ready to storm the goblin-infested dungeon again. Hell even Alex is more than willing to give it another try, provided the party has a fighter she can depend on to flank monsters with.

Mission accomplished Wizards.  I can’t say anything more.

(Update): It turns out that there is a skill challenge in the introductory DM-tun adventure. It is broken down in simple terms to run it but doesn’t tell the DM how to build more.

On the surface it doesn’t seem like much of a change. Deep down, however, it is a change that can completely rebalance 4e, particularly at higher levels.

At the D&D New Products Seminar, and on this post from Mike Mearls, it was stated that, from Essentials on out, items would fall into categories of common, uncommon, and rare. Most existing items, he stated, would fall into the “uncommon” rarity. Items in the “common” pool are items with pure static bonuses such as neck slot items, armor, bonuses to skill, and weapons with +1 to +6 bonuses and no other effects. Potions and some other items will no doubt be included.

So why does this matter? It matters because it is the combination of item powers mixed with class, paragon path, epic destiny, and class power effects that often unbalanced the game. With these item combinations much more rare, PCs are more likely to stay balanced. Let’s look at a few specific instances where we’ll see this change.

Rebalancing Elemental Resistance

One example of this rebalancing is in resistances. Given full freedom to pick any magical items, many players will choose as many items as possible with elemental resistances, probably starting with necrotic. These resistances become so common that entire sets of monsters lose effectiveness when their primary damage type is resisted by an entire party. Orcus’s aura 10 necrotic resistance is all but worthless to an epic-tiered party who will very likely all resist necrotic 15. With randomly generated uncommon loot, an item with such resistances will be rare and when a player wins it, they will be very happy indeed. Elemental resistances will be rare enough not to adversely affect the amount of damage a monster SHOULD be doing. We DMs no longer need to compensate for the resistances of the PCs.

Rebalancing Critical Hits

Critical hit bonuses are another area greatly affected by this change. Some character classes gain substantial increases to the threat range of their critical hits. Some even gain powers that let them auto-crit. Such a character is likely to pick out weapons with higher crit bonuses or other powers that trigger off of critical hits. Stacking these items and abilities together creates huge surges in damage output. Removing these items from the stack puts critical damage back in line. Again, sometimes a character may receive such an item randomly but they’re likely not optimized to use it.

Making Magic Items Fun Again

This change also makes treasure a lot more interesting. Instead of players cherry-picking the most optimal items for their character, they now only get maybe one or two items with any extra powers beyond static bonuses. Some DMs, myself included, will likely randomly generate these items to make them even more interesting. It will add a random element to the story that neither the players nor the DM could know beforehand. It’s like the difference between an open Magic the Gathering competition and a sealed deck league. Suddenly that item you never really cared about could seem very valuable indeed.

Shattering Character Optimization

The subculture of D&D players who love optimizing characters aren’t likely to be affected by this but it does give DMs control over whether to let such characters exist at the table. Those that love to optimize characters in theory are free to do so but the likelihood of seeing the proper set of items to build such a character at the table is completely in the hands of the DM. Most DMs, myself included, will choose to distribute such loot either randomly or in small doses to prevent such optimizations.

Having seen what optimized characters can do to a high-level game, I, for one, welcome our new loot-nerfing overlords.

Speeding Up the Game

Speed ends up being another benefit of limiting magic items this way. With characters possessing fewer items with encounter or daily powers, their character sheets get smaller and their options fewer. Fewer options makes choices faster and thus speeds up the amount of time a player takes to finish a round.

The Danger of Bumping Up Damage

Back in June, WotC released an update that included new math for monster output. This new math dramatically increases the amount of damage monsters put out, particularly above level 10. While DM’s like me have been used to dropping refrigerators on our parties just to keep them threatened, we’ll now need to be a bit more careful. Resistances will be lower, escape effects will be more rare, and damage mitigation through healing and temporary hit points will be seen less often. We’ll need to hold back a little bit, run a bunch of fights, and see how the new math works with characters possessing fewer uncommon magic items.

The Optimal Time to Introduce the Rules: Dark Sun!

Not everyone will be happy with these new rules. Players used to having piles of magic items in two-inch thick Sears & Roebucks catalogues will scream the first time they’re randomly given a piece of gear. I know I’ll have to finish my current campaign before I can introduce such rules. My players are just too used to getting their own way. That’s going to stop as soon as the campaign is finished, and then I’ll have the perfect time to spring such rules on my players: Dark Sun.

Characters in Dark Sun are lucky to have half of an old rotten jawbone to fight back the hordes of cannibal halflings and fire-breathing desert scorpions. They’ll be lucky to find a chitin plate to strap to their ass, much less a +5 suit of Black Iron Godplate. When drops of water are rare on Athas, that one particular magic item is almost non-existant. Dark Sun is the perfect time to get your group used to seeing items less frequently and the perfect time to get them used to the fun of finding an uncommon sword with a strange power they might never have looked at before.

My Only Complaint

I have only one major complaint when I consider these new rules. I wish they had done them two years ago. For two years I’ve had to house rule my way around the increased power my players possessed when they handpicked their magic items. Sure, I could be blamed for this since I let them essentially pick what they wanted, but I didn’t know any better. I didn’t realize how much a necrotic resist 15 breastplate could be. Now I know and now I’m happy to see the changes.

It will be a few months before we see them fully realized but for me that’s just in time.

I will admit that writing for an organized-play campaign–in this case Living Forgotten Realms–is usually punishment enough in itself.  Hell, you’re putting yourself halfway under the bus at the outset.  No dragging necessary.  But what did I write into this adventure that encouraged someone to wish me the rest of the way?  Honestly, I still have no idea.  Whatever angered Random Internet Guy so much that he wanted to see me end up like that dude from the show Lost who got torqued by a Greyhound was not something I put into the adventure.  It appears the part of the adventure that prompted the ill-will was a careful addition by the player’s GM.

Adventure writers don't deserve this

This part of my column I was planning to save for another time, but it is so intertwined with the issue of GMs that I have to say it together.

1. Writing game material, particularly adventures, for public consumption is very different that writing something for a home campaign that you will run yourself.
2. The GM is everyone’s best friend: the players’, the adventure writer’s, and his or her own.

Based on the careful scientific method of me thinking for a few seconds of a number that sounded both exciting and reasonable with ironic undertones, 69% of the home RPG campaign being run these days consist of a DM using content that he himself has created.  (I say “he himself” strictly for ease of use, and because if I included “she herself” to cover the female GMs, I would also have to include other permutations, and there are only so many kilobytes available in the Internet.)

Wait, where was I?  Oh, right.  So, a majority of the RPG adventures being played are homebrews created by the GM running the game.  That means the material being created is done so by someone who knows the specific players and their various preferences, dislikes, play styles, and characters.  He knows that in the last session, Fred got pissed and whipped his JuJuBes across the basement because the insubstantial, weakening, regenerating wraith asked his character, “What sorry-ass fighting academy did you attend?” when Fred’s character critted the wraith for 5 points of damage when using his daily power.  And armed with such knowledge, assuming he is not sadistic, the GM will not put in more creatures of the same ilk–at least not without giving Fred a way to deal with the creatures more easily.

It is the other 31% of the gaming world who I want to speak to right now: the GMs who run games using published adventures.  Pull up a chair.  Have a Fresca and a Fruit Roll-Up.  I’ve got something to say to y’all, and I say the following without a bit of sarcasm.

I love you guys.  I really do.  You guys are the ones who keep the RPG industry running in the face of (sad but true) its slow but inevitable descent into obscurity.  You are the folks who don’t have the time to prepare your own material, but you still run the games and tell the stories and give of yourself so that other people can play the game.  Whenever a player says to me, “I played your adventure, and I had a great time,” my answer is always heartfelt, and it always is some variation of the following: “I’m glad you had fun, and I appreciate the kind words.  But the person you should be thanking is the DM, because that is the person who made the game fun for you.”

And it is.  A fun game has to be a team effort among the players, the DM, and the material they are playing (which 31% of the time is the responsibility of the adventure designer).  But the GM is the lynchpin of that relationship.  The GM is the buffer and the facilitator between the content of the game and the players.  He knows (or is in the position to know) what the players expect and desire, and what the content of the adventure is going to offer the players.  If there is a disconnect between what the players want and what the adventure promises to deliver, only the GM is in the position to manage the players’ expectations or modify the adventure’s content so that fun can be had.

As an administrator and writer in far too many organized-play campaigns, and as a designer/editor of off-the-shelf content, I am going to say this loud and without even a modicum of hesitation: “GMs, please modify adventures as you go.”  I know it is work for you.  I know that you got the pre-fab adventure in the first place because you didn’t have the time or energy to create your own.  But you have to trust me on this one.  There are so many different types of players who play at so many different levels of expertise and ability, that it is damn near impossible to make one size fit all.

I don’t want to sound at all like I am trying to put all the responsibility on the GMs.  Designers, developers, and editors of game material do need to take responsibility for their work.  I have written or edited stuff that, when I re-read it later, makes me wonder if I wasn’t partying with Charlie Sheen while it was in my hands.  In future columns I will happily tell you all about those mistakes.  So don’t think I am trying to shirk my duty.  When I fail as a writer, I want to learn from those failures.

But also let’s be honest: it is human nature to shift the blame when possible, especially when blame can be shifted to something nebulous and far-away.  Sitting down to GM a game, especially when the players might be a group of strangers, can be a daunting experience.  We want the game to be fun, we want to run the game well, and we want to look good in the process.  All GMs (myself included) have the natural inclination to look for any qualifier we can throw down to protect ourselves.  I’ve recently returned to playing regularly after several years of mostly writing and DMing, and what I have heard more than I like, especially in organized-play environments, is this from the GM: “This adventure is pretty bad, but I’ll see if I can make it fun.”  Again, I understand the instinct, and I have probably done it myself on occassion.  GMs who run games for strangers are out there on the high-wire, and it is only natural to want to put up that safety net.

So for those of you who do GM games with published adventures, either off-the-shelf or for an organized-play campaign, I shout out a big “Thanks!”  You have a big responsibility, and you do yeoman’s work.  However, think about the players who would through a writer under the bus before you throw the writer under the bus.

Next Friday, I will take the next step and talk about the lessons writers of published adventures should learn, and how those lessons can be applied to everyone: DMs who homebrew, DMs who use published adventures, players, and game writers.

Critical Hits

• Emphasizing Style Over Crunch: Make no mistake, this system is EXTREMELY crunchy. There are rules for the entire gamut of comic books, but the game does a great job emphasizing the difference between mechanics and the in-game explanation of powers. If you shoot a bolt of energy, it doesn’t matter if its fire, lightning, awesomeness, or willpower, it all has the same basic framework with tons of modifiers to suit your fancy.
• Less to Track: There are no hit points, just conditions. As much as conditions piss me off in D&D 4e, they make a lot of sense in this setting. Heroes constantly get their bell rung, and the lack of tracking damage helps rationalize fights where Superman punches poor Ambush Bug in the face.
• Active Combats: Saving throws act as a defense against all attacks. By eliminating the damage roll this simultaneously involves the defender without slowing the game down.
• Passion and Understanding of the Genre: The book’s sidebars and major comments show the game designers both know comic books and know RPGs.
• Archetypal Characters and Your Favorite DC Heroes: The book provides templates for a number of common character types, and some of the most famous DC heroes. Further supplements will feature practically the whole DCU. There’s something extremely cool about reading about Batman and Superman, realizing they both are done justice, and that they both fit together in the same universe. The Professor X paradox is solved!

Critical Misses

• Typos. Too often I buy RPG products these days and they have simple spacing and spelling errors.

Results May Vary

• Character Creation Learning Curve: Between knowing powers, remembering the restrictions different power levels put on characters, and figuring out how the heck to best translate an idea, there is A LOT to learn. This is the sort of system where the GM has to sit down with a character and really translate their stated goals into characters. That being said, it’s so versatile and elegant in its actual play that I can easily see using this system for virtually anything.
• Complex Characters = Complex Play: While the core mechanic is refreshing streamlined players with viable character concepts involving certain powers will inevitably find themselves having a lot to manage. Shape changers, power mimickers, on the fly summoners, and whatnot may be overwhelmed by the scope of the superpowers they chose. To be perfectly fair, this is a problem inherit to the genre less so than the system, but the system does suffer from this.

Final Verdict: A. There’s very little this system can’t do. That makes it have a steeper learning curve than some other products, but as near as I can tell this system is capable of handling anything (and not just in the superhero genre). Action is fast, furious, and cinematic in a way that D&D and hit point based systems always seem to struggle with.

Available now in PDF or soon in print.

…

Where was I?  Ah yes, the Expo.

I only have 3 scheduled activities for the whole con, all on Saturday:

DM Master Class, Saturday 12 PM room #103A.  Join me and fellow GMs Robin Laws and Ed Greenwood.

From the Schedule:

A panel of expert Dungeon Masters with credentials that no one questions.
A group with combined strength, charisma, dexterity and wisdom of one million!
A cast who can defeat a Tarrasque with a wave of one hand… okay, I think
you get the idea. These guys are good.

(I didn’t write that! I swear!)

D&D 4e, Font of Sorrows, Saturday 3h3o-7h00 PM, room #202D

Adventure Synopsis:

A shard of the Chained One’s Obelisk of Madness is rumored to lie entombed with
the remains of a priest?druid of Elemental Evil deep in the Underdark. Rumors from previous adventures have brought PCs to the legendary underground
City Within at the very edge of the Deeps, where it is believed that a cabal of
elementalists are seeking to find the Temple?tomb where the shard may lie. A Level
6 D&D 4e adventure with fully pre?generated PCs from the Players Handbook 3.

Mouse Guard, Deliver the Mail, Saturday 7h30-Midnight, #Room 202D

Game Synopsis

As mouse guards, you are tasked to patrol the Mouse Territories, protect the
innocent, fight predators and, occasionally, deliver the mail that accumulates from
town to town over the harsh Winter season. In this fully developed sample missions
taken from the Mouse Guard rulesbook, players will get to play in the universe of
David Petersen’s Mouse Guard comic books based on Luke Crane’s award winning
Burning Wheel game engine.

For the rest of the weekend, I’m free.  I plan to walk the con floor, meet with local fans, get some of that awesome Toronto food (heck, I’ll even try the local poutine if I really must, he he he), and hopefully play lots of off con games around the convention (Like at my hotel bar, I’ll be at the Mariott).

Hell, we should organize some sort of Friday Night noard games like we did at Pax East. Anyone wants to help?  PM and I will load the car with board games and RPGs.

I’ll also have a few copies of the Deluxe One Page Dungeon Codex if you want to get your hands on one of the last copies.

The best way to catch me is to email me at chattydm@critical-hits.com or send me a public tweet @chattydm on Twitter.  See you soon!

I already suggested that you take some care in using minions to create a specific flavor when you’re brewing up encounters. You can take it a step further by creating or altering minions. Several methods can be used to change minion effectiveness and flavor. Used cleverly and in the right amount, these schemes can make minions a tastier addition to some encounters.

Spice to Taste

Let me reemphasize the use of minions as a form of encounter pacing and narrative flow. When you design an encounter, you can make up storyline reasons why the minions show up in intervals—or show up, then disappear. then show up again. When you design the pacing this way, only a portion of the minions is on the battlefield at one time. The characters can kill only what’s there at the time. The arrival of new combatants changes the course of the encounter.

As an aside, I never roll initiative for new minions. They appear and go on the same initiative count as the initial minions in the encounter did. Doing this keeps the game rolling. (I actually rarely roll initiative for any monster, but that’s a topic for another day.)

In my Gen Con Dark Sun game, as an example, the characters were the fuel for an evil ritual in which a dray (dragonborn) sorcerer was turning himself into a kaisharga (lich). They were far from alone in this predicament, but they were the only individuals with the fortitude and influence of other forces to awaken during the ritual. Each round, the ritual dealt damage to the characters, and some of the other unfortunates being used for arcane fodder died. A defiled spirit, like a weak wraith, rose from the remains of each NPC who perished. These minions, appearing two or three per round, harried the characters as they tried to unravel the ritual. In fact, the minions caused some nail biting, since the defiled spirits were in a position to take out a character or two who had to choose between attacking the minions and continuing to oppose the ongoing ritual.

Long Live the Flavor

If minion survival is a goal, it’s fair to carefully fiddle with what keeps a minion alive and in the battle. At the heroic tier, you might need to be cautious with such tinkering. At higher levels, minor survivability changes to minions rarely matter much. Just make sure the narrative quality of a minion fits with its longevity.

What happens if you change “HP 1; a missed attack never damages a minion” to “HP 1; this minion takes damages only when hit by an attack”? You’ve just eliminated automatic damage, such as from rain of steel, and attacks that require no attack rolls, such as the new magic missile, from possible damage sources for this minion. Hazardous terrain effects that require no attack roll can’t take this minion out, either. That’s good for some minions, as long as you mean to remove the effects of some powers, such as cleave, when making such a change.

Again, use these techniques with care, avoiding thwarting character abilities just because you can. Single encounters with unusual creatures are fine. Repeatedly being faced with monsters who are immune to aspects of your powers is frustrating.

That’s why traditional immunities aren’t great options for normal monster design. They can thwart a character too much, and they can eliminate certain character themes as viable builds. However, immunity to a damage type or two can work well for minions. Resistance does little for minions, since only 1 damage has to make it through. A fire minion with fire immunity makes perfect sense, though. Fire never deals enough damage to kill such a creature, but it still takes only one solid hit with another damage type to kill it.

You can make it so that one solid hit isn’t enough to kill some minions. Two-hit minions come in various forms. Insubstantial, like most resistances, does little for a minion. However, it’s easy to imagine an insubstantial minion being allowed a saving throw against taking damage from an attack once per encounter. In fact, the fell taint drone from Dragon 367 does just that. I’ve also made minions I wanted to appear tough or heavily armored, such as dwarf militia warriors, that receive a saving throw against the first hit. The narrative tells the players and characters why the minion is hard to kill.

No hard-to-kill minion discussion is complete without mentioning zombies. To me, zombie minions are almost required to give any horde of shambling corpses the right feel. Further, as my players know, I like for zombies to get up again after they seem dead. Some of my regular-monster zombies rise again as low-hit-point monsters, and others reanimate as minions. Zombie minions can also be two-hit wonders, because they might stand back up on their next turn if not dealt with appropriately. It works even better if you make the ability to rise again unpredictable. You can probably think of reasons for non-undead minions to behave similarly—elementals, demons, primal spirits and so on.

Savor the Subtle

Minions are meant to deal damage and worry the characters enough to change party tactics. Consider, though, the countless ways a minion might deal its damage. It need not have an attack to do its dirty work.

Like a warlord granting the barbarian an extra attack, a minion can simply stand around and benefit the stronger creatures in the fight. I’m not talking about resorting to Aid Another, although that can be cool in an all-out kobold free-for-all. What I mean is a minion that provides openings, hinders enemies, and/or damages characters just because it’s there.

Imagine a minion that has an aura to make enemies vulnerable to other damage, less effective at defense, or something else insidious. It might deal automatic damage—what’s good for the players is good for the DM—impose a condition, or alter terrain around it. The players will want those minions gone, believe me. All the better if you decide to add new ones over the course of the encounter.

The fire sinks from Seekers of the Ashen Crown are this type of minion. They don’t attack. Instead, a fire sink moseys up to you and eliminates your resistances to fire. Then it burns you if you end your turn next to it. Hello Ms. Tiefling, it’s time to get out of the kitchen or taste the heat. New experiences are fun, no?

Consider the Aftertaste

Speaking of tasting the bitterly unexpected, I’m no fan of gotcha powers on monsters. You know the ones. When the boneshard skeleton blows up all over the whole party, that’s a gotcha power. Such powers are the worst when they have large areas, like the boneshard skeleton’s boneshard burst. A close burst 1 allows the characters to pull out forced movement powers to move the foe away before the gotcha power goes off. Close burst 3, though? Not interesting, so no thanks.

For minions, however, I don’t mind gotcha powers so much. If a minion does something funky and fun when it dies, and it makes sense for the creature’s nature, that’s fine with me. Even so, minions don’t need to be too gotcha to be effective. I still favor small areas and powers that require attack rolls, or powers that affect the minion’s allies for a time.

A myconid gas spore (from Underdark) is much more fun if its spore burst is small enough that pushing the creature 1 square away saves you and your buddy from the damage. Then it becomes a tactical puzzle rather than a situation that no amount of careful play can help. Making the players interested and wiling to adapt is the point. That’s why I changed the spore burst to close burst 1 for my game. The players started pushing the spores around rather than shrugging and taking the original burst-3 spore burst.

In this vein, I also like powers such as Monster Manual 2‘s rupture demon’s demonic infestation, at least in spirit. A minion that dies, and then it gives its buddy a few hit points and more melee effectiveness? Nice! More, please. What I dislike about the power is its duration. I’d rather see a bigger damage boost, like the rupture demon’s normal damage, for 1 round. The cumulative, whole-encounter effect is too much.

What I’m saying with all this is: Rather than increasing a minion’s survivability, consider giving it some aftereffect, like those above, when it dies. Once again, make sure you’re creating a fun experience rather than a frustrating one. Watch the area on exploding minions and the duration of lingering effects. What’s amusing or tactically exciting for a round might become tedious in the long run. Play it out in your head or even with a grid and minis to see if your imagined effect is really what you’ll see in play.

A Third Course

I’ve reached the limit for this article’s digestibility, methinks. A few elements remain on environment and narrative roles (illusions) for minions. It looks like I’ll have to give all that to you next time.

For now, share some of your minion ideas in the comments. Let’s see what we can stir up.

Illustrations by Jared von Hindman of Head Injury Theater.

This is the first post in a series I’m calling “The Architect DM” where I will be talking about how the ideas, concepts, and philosophies of designing real life locations can be applied to your D&D game. This series will not be a “how to make your D&D game exactly like real life” kind of guide, but I will try to provide suggestions for what can be done to make the game feel like real life, and what can be done to make the game have an even greater sense of fantasy to it!

What are the origins of your environment?

As the title of this post suggests, I’m going to start with some of the groundwork that goes behind the idea of designing a dungeon or any kind of location you use while running a tabletop RPG. The deepest and most important part of a location’s foundation is who created it, and perhaps the most fundamental question is: is it a constructed environment or is it natural? The answer to this question can be either response, or both!

Suppose your players have stumbled upon old ruins that have been overtaken by nature, you should create a location that has the feel of both a purposeful building and the untamed chaos that nature brings to things. You can approach a location like this in many different ways, but one of the more involved methods would be to roughly plan out what the location was like before it was claimed by nature. Once this is complete you can begin to tear it down in interesting and fun ways!

Don’t spend too much time on that rough plan, however, because the players will only ever see a  portion of it so you don’t need to flesh it out entirely. The easiest way to accomplish this is to reuse a location you’ve already created, either for the same campaign (and have the party return to it after a long time absent) or feel free to take a location from a previous campaign or any published module you can find. One of my late heroic adventures in my current D&D campaign involved the party returning to the Keep on the Shadowfell hundreds of years after the module took place, entire sections of the dungeon had collapsed and other new areas had opened up, but the basic feel of the dungeon was still quite present in the adventure.

Who designed this place?

If the location you’re designing was created for a purpose by some kind of creature (we’ll call it man-made for simplicity), then it helps to have a general idea of who built it and for what purposes. To think about this in modern day terms, a Hospital is built for the specific purpose of treating sick and injured people which will be quite different from a train station. You can do a pretty basic analysis of a location and come away with the overall concept of it – hospitals are made up of large groups of smaller rooms, whereas a train station is primarily a smaller number of very large areas.

The same analysis can be done in reverse, however, by thinking about the use of a location and finding parallels that you can relate to. The town hall of a fantasy village is most likely going to be one large, dominating building/room while a mining village is going to be made up of several smaller living quarters and will have a strong focus on the mines that they are built around. The “who” of this section also plays a big part, as a village for humans is going to be quite different from a village for giants, and so on for dwarves, kobolds, dragonborn, or any of the fantastical races that show up in RPGs.

The easiest way I find to style a location for a particular race is to think of a few simple changes and one or two overall themes that can be applied. Think about how Hobbiton looks in the Lord of the Rings movies, as everything is smaller due to the smaller size of hobbits (simple change) and it all relates very strongly to the earth (overall theme) – the houses are buried into the ground, almost everything is an earthy color/tone, and everything has a strongly circular feel to it that is very earth-like.

Don’t be afraid to take a theme and apply it until it feels overdone for you, this generally ensures that the players will get a good sense of it but without your overall view of things (you are the DM, afterall) it won’t be smacking them in the face nearly as much as you think it will. A prime example of this is that the Hobbiton houses not only have circular doors and hallways, but they are also laid out in circular plans. If you were looking at it all at once, you’d think it has too many circles but when experienced it all seems to fit right together.

How long has it been here?

The last big consideration for the foundation of your locations is something that constantly effects every location, time! How long has the location existed and is it still in use are the most obvious aspects, but you also have to consider how much experience the creators have making these types of locations. Something that I rarely see come up in an RPG is to not be afraid of designing a location badly. After all, you as the DM can always blame the people who created that location in the game world or if it’s a natural location then you have nature itself to pass the blame off to. Maybe the dwarves who constructed their mining colony hadn’t yet learned that building too close to the mine shafts could lead in some buildings being demolished by explosives. Conversely, maybe the dwarves already learned this valuable information and you have a good in-game reason for the mining colony being a certain distance away from the mines.

This concept also comes into play if we look back at the hospital example. A hospital designed a hundred years ago will look like the spokes of a bicycle wheel because medicine at the time was focused on air flow and grouping of patients together (oddly similar to some early prison designs). However a more modern hospital looks completely different due to advances in technology and medical sciences. Apply these to your fantasy setting and you’ll be surprised how much character you can bring to an otherwise ordinary location. Your players might start to notice which dwarven colonies have advanced to using explosives simply by how their mining colonies are laid out!

Any questions?

I hope that I haven’t lost anyone by now, and I hope that this look at some of the very basic principles in location design is helpful! What I’d really like to find out is if these kind of principles help you in designing locations as a DM/GM, or if there are more specific questions and concerns you have. I will no doubt be talking about a combination of large scale concepts (like in this post) and nitty-gritty specifics, but if you think one topic or the other will be more helpful please let me know. Also if you have any specific questions please feel free to pose them here (or e-mail me privately) and I’ll most likely address your questions in future posts in the Architect DM series!

Nico: That’s okay dad, we’ll figure it out.

An hour later, I came upstairs and had a look at the ongoing game.  While they had grasped the core concepts (Nico, the buddy and I had played previously), they were making a lot of stuff up, inventing what some cards did and fudging how combat worked.

They were having lots of fun.

As I looked at them, I was flooded with powerful memories and a striking realization. One of the reasons why I love D&D so much is because I learned most of it by making stuff up while trying to learn it. I got most of it wrong, but I didn’t know then and I still had more fun than any other games I’d played so far!

I cherish these memories dearly. Back when I had a partial grasp of English, Gary’s AD&D Player’s Handbook was like a stack of encrypted secrets I got to decipher with a broken decoder ring.  For instance, I thought that a two-handed sword was a 2 bladed-sword, so I made a three-handed one made of three 6′-long blades!  You could even shoot the middle one, like that Sword & Sorcery movie I had seen on my uncle’s Betamax machine.  So badass…

While watching my son play Talisman his own way, it dawned on me that as a gamer parent, I had a dual responsibility.  I had to guide my children into this awesome hobby, if they were so inclined, introducing them to different games, teaching them about their rules and the social etiquette that come with them (wait for your turn, don’t cheat, be a good sport, etc).

But perhaps more importantly, I must also give my children the appropriate space and liberties to let them take full ownership of that hobby and infuse it with their own personalities, unbound ideas and, yes, technical flaws.

I must learn to silence my inner Brainy Smurf and allow my son to get things wrong about the games he plays, so he can discover his own paths and create memories similar to mine.

I must strive to be a model to emulate, not a tyrant that smothers.

That’s why, when I’ll get around to showing the new D&D Red Box to Nico and his friends, I will step away and let them play with it as they see fit.  Maybe, if they really dig it, they’ll start creating new powers, character classes and monsters with absolutely no regards to balance or playability.

They’ll get rules wrong, ignore many, misread others and that may very well be completely fantastic.  There’ll be plenty of time later to correct that, if they ever do. House ruling is an important skill too.

Go ahead and show your kids how to be gamers.  Just  don’t forget to set them free so they can take ownership of their gaming experience. Getting a game right should never get in the way to having fun with it.

I say lets go and help build a child’s future nostalgia today.

It was in this group that I discovered the way that I personally prefer to play Dungeons & Dragons. I’m the class clown. I like coming up with a strange (but well-fleshed-out) character concept, and pushing the limits of this character’s environment. Unfortunately, this has also meant testing the sanity of our DMs on a few occasions, and has taken it’s share of adventures off the rails. I’m not the only guilty party here, either. That was the beauty of it, for me anyway. Our group managed to keep a (mostly) serious tone to the adventure, and managed to save the world several times over it’s lifetime. Those of us who were inclined to do so were given a lot of room to play and be weird and funny and outrageous on the journey, and the more down-to-business types got theirs as well.

The end result was that everybody had a great time, no matter what it was they were after. I have to administer mad props to our DMs for balancing everything so well. I really do. But I think one other major factor to this working was that we took responsibility as players and didn’t let the funny stuff get in the way. I’ve heard so many people talk about how they don’t care for humor in their campaigns. It wrecks the suspense of disbelief. It spoils the sense of high adventure. I get it. I also see no reason one cannot have one’s iron rations and eat them too. (Fact: iron rations = adventure cake. look it up if you don’t believe me.)

I think the first rule of Funny Club is that you don’t talk about Funny Club. If you’re a player with a strange character, don’t remind everybody every ten seconds about your character’s neuroses. That’s annoying. Duh. This also means you should keep an eye on whether you’ve painted yourself into an Annoying Corner with your concept. Don’t forget you still have to fight, either. I played a necromancy specialist wizard once with both problems. He wanted to use necromancy to help others, but the setting dictated that magic in general (much less raising Grandma from the dead to help with the chores) was feared and reviled. That coupled with the fact that I had chosen nothing but noncombat spells “for role-play purposes” meant I had some choices to make at 2nd level if I wanted him to live.

Over the years, I’ve found I have the best fun roleplaying strange characters when I see an opportunity to let that character’s freak flag fly WHILE staying in character and still trying to achieve the party’s goals. I think in these cases it’s OK to metagame a bit and perhaps not play that berserker barbarian with irritable bowel syndrome or compulsive kleptomaniac you made COMPLETELY to the hilt. Sure, it’s not always Exactly What Your Character would do, but it follows the advice on page 149 of Vanir’s Guide To Surviving Social Contact with Other Humans, which clearly states that there are other people at the table who want to have fun too. It’s common sense when you think about it — don’t hog the spotlight! Better yet, if you’re going to go do something odd, include the other party members. This requires a DM that can think on their feet, but everybody has a lot of fun.

Part of whether a humorously-constructed character comes off as funny or annoying simply has to do with your sense of comic timing. It’s a skill just like anything else, and it takes practice. I have no illusions that I am a comedian, especially with a live audience, but if you can keep your eyes and ears open, you’ll be able to tell if what you’re doing is working. Your end goal is not to be awesome or the funniest dude in the room. Your goal is to have fun yourself and to make the experience more fun for everybody else. It’s a very difficult line to walk. I find myself tripping over it frequently, to be honest.

This incredibly scientific analysis wouldn’t be complete without a little bit of input from a man I’ve inflicted many aneurisms upon, my best friend and frequent DM — otherwise known as Dante from Stupid Ranger. He’s got plans to write about this more in-depth (which I will link to IN DUE TIME), but here’s what he had to say in the meantime:

I enjoy the thrill of having to come up with reactions to your crazy actions in the moment. It’s the same part of my brain that handles impromptu speaking and enjoys it. Plus, poop jokes are funny. Every single time.

I understand some groups really dig a high fantasy or a serious, somber mood. I am just not one of those people, most of the time. Plus, I think it provides a great contrast when you do want to have serious moments in your campaign.

I can really relate personally to that last bit – one of the most memorable moments in any D&D game I’ve ever played was the day my normally goofy, bumbling, brash battle-cleric’s best friend died in battle. All of a sudden, his world is shattered and he rages out and kills the monster that ended his friend’s life. Afterward, he sadly carries her body back to town. I still get a little weepy thinking about it. There were a lot of moments like that during that campaign.

As for how to DM a funny campaign? I’m afraid I’m not going to be of much help. Unless you’re running a campaign in Xanth, basing your encounters and setting on jokes and puns is going to get a little old, at least in my opinion. I’ve played plenty of one-off games that worked well with this format (NASCRAG, anyone?), and I know there are a few commercially produced modules out there, so it can work. I’m more of a fan of making a particular situation amusing than I am basically declaring Martial Humor Law.

I have no idea if any of this will be of use to anyone. If nothing else, it has served to remind me of some good times around the D&D table. But given how much fun I’ve had turning the serious dial down a couple notches, I can’t help but want to share. Have any of you had any experiences running a less-than-serious campaign? I’d love to hear them in the comments.