A simple statement to the video, “This Monster Caused a TPK Every Time I Ran It” is a bold statement that doesn’t reek of click bait. I immediately had to see what creature, one I hadn’t heard of, would be capable of the dreaded Total Party Kill. I filed it away as a deadly creature for when I wanted to evoke death and doom. I didn’t have to wait too long, as I was looking for a Lieutenant for a Steinhardt’s Guide to the Eldritch Hunt. As the setting is inspired by H.P. Lovecraft and the Bloodborne video games, the Balhannoth seemed to have the requisite amount of tentacles.

Shhh… It’s a Secret!

Most of the time, and this one is a big secret that I’m letting you in on, the Dungeon Master wants the players to win. At any point, they can state “Rocks fall, everybody dies” despite how incredulous the party might find that, they would not be able to argue against the results. When players begin their needling, that’s in the space where hare-brained schemes come to fruition and the Storyteller lets the party have their out. The players can go back to high fiving each other, hurling insults at the GM depending on their temperment and feeling like they won — because the game turned out exactly the way the GM wanted it to.

This means that a creature that comes with a TPK warning label would be something you’d want to avoid, normally.

Everyone Gets to Play in a Sandbox

Sandboxes shift and get shaped by all participants who jumped in. This means I can do things you should never do. If the players want to break the economy with their Bastions, I can put a Deck of Many Things. If they want to wantonly slay leaders, they can deal with the poison pill that the leader sat on. For every careless action of smashing the sandcastles their fellow players or I made, I can put bigger, badder critters into the sandbox for my amusement.

That is often the forgotten part of playing in Dungeons and Dragons and other RPGs. The Director of these tales is a player as well. Because there is no overarching plot that could be destroyed because of character death, you can flirt with different boundaries than normal. So when I needed a nasty sidekick to a boss, Esper the Bard’s cautionary tale of the Balhannoth became enticing.

The Balhannoth Was a Blast

Was is the operative word, as the party did not die to the Balhannoth! However, it was much better than that, it appeared like a close thing. Also, my preference for Theatre of the Mind was definitely a strike against the aberration. I like Theatre because it is quick and sloppy; but precision for the Balhannoth would work for it. As it can make an illusion, it should make a hole for it to toss its fiestier meals. Having a hole that the party cannot work with nor see on a grid is why I didn’t add a pit. If you want to put the screws to your party, place a 100 ft. pit it could teleport above and toss its meal down.

The Balhannoth can Teleport around, with a Grappled, Restrained target, making the aberration the height of ambush predators. If you’re looking for a realistic use of the Underdark predator, have it grab one player’s character and then leave. Having a Bite as a Legendary Action means it could chomp and crush a squishy target quickly.

The Balhannoth had dropped half of the party by the end of the second round but that’s when the chain of heals kept the party on their feet. It even wasn’t that strong of a showing as the updated Surprise rules in D&D 2024 lowers lethality of the game on the players; surprise is just Disadvantage on Initiative. It is kind of embarassing when the ambush predator ended up in the lower middle of the pack in my run with it.

I can definitely see how this beastie could cripple or kill a party. If they’re in the right level range, it is definitely a way to end a campaign if you want something better than “rocks fall, everybody dies”.

Move Over Dyson

I guess a messy break-up would naturally be a reason to draw more eyes. Of course, it is more complicated than that but nuance scales poorly in the age of the internet. So while it would be more accurate to say “I like Point Crawls more”, it doesn’t get people going.

I find Dyson’s maps to be beautiful but they’re absolutely a nightmare for whichever player is in charge of mapping. I run a Hexcrawl, so I naturally have the responsibility of mapping given out to a player. Repeatedly seeing the player engrossed in attempting to have an accurate map while everyone else leaves them in the dust discussing the next shenanigans was a “feels bad” moment. Since we’re playing a game, I try to eliminate any feels bad that doesn’t trigger schadenfreuden.

The Phantom Fungus

Revisiting this due to Dyson’s redrawing of the Fire Opal Temple is not some irony lost on me.

In it, there were the Phantom Funguses from 3.5 which I had completely forgotten about. That’s fair as they’re Invisible. I updated the Fungus to 5.5 and gave out a some field dressing as well. I’ve even field tested these little bastards and they definitely give a “3.5 feel” with their Bonus Action Disengage which is similar to how 5-foot Steps worked in that edition. Lastly, I finish the article with what magic items you can harvest and use immediately, as I prefer monsters to have some kind of ‘potion’ that is readily available over the Heliana’s Guide of “Collect three wolf pelts to make Cloak of the Wolf”.

Name NPCs Dude the Guy

I am a little butthurt that this didn’t top the charts, but you’ve got to give credit to Dyson: his maps are incredible.

The reason why I recommend Dude the Guy is that there are more points of reference for your players to remember. Memory is like a bee flying around, pollinating flowers; you need to have multiple points to get your pollination or in this case memory working. By giving names a subtitle, you’re adding extra flowers to your player’s memory gardens. It also doesn’t hurt if their subtitle reinforces what they’re all about; Drax the Destroyer probably isn’t about hugging bunnies and puppies. If you want your players to have an easier time remembering your host of NPCs, give them subtitles!

Last but far from Least… The Kickstarter!

I am trying my hand at the whole crowdfunding business and I must admit, I’m way over my head with my first Kickstarter: The Forgemaster.

As of this writing, I’m sitting at 43% funded of a $300 goal.

The Kickstarter is about a mystical blacksmith under duress who your party can rescue, allowing them access to his magical wares. As with my West Marches design, the module can be played with three to five players between levels 2 to 7. The Forgemaster ends in an epic boss fight, matched to your players’ level.

If that sounds interesting, back it now!

If you’re strapped for cash, I can understand as that is basically my life. In which case, share it with your friends. Y’know the ones, the ones with poor impulse control and an excess of wealth.

Yes, my decision to toss this into the Sandbox was before I was converted to the gospel of Point Crawls with my dungeons throug Murkdice.

The Phantom Fungus

I am fond of Fungi as a problem for my players. I was terrorized by Shrieker Fungi due to their ability to draw in Random Encounters. There were other Fungi that were deadly but this 3rd Edition monster seemed like a lot of fun.

If you haven’t played 3rd Edition Dungeons and Dragons, there were a lot of emphasis on ‘Free’ Five Foot Steps. They allowed creatures to manoeuvre around the battlefield. It was frequently very important to gain Flanks, especially at lower levels. This made the Fungus’ Bonus Action be an obvious Disengage to help simulate Fungus who were invisible dodging about the battlefield.

I knew to make their Morale 9 which is high because the Fungus who have very little reason to flee once it has a meal nearby. It also means that due to the simple brain, it wouldn’t have much reason to fall back onto Instincts. If the GM disagrees, they’re free to roll 1d12 over a 1d10 — or y’know, just do whatever they want because I’m not their real dad.

A Phantom Fungus’ veil is what covers its stalk and cap, giving it the ability to be invisible. Hunters have been known to cut it off and use it themselves.

Field Dressing

Upon defeat, the Phantom Fungus can give your players Invisibility in a pinch plus some snacks. The Check is Nature because I have my Extraction Checks be whatever is appropriate for the creature or Medicine because Medicine needs as much help as it could get. That way a Plant or Beast might be Nature, an Ooze or Aberration would be Arcana and Religion would be for Undead or Fiends but Medicine could operate on all of the above.

One aspect that I have received compliments for in my previous modules was the ‘field dressing’ guide. I came about their design because animals and the like would frequently not be worth any loot. With treasure being randomly generated in a West Marches game, wildlife was frequently a bust for the players. That’s when I was determined to make those monsters worth something.

I dislike Heliana’s Guide’s version or that in Tasha’s Cauldron because it reminded me too much of MMOs. That is, go out and collect five wolf pelts to gain the ingredients of the magic item ‘Cape of the Wolves’ or whatnot. Going out for wolf pelts makes sense in the context of a video game, there’s lots of ‘fluff’ to increase the gameplay loop. It can be fun to go out, hunt things, craft items from their drops and go out to do it again against a more challenging creature. That is not the gameplay loop of Dungeons and Dragons.

The gameplay loop in Dungeons and Dragons emphasizes important battles; after all, the constraint is 8 Medium Encounters per Adventuring Day. There’s no reason to ‘grind’ against rats in a basement to level up; instead, the players are given heroic objectives to accomplish and that moves the story along. Without the need to face the same creatures repeatedly, I knew that each monster should have something interesting to take away; rations are because it is a Hexcrawl which is the only time counting rations is important.

If you are interested in seeing more Field Dressing from other creatures, let me know!

I played in a gangster game and it had the best retention of names out of all games I’ve played. This is because of how gangsters always had a pseudonym to go with their name. If everyone is named Tony, then you need to have distinction between Tonies. Luckily, in a game it is easy to control that everyone has separate names and then a differing attribute. Boris the Blade states his name and reinforces his attribute, they’re even phonetically similar.

Retention Through Aide

Memory works by having multiple related items point towards one source. This is why it is wrong to introduce yourself at the beginning of a conversation; oh society thinks it’s good but that’s why we can never remember anyone’s names. If you’ve ever saddled up to someone at a party and struck up a conversation that spanned multiple topics, when you finally got around to exchanging introductions, you are much more likely to remember that person’s name. Your brain had multiple attributes you can saddle this person with, making recall of them much easier.

In the case of the gangster game, the subtitle to the name is a way to ‘role play like your wrestle’. Subtley is not for a roleplaying game, there’s too much going on. By giving an NPC a subtitle, you’re adding more details for your players to recall. If you want to test an example, there’s the film Snatch which is full of all sorts of colourful characters. You bet ‘Boris the Blade’ is going to get remembered over ‘the crime lord Boris’; with the Blade subtitle, there’s an additional detail for your players to recall. In fact, in a lot of Guy Ritchie flicks, he gives the characters a subtitle liberally. I bet he does so because he wants the audience to remember who all of these people are.

Units and Factions

This is applicable to particular people or Stat Blocks as well. My players may not remember what the ‘Argos’ is called, but they know it is as ‘The Illithid Hunter’. Their function or special ability should be added for memory.

I use the title of Thunderspeaker for Druids who control lightning, stolen from the board game Spirit Island. By adding the detail of the Druids tattooing fractal shapes onto their skin from the lightning strike they call down onto themselves, I’ve got a memorable Stat Block as part of the Druid Faction. Their gimmick as part of their name reinforces who they are; remember, the medium of RPGs does not ask for subtley.

Samples the Examples

Agorna and Heidrun, The Twilight Sisters - stolen from the Iron Kingdoms, this Fey pair are recalled and feared by the PCs despite only being middle weights in the grand scheme of things.

Blackbird the Behaviourlist barters behaviours for items, he’s a Loot Tavern creation. When the party bumped into him, they recalled his deal.

Gallis the Tourist is an original. I wanted to see if my party could remember places, so I had this Tourist Djinn show up and ask questions. If the party was able to suggest three interesting places for the spirit of air to visit, he’d grant a Wish. With such motivation, the party suddenly could remember all sorts of locales. While they might never remember his name, the subtitle is unforgettable.

Toruk the Dragonfather is another theft from the Iron Kingdoms. Whenever there’s any dragon nastiness, Toruk gets the blame laid as his feet which works for me.

I’ve seen a lot of panicked posts on how to prep during a time crunch. I’ll cut to the chase, here are my suggestions.

Stat Blocks

If you only have time to prep one thing in a West Marches game, prep a Stat Block. Think of it this way: would you rather have the storyline be fly by te seat of your pants or perhaps introduce a unfair fight? A bunch of bandit Stat Blocks, with an animal like a Bear, gives you far more to work with than writing a story about Smokey and the Bandits. When it comes to finding a Stat Block, you could do anything from flipping through Monster Manuals until you get what you need, finding a beastie to tweak or whipping something up from scratch.

If you aren’t a “from scratch” Storyteller but would like to fool your players, I highly recommend Jetpack7’s ‘Masters, Minions and Tactics’. Don’t feel bad, they want to be surprised by the magic trick, they’re not going to call you out for copyright infringement. In Masters, Minions and Tactics, Jetpack7 has custom Stat Blocks for Bosses and their minions. You get a storyline and a Stat Block to plug and play. The difficulty ranges from something appropriate for Level 3 all the way to the highest tiers of play.

If I do have a critique of it, a lot of the Stat Blocks aren’t Jaquaysed. The assumption is that these are the big bads that the party will fight. One of the boss monsters is stated as just wanting to escape its prison; my party did exactly that instead of resorting to violence. That’s the point of a Sandbox game, the players can befriend or antagonize all sorts. That’s why a Stat Block is important for what you think will be an ally because when you get to the table, your Players might decide to pick a fight.

You’re in luck that a lot of the random tables you’ve previously prepared will do a lot of heavy lifting. So by the time the players get to the designed Stat Block, itching for a fight or friendship, you’re ready to go.

Scenarios

Scenarios are more complicated that spewing stats into a Stat Block, but they’re far simpler than figuring out a dungeon on the fly. Once you got the Bandit and Bear Stat Blocks, you can figure out a storyline instead of entirely making it up as the players bump into elements at the table. Or perhaps you want to re-use a particular faction, so guide your players to them with a scenario. Depending on the mood of your game, this can be as serious or silly as you desire.

My usual suspects when it comes to looking for inspiration are Dungeon Dad and One Page Dungeon Contest. Luckily for you and unluckily for me, I do have a list of monsters for you to steal. Doesn’t help me when I’m in a pinch but perhaps they will do for you.

Dungeon Dad’s usual YouTube shenanigans is to produce a Stat Block for 5th Edition and come up with a few scenarios to go along with it. The time commitment can easily be as little as copying the Stat Block, to listening to his scenario ideas or watching a whole video on the beastie. That’s a nice amount of time you can allocate while browsing for the critter you want.

The One Page Dungeon Contest usually brings a map alongside with all sorts of interesting scenarios. A lot of the scenarios are Old School Renaissance friendly but that just means updating the Stat Blocks for what will be an original adventure. As I discussed with my attempt to win the grand prize, it is the scenario that is frequently the most frustrating and difficult part. Once you’ve got that, you can plug and play the Stat Blocks.

Speaking of maps…

Map

These are the least important, in my eyes, because it is something you can whip up on the moment.

I’m stepping away from Simulationist Maps, as explained in my preference of Murkmail over Dyson. At least for the moment. I’m sure Dyson can make something beautiful that will sway my mercurial heart.

The exception to this is a puzzle dungeon but you’re on a time crunch, you can tinker with adding a puzzle dungeon when you have more time.

I previously championed ‘Use Morale’ as a way to keep fights interesting. There is nothing worse than a slog, so when an enemy is pushed to the limits you would make a Morale Check. Typically, that’s done by rolling 2d6 and seeing if the result is higher than the creature’s Morale score. If you don’t have a Morale Score on a stat block, you can make inferences. A seven is a standard score, they would hold their ground 50% of the time a Morale Check is needed. As you deviate further away from that, creatures become expentionally more cowardly or courageous. A creature with a Morale score of 10 is practically fearless, while a 4 or 5 is flighty and fearful.

Seems All or Nothing

One critique of Morale is that it doesn’t cover something unusual that might happen in the middle of an emergency. Most of the time players are the cause of that emergency, as they are picking a fight, but you can be more creative. If a tower is crumbling due to an earthquake or a barn is being consumed by flames, Morale isn’t necessarily an appropriate check. If they pass, do they hold their ground? If they fail, do they run around without a thought in their head?

Once they do fail, the creature tries to exit stage left. How can we do something that keeps them on the stage for a dramatic question but also shows they’re lost in the sauce?

Here Comes Instinct

Taken from Kevin Crawford’s Worlds Without Number, Instinct is to see if the creature does something sub-optimal. The examples given vary between what type of creature that failed its Instinct Check. A predator might take a moment to do an intimidating roar while an office worker might fall prone and scream. In RPGs, the optimal play to make in RPGs is to wait for your turn and hit them. The NPC opponents should do the exact same if the players are all playing a wargame of some kind. That’s the roots of Dungeons and Dragons and its predessor, Chainmail.

But the players aren’t playing a wargame, one of the players is the Storyteller of the game. They want to set the scene and see how the players will get out of this one. If Morale is a way to cut a scene short due to boredom, Instinct is spicing it up. If the party stumbles into the lair of giant birds, they might spend some of those turns squaking, beating their wings and not mindlessly selecting “I roll to hit”. Suddenly, a roleplaying objective might arise with the birds behaving out of Instinct instead of Intelligence. A player might ask what has them so riled up, you could improvise eggs and the PCs suddenly have an interesting piece of Cover alongside a moral question.

Not Optimal

While having enemies randomly select suboptimal moves might not be the best for a game, I think it elevates the other aspect of roleplaying games: the roleplaying. It is another way to adjust the difficulty dials in an Encounter. The party might have stumbled into a catastrophic fight, but having a decent chunk of the opposing force opt to roleplay instead of emboding attack robots somehow feels more realistic. If you’re going to win, then you don’t need to risk life and limb but can call out aggressively; at least, until the party has run through the first wave.

While players might have different objectives, the purpose of a game is to have fun. Adding instinctual mishaps flavours combat with roleplaying opportunities; the wargamer and the theatre kid can co-exist as their interests overlap. This becomes especially prudent when you’re able to really think on your feet and have Instinct give advantages that the wargamer craves to exploit.

Steal Instinct from Morale

I wouldn’t put an additional number for the Game Master to track than the one that’s already there. A unit’s Morale represents its discipline and willingness to fight; it sounds like a perfect measurement for whether it keeps its shit together when everything is about to hit the proverbial fan.

To use Instinct, roll 1d10 and if the number on the die is higher than their Morale, the creature panics and acts suboptimally. If you want to really increase the odds, shift to a 1d12. I stick to a 1d10 because Crawford uses 1d10 in Worlds Without Number and I like being able to quickly simulate percentages. If a group’s Morale is 7, then I know 30% of them will panic. If I was using a 1d12, I could pull the same quick math but I’d feel like I might have cheated the odds.

As with anything, add to taste to see where you like Instinct in your games.

February is Kickstarter Zine month and I’ve decided to give my hand a try at producing something through Kickstarter. I went against going with Kickstarter with my previous entry, The Conductor, because of the 10% processing fees that take away from your gross. Considering how few sales The Conductor has had, I think working with the Kickstarter apparatus in exchange for its processing fees is worth the endeavour.

Launch Requirements

You need three things, as far as I am aware, art, idea and layout.

The idea has been something I stress tested, so I know it is a fine adventure as my own guinea pigs players enjoyed it. The central idea is to give access to an incredible smith for the player characters but he’s held hostage. I use my own ‘Plug and Play’-style boss covered in ‘Building Bosses’. Though I’ve learned my lesson from Heliana’s Guide to Monster Hunting. I won’t have plug and play values; instead, I am going to have a different Stat Block for each Average Party Level (APL).

What has me hesitate here is that the new, bigger beefier Monster Manual is coming out. I might have to run the adventure again to play test if it ‘feels’ correct. The TTRPG space is only a Billion dollar industry, which makes it tiny in the grand scale of things, such as video games or movies. They can afford actual riguourous playtesting while TTRPG goes more by ‘vibes’ than anything else. Luckily, I have a cadre of players who are willing to be my guinea pigs.

What about Art and Layout?

Really, they’re both the same thing. I need a sexy cover and I need to show some work done. I have contacted an affordable artist, which is to say that I feel bad for trawling the more desperate but that is all I can afford. I want to be able to say “I’ll definitely use you again” but I’ve heard that hollow line enough times in my own work that I won’t waste my breath. If I like what they do, I fully intend to use them again; I’ve attempted to re-use art from the gentleman who did the Kontent Punch logo and another who has done incredible monster art. I got blown off in the case of the icon and welcomed back with increased prices in the other. All part of the creative process.

The layout is to show that work has been done and I know I have completed the work. This is more of the case of waiting on art. I am going for the highly modular, West Marches style, because I have found that it’s the only way to get a game to work once you’re out of your tight knit group in University or a Game Club. I’ll be able to use the section I already used on The Conductor to show a concept of a layout.

After That?

Foolishly launch, of course! I have been making my way, including some massive blunders, into many online communities. I am the proverbial bull in a china shop and if they are cross when I smash the vases, I know that’s not my place or people.

I run ‘Theatre of the Mind’ combat. That’s because I find gridded combat takes forever and allows players to tune out. With Theatre, you need to be constantly paying attention which triggers a state of flow. Flow is what makes a game sing and fly by instead of turn into a slog; more details on how to make your game sing is with ‘Save Time to Maintain Tempo’.

Alexa, Simulate a Theatre

Theatre doesn’t work well with simulationist, as you suddenly need to be very precise. The purpose of choosing Theatre is so that you can be sloppy and let your players eat their cake too. Everything, unless the circumstances as strange, is always within 30 feet, allowing for players to work together when Initiative is called for. If I used a battlemap, I would be all over Dyson and you should too. As a Simulationist, he’s in his own league.

As for myself, my new love for maps is Murkdice. If the name sounds familiar, it is because it won best debut blog with the Bloggies. Prismatic Wasteland put up the list on their blog. I didn’t even know it was a thing, so I’m not surprised I didn’t come in 1st, 2nd or 3rd.

What made Murkdice originally stand out is that I’d occasionally see them haunt Reddit with their posts. What has made me fall in love is Murkdice is that they put up beautiful isometric point crawls. Instead of rolling for a Random Encounter as the players stumble around Dyson’s maps, simulating creatures roaming around, Murkdice gives me permission to “game-ify” the Random Encounters.

I don’t need to have nooks and crannies, like a pantry next to a kitchen. That can all be one room that the party explores. I can write “Insect” for Random Encounters so that if one does trigger, I already have a faction queued up.

Aren’t West Marches Hex Crawls?

As I pointed out in ‘Matryohka Your Focus’, you can change the type of game the players are playing. As long as they’re aware of the shifted gameplay, they’re probably game for it. I can’t remember who said “Dungeons and Dragons isn’t one game, it’s hundreds of games under an umbrella.” I run the ‘Overworld’ as a Hexcrawl and I have done Pointcrawls for the Underdark as that makes the most sense until Murkdice showed me the way with their isometric maps.

When it does come to signalling to players about a shift, the easiest way to inform them is to flat out telling them. We’re already playing imagination but with consequences, it would be unfair to have a player make a mistake because you have failed to properly inform them of the situation. That’s what I champion with ‘Role Play Like You Wrestle’. Make things as simple to digest and bombastic as possible for maximum impact.

And since I lean towards Gameplay over Simulationist, I eschew Dyson over Murkdice when it comes to maps.

post-Script

The true reason was that one of the appointed jobs I hand out to players is being the mapper. Other jobs include tracking inventory or Initiative. I noticed that when I ran a Simulationist map, the poor mapper would be stuck furiously scribbling without being able to participate in the conversation. I rather let them deal with a simple map and converse with the other players.

To quote Colville, “a meaningful percentage of your average session is, and should be, the players playing off EACH OTHER.” While it is nice to have a pretty map, I think the most memorable part of playing is when players are riffing off of each other and I do not want to minimize that.

I felt bad for sitting on this one but it is more important to push the article out than sit on it longer.

Fire Beetles

One of the Egyptian gods of the Sun is Khepri, a dung beetle who pushed the Sun around the sky. The easiest translation of that in a RPG are beetles that spew fire or hot liquid from the rear end.

Lacedon

This one is easy, they’re Ghouls with a Swim Speed. There’s a description in World War Z where someone mentions of falling into a ship while it was underwater, only to be cushioned by dozens of grasping hands creeped me out then and now. They were safe due to the diving gear but that doesn’t mean your players will be as lucky.

Tiburones

Flying sharks from Filipino mythology. A 5th Edition stat block of these can be found in the Sina Una campaign setting. As goofy as it looks now, the jump scare from Deep Blue Sea of a shark chomping on Samuel L. Jackson’s character has stuck with me. But now, with flight, no one is safe.

Zaratan

A gargantuan creature that is effectively an island unto itself. From Arabic mythology, the Zaratan takes the form of a giant crab or turtle with turtle becoming more popular over time. If I had to guess why, I would place the responsibility on Pratchett’s Discworld series.

Zombie

And then there is the humble Zombie, a creature that comes from Voodoo mythology and an alternative choice when it comes to terrorizing 1st level characters. Spicing up the Zombie can come from different directions, whether it is inspiration from Left 4 Dead or a Hag using foul magics to turn people into less than alive servitors.

In my game world there is a Creation Forge that pumps out a new Warforged each week. This is what let the party unlock Warforged as a playable species. Without the hang-ups of the Eberron setting, these Humanoid Constructs are fairly innocent. I had followed the tradition set forth from Eberron with Warforged selecting their names over objects or ideas. In a previous emergency, it had been determined that the Sheriff had been killed. I thought of a Warforged who loved the idea of being a Sheriff to the point of naming himself and then taking up the mantle.

Figuring out the Warforged’s name was going to be easy; a Sheriff named Sheriff.

Stage Set, Match

One twist I immediately thought of is the criminal elements within this border town. I had lifted the Bloated Bounty wholesale from Loot Tavern’s Seeker’s Guide to Twisted Taverns. The Bloated Bounty could easily serve as the central criminal empire of this tiny town and a place for that gang to setup shop. Normally, a Sheriff in such a situation could stand up for what’s right and fight or become a corrupt partner or leader. I had the opportunity to be different with an innocent Warforged who could do both — accidentally.

I do not expect my players to appreciate an interesting foil, as I know the medium we’re playing in. But the Game Master is a player too, so if I have the opportunity to put an interesting piece out for my players to play with, then I am going to. Sheriff Sheriff knows that they enforce the laws but does not make them, so he was easily co-opted by Rajiv — the boss of the Bloated Bounty. But unlike a traditional corrupt Sheriff, Sheriff Sheriff would guilelessly be able to talk about the instructions he’s been given by the criminal elements.

The Precipe

With West Marches, the party composition and reaction is different each time. The first few times, the party found a Warforged Sheriff named Sheriff to be adorable. That’s when the party consisted of dastardly rogues who robbed the Sheriff blind. The Warforged kept his salary and bribes in a barrel, no one had truly taught the Warforged the value and purpose of currency. One of the players was disgusted with the behaviour but the rest of them rolled with releaving Sheriff Sheriff of his earthly goods.

In my game, there’s weight to decisions. Each action should have an equal and opposite reaction. It is the only way to play with a Sandbox, as then player actions shape the play space. I was fine with this because the players were interacting with the NPC, I had a problem when a second time when the party sold him out entirely. Using his close connections with the crime syndicate, the party stole many mounts and gear from the Bloated Bounty. I knew the only appropriate reaction would have Rajiv relieve the incompetent Sheriff of his duties. As a criminal baron, his modus operandi would be issuing a dirt nap. There was not going to be a farm Upstate where Sheriff Sheriff lived out the rest of his days with the other Warforged.

Fallout

I was overly invested in Sheriff Sheriff. Yeah, Directors also become enamoured with NPCs just the same as how players get overly attached to a random Goblin you made up on the spot, for seemingly no reason. I was more interested in my own cleverness than the purpose of NPCs, which serve out as representatives of organizations. To me, the players were accomplices or perpetrators to smashing my toy but to the players, they had taken down a weak link in Rajiv’s organization. My frustration was with how little thought they put into signing the Sheriff’s death.

I had a constructive conversation with the player who spearheaded Sheriff Sheriff’s demise. I told him that he seems to break toys willy nilly, not treating the game seriously. He didn’t know where the line was, which is fair, as a player’s job is to smash the bad guys. This is Dungeons and Dragons, not G.I. Joe; you can shoot to kill the bad guys because they’re doing the same. We came to a simple understanding; if he was crossing a line I would tell him.

The play pen only works if the borders are respected but part of that is making them clear and some players need shiny guard rails.

Scheduling

Perhaps the most important, I had one of my players request this be made into a channel. Immediately, I felt like a fool for not having it. I put forth a date, sometimes a time, and let my players fill up the vacancies. Stating the truth from my Marshalling Advice article; such as, space is limited and so it is for first come, first serve helps tremendously. Here, I diligently delete any off topic comments or GIFs and when the session is over, purge the channel of all of the comments. This way, it is easy as possible for someone to know what the current situation is regarding scheduling.

Rumour List

This is a list, that might look something like this:

1. The Cult of Rakdos are setting up a new play.

2. Oreskans are going to Anvil to fill up their waterskins before heading South.

3. Luyarnha's Newbridge District feel as if they're under continual surveillance.

4. The Talenta Halflings are concerned that the Healing Tribe is no longer aiding the other tribes.

5. The four Wizards in Hammer are currently causing chaos in Hammer.

I’ve avoided adding the icons as I mentioned as in “Let’s Talk Clocks” because I want to focus on this. It is easy for players to discuss in the General or Scheduling chats which rumour they want you to prepare. It can be as easy as an emote where they place a number underneath the options. You really do need to hammer home that they need to pick whatever sounds the most interesting, as that is the only adventure you’ll prepare. People try to be nice and say ‘whatever you want’ without realizing what they’re saying is ‘Prepare the entire planet, peasant’. Gently explain to them that picking nothing is actively harmful.

Recaps

This is where I encourage players write and read recaps, that way they can search up important NPCs or the places the party is in. This might be the most optional if you’re doubting people helping each other which comes only from the most dedicated player.

Avrae’s Hole

Avrae is a dice rolling bot that I use to randomize things; you can replace it with any other bot dice roller of your choice. I have the dice roller to randomize things which is way easier to make a grouping of 10 dice rolls to determine weather and the like. I have the bot in a specific channel because channels can be muted, I advise new players to mute this channel. I know many mute the entire server which hurts the ‘first come, first serve’ but that’s a fight I know I cannot win.

Others

I also do have plenty of other Misc channels, like Dramatis Personae which I link to a Homebrewery of all of the characters the party has interacted or have heard of. A character creation tab so a new player can just jump in, because I use a lot of “Homebrew Bullshit”. House Rules is another channel, to add to that. I also use Downtime for my players, so I have an entire channel dedicated to keeping track of Downtime and the Homebrewery page. I also have Unlocks when I drip feed new content to my players when they make discoveries.

But the main important ones have their own subtitles within this article.

Bosses are great capstones to an adventure. They allow for the players to think big and come out on top with seemingly impossible odds. As I joke in ‘How to Write a Room’, sometimes dungeon crawling is “There’s an Orc with Pie, you want the Pie”. A boss takes that to the Nth degree because they almost always guard the biggest pie. I frequently see questions on how to spice up such a fight. Here’s some different flavours.

Swaths of Minions

The most common because it is the easiest: put tons of bodies in the way. Frequently with Lair Actions, a monster calls a cadre of reinforcements and they get in the way of the players to even up the Action Economy. Typically, once the minions are out of the way, a boss absolutely melts under the force of a united party. The minions are there to break up the unity, so that some are dealing with the boss while the others have to deal with the threatening minions.

There is also a difference between minion and Minion, as Minions were codified in 4th Edition Dungeons and Dragons to have one hit point (HP). The idea was that you could cut through them, feeling heroic, because that’s what happens in all of the action movies. MCDM has taken the concept as of late with Minions, making them have HP so that you can check on overkilling a target. You can pick up a copy of Flee, Mortals! to see for yourself.

The ‘need to defend against multiple waves’ category of boss fights would be included in the Swaths of Minions.

Multi-stage

Borrowing from video games and manga, there’s the Multi-Stage fight. The simplest way to do this is the ‘Goblins in a Trench Coat’ where the party sees one target when in actuality you have multiple creatures occupying the same square. This design has been adopted by the Theros campaign setting, having some of the scarier bosses within have a “Mythic Form”.

The dirty secret is this can be played retroactively in case your boss gets smoked. Have the boss “power up” and make the players face the “real threat” after they’ve blown all of their special attacks.

Puzzle

One of the more unusual ways, you make the fight into some kind of puzzle that needs to be solved for your players to overcome the challenge. The easiest example of this is the Kaiju system made with Ryoko’s Guide to the Yokai Realms. As a joke, DnD Shorts said you could make a Kaiju Kobold and since I take my Kaiju very seriously, I made one with their system. Under the Kaiju system, you need to exploit certain areas before being able to deal a death blow.

A less obvious example would be needing to solve some kind of puzzle while a fight is going on. For example, you need to array certain rocks so that a death laser will fire or the portal will close.

Plug and Play

The most awkward is figuring out a difficult boss and increase those variables as the Average Party Level (APL) increases. The first time I did this, I needed a Minotaur boss, and so for each APL I would figure out the required Challenge Rating (CR) to be an appropriate encounter capstone to the adventure. Or perhaps as a terrifying wandering monster. As a monster’s CR increases, so too does its various stats - HP, Armor Class, damage, Saves, et cetera. In the plug and play, when the party bumps into this, you write down the variables into the creature’s stat block. For example, an APL 5 party would be tremendously challenged by a CR 9 creature, yet that same creature would be a joke if the APL were 6 or higher. I effectively make the same monster but at different CR amounts to challenge whatever APL the party walks into.

Tiered

Tiered is the synthesis of Plug and Play and Swaths of Minions. I was introduced to it through Heliana’s Guide to Monster Hunting. In it, they have adventures for various “Tiers of Play” that is, APL 1—4, 5—9, 10—14, et cetera. What this meant is that they would design an adventure for level 4, 9 and 14. In it, they would use various stat blocks for monsters as either weak, medium or strong versions with the same with a boss.

So the adventure that is appropriate for APL 4 would use weak monsters and a weak boss. If the Game Master decided to run the adventure for a level 9 party, the monsters and boss would be the medium power. If 14 were selected, the hard monsters and boss would be selected. This Tiered is great if you have exactly that level, but it doesn’t work if you do not. That’s were figuring out what are some appropriate monsters to add to the three Tiered “Plug and Plays” with your Swath of Minions.

West Marches

When it comes to West Marches, all of these techniques can be used to adjust the fight for your player’s APL. You might go with regular Goblins instead of Minion Goblins if the APL leans on the lower end and the opposite if your party consists of high powered individuals. Multi-Stage might be required if the party uses all of their Smites to easily lay waste to an enemy, so at least it has a second wind or perhaps transforms entirely if that was the plan the whole time. Plug and Play is way too cumbersome except in specific instances, I would recommend figuring out one or two bosses of different tiers and different amounts of minions at the ready depending on the APL.

A large catalogue lessens the likelihood of a product being of poor quality. It is very easy to poop out one crappy product; it is nigh impossible to do so if you have an entire back catalogue. Without having a large back catalogue, like Kelsey Dunne’s Arcane Laboratory or the Loot Tavern people, I need to play the Kickstarter game. Kickstarter will push my product as it is in their best interest to make sure I fund. If I fund, they get paid.

That’s With .Games

One resource I’ve encountered is I Want to Play Games, which looks for other ‘Zine focused app. I have put The Conductor up there, as well as in Matt Colville’s Adventure Lookup. Adventure Lookup was useful and got me to find a short adventure when I needed a Fiend in a Mirror, that website proved to be worth its weight in gold. But back towards the ‘Zines.

‘Zines, shortening of the word magazine, are somewhat making a comeback. They’re small print runs of boutique items which is what interests many Game Masters. If the adventure you have is rare, it is far less likely to be stolen and read by a cheating player. There’s also something nice to have to pull off of a shelf. I remember playing a Basic game that had been running for a long time and whenever we would go to a particular area, the Game Master was able to pull a particular module off of his shelf and have something ready to go. ‘Zines fulfill that as they’re small and affordable, so even if they only end up as bathroom reading they’re not an onerous investment like the entire Curse of Strahd adventure.

Prepping the Next

I know who my next NPC will be, and I am certain that I can do so in ‘Zine length due to my previous Page-to-Prep count as him as an adventure.

A big obstacle is waiting for the 2024 Monster Manual and re-balancing the adventure. I could forgo that but that is not what I am about. I hope to get a look in time to run in time for ZiMo. So this could mean I could run a Kickstarter for the next NPC for your West Marches game mid or late February.

Here’s a few ways to spice up designing your Random Encounters.

The Plus/Minus

Quite frequently when I am going over stat blocks for a potential new faction, I notice that there are blocks with the same Challenge Rating (CR). CR is how you decide to how difficult you want the fights to be in comparison to your party. Usually, one of these stat blocks would be melee focused over ranged and that would set my baseline. Depending on the size of the grouping I would roll a die, 1d4 or 1d6 are the most frequent. Whatever number I rolled, I would subtract from the ‘frontline’ and add to the ‘backline’.

This way, instead of always having the Player Characters (PCs) fight 3 Fighters and 3 Archers, I could change it up. For example, start with 6 Fighters and replace them with 1d6 Archers. I didn’t even need to come up with different standard numbers and in a Random Encounter chart, this grouping would only take up one slot, allowing for me to show off different aspects of a faction. If you want an example of what a Faction’s Random Encounter chart looks like, check out my work on the Iron Kingdom’s Farrow.

Weapon Attachments

One of the things I learned from Flee, Mortals! Playtest Previews is that Encounter Building is like Army Building from my wargaming days. That helped build my encounter design further, as suddenly each Random Encounter would be the equivalent to the party stumbling across one “Squad”. If I needed to show a force, I could do a grab bag of random Squads and make a few Random Encounters suddenly into a cohesive group.

One of the things you could in my Wargaming days is take a Squad, which was worth a certain amount of points. Before a game, you would agree to a certain point limit with your opponent, such as a “25 Point Game”. A Squad might be worth 10 points but you could add what were called Weapon Attachments to make the squad stronger. Whether that is a Hero, Heavy Weapons or something else. A fully kitted out squad, depicted to the right, looked impressive on the battlefield.

I stole that lesson for Encounter Building, but honestly I was reminded because of Privateer Press’ Iron Kingdoms RPG books use the same technique. In a group of soldiers, you can add an alchemist or priest, suddenly changing the nature of the fight with minimal requirements. The simple is if they are all the same CR. The more advanced Encounter Building would be to add a different CR to the unit.

Minions

This technology came about from 4th Edition Dungeons and Dragons and it has been revitalized a few times through a few different sources. The idea is to have one monster that dies bit by bit, spread over a bunch of bodies. To your PCs, they see a swarm of goblins or a horde of zombies. When they attack, each gobin or zombie has very little Hit Points so that you can carve through them like heroes.

Going through enemies like a flamethrower through butter is a common Power Fantasy, which is what Dungeons and Dragons serves up, yet the game isn’t designed to handle a large amount of PCs or NPCs on the battlefield. Minions are a way to have “1 Monster” count as five or six, allowing your players to have that Power Fantasy or the danger of being overwhelmed.

How can your players distinguish between a normal monster and a Minion, you ask? Simple, you tell them. Players need to understand what they’re up against and talking ‘above table’ allows for some interesting game play that otherwise might not be possible.

Group Lair

This one I got from Home Field Advantage, a great resource if you’re looking to spice up a creature by adding Lair Actions. One of the aspects was instead of having a big boss monster be responsible for ‘the lair’, you can have a collection of warriors be. Having six soldiers count as having a Lair, a seventh effective member, can alter the battlefield quite a lot. It also gives a lot of flavour to each individual faction.

You could see this design was picked up by the Ravnica Design Team with Rakdos having access to Lair Actions if they had sufficient numbers.

If you’re new here, here’s the best of what I wrote according to view count. As for why didn’t this come out earlier? I embraced burnout. It’s important to recharge.

5. Role Play Like You Wrestle

I don’t know if it has been stated, so I want to make sure that it is clear. Hulk Hogan is a POS.

Thank you.

The article? You need to make larger than life characters to cut through the noise for your players to accurately remember them.

4. Death House as a Hex Feature

The Death House is a good Hex Feature to have tossed into your game. It has mystery, intrigue and ghosts. I advise tossing in a bunch of extra ghosts that you like. I went with Candyman and from Mike Flanagan series. Their stat blocks are available on my Patreon if you sign up as a free member.

Even so, it is easy enough to scale up or down for your group, especially with so many resources out there into improving The Curse of Strahd. If you want to cut through the research step, there’s Wyatt Trull’s Curse of Strahd Companion which expands on each location to make it into a stand alone adventure.

3. Learning from the One Page Dungeon Contest

The guys at Spiel Knights run the One Page Dungeon Contest which I embarassed myself with participating. Their guest judge, William Connors of Masque of the Red Death fame, was nice enough to go over what was wrong with my entry. I put up my lessons in that article and what I’ll need to do in the future. And you can bet on a future, as I’m going to want to go for a 3rd entry.

Though I do remember a gag being mentioned when the winners being revealed to make this truly ‘Full Circle’ would be to have the exact same theme for 2025.

2. How to Write a Room

When it comes down to crafting a room or your notes in Dungeons and Dragons there truly is more than “Orc with Pie, you want the Pie”. Learning how to write a room for your own notes will also save you the embarassment of flipping through your notes back and forth. Don’t neglect smells, the entrances or the exit phenomena to make truly phenomenal notes. I’ve discussed this with the Note Failure series and clear, concise notes with specific details will keep your players engaged and wanting more.

1. Save Time to Maintain Tempo

If I knew that this was going to be my most popular entry, perhaps I wouldn’t have used the first image I got off of Google. I could probably do better with Time Wizard than Yu-Gi-Oh card art.

The article is tips and tricks to make running a game go smoother. Smoothness is important because it induces a state of flow which our brains naturally enjoy. It is far more fun to watch a movie without dealing with interruptions, the same principle applies to your games. When your concentration dips in and out, engagement drops.

Thank You

Thank you for all of my friends who have helped support my endeavours and I hope the people that have stumbled into my blog were hit with something that upped their game.

Last year I wrote about the best of October 2024, this time around I’ll mention November because if there’s on thing for sure, it’s that I post in a timely consistent manner.

How to Write a Room

I am miffed that I couldn’t figure out a sexier picture for this considering its’ importance for notes. Hell, it influenced my Note Failure series. I really didn’t consider how much these things matter, but if I want to publish I need to think like a game designer. Which is to say, I need to know how to influence human behaviour so that they play with the toys presented instead of do something else. I am currently writing a few preliminary adventures to add to my catalogue, as I have discovered with Esinise that volume and word of mouth is what sells. Volume happens over time as I poop out more entries, so if I want mouths to word about the product then I need to be sharp. Which means very easy to understand instructions for people to run the module, just like how I am always praising Aberrant Reflections.

Role Play Like You Wrestle

First off, I have to say that Hulk Hogan is a piece of shit.

Now that we have that out of the way, I suggest bombast and spectacle with your NPCs because it is hard to appropriately communicate the who, what, when, where, why and how of the cast of characters. Our primary purpose when you run a game is to convey information and there’s tons of distractions, players are going to misremember and get things confused. Make every NPC a character so that they can say “What’s his face? The weird tailor” or “nice coach lady” and the other players understand who they are referencing. Save subtley for the silver screen and we aren’t Daniel Day Lewis.

Also, this article contains my first content warning so proceed at your own risk.

NPCs are Organizations

I was reading on one of roleplaying subreddits about a GM whining about how the party distrusts everything now that he had an NPC betray the party. Again, subtley is not for RPGs and so when the world seemingly betrays the party, of course they’re going to be distrustful. The unfortunate job you’re given with the Dungeon Master mantle is game designer and as I stated above, that’s to get players to interact with a toy in its meaning function. That’s hard, most players use RPGs as Sociopath Simulators and I’m sure you didn’t think about that hat when you decided to sit behind the screen. That DM did not properly telegraph the traitor into a box that the PCs could then hate, so instead of disliking an organization the players were trained to dislike the world.

Save Time to Maintain Tempo

Save Time to Mainain Tempo was by far the most popular article for November, even if it was printed in October. It is cool to see perhaps the birth of an evergreen article. If you haven’t read it, get to it!

Support

If you like what I do, aiming in helping you run your own West Marches Sandbox Hexcrawls, sign up with my Patreon. There is a free tier which I have to thank a handful of people who signed up, including my first paid subscription. Now I’ll have to put on my serious big boy panties and serenade them with useful stuff.

You can also purchase my works on this website here or over at Drive Thru RPG. I am still proud of my Esinise entry or you can witness a far more amateurish and I find embarassing foray into a West Marches Location with The Mad House.

Press Subscribe, Hit the Bell, Like the Video, Toss the Baby, et cetera.

If I’ve provided some solid advice and you wish to support me, I suggest making some purchases in the Shop. I am embarassed by The Mad House and I am proud of The Conductor if you’re looking for something useful to put in your own West Marches Sandboxes. Right now I am thinking of my next personality to add, someone you can add to your game if it has any forests. If you have suggestions of what you’d want as future products, please let me know in the comment section.

See y’all in the New Year!

I figure one way to drum up interest and support is to show bits and pieces of my work that got paused. Unfortunately, it is pictures that sell, no matter how sexy your words are unless you’re writing erotica. I previously showed a paused cover of what would be a Social Puzzle Dungeon which has the working title “A Midsummer’s Geist Hunt”. My previous paused work was called the Transdimensional Tower and aside from having to rework the module in a fashion that I liked after reading directsun’s module, I realized I would need to come up with 12 entire Factions. Overambitious much, eh?

The Day’s Work

The sweat-stained overalls houses an amalgam of industrious creatures: oxen feet, multifaceted eyes of bees, a woodpecker beak for a nose and the buck-toothed grin of a beaver greets you. Strong arms made of living wood complete the image of a hardworking fey.

When the Day’s Work wipes its brow, the woodpecker nose cuts into their wood enchanted arm, making blood run down to join the toil of sweat and tears of what makes for an honest living. A Day’s Work is never finished, working continuiously, tirelessly, from dawn to dusk as part of the Summer Court’s workforce. These creatures make hay during the sweet summer season and finally prepare bulwarks against the ravages of frost of the Winter Court.

All work and no play is the name of the game. The only breaks the Day’s Work do are to be hospitable to strangers – as it would be uncouth not do – or spending their time fighting through their feelings. They are truly passionate about work but each has a strong opinion of how work should be done. They resolve this with their fists, with califlower formed ears as a testament to settled disputes. Disagreeing with a Day’s Work can be dangerous, as disagreements devolve to fisticuffs; or worse yet, if you gravely offend them with a suggestion on how to do a job easier.

Their hands are continually growing wood that their nose and mouth need to trim for the task at hand. The bleedin’ don’t bother them much because a task is at hand. If a Day’s Work took gold, they would be worth more than their considerable weight with the Fey standing tall at nearly ten feet. They do not dally when it comes to a job, the Day’s Work complete tasks quickly and to the highest quality.

Stat Block and Mechanics

A Day’s Work clocks in at a Challenge Rating of 2. A single one is extremely dangerous to a peasant but their threat to adventurers is in numbers, like disrupting a hardworking hive of bees.

I put History and Nature into the Stat Block as a way to Jacquays dealing with the Day’s Work. If they’re expert builders, the History would be oriented towards architecture and Nature would be how to properly build things, like an engineer knowing the structural requirements to place a bridge somewhere.

The Starving Condition is simple: you gain Exhaustion if you are Starving and are forced to gain Starving again. A way to cancel Starving is to succeed with a Bite attack or spend an Action eating a ration.

With their ability to cause creatures to Exhaust themselves to death and their own ability to toil all day meant I knew they should be Immune to the Exhausted Condition. As Fey, not being able to be Charmed was another given.

While Magic Resistance is a common Fey ability, I elected not to include it. I rather have bulkier, hard hitting creatures over something daintier with Magic Resistance. They’re also a simple creature, relative to other Fey, so I felt like the lack of complexity is what makes them unable to divert magical energies.

Sweat stained and living wood means that these humiform beasts of burden resist Fire damage. After a little bit of play testing, one of my players said that it was kind of weird that they don’t resist Radiant damage, being out in the sun and all. I do have terrible sunburns deal 1 point of Radiant damage, so with that piece of obviousness pointed out, I elected to include Radiant Resistance.

I found that the Day’s Work were a little too squishy at higher levels but too easily mobbed and overwhelmed players in the mid-point. I solved both issues with the Block Reaction. Causing the Day’s Work to spend a Reaction to Resist Bludgeoning and Piercing attacks means a creature can walk away without eating Opportunity Attacks. Finally, a way to eat a ration in peace. The Block turned the creatures that could weather a Round of combat easily, meaning they would get a chance to wreak havoc in the 2nd and possibly 3rd Round of combat. With their Exhaustion causing Starvation Condition, they were still threats to my players but those with Bite attacks from their Lineage could stay in the fight.

Hook, Story and Treasure

Let me know if Hooks, Stories and/or Treasure that these creatures have would be of interest to you. If so, I would make sure to post to my Patreon. Of course, a lot of monster works are on pause as we hold our breath for the new Monster Manual for 2024 Dungeons and Dragons. Joining for free or at a slight dollar tier amount helps immensely.

If you’re looking for a more concrete way to support my work, considering purchasing The Conductor in my web store.