Ravenous Role Playing

An old friend of the PCs (or maybe just one of the PCs) drags into their favorite watering hole and collapses at their feet. The friend then relates a tale of barely surviving a duel between two wizards in which one of them lost his life. The wizard’s death curse was deflected at the last moment by the winner of the duel, and struck the friend full in the chest. Now he is enfeebled, unhealthy, starving and thirst all the time and can barely keep up the will to live. The death curse will last until the dead wizard (the loser) is raised from the dead, or until the living wizard (the winner) is put to his final resting place.

Which route will the PCs go?

A former player/roommate of mine would only play elves. Period. No exceptions. Unfortunately for me (and fortunately for him) he moved away while I was in the middle of planning an all dwarf campaign. The campaign sounded like a blast to me, but I knew he would hate it and would probably commit suicide as soon as he reached elven lands, just so he could play an elf.

It’s not much of a story, I’ll admit, but there’s a moral to the story that is longer than the story itself. I’m not Aesop, but here’s the reason for my tale.

As a player, be flexible, try different things, experiment and have fun. Sure, I love elves just as much as the next guy. My first D&D character was an elf, and I love him dearly. However, in the 26 years I’ve been gaming, I’ve branched out and played every “normal” race and quite a few others than are not normal. In real life, I’m always going to be a human of average looks, average height, average weight and more than average careers. However, when I sit down at the gaming table, I want to become more. More what? More than average. If I have sucky stats due to poor dice rolls during character creation, so be it. I’ll hype up the weaknesses and make a great character trait or three out of the numbers. If I have great stats (which is more rare than the lower sets of stats), then I’ll find some character traits to hang on the numbers and play that up as well. I guess the moral of my story for the players is to be more than you could normally be through the act of role playing.

As a GM, be generous. Allow your players to stretch their personal boundaries by allowing them to play characters that let them be someone totally different. I also highly recommend that you push your players when they appear to be in a rut and playing the same character over and over. Perhaps start up a new campaign where you’ve written up character backgrounds and hand them out “at random” but make sure the right players get the right backgrounds to help them find more out about themselves than they would have on their own. I’ve never actually tried this because most of my players push themselves to be bigger, better, faster and more. However, if I see this happening, I won’t hesitate to break out my creativity on their behalf.

Remember, elves are awesome and cool, but they are never awesome and cool 100% of the time. Try something new!

Character Sheet Cross Dressing

Playing a character of the opposite sex can be a huge blast. I’m not talking about logging into your favorite MMORPG as a member of the opposite sex and flirting with people when your true identity is hidden. I’m talking about sitting at the table with a beer gut and a five-o-clock shadow and playing that elven maiden… or for you ladies, sitting there with makeup on and a fresh manicure and playing a belching, farting barbarian. Sure, I’m taking things to the extreme with my examples, but that’s not necessary. As a matter of fact, taking the opposite sex to the extreme will only be good for some laughs, and could potentially offend the other people at the table. For more details about playing someone totally different, check out Nicholas’s post over at Dungeon Mastering.

Benefits of Random Treasure

Random treasure… As a GM, I love it. It always inspires me to give things to the players that I would have otherwise not thought of handing out. As a player, I’m ambivalent about random treasure. It means sometimes I’ll get something beyond my wildest dreams, or I may be the guy that gets nothing for several encounters as I’m waiting for that just right item to fall into my lap. With the advent of D&D 4e, random treasure is pretty much gone and this makes me sad. Sure, the GM can hand out customized items for the group and target items for certain players, but in the end, that just doesn’t sound as much fun to me as the days of random treasure. More thoughts on the matter from Ameron over at Dungeon’s Master.com.

From Player to GM: Tips for Making the Switch

Any GM, regardless of experience level, should run right over to Role Playing Tips immediately and check out their advice for players becoming GMs. It’s very sound and great words for anyone running a game. I’ve always said that every player should run at least one campaign, even if it’s short lived. It will give them more respect for GMs in general, and help them understand how to better be part of the game as a whole.

Schrödinger’s Dungeon

The post over at Grognardia laments about the “missing” epic dungeons (he calls them, very appropriately I might add, megadungeons) from the days of Gygax and Arneson. Like him, I would love to see what the full Castle Greyhawk looks like. I’ve had two experiences with megadungeons. The first was Undermountain (beneath Waterdeep in Faerun) and I was the GM. There was so much to keep track of, that it was very very hard to run it properly. In the end, I settled for taking a sub-set of the overall plot lines and hooks and ran with those. It was quite enjoyable. The other experience I had was as a player going through The Worlds Largest Dungeon. That was a horrible experience. Just horrible. I think we made it to the tenth room where a large, overpowered ogre got the drop on us and we ended up with a TPK (total party kill). It wasn’t the GM’s fault in this case. It was just a poorly written adventure that he shelled out $100 for, and we felt obligated to run through it even though he warned us that it wasn’t all that great.

Using Undead Intelligently

Immortal undead are a blast to run as Bad Guys because they just think differently. They have more than a few dozen years to put a plot into place. If that uber-powerful lich decides he wants to take over a country, he doesn’t have to face down the popular, powerful army-backed king that is in power right now. He can wait for hard economic times, a downturn in morale in the army and a weak king to ascend to the throne. If you are running an longer-lived Bad Guy, keep this in mind when coming up with their plots and plans. Always remember that running away is an option for the immortal Bad Guy. He can come back later and clean up the group at his leisure and on his terms. Wimwick over at Dungeon’s Master.com has more info on the subject if you want to follow the link.

I’m listening to “Carrie” by the band Europe right now, and it reminded me of Stephen King’s book by the same title. That’s today’s inspiration (the book, not the song) for the adventure hook.

This hook can be applied to pretty much any genre. Each genre will have its own approach to solving the riddle. A dystopic cyberpunk game might lead to Blipverts (my homage to Max Headroom). A fantasy game with high magic might lead to an evil evoker. A pulp horror game might lead to the discovery of a new Elder One. The possibilities are almost endless.

People around town are starting to spontaneously combust. After the third victim, the authorities begin a serious investigation and find that none of the three people are related in any possible way. The scorched bodies begin to pile up in the morgue and no one can seem to figure out exactly what is going on. The player characters are brought into the situation after the seventh combustion victim in six days dies. They are urged to take over and lead the investigation into what is going on. While they are told that no resources will be spared to help them, the total opposite is true. The authorities are trying to distance themselves from what they see as a road to failure in the investigation and will use the PCs as scape goats when they fail… if they fail. It’s up the PCs to keep their name in the clear while they try to find out what is going on with these grisly deaths.

Quite a few years ago I was running a D&D 3.0 game with a great group of gamers. I was running Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil by Monte Cook, and we were having a hoot with the adventure. Partway through the module, a Dragon article came out (I think it was Dragon…) that had a crazy idea in it: retreat forward. The concept goes like this:

If you are sure to win the current fight and most of the enemies are down, there’s no sense in the entire party dogging on the remaining 2-3 enemies. A fighter-type should take on the remainders and the rest of the party should go ahead and open up the next door to see what’s there and move into it to take on the next challenge.

Sounds crazy, right? Well, in a way it is because you really don’t know what’s through the next door. However, if the group is powerful enough to handle the next door (or two, or three) then it really speeds up the rate at which the group can move through a dungeon.

In this case, the party took the idea to heart. If memory serves there were a series of five rooms with #1 leading to #2 and #3, and #2 leading to #4 and #5. I’d draw you a map if I had time. The group blasted through room #1 and before the last of the undead fell, they opened the doors to room #2 and #3 and assaulted the undead and the evil clerics waiting for them. I gave them a full round of surprise since the Bad Guys didn’t have a chance to hear and react to the combat on the other side of the doors. Before room #2 was cleared, they opened the doors to #4 and #5 as well and “invited” the Bad Guys in those rooms to join the fray. About this time room #1 was totally cleared and the fighter was able to join the fight in room #3.

So now, I had two combats going on in the party. Room #3 was in full melee, and room #2 contained all of the Bad Guys from rooms #2, #4 and #5. Room #3 fell quickly, and the characters in that room raced around the corner to join the fun in room #2. The large battle in room #2 was pure chaos, but the party eventually prevailed. It seemed that the Bad Guys really were hog-tied by the mass of bodies. They couldn’t let loose with their area affect spells for fear of hitting their own people and the party had many targets of opportunity (not attacks of opportunity, mind you) because of the large crush of bodies arrayed before them.

This sounds like a major headache for any GM. I suppose it could be if the GM were not prepared for the actions and didn’t know what was behind the next doors. Shame on the GM if he’s not prepared and hasn’t read the next several sections of his adventure that he has in hand.

How did I handle this as GM? Quite easily it turned out. As new doors were opened and new Bad Guys entered the fray, I rolled their initiative and added them the to order in the right spot. We marched through the initiative order and everything went well. It really helped that I was prepared and knew the stat blocks of all of the Bad Guys well, and the players knew their character’s abilities inside and out. There was very little delay as new Bad Guys were added to the order, and the character’s were scattered through the initiative well enough that I didn’t have to do 3-4 Bad Guys in a row before it was another player’s turn. This allowed me a small breather as each player came up to plan for the next door to be opened and pull up the proper stat blocks in my photocopied notes.

Another thing that helped was that I had read the Dragon article as well, and had been warned via email by several of the players that they were going to do this. Had they sprung it on me without warning, I may have been in deeper water, but I think I would have handled it fairly well in the end.

One final note: We had a blast that night! Not only did the group clear out five rooms in the span of thirty minutes, they had a great haul of loot to go with it. Due to the speed at which they “retreated forward” we cleared Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil in about six months of weekly game play. Not too bad.

Whose Campaign Is It, Anyway?

This post from Martin Ralya briefly touches on the concept of who “owns” the campaign? Is it the players? the group? the GM? I’m of the opinion that it’s the GM’s campaign since he puts in the most work, but it’s something to share and enjoy with other people. If a GM wants a story that no one else can impact, then he should write a book, not run a campaign.

Communication is Key

The bonemaster has a good post about problem players and dealing with with. There are all sorts of problem players, and his post just touches on a single issue, but it’s a good read to see how to handle problem players of all sorts.

Looking back on the worst session ever

Here’s the flip-side of the coin from PatrickWR over at RPG Diehard… the bad GM. The example he gives echoes my point on if a GM wants to tell a story that’s all his, he should avoid a group endeavor like role playing. The main reason I’m linking to his story is that I was totally astonished at the GM at his table. I would have been one of the players that walked away immediately… immediately after beating the GM senseless with his own rule books.

The one-shot session success formula

Last weekend, I ran a one-shot Paranoia game. I needed Yax’s advice, but it came a few days too late for me to learn from. I think my one-shot went fairly well, but I could have done better with the advice he gives out. If you’re planning on a one-shot adventure for your group, check out what Yax has to say on the Dungeon Mastering web site.

Do You Do It Alone Or In A Group?

How does your group build a party of characters? Is it GM guided? Is it a free-for-all on who picks a class first so no one is stranded being the cleric? Does the resulting group form a cohesive party? Lots of questions here, and there are lots of options for how to build out a group. My personal favorite way is for the GM to explain the world/environment and the goals/styles of the game, and then let the players start picking their character traits with a little guidance on how to go about doing it. This guidance is especially vital in a skill-based game system like GURPS or Hero where missing a few key skills the GM expects you to have will be disastrous to the party. Case in point: I ran a modern GURPS game where one of the players chose to be a “thief like person”, but in the end, she only had 2 of the approximately 10 skills that I thought a thief should have. Every time I asked her to make a particular skill roll for picking a lock, sneaking or climbing, I’d get a blank look. Had I advised her more during character creation we wouldn’t have had these problems. Then again, there are a handful of players and only one GM. The GM can only go so far in hand-holding.

Sorry for missing the adventure hook. I had it in my head, and just flat ran out of time yesterday to get it done. Here’s the hook without any more delays!

A strange man walks into town tasting just a bit of all of the local foods before leaving the remaining morsels behind. With each bite he will moan in pleasure and exult, “Tasty!”

After a day of this harmless strangeness, several beggars begin to follow suit. After several more days more and more citizens are impacted by this strange affliction.

It turns out that anyone who eats the discards of the strange man picks up his curse (or is it a gift?) How do the players plan on putting a stop to this before the entire town’s food stores are wasted one bite at a time?

Back in 1990-1991, I ran a Lankhmar campaign in which I required everyone to dual-class as a thief/SOMETHING or just play a plain old thief. I felt it met the mood of the game. Since this was 2nd Edition AD&D, humans could not dual-class, though they could change to a different class, and multi-class (or do I have the terms dual-class and multi-class mixed up?) Anway, I bent the rules, as is my right as the GM, and allowed humans to go the route of demi-humans.

The game was a hoot as the group of thieves wandered the city streets thinking up all sorts of wonderful trouble to get into, including selling a boat they didn’t own.

Part of this game was Matt R.’s character, who was a heavily muscled gnome thief/fighter. He had maxed out his strength with some lucky dice rolls and played it to a ‘T’. He disdained armor as it hid his “beautiful physique”. He would constantly go around flexing and prancing to anyone that would pay attention. Being a gnome, this was not many people, but when he did catch someone’s eye, it was quite impressive. One especially gratifying role playing encounter was when the group was trying to get hired on as caravan guards. They had need of traveling a great distance and didn’t feel like footing the bill themselves. Instead, they figured they could get paid for the trip by hiring on as guards. Seems fairly logical except when you have a gnome and a halfling in your group that the caravan master wants nothing to do with as guards.

That’s when the gnome (I wish I could remember the character’s name!) hauled off and gut punched the halfing on the spot. Without missing a beat, the Mike B. declared that he used his Ring of Jumping to leap backwards over a nearby building with arms flailing like the gnome really had caused him to fly over the building. Now, a Ring of Jumping isn’t quite that powerful, but in the interest of a good story for all involved, I allowed it to happen. We all laughed over the way things unfolded as the caravan master agreed to hire the powerfully built gnome, but not the halfing. That’s when Matt R. declared that he needed a punching bag to work out on, and that the caravan’s oxen and cattle would do in place of the halfing. The sweaty and nervous caravan master hastily agreed to bring on the halfing in exchange for the gnome staying away from the beasts of burden.

All-in-all, not one die was rolled, but the role playing experience was one of my favorite ones. I still remember the entire campaign, and that day’s events, with great fondness.

What tales from around the table do you have? Please share them in the comments.

Steal Smart: The Series

Out of ideas? Afraid of running dry? Need some inspiration? Do it the easy way… steal something from someone else!

Ask The GMs: “Let’s Split Up.” – “Good Idea, we can do more damage that way!”

Mike and Johnn over at Campaign Mastery have some great advice and words on how to handle parties that like to split up. I’ve been through this a great number of times as a GM and a few times as a player. I always enjoy it as a GM, but rarely as a player. I think the best handling I ever did of this situation was to have both groups stumble into separate fights at the same time. I drew out two sections of the cavern, one for each group. Then I had everyone roll initiative, and I ran it like one big fight, but the two separate groups couldn’t help one another. It worked out quite well and kept everyone entertained since there was very little downtime between the two groups. It also showed them that splitting up in the Temple of Elemental Evil was a bad, bad thing.

5 Tips to Handle NPC Followers

Jonathan Drain has five quick pointers on how to integrate NPCs into your party’s make up. The best pointer is, of course, the first one. If you can follow that one, the rest should fall into place.

Warstories: Second-guessing the DM

Warstories from NewbieDM is a great idea for a series, and I wish I had thought of it. Ah well… Maybe next time around I’ll get the idea first. Either way, this is a great tale of how a player tries to take over the GM screen. Make sure to check out the comments on how different people handle different situations.

The “Secret” of Naming

What’s in a name? Quite a bit actually. In my upcoming series about mapping I chose the name “Murinae” for the world. Mainly because it sounded feminine (I’ve always like female names for worlds) and I didn’t think it had been used anywhere. I was right that there was no fantasy element to the name, but it turns out it’s a large family of rodents from the Old World. Oops. That’s OK. I’m sticking with my name because it sounds cool. For more inspiration about picking names, head over and see what Grognardia has to say about his techniques.

This one is a pure fantasy adventure hook. I may start throwing in some more sci-fi ones in the future to balance things out.

A young treant slowly shuffles into town and stops at the edge of the buildings. It stands there and waits for someone to approach. If no one approaches, then a group of curious children sneak off in the middle of the night to talk to the treant. Regardless of who approaches, the treant informs the people that visit him of a new portal that opened up in his forest and small demons are leaking through the portal and infecting the forest. The treant has come to the town to implore a group of adventurers to cleanse the forest of the demons and find a way to close the portal.