Ravenous Role Playing

This could apply to pretty much any genre or time period out there. It’s not horribly original, but I think it’s a topic that’s left overlooked: putting the PCs on the defensive.

A new group has recently arrived in town and seems to have all of the officials in their back pockets. The problem is they are extorting all of the local businesses (which includes friends of the PCs) for “protection money.” What are the PCs going to do about it without getting on the wrong side of the law?

Merry Christmas, Everyone! I’m short on time tonight (as it is almost tomorrow), so I’m jumping right into the list for the week.

The Gates of Adventure!

When mid-to-high-level PCs start roaming the world, they abandon their trusty steeds and turn to the nearest teleportation device/spell or the closest portal or summoning circle for getting from point A to point B. This is just a given fact, and it drives some GMs madly insane. If you’re one of those GMs, then check out the post over at Dungeon Mastering.

Giving 4e an Old School Feel

I saw the title of this post come across my RSS feed, and my knee jerk reaction was, “Impossible!” I went ahead and read the post, and my reaction is now, “Maybe, but it’s tons of work. Why not just play OD&D or AD&D (1st edition, of course) if you’re so desperate for that old school feel?” Go see what caused me to soften my reaction a little.

Bringing on the next generation, Part Two: Gamemaster Mentors

Are you just getting started at GMing a game? Perhaps you’ve been a long time player and want to dabble in the realms of running the game instead of just a single character. If you have that itch that needs to be scratched, go see what they have to say over at Campaign Mastery on the topic of starting out as a GM. It will save you tons of heartache, time and energy.

Christmas Wishes From RPG Publishers

This brief post over at RPG Blog II had me rolling on the floor next my desk. I couldn’t catch my breath due to my hysterical laughter. Why was I laughing so hard? Click the link and find out!

Greatest Hits 2009: What’s a +1 Sword?

I’ve mentioned Legends very briefly before. In that game, there is no such thing as a “+1 sword.” They just don’t exist! Sure, there are swords that give various +1 bonuses to various things, but none of the owners would dare walk into a shop and say, “I have this very nice +1 sword that I want to sell.” I’m not saying they wouldn’t sell their magic items, but the players of Legends would have always used the name of the items that it had earned, or that they had come up with or that I had provided for them. I whole-heartedly agree with everything said in this post, and I highly recommend you check it out.

Another tale from the table about Pomek. Pomek was my elven monk that I played in a D&D 3.0/3.5 campaign. As I’ve said before, he’s the most powerful character I’ve ever attained, and have quite a few tales about his exploits. This is one of them.

We were exploring a cave system full of elementals, demons, cultists and these strange ant-like creatures. I forget the name of the creatures now, but Pomek was having a rough time hitting the various Bad Guys in the cavern. He came to call it the Cursed Cavern because of this. As a player, I knew it was simply bad die rolling and I knew my luck would eventually turn for the better.

It did.

When we first encountered the ant-creatures, I was taking up the rear guard. The rest of the party charged into combat against the Bad Guys after they had thrown some stone spears in our general direction. I had quite a bit of distance to cover to enter combat, so I pulled out my extra monk movement and charged. I managed to, in addition to the charge, hit for critical damage and destroyed the thing I had hit. It was a glorious moment for Pomek. The rest of the fight went just the same way. I rolled 19s and 20s for my to hit rolls and managed to roll out near max damage for each strike. I unleashed my Flurry of Blows time and time again and hit with them all. The fight was very brief and in the end, I had killed 90% of the Bad Guys all on my own.

It was wonderful. It was exhilarating. It was a great time!

We ran into more of the ant-creatures in the Cursed Cavern, and my dice remained hotter than ever. I flew right through them, and we started making running jokes that my thunderous blows would tear right through anything with a chitinous covering. I really wanted to make my way to a sea short and track down some mutated, gigantic crabs and lobsters to make a living as a fisherman.

The moral of the story: When your dice are sucking for you, just stick it out. Eventually, they will turn in your favor and make for a great story.

Shopping Spree!

Ever had a full game session eaten by the PCs shopping with their new found wealth? Yeah, me too. As a player, I get my shopping done fast and out of the way and then I wait for the rest of the players to finish off their stuff. As a GM, I tend to sit back and make notes and plans while answering minor questions such as, “Is X magic item available?” It’s all fairly easy. It’s also fairly boring and tedious. Ho hum. Perhaps there is a better way to do it. Check out what Nicholas has to say on the matter.

Revealing the Exotic

What strange and exciting items in your game? Then make them rare and hard to get. It will make the players want them that much more. Go see what Johnn has to say on the matter.

World Building 101: Campaign Bibles and Scope

More links about campaign bibles. Why? Because I feel they are just that important. More details about what kinds of information you should be packing in your world bible.

Johnny’s Five – Five Reasons To Give Your Group an In-Game Sponsor or Patron

The reason I’m linking to this story is that I’ve done this with groups before. Several times, actually. It works out quite well. It gives them all a common leader, a common thread and a source of information, goods and adventures. If you never “sponsored” a group before, then check out the post to learn more details.

Adventuring Under the Sea

I’ll admit that I’ve never run a long-term game under the seas or oceans. I have done some adventures with water areas or small plot arcs under water, but never a whole campaign. I’m not sure how that would work out, honestly. It seems like lots of effort to me, but the advice from Nicholas may help you out some.

The PCs awake to find themselves trapped in a bottle. It’s not very apparent to them right away what is going on (this is a great chance for a GM to describe the setting and allow the players to muddle it out.)

Once the PCs figure out their circumstances and fail to gain egress from the bottle a few times, the bottle rattles, shakes and then they suddenly find themselves in a well-appointed room laid out in a Middle Eastern style. A large blue genie stands over them and orders them to do his bidding. The genie is quiet amused by the turn of events and seems to relish in making the PCs dance and do his tasks.

How will the PCs get out of their predicament? What will the genie have them do? How many tasks must they perform before the genie, if ever, lets them out of the bottle for good?

Back in the early 1990s, one of my roommates, Jason, went on an extended vacation for 6 weeks. My other roommate and I decided to see what kind of RPG we could make in the time he was gone. We worked day and night on the system and unveiled “Legends” to Jason upon his return. We played the game for close to a year and continually refined the system to where it was less laughable (the system itself, not the scenarios I cooked up) and ran much more smoothly than the original dice system we came up with.

Many years later, I pulled out the Word Perfect document, converted it to Word and started working on it some more… only to shelve it for lack of time.

Every few months, I get a wild hair to jump back into Legends and see what I can make of it. I think it’s a great system and has real promise at being successful. There are a few rough edges to the system that I need to work out, but just don’t have the time. Maybe, someday, hopefully, with luck, I’ll finish college and be able to devote some more time and energy to finishing off the game.

Wish me luck.

Character Fixes: Making Characters Enjoyable

Scott, over at Gnome Stew, has four ways to make your characters more enjoyable to play. Go check them out!

Ten Ways to Challenge Powerful Parties

I’m primary a game master. My highest level character ever was a 13th level monk in D&D 3.0. Unless things change, he will probably be the pinnacle of my player life. I’ve run a large number of games, and some of them have gotten the players to the top of the XP chart. When they get to that level, it’s really difficult to put a challenge in front of them that they’ll enjoy. The challenge can’t just be more HP, more damage and more special abilities out of the monsters. It has to be more than that. Go check Sly Flourish and see what Mike has to say on the matter.

Always Train Your Worst Skills

Ameron over at Dungeon’s Master.com has some decent advice on how to make a more well rounded character. My suggestion is slightly counter to his. I say you should be able to do three things very well. Once you’ve mastered those three things, then push for learning new things with your character. I think, in the end, you’ll be happier with your character.

The Perils Of Prophecy: Avoiding the Plot Locomotive

Ah, prophecies. They’re the great go to gun for any GM that is having their game side tracked. Go see what Mike over at Campaign Mastery has to say about using them gently in your game and how to avoid railroading your players through the use of prophecies.

Loose Prep, Detailed Play

In the past, I ran a fairly good Hero Fantasy game. I didn’t bother spending hours and hours building monsters and bad guys for the players to do battle with. I had a set of stats for monsters that I would gradually increase as the players got better at what they did. I’d then take those base stats and add “window dressing” to them to fit the mood, location and style of game we were playing. It worked out very well and saved me tons and tons of time. If you want more details about doing such a thing, go visit Gnome Stew and see what Patrick has to say.

Many thanks to Brad for this great idea. I complained that I was having a dry moment and just could not think of a hook. He came up with this one, and I loved it. Here it is.

An old wizard with too many years behind him has fallen into the grips of dementia. He comes screaming into the local tavern claiming robbery. All of his spell components are missing! Nothing of great value, such as his magical items, gold hoard, or priceless works of art, have been taken. Only his spell components are missing. Many people dismiss his ravings as those of a forgetful old man. Many of the locals claim this is not the first time he’s used up all of his spell components while experimenting with new spells, and ignore him. He storms up to the PCs table and offers to make them all a unique magic item if they find the thieves and return his collection of strange and rare spell components.

Do the PCs ignore the man? Do they take advantage of his dementia, agree to the job and find some lackeys to claim to be the robbers? Do they frame someone and buy the man new components? Perhaps the robbery is real and the PCs are on the trail of someone trying to destroy all local magicians’ abilities to cast most spells?

Pomek was my D&D 3.0 Elven Monk. He was the highest level character I’ve ever had. I managed to get him to 13th level before the “great domination” by an evil spellcaster brought the campaign to a screeching halt. I have quite a few stories about the hapless monk and his friends, but I’ll just share one with you today.

While roaming through goblinoid-infested woods, we were ambushed by some hobgoblins. The leader had some boots of speed on and used them to great effect during the fight. We ended up killing all but the leader, and he cowardly (and intelligently) ran away. Even with his boots of speed, he couldn’t out pace Pomek. My unlucky Monk caught up to the vile creature and the one-on-one fight ensued along with lots and lots of bad die rolling. I had hasted myself through a potion, and the hobgoblin used the haste power from his boots. Between his dual wielding and my flurry of blows, we were throwing enough attacks to bring down a small village in seconds… if we could only hit!

The fight drew to a close when I fumbled, rolled on the fumble chart, and critically hit myself in the head, knocking myself out. About that time the rest of the party closed in on the scene of the fight and the hobgoblin ran off into the woods to never be seen again. I finally came to with the comment, “Damn, that hobgob was good!” After that fight, Pomek decided hastes threw off his perfectly timed and well trained attacks. He forwent hastes from that point on… to much greater success.

Meh. Work kicked me in the head at the end of last week, and I totally didn’t have time to give shout outs to the great blog posts I found during the week. I really don’t have time to post this right at this moment, so I’m just sharing the links I found without culling out the extras. I hope you enjoy them despite their lateless and my lack of comments.

Flesh out your hero with an anecdote or two
Applying “Subdual Encounters” to Encounters vs. Solos
A Grand Conclusion: Thinking about a big finish
Initiative
Fantasic Festivals
World Building 101: Campaign Bible Formats
Intangible Rewards — Character Development
Custom Handwritten Fonts for Your Campaign World