Icons, a Fate-based superheroes game, was January’s game-of-the-month. It’s published by Adamant Entertainment and was designed by one of the designers of Mutants & Masterminds, another popular super hero RPG.

Like other games using the Fate system, Icons has relatively light-weight and open-ended mechanics. Most actions are resolved by rolling 1d6-1d6, an alternative to using Fudge dice, and adding that to a character’s level in the appropriate ability, such as prowess or intellect, or super power. These ability and power levels range from 1, ”weak, minimum human,” to 10, “cosmic or maximum superhuman.” Because the 1d6-1d6 roll produces a relatively narrow distribution, the 1-10 range is enough to have target numbers at the high end out of reach for characters with low abilities unless they use determination, Icons’ version of Fate points, to improve their odds.

Speaking of Fate points, the way that Icons handles aspects is a little different than other Fate games that I’ve played in that it expects positive, called Qualities, and negative aspects, called Challenges, rather than having just a single set of aspects. I think this made it easier for my players to come up with ideas, but it also produced a different feel to the game because the aspects ended up being clearly good or bad traits rather than more nuanced descriptions of the characters.

Character creation can be done either randomly or through a point buy system, but the author definitely encourages using the random method. The random character creation system uses a bunch of tables to determine a hero’s origin, abilities, and powers. These tables ended up working well because most of the powers are generic enough that a player is able to describe them in a number of ways. For example, the Blinding power could be pepper spray, a flash of light, or sticky spit that can cover the target’s eyes.

My group ended up consisting of four heroes. The Foreman, a spirit inhabiting a collection of rusty metal, had the ability to create illusions, paralyze enemies, and travel through time. Hellcat, a super-powered army clerk, could make rapid attacks, leap great distances, and read minds. Flare, a movie star transformed by biogenic photons, could blind targets, control plants, fly, and had a small amount of invulnerability. Finally, P.E.a.R.T was a drum-playing robot with the ability to fly, deflect attacks, and resist damage.

I ran Wages of Sin, the short adventure included in the Icons rulebook. The adventure opened up with the heroes rushing to the scene of a brawl between two supervillains, the Troll and Recluse. During the fight, they realized that Recluse seemed to be in a berserk rage. Hellcat and Flare then grappled with the monstrous man-spider and dragged him away from the fight. Meanwhile, the Foreman and P.E.a.R.T struggled to deal with the Troll’s invulnerability and eventually used a subway train to stop the monster. The group then learned that a man named Doctor Sin was behind Recluse’s attack on the Troll and also a museum robbery. They then tracked down the villain and defeated him and his ninja henchmen in a brawl.

Running the adventure was a lot of fun and the Fate system seemed to be a good match for a comic book inspired story. The game makes use of comic book terminology to really drive home that feeling. For example, a turn is refered to as a panel and a round as a page. The mechanical depth of the game also felt about right for superheroes – combat moved fast and powers were vague enough to encourage creativity while having enough rules to make it clear how actions should be resolved.

Enemies That Can’t Be Beat

The fight against the Troll was an interesting test of the game. None of the players had superheroes who were capable of dealing enough damage to overcome the Troll’s invulnerability, so they were forced to pursue alternative tactics. While the fight would have surely ended in all of the heroes dead if they tried a direct fight, they were able to use their other powers and the environment in order to defeat the villain. This seemed to be a good match for superhero comics where victory often involves realizing an enemy’s weakness or finding an interesting trick to give an advantage.

This idea that it’s okay to pit your players against an encounter they can’t beat in a straight up fight can be carried over into any game. In order to keep an encounter like this from feeling unfair, a GM needs to be willing to work with players and reward good ideas and players need to be creative and think outside the box. I encourage you to give an “unbeatable” enemy a try in whatever game you’re currently running, and I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised with the outcome.

Hero Factory

If you’re playing Icons or any other super hero game, then this web app could be really useful. It lets you design a super hero by using a selection of body part, costume, and prop designs. I found it too late to have my players create images for their heroes with it, but I’ll definitely be using it the next time I run a super hero game.

For the next game-of-the-month article, I’m running a session of Gamma World set in Sea-At-Ell. Stop by next month to see how the mutants handle giant man-eating crabs, crow-like caws, and other post-apocalyptic horrors.

Greetings, Readers!

If you’ll remember last week, I showed you a great idea I had to encourage exploration and at the same time, represent exploration with something physical and tangible. I had made the fortuitous discovery of an old U-Build Monopoly game by Hasbro. Stripping it of its parts, I isolated all the hex-shaped units to convert them. Today, I wanted to show you how that conversion process worked out.

Spoiler alert: There’s a twist ending.

So, let me bring you back by once again showing you what I had to work with:

As you can see, while the tiles are full of pretty colors, I had to somehow convert them into something more familiar for gaming use.  My first step was to pay a visit to these fine folks:

Inkwell Ideas

I.I. produces a number of clever mapping and role-playing tools in both free, and pay versions. I needed something simple, so I fired up their free version of Hexographer and built some mono-terrain maps (maps with just one kind of terrain) and saved those files as a JPG.You’ll want your mono-terrain maps to be large enough for each to fill at least one 81/2″ x 11″ sheet of paper.

After that’s done, you can use pretty much use any image software. I found that my files were large enough, I could simply use the Windows Image Viewer to size them properly, and print them to a PDF file.

Once printed to a PDF, I loaded some full sheet label paper. It looks like this…

…and can pretty much be found in just about any office supply store. When you get done printing the PDFs, you’ll get sheets that look like this:

And, just in case that photo (even after clicked on), isn’t enough detail, here’s a closer look:

After printing out the sheets, it was a simple matter to cut them in rough squares approximating the size of the tile, applying the label to the tile, and then trimming off the excess label with a sharp x-acto blade.  The end result is something that looks like this:

The nice thing about these modified tiles is that they’re designed to snap together. All of the sudden, I now have a physical hex mapping exploration solution!

The M. Night Shyamalan Twist Ending

I was going to go into further detail about how best to modify these tiles, but I was struck with a rare bout of true inspiration. As I worked on this little project, the following factors all zoomed through my head in rapid succession:

• DnDNext is on the horizon, a stated pillar of that game is to be exploration
• Overland hex terrain maps are popular and remind people of the look of those Old School Greyhawk maps
• Terrain mapping can be tedious to do, and not everyone is an artist.
• Players often hate mapping.
• Tactile things are cool.
• Kickstarter seems to be working out for my friends, how can I make it work for me?
• I could eat some popcorn about now.

Well, maybe that last one wasn’t really on the list, but as you can see, I had a LOT of stuff coming together in my head. Then it struck me that I could see something like this come to fruition. Something that players and DMs alike could use to map traditional looking hex terrain without having to go to a lot of trouble.

Enter Hexplorations.

That’s a working title. I understand it’s currently in use (at least as a URL), by a fellow blogger, so it may not become the permanent name of the product. My idea (and you heard it here at THIS IS MY GAME first), is to sell sets of magnetized hex terrain that you can put together yourself. Use a vertical board, use a table, with the Hexplorations (again, working title) tiles, you can map out the world as you go.

It’s an ambitious idea, but I’ve gotten a lot of positive feedback on Twitter, and I hope to be able to use Kickstarter to help fund the project. Still in the dark as to what this project would look like? Imagine taking an old style hex terrain map (much like the World of Greyhawk map), and cutting it up into 2″ hexes and printing it to magnets. Varying terrain types, add-ons like Towns, Cities, and lakes, and many other features. If that sounds like an ad, well…yeah…maybe that does sound like an ad. But, I am excited about this idea and in the coming weeks will be completing the research phase and working into the prototyping phrase.

I’ll keep folks posted as to how things are going (although maybe not on this site). It’s strange how a simple DIY idea can be come the genesis of a full fledged product idea. I’m getting excited just thinking about the possibilities.

My name is Randall Walker and This Is My Game

The main idea of this blog is to compare and contrast my life as an author with my life as a gamer. What’s new, what’s different. What I was prepared for, what I wasn’t. What I could adapt to and what I couldn’t.

So far I’ve talked about the other gamers and the law of randomness that every tabletop game incorporates, but I haven’t really touched on the largest adjustment I’ve dealt with during this whole process. I call this adjustment Tracy. He is my GM.

People debate the GM’s role in RPG’s constantly. Should they railroad? Should they settle arguments? Should they be in control of the game or should the player’s decisions drive the action?

But I never hear people talking much about the other role the GM plays, which is that of god. Or a god of sorts for the world the players are adventuring in…because even if there are actual gods running about, the GM still represents something larger than that.

It is, as far as I’ve been able to tell, the GM’s world. You can not be in charge of that all of the minor characters, all of the NPC’s, all of the setting descriptions, all of the color, how the food tastes and the air smells and the animals sound and not be a god of sorts for the world in question.

Everyone has a flavor, a storytelling DNA, that inhabits the worlds they create. I know I can feel this connection with the worlds I write in my fiction, and I know this feeling did not exist in the worlds that Tracy has run for me. The action might go places he never imagined and the characters might act entirely opposite from how he expects, but that underlying code, things like a bartender’s sense of humor, or what is considered haute decor, or whether violence has a hint of humor or tragedy, these things ground the world entirely in the GM’s mood and tone.

And, coming from writing a book where I own all of that outright, the amount of double takes I had to do when I started gaming to reconcile my story-DNA with Tracy’s was baffling. It was like I was watching a football game and the color commentary was suddenly being given by a Norwegian fishing guide.

I still have trouble with this, I still want to jump up and ask if my party can reenter the room because wouldn’t there be a much larger dramatic punch if the bad guy wasn’t openly armed? Or the lighting was from underneath? Or it smelled like lilacs? I mean I run and rerun scene openings again and again while I’m writing until I feel I have it right.

But I can’t do that in gaming. I can’t do that at all.

Because I’m just another shlub in these worlds and the GM is in control of populating everything else.

It’s been hard giving up the role of god.

I’m Joseph Devon, and this is my game.

We had our second session of my new Eclipse Phase campaign, and like the first one, it went well. You can listen to the entire session here.

I decided to try something different with this session. Since every mission that the characters go on is assigned by a Firewall Proxy, I thought it might be interesting to see what happens when two different Proxies give two different missions to different parts of the group. This works especially well in a game like Eclipse Phase, where some characters may legitimately not remember their previous mission.

This was the case with two members of the group. They died during the first mission, and effectively, had never met the other members of their “team.” So when they got their first mission from their new Proxy, they had no reason to suspect that anything was amiss. In fact, even the trio who got their mission from their original proxy might wonder if they were the ones who got played. Either way, the group now knows that there is some dissension among the leadership of Firewall.

I realized something else when I was planning this session: the 5×5 idea that I had been using up to this point might not work so well for me. Each game session is highly episodic, and the events of one session might not have anything at all to do with the previous on. That makes planning an overall plot quite difficult. Add to that my tendency to throw a huge plotline at the group from the jump (which I’m trying to avoid this time around), and it all adds up to the 5×5 not working as well for me.

That’s not to say that I won’t hang on to the ideas that I’ve generated so far with the 5×5. It may be that an overall plot will emerge, and I’ll be able to make sure of them. After all, it wouldn’t do to waste good ideas.

I’m not yet sure what the next session holds. I’m suspecting that there will be some fallout from the events of the previous session, but since one of the players won’t be able to make it to the game, we’ll see. I’ll give you the events of that session next week!

I’m Tracy Barnett, and This My Game

Greetings, Kids!

Many of you know that I sort of have a thing for terrain use at the RPG tabletop. Maps are great, tiles are dandy, but good terrain…man…it’s makes me vibrate with joy. Terrain is all about the OUTDOORS. Dungeons are dandy, but sometimes your players need to stretch their legs and get out into the world a bit.

That’s one of the reasons I’m really excited that DnDNext is interested in bringing back EXPLORATION as a major pillar in the game. While never totally disregarded, exploration as part of the main activity around the DnD table has been lacking as of late. Knowing that some emphasis on this might be forthcoming, I set my mind to think what kind of tools I could use to represent this activity at the table with COOL TERRAIN.

So…there I am…these seeds planted into my brain creases, just stewing about when BAM! I come across this:

I found several of these sets at a T.J. Maxx, I think. They were on the clearance rack. As you can see from the package, it’s a type of board game – sort of. It’s a variant on the ubiquitous game, Monopoly®, but uses hex-shaped tiles and some  additional rules to spice things up. It’s produced by the parent company of Wizards of the Coast, Hasbro.

I stopped. I picked up the box. I put it down. I picked it up again. All of the thoughts about exploration, DnD, and cool terrain bubbled to the surface. That’s when I had an ingenious idea. I WILL USE THIS.

Well, let me take a moment to unpack the boxes (I bought three of them – a steal at $7.00 U.S.) a piece.

Guys…just look at all the cool hex tiles. GAZE UPON THEM. Does it remind you of anything? Maybe a little something that looks like this?

That’s right. That’s a snippet of the World of Greyhawk map. Old and new gamers alike are familiar with this map. It’s almost in that DnD 101 territory. Brings back a lot of memories. Plus, it was a great way to represent terrain over a large distance. Now…imagine that terrain represented in 3D on the tabletop (or vertical map board). I’ll get into the details of how we can do that in Part II of this post (next week). For now, though, let me show you all the cool pieces you get to work with.

You get not ONE but TWO different types of houses! I’d use these to represent towns & villages. Maybe one color to represent different sizes of communities (towns being larger than villages). These pieces will actually attach to some of the terrain pieces shown below.

Cities! Because of the nature of the game, these understandably have a pretty modern appearance. However, with a little IMAGINATION, these structures can represent cities or capitols in your campaign.

The cities are important enough to warrant their own hex bases. I can easily see one of these bases being the foundation of your campaign world, particularly if your campaign begins in a city. Explore outward by adding terrain pieces to this starting point!

These were pretty exciting! Bridge pieces that ACTUALLY MOVE. That’s right. Sometimes, a major terrain feature functions as an obstacle. Maybe it’s a mountain pass or a major river or even a deep canyon. One of these pieces can easily be dropped on the map to represent such a feature. If you scale down, one of these can actually be used to represent an actual bridge on the road. Versatile!

These pieces contain structures. They have an understandably modern appearance, but again, with judicious use of IMAGINATION, these buildings become adventure sites. Maybe they’re mining operations, or humanoid cities, or even dungeon locations! The uses here are pretty much wide open. Add one to the terrain map to indicate a major location. Easy to spot!

These little pieces were a little puzzling. I was not sure what to use them for, until it hit me – place holders! Use these to mark the progress of your players! If they’re traveling through a hex, you can use these to mark their stopping point. They’re not a requirement, but it’s adds some utility without wasting the pieces.

These flat terrain pieces have no place for a town (or city) to go, so they make great filler pieces for terrain. As you’ll see below, that can be important, since the bulk of what you’ll use for terrain pieces are in 2-hex form.

And with that, here’s the star of the show. The main terrain pieces. Each one is a double. Most have places that a house (representing a town or village) can be affixed too. Others have one hex that can mount a house, while the other hex is plain (like those in the picture above this one).

That’s a LOT of pieces to work with! Next week, I’ll show you guys out to convert these weird Monopoly® variant game pieces into actual DnD terrain! Stay tuned!

My name is Randall Walker and This Is My Game.

One thing I always wondered about my writing is where I get my characters from. My first experiences with tabletop RPG’s may have shed some light on that question.

When writing, I usually start my characters off using a person I saw on the subway, or a favorite character from some movie, or even a close friend, really anyone who has made an impression on me. I like a good, strong starting point. However, and this never fails, a few scenes in and my characters always develop personalities of their own. They come into themselves and it starts to feel like I just have to stay calm with my fingers at my keyboard while my characters make their own decisions. Sometimes they’ll even act in surprising ways or do things that I don’t want them to. It’s a strange feeling to say the least.

But that doesn’t really answer where they come from. I mean, I’m the only one sitting at my keyboard, so don’t these strangers acting in ways I didn’t expect have to come from me? Are they just different facets of my personality amplified and mixed together in new ways?

Like I said, playing tabletop RPG’s possibly cleared up that mystery. Because no matter how surprised I get when one of my characters does something unexpected, it is nothing, I mean nothing, like the surprises I got when real people started making decisions in what my author-brain naturally assumed would be my story. My character was getting into fights in scenes that I, in my head, had already wrapped up peacefully. Some crazy witch was refusing to hang out with me when, in my head, I had already decided that our characters would be fast friends. And in one game I was greatly shocked to realize I was turning into the bad guy in the eyes of the other players. Like my character almost killed them all.

One thought constantly ran through my head during these moments: “Just who the hell are all these people and why were are they messing up my story?”

I’ve since learned to tame that thought when I sit down to roll dice. In fact, I’ve learned to embrace the exact opposite stance, to encourage others to mess up my character’s life, and to just hang on for the ride.

But the shift from writing characters that I thought were surprising to playing with other people who can, and will, make choices that would never enter into my own head was a difficult one. My characters do appear to be more related to me than I ever realized.

Although I still have no idea where Kyo came from.

In my first Running With Class article, I talked about the role of the GM as a Lesson Planner. That portion of GMing revolves around getting ready for each campaign, and campaign session. But what happens when you are actually running the session? This is where the role of GM as Teacher comes in.

I’m Not the Mouth of God

If you ask someone what it means to be a teacher, you’re going to get a wide variety of answers. Some people, especially those who have had the misfortune to sit through a bad college lecture, will tell you that the teacher is the person who delivers information to the students. The teacher is the final arbiter of knowledge in the classroom, and that knowledge flows from the teacher to the student, filling up their little brains.

If I may, that idea is pure and utter crap.

As a teacher, yes, I have more content knowledge (presumably) than my students. However, it is not my job to just stand at the front of the room and deliver that knowledge to them via lecture or notes. Those thing have their place, but they are just tools. They shouldn’t be the only way by which students learn. Because, let’s face it, lots of students don’t learn well that way. Some have to talk things out, some work better visually, and some need to get their hands on something to understand it.

Not leaning on lecture is something that I’m working on, both as a teacher, and a GM. You see, I’m a talker. Given half a chance, I’ll hold forth on a wide variety of subjects, and I tend to think that I do a pretty good job of getting my point across. I subscribe to a method of teaching that’s called Constructivism, and one of the key concepts in that philosophy is Scaffolding. That is, I front-load good, solid information, then let the students work with it, helping them along the way, then front-loading again when a new level of understanding is reached.

That’s all well and good, but I tend to spend way too much time front-loading. Just ask anyone that I’ve run a playtest game for. I talk. A lot. So I’m trying to work on that. Sometimes just jumping into the action is the way to do things. You’ve got to know your group/students. You’ve got to work to figure out how best they learn, and how they digest information. Do you have someone who’ll sit down and read the whole rulebook, and grok it right away? Do you have someone that needs to roll the dice first to have any idea of what’s going on? Do you have someone who builds from mechanics to character? What about in the other direction? There are all things that you need to know if you’re going to be an effective GM.

Letting Go and Seeing What Happens

I’ve not had a lot of time to be a classroom teacher yet. However, I’ve had moments where I get a glimpse of what I hope it will be like. Those times have come while I was GMing. My favorite moments during a game session are the ones where I’m not saying anything at all. Where I am sitting back and watching the players interact with one another in character. It’s in those moments that I love it. I want that same feeling in a classroom. There’s the sense in those moments that the players just “get it.” That they’ve been given the tools they need to succeed at their task of playing a character. And, in those moments, they learn so much more about the game system, about the world, about the other characters, and themselves than I could ever deliver to them by droning on.

I want those same moments in a classroom. I’ve seen them a few times. When I was teaching a lesson during an observation, I saw it. I used the game Mafia (also know as Are You a Werewolf) to illustrate the kinds of persecution that were seen during the Salem Witch Trials as part of the class’s lesson on The Crucible. We played a few games, and afterward, I asked them to draw parallels between their experiences and the experiences of the characters in the play. They got it immediately, and I sat back and watched them discuss the implications in small groups. It was very satisfying.

GM as Teacher

If that phrase makes you think of a lecturer who doesn’t listen, then I humbly submit that you’ve had a lot of bad teachers in your life. A teacher is someone who has the skill to collaborate with their students to facilitate the learning process. A teacher takes the time to understand the needs of their students, and figures out the ways in which their students best learn. And a teacher lets their students work with the knowledge they have, stepping in to guide and nudge. Not to be an autocratic, authoritarian dictator.

And if that last sentence describes your GM, or heaven forefend, you, then I humbly submit that you need to reexamine the manner in which you run games. No teacher should be like that, and neither should any GM.

I’m Tracy Barnett, and This is My Game

Anyone that’s followed me for any length of time, knows that I can be easily distracted. I might be heavily into a discussion about one topic, and then switch abruptly to something else. This is one of those times.

Over the past several months, I’ve been watching all of the Star Trek series on Netflix. I started with the Original Series, then watched the Animated Cartoon, then The Next Generation. One of the things I’ve unconsciously done while watching the various Star Trek series, is to draw parallels between the species shown on the show, and common species used in games like Dungeons and Dragons. Vulcans = Elves, Romulans = Drow, Klingons  = Orcs, that kind of thing. Currently, I’m working through all of the episodes of Deep Space Nine. One of the main characters on that show, Quark, is a Ferengi; a species of short, big-eared humanoids who have seemingly mastered “The Art of the Deal”.

I’m only now reaching the end of the second season, but as the series explores Quark’s character (and his species) further, it occurred to me that there is one D&D species that might match up perfectly with the Ferengi – Goblins.

Like Ferengi, Goblins are short, and not terribly attractive by human standards. Both species can be aggressive, but cower in the face of an obviously superior foe. However, I think Goblins in D&D are sold (if you’ll pardon the expression) short. They should be more than just annoying low-level barbaric humanoids. I think Goblins should be given a higher purpose, and I intend to do so in my campaigns from here on, basing a lot of their “re-tooling” on the Ferengi in Star Trek.

Visualizing Goblins as deal makers isn’t entirely a new idea. Anyone familiar with World of Warcraft will immediately realize that Goblins are excellent at trade-craft. However, before anyone jumps on me saying “you’re just ripping off WoW”, I want to emphasize that MY Goblins are more traders than crafters. Gnomes (at least in my campaigns) are more than capable of blowing stuff up, so my Goblins don’t need to be doing the same thing. However, my Goblins will certainly make you a great deal on the Gnomish invention sitting in the corner.

Another difference between the Ferengi and traditional Goblins is the caste system Goblins seem to have. The Monster Vault™ establishes pretty clearly that Goblins, Hobgoblins, & Bugbears are all really the same species, just different castes. While the Ferengi have a definite hierarchical arrangement, it’s not represented by a different body type. I’m okay with keeping the Goblins’ caste system intact, but at the same time, reducing  their brutality. In my vision, Goblins are a merchant caste, Hobgoblins are a warrior caste, and Bugbears are a hero/royalty class. These changes don’t represent extensive adjustments for how  Hobgoblins and Bugbears are already presented, but they do become a little more respectable. You still don’t want to face an army of them, but they aren’t savages anymore, either.

So now, as Quark the Goblin pours you another drink, it is worth noting that one aspect of the Goblin/Ferengi conversion is problematic. As portrayed on Deep Space Nine, the Ferengi are a horribly sexist race. Their women are subservient, blocked out of commerce, and are even forced to go unclothed at home. For my campaign, that’s a little too restrictive. Instead, I propose that Goblin pairs always have one dominant and one submissive partner. The dominant one can be either male or female. Essentially, one partner works the trade, and the other partner stays home to raise & educate the little Goblins. Clothing choice is up to the Goblins. I don’t really want to pry. Of course, for your own campaigns, you can simply hand-wave that element of the Ferengi/Goblin conversion. It’s not really a big part of the equation.

For those DMs that think that I’m taking Goblins out of the picture by making them merchants, you’re going to be okay. We have Kobolds. If you want a nasty short humanoid race bent on fouling up everything they touch, use Kobolds. Besides, imagine a smuggler’s guild made up of nothing but Goblin types. Merchant Goblins using heavily armed Hobgoblin guards, perhaps all ruled by a Heroic Bugbear merchant prince.

Wait…I think I have an adventure to write now.

My name is Randall Walker and This is My Game

PS: Someone might comment on this, so I’ll try to be proactive. I have NO idea how the Pathfinder® Goblins fit into all of this. I know they can be used as a character race in that game, but I don’t know Pathfinder well enough to make the appropriate comparisons or suggestions.

So there I was, barfing over the side of a wooden ship, headed towards a land that only had a name, with a carefully picked selection of items in my pack and a name I kept forgetting.

I’ve written five books and tons of short stories, so when Tracy invited me to play some Pathfinder with him I jumped at the chance. After all, if I got so much joy out of telling stories, how could I not love the collaborative storytelling that is at the heart of tabletop gaming?

Well, I did find joy there, but it was a weird bumpy road before I was able to acclimate my writer’s brain to the chaotic world of Pathfinder. My first session contained the scenario described above, one missed roll and my rogue, a shrewd-eyed demon who gave his enemies plenty to consider before they crossed him, as I had seen him, was vomiting over the edge of a ship while the marines on board laughed and a lord insulted him.

That wasn’t exactly what I was expecting. It wasn’t all bad either, don’t get me wrong. It wasn’t like I was throwing up in real life. But it was still a jarring experience to have a character that had been conceived in my head, like every other character I’ve written, suddenly wrenched out of my control by the toss of a die. This is my character, I kept thinking, dammit he doesn’t puke unless I say he does.

And believe me, my characters puke. In most of my early books my main characters tends to vomit at moments of deep personal insight. I’m not sure how I wound up with that as a motif, and I’ve let that fun trend slip away in my later books, but the notion of throwing up has, oddly, become a hallmark of my writing. It’s a powerful thing to make a character do. It’s disabling, disorienting, derailing. Plans for the night or for the week can suddenly collapse when one’s stomach twinges due to a flu. It can signify physical durability, or lack thereof, emotional stability, or lack thereof, and can indicate an inability to handle stress in an otherwise stoic character.

No. Tossing one’s cookies is not an action I make my characters suffer lightly. But it was the first thing my character did in my first tabletop rpg ever. And not by choice, but because I had failed a role.

It was a slap in the face but it got across the message clearly. This was not my setting. I wasn’t in control of these characters. I was a character, and someone else was playing god.

I swear, as a writer who has controlled the minute actions of hundreds of characters at every moment in their lives for over ten years, the sudden lack of control was enough to make me nauseous.

Welcome to tabletop RPG’s, I thought.

And that was before I started to interact with all those “other players.”

Welcome to the February 2012 Edition of No Assembly Required, a monthly column that provides DMs with a ready-to-use monster for a Dungeons & Dragons 4^th Edition campaign. The monster can of course be adjusted for other gaming systems as well. Each monster in the series is displayed complete with Stat Block, Lore, Tactics, Power Descriptions and potential plotlines a DM can use during a campaign.

Of special note is the spectacular artwork provided by Grant Gould. He previously designed the mascot, Iddy the Lich, for my blog, The Id DM, and is illustrating each monster in the No Assembly Required series. He also developed the sweet logo below for the column. Visit his site to learn about commission pricing and view galleries of artwork.

Please be sure to come back next month for another monster that can be used in your campaign. Batteries Included! This month, I present a monster for the early Epic Tier, Durgauthbalavoar. Design and details are below.

Durgauthbalavoar, Ghost Dragon

Development

It seemed like only a matter of time before a dragon was featured in this column series. Grant certainly wanted to draw a dragon, and I wanted to create the story and statistics for a dragon. Seriously, who does not want to use a dragon in their game? But with well over 100 hundred dragons published in various books and adventures, developing a unique angle on dragons is daunting. Grant and I shelved the idea but finally came up with what we hope is a somewhat original creature.
We settled on the idea of a ghost or spirit dragon; a powerful creature that was already destroyed by adventurers ages ago. However, the spirit of the dragon has returned and is once again causing mayhem. I became inspired to dive into this idea and flesh out a backstory for the dragon. Grant worked on designing a sickly dragon and experimented with different effects to make the beast appear ghostly. The result below is fantastic!

As for mechanics, I was worried about using the insubstantial trait even though it fits into the theme of the creature. As a player, fighting insubstantial monsters is a chore. And as a DM, halving damage from players and tracking when the creature suffered radiant damage, which typically negates the insubstantial trait, feels like busy work. In addition, I was wary of creating a beast that is too complicated to play because I always have an eye on combat speed. A final dynamic that concerns me as a DM is that fights, especially with Solo monsters, are often static. The players rush around the monster and the monster is pinned down; it turns into a slugfest to see who dies first. There is not enough movement or need for the players to change battlefield tactics. I wanted to ensure that would not happen without resorting to complicated powers. And I like saving throws in addition to critical misses and hits with consequences!

A few ideas I have experimented with in my campaign are added into the monster below. First, the dragon has a rechargeable move action that allows it to teleport eight squares. Combined with the Aura effects below, this ability will force the players to read and react to the monster throughout the encounter. Second, the dragon has several Auras that effect the party if they are too close or too far away. For lack of a better term, I have labeled the latter as a Reverse Aura. The ghost dragon, Durgauthbalavoar, is an evil and corrupt creature who literally sucks the life from the party at close range. However, party members too far away are blinded by the veil of darkness that hangs around the dragon. The Auras create decisions for melee and ranged members of the party, and since the dragon has a chance to teleport each round, the battlefield will often shift. The dragon itself only has four attacks, but the Auras require no rolls from the DM and drive the narrative of the combat.

Third, I set out to create a Solo that did not require the DM to set up a few encounters for attrition purposes. While that is still an option, I believe this creature could be a threat to a fully rested party. The Aura effect that drains surges and combined damage types (to help avoid resistances) should make for a dramatic combat encounter. I believe the DM could add in a Skill Challenge to offset the Corrupted Ground trait or have another important feature of the landscape that requires Perception checks (see Screams Of The Fallen power).

A final point on the design process – in developing a name for the ghost dragon, I stumbled across a dragon name generator site. I clicked through the site to find words and combined them until I found something that matched the backstory and sounded fierce. The result was formed from the following:

• Durg - Dragolich/Foul/Rotting/Undead
• Auth - Black/Blinded/Darkness/Void
• Bala - Blighted/Corrupt/Plague/Scourge
• Voar - Dead/Deadly/Death/Slayer

Origin

The city of Nalmouche once prospered as artisans, merchants and nobles alike drove the economy to new heights. The surrounding lands were cleared of dangerous beasts by a well-equipped army, which encouraged further development and construction. The reach of Nalmouche extended across the kingdom as it became the heart of commerce. The streets were clean, the landscapes pristine and it seemed Nalmouche was poised to become a bastion of good fortune and healthy living throughout the realm. But it was not to be.

During a mining expedition in a nearby mountain range overlooking the northern border of Nalmouche, an ancient and terrible beast was disturbed from his slumber. A green dragon burst forth from the mountain and took flight for the first time in many an age. The dragon flew over the skies of Nalmouche for several days before flying off into the distance. The residents of Nalmouche – first horrified by the beast – were relieved the dragon had passed them over and were hopeful the beast found a new lair to call home.

The dragon indeed departed Nalmouche for several weeks to scout the lands, but returned to Nalmouche to claim its riches. The destruction by the green dragon was deliberate and brutal. Residents of Nalmouche chocked on the poisonous breath of the creature while the army was ripped to shreds. The mighty beast took its time and would fly off to regain strength only to return days later to kill once again. Many fled Nalmouche, but few escaped. Thousands died. The dragon demonstrated not a single ounce of mercy as it slayed everyone in its path.

News of the dragon’s assault spread to outlying towns and villagers. Would-be adventurers combined forces to defeat the dragon, but only added to the piles of dead corpses that littered the city streets and surrounding countryside. It is believed that when all hope was lost and death took all but a few poor souls still trapped in Nalmouche, the famed Jonquil Sisterhood traveled to the city to vanquish the dragon. In a battle that lasted many days and wiped out all by a few of the legendary Sisterhood, the great beast fell into the smoking ruins of the city. The vile blood oozing from the dragon’s great body defiled the many corpses that lay strewn upon the ground. The few remaining members of the Jonquil Sisterhood did not celebrate the victory after the death of so many. The solemnly condemned the city and rescued any remaining survivors.

The great dragon became known as Durgauthbalavoar to those that lived to tell the tale of the destruction of Nalmouche. The city was abandoned along with the poisonous corpse of the dragon and the thousands of victims that fell from its malice. Nalmouche fell into further ruin and over thousands of years, the city was swallowed by the shifting landscape itself. The Jonquil Sisterhood disappeared into books of history and later myth. The name Durgauthbalavoar was long forgotten.

Unknowingly, a new settlement has been constructed on the corrupted grounds of Nalmouche. The ancient remains of the city lie far below the surface, but the growing settlement has disturbed the spirit of the mighty Durgauthbalavoar. The ghost of the dragon has been unleashed from its unholy rest and seeks revenge for his death. The dragon now terrorizes the lands, draining the life from any living creature. A new request has been sent to adventurers to defeat the menace once and for all.

Lore

History DC 20: It is spoken in several legends that a great green dragon once was unleashed from its mountain lair and destroyed the nearby city of Nalmouche. The name of the beast was Durgauthbalavoar, and it annihilated nearby cities and settlements. The beast was said to be merciless as it killed thousands of people in its reign of terror.

History DC 27: Durgauthbalavoar was finally slain by the Jonquil Sisterhood, an adventuring company with incredible skills and talents. All but a few of the Sisterhood were lost in the battle, but a final blow was landed to snuff out the dragon’s life. The corpse of Durgauthbalavoar and the thousands of victims were left to the rotting ruins of the city.

Religion DC 27: Nalmouche is described in one ancient tome as a wasteland of unholy ground. It was believed a purge of life occurred on the ground, which resulted in thousands not receiving proper burial. The area is thought to drain the life from any living creature that is unwise enough to enter the area. It is believed a great beast that caused the death and destruction still haunts the grounds.

Durgauthbalavoar In Combat

Durgauthbalavoar can be used as a single Solo monster, but a DM could add any number of undead monsters to add complexity and challenge to the battle. For example, waves of zombie minions can burst from the very earth or an undead and corrupted hero from the Jonquil Sisterhood could serve as a lieutenant for the dragon. The DM could also add a concurrent Skill Challenge to offset the Corrupted Ground ability.

Durgauthbalavoar will used his Breath Weapon to affect as many enemies as possible early in combat. He will use Ghastly Bite in inflict ongoing damage to different targets each round while using Vicious Claws to defend itself from and reposition strong melee attackers. Once per round, Durgauthbalavoar will use Scream Of The Fallen to target an enemy not yet affected by the power, starting with those that remain out of range from its melee powers.

Durgauthbalavoar will use Lost In The Void whenever it is available to keep his enemies unbalanced, which also allows for his Aura powers to become more effective and unpredictable. Corrupted Ground slowly drains the life-force from any nearby creature while Shadows Of The Night envelops ranged attackers in darkness. The final Aura, Vile Blood, is triggered when Durgauthbalavoar is bloodied, and results in nearby enemies taking additional damage whenever the dragon himself takes damage.

Action Recovery and All-Around Vision are methods for Durgauthbalavoar to remove unwanted status effects and avoid being flanked by enemies.

Power Descriptions

Corrupted Ground: The presence around the great undead beast fills your body and soul with an unrelenting pressure to submit to its will. You are forced to muster your resolve to press on with any attack. The very earth and air are defiled as the beast extracts your life-force. 

Shadows Of The Night: The beast is followed by a thick void as it blankets the surrounding area in waves of darkness. From this distance, the darkness is too much to filter and you are blinded by the void.

Vile Blood: You puncture the spirit of the dragon’s defenses, yet sense this unholy and unstable creature is now bursting forth thousands of years of vile necrotic and poisonous substances. In addition, painful wailing and screaming can be heard surrounding the creature, as if his many victims are now fighting back to take their revenge.

Action Recovery: The dragon appears to shift in and out of focus as its spirit takes greater form to launch attacks only to withdraw slightly into another plane of existence. It appears that any damaging effects are left behind as the dragon shift back into this plane.

All-Around Vision: Regardless of your positioning, you cannot seem to catch the ghost dragon off-guard. It does not grant you any quarter in close combat and seems to anticipate your next move. 

Ghastly Bite: The dragon chomps down with his rotting and jagged teeth, gashing your armor and inflicting dark and poisonous wounds that continue to burn and spread up and down your body.

Vicious Claws: Unleashing his claws, the dragon slashes fiercely through your ranks and staggers you backward from the impact of the blow. (Critical Hit - The swipe of its claws penetrate your defenses and strike at your most vulnerable area. The nails sharp points of the claw puncture your armor and skin leaving additional wounds.)

Breath Weapon: Durgauthbalavoar rears up on its legs and spews forth a toxic blend of necrotic and poison breath. The corrosive stream of noxious gas and liquid coats your body and reduces your strength immediately. The breath burns your eyes and creates blurred vision as you attempt to press on with your attack.

Screams Of The Fallen: A cacophony of screams fills your mind blocking out all other sounds of battle. The pained voices appear to be calling for the death of the evil beast looming in front of you, but they are being psychically pushed away by the creature onto you. The dizziness array of hundreds of terrible screams will continue to wear down your resolve to continue the fight as your brain is overwhelmed by the auditory input.

Lost In The Void: The dragon appears to close in on itself as the veil of darkness is sucked back into its center. For a moment, the great beast disappears. That brief moment is followed by a mighty roar elsewhere on the battlefield as it begins to attack your friends elsewhere.

Bloodied Breath: The dragon is injured! He lets out an angry roar. The beast senses you are a legitimate threat for the first time and immediately unleashes another blast of its toxic breath.

I am aware of a few typographical errors in the Stat Block. I will work to fix those quickly. Thank you.