Ravenous Role Playing

Losing Control

Mike makes some great points in his post about rules, rulings, control of the situation and what it takes to have a little fun at the table. It’s hard to summarize what he said without repeating his words, so I’ll just encourage you to visit Sly Flourish and check it out.

Idea Paralysis

The post over at The Spirits of Eden asks a great question, “How do you come up with your next campaign idea?” The post made me consider how I come up with my campaign ideas, and some of the comments to the very short post are worthy of checking out as well.

Dungeon Design 101

Daniel LeBlanc’s guest post over at Dungeon Mastering has a great system for coming up with dungeons and their designs. Yes, there are some random elements in there, but I’m OK with that. Usually, I have a point to each dungeon, and I design around that point, but I leave out the “extras” that could make things just that much more fun. This method will help introduce those extra elements and make things more fun for my players.

Worth More Than Gold

I’ve really never been a huge fan of the CP/SP/EP/GP/PP method of doing banking in D&D. I accept it because it’s an easy system. There are many better systems out there that more accurately reflect history and modern times. I won’t beat you over the head with the details here since the crew from The Bone Scroll has already done such a great job explaining different methods of doing coins.

The Evolution of the Dungeon Encounter

Wimwick’s opening “scene’ to this blog post made me laugh so hard my co-workers thought I had lost what little of my mind I have left. Even if you only read the italicized opening, do yourself a favor and head over to see what is said about designing better dungeon encounters.

I apologize for missing the Tales from the Table and Adventure Hooks for the past couple of weeks. Life has seriously caught up to me, and I’ll honestly say that this blog is the lowest of all of my priorities. I hope that things will lighten up in the near future to allow me to return to my regular posting duties here.

Without any further delay, here’s my Friday Five for this week:

6 D&D Convention Tips for Players
6 D&D Convention Tips for DMs

These two links go together because, well, they just do. Here are 12 great tips (6 per side of the GM screen) on how to be a better player/GM at a convention. Honestly, I think all of these tips apply to all RPG situations, not just the helter-skelter-paced gaming sessions you find at conventions.

Couple of neat finds…

NewbieDM was kind enough to find some precious gems on the ‘Net for all of us to use, and I felt like they should game more exposure through linking to them. Go check his site for the neatness that he found.

World Building 101: Here There be Dragons…

I love the series of articles about world building that D20 Source has been publishing and I hope they continue. This one is about mapping and the logistics involved in creating quality maps. I’m not talking about artistic ability, using a CAD-based piece of software or a hex-mapper. I’m talking about how to logically place things next to each other and in relation to one another. No mountain (other than maybe a magically created one) stands alone and is there just because it is. There are always reasons for mountains to exist, and those reasons usually change the surrounding terrain for hundreds of miles.

Ashes to Ashes, Death to Life

Scott Wallace has some interesting thoughts on bringing characters back to life and how it’s usually done in a fantasy setting. I found the read quite enjoyable and I think you will to. Go check it out.

What? You want to Sleep here?

As a player, I have to say that it’s been really, really rare that I’ve wanted to build a campsite in the middle of a dungeon. I’m always the advocate of a careful retreat to a safer place in order to setup camp and get some much needed rest for my character. Of course, not everyone follows this rule, and make camp in some of the strangest (and maybe even dumbest) places. Check out what ChattyDM has to say on how to mess with players that pick poor spots to camp out and get their beauty rest.

Hack and Slash vs. Titanic Struggles, or the Goblin Massacre and Giant Slaying Approaches

I love this post because it breaks down combat into fighting lots of little guys (goblin massacre) or one large, tough opponent (giant slaying.) The maxims outlined in this post are so very true to almost every RPG combat session. It’s challenged me to change the way I approach setting up encounters to see if I can come up with some alternate and more exciting methods for throwing Bad Guys at the PCs.

World Building 101: Organizing your Organizations

Where would people be if they had no place to hang out and no one out there with common interests to hang out with? Probably at home watching American Idol. Organizations are the heart and soul of every great nation, and without them the world would be very flat and boring. Use the knowledge freely given by Brandan over at d20 Source and make your worlds a more lively place!

Uniqueizing Your Campaign

I’ve rarely liked it when a GM uses goblin stats and changes the name of the monster to “Snarglepuffs” or something like that. I link to this post, so that I may give my dissenting opinion. There are classic tropes in fantasy, science fiction, horror and every other genre. When you use a common item and decide to make it “unique” by giving it a strange name, you’re really doing nothing more than lying to your players about what they are facing. Yes, I know that they shouldn’t be meta gaming, but there are other, and better, ways to fix meta gaming problems other than to lie to your players and give them false names for the monsters. If you’re really so desperate for uniqueness in your game, then start making new monsters that you can give your own names to. This is much more preferable to renaming a standard goblin to something else.

The Almighty Player

Muahahaha… Every rookie GM thinks they are in control of the game, but they rarely realize (until it’s too late) that the players are really the ones that are in control of where the game goes. I had a GM for a single session that tried to railroad the entire group into a castle to force us to fight our way out. He was so heavy handed about it, that I fled to the sewers and hid from the goblin invasion there. He was so miffed that I found a way out that he simply declared, “You catch a disease in the sewers and die a few hours later before you can do anything else.” I shrugged, packed my dice, went home and never went back to that particular game. He thought he had taken my vast control of the game away from me and was shocked when I refused to return next week with a new character. Another anecdote along these lines. We talked Nat into running a game once, and she ran a fine game for a few sessions. Then she suddenly stopped and said she was amazed at how little control a GM really has and she didn’t like it at all. GM’ing isn’t for everyone (but I still asset that everyone should do it at least once.)

Warstories: The imploding campaign

NewbieDM poses some great questions and thoughts about what causes campaigns to implode and self destruct. He has lots of great points in his post, and I suggest all DMs and players read his post in an effort to keep their current campaign from imploding… or detecting that it’s about to and it’s time to walk away from the game and start a new one. I know that I’d rather lose a current campaign over losing my current gaming group. The self destruction of a campaign can quickly lead to the same thing happening for a group.

No More Nation Building?

Ah, the days of PCs building their own nations, merchant guilds, church hierarchies and such seem to be long over. That’s too bad. For me, it always brought on a whole new level of challenges when my powerful warrior that could slay even the mightiest balrog with ease built a castle and took over some lands. Now he couldn’t slay the problematic peasants with disdain. He had to actually listen to their problems and find an amicable solution. Sure, he could slay the peasants, but then his taxes would dry up, and he’d no longer have funds to keep his castle staffed. Then he’d just end up a lonely old man sitting in his stone barricades waiting for the next adventuring party to come along and try to wipe him out. I miss those days. I wonder if there’s  a way to bring that back into modern gaming?

How to avoid developing a campaign that only appeals to you

Chgowiz has five points of advice that he’s freely given to every GM out there to encourage everyone to run a game that all (or most) players will enjoy gaming in. It’s a quick read, and I suggest everyone to take a gander.

World Building 101: Populating your Campaign World

NPCs are the backbone of every campaign. Period. Without NPCs there would not be shopkeepers, adventure hooks, villains to conquer and allies to side with. Brandan over at d20 Source has quite elegantly broken down NPCs into types according to the role they play in the campaign and how the GM should treat those NPCs in his preparation and during play time. I’ve added this link to my bookmarks (as well as highlighting it here) because it’s such great advice.

Oh I’m Sorry, Is It My Turn?

I’m guilty. I’ve done this. I hate doing this. I hate it when my players do this. I tend to blame the players when they lose track of their turn, but honestly, if I am not engaging them in the combat, then it’s mostly my fault. Yax has some great words for GMs and players alike to help them keep combat fun enough for all to enjoy.

That Cool Thing Your Character Does

When I create a character, I always examine the rules to see if I can find one or two things within the rules that I can do well. It could be exceptional movement, a special power, the right combination of skills/spells/feats/perks/flaws that make me special. I also, of course, come up with a character background that explains, among other things, why my character is so extra special in these areas. Sometimes the plan works, and sometimes it doesn’t. In a recent D&D 4e expedition, I ended up with an elven predator power druid that had a move of 8, which is fantastic. I also included many “shift enemy” powers that I thought would make me unique. It turns out that many of the other characters in the group had similar shift enemy powers, so I wasn’t extra special in that department. I didn’t have time to read all of the powers of all of the other classes, so where I thought I would be special a lot of research would have told me otherwise. I was disappointed at not being special in that regard, but that’s OK. I still had fun with the character for the short time that I played him.

Rolemaster, GURPS, and Using What You Need

RPG Blog II has some fantastic advice on using a minimalistic rule set when dealing with large, all-encompassing games like GURPS and Rolemaster. The next time I venture forth into GURPS land, I’ll have to take his advice. I’ve always swung the other direction in order to allow my players the most freedom possible in their character creation. It’s always come back to bite me in the rear. There are just too many rules in GURPS for me to memorize them all, so the game suffers as I look things up and make sure I “get it right” instead of just making a call on the fly and looking it up later. By using a scaled down rule set, I think I can run a better game.

Promises, Oathes And Pacts

I love it when my players make an oath, take a pact or undertake a promise. It gives me some level of power of their characters that they have willingly (if not knowingly) given me. It allows for great adventure hooks, increased interaction between the PCs and NPCs of the game, and gives the PCs actions some meaning other than to do the typical adventurer trope.

Using battlefields as adventure sites

I’ll admit that I’ve only been to one battlefield: Little Big Horn. While there, I was underwhelmed by the senses that I experienced since most of the battle took place away from where the tourist spot was at. While touring Europe in my youth, I did come across quite a few mass burial sites of various types (most of them from the Black Plague era) and the sensation of awe, wonder, respect, loss and grief that pervaded the area was incredible. In a fantasy setting, so much more can be found at ancient battlefields. Lost relics, undead (of course), ancient mysteries, magical items and so much more can be found littered about in the dirt. A GM of mine placed a large field of battle between us and our nearby goal at one point. I think we had more fun exploring the field of ancient dead (despite the constant harassment by the undead) than we did continuing on with our quest. Perhaps if we had made a promise or taken an oath to do otherwise….

Build Your Adventures in OD&D

It seems like most modern adventures are all about logically connecting monster A with room Y next to room Z that contains monsters B and C. Mike Mearls has some great advice on how to build a proper dungeon that will truly excite your players’ interests in moving forward through the crawl. It’s more than just monsters being turned into experience points. It’s more like challenging the players to think things through before they kick open the next door. I miss those days of true adventure instead of mindless hack and slash. Go see what Mr. Mearls has to say on the topic if you want to know more.

Surprise your players with a ‘dumb’ villain

To sum up: Have your villain make mistakes. This will surprise your players and make them double-think the strategies for their game. I’ve had this done to me time and time again as a player. I’ve always thought, “Why is the Bad Guy doing that?” and I’ve come up with some hare-brained plans because of it. Sometimes the GM makes an honest mistake in his strategy. Sometimes the GM is just throwing us a curve ball and trying to make things easier on us… and we just ended up taking the hard route.

Before your first game, know your party, and know them well.

Know what your PCs are capable of before you throw things at them. As a GM, you don’t want the PCs to have automatic successes, but you want things to be possible. As a an example, I had a GURPS GM throw a spirit at us that could only be contained for a few seconds at a time, but required a complex exorcism spell to dispel. Unfortunately, the exorcism spell was too high level for our power level, and we couldn’t get rid of the nasty spirit. We did have a lower level spell at our hands, but it took ten minutes to cast. The end result was that we had to run away, recruit an NPC to do the dirty work and come back later. Fortunately for us, the GM was flexible and allowed us to find said NPC even though he didn’t think we would need them at the start of the adventure.

“10 Good Hits” An Alternate Hit Point System To Control Combat Pacing And Drama

I’m currently reworking my RPG system in my head. I’ll be putting things down on paper soon, and this post caught my eye. I considered it, briefly, as a core mechanic for the RPG system, but I dismissed it as being too whimsical for the nature of my game. However, it’s still a good lesson to take into consideration. If a combat is dragging on and it’s clear that one side (probably the PCs) is going to win, then allow them to get in a a few “good hits” and call it quits by saying the Bad Guy goes down.

Heroes in Horror: When GM expectations and PC design don’t mix

Here’s another GURPS story for you. I was running a GURPS game in which a player had built a thief-type character. My concepts of what skills a thief should have and what skills the player actually picked were drastically different. I made some suggestions and even built out “Joe Thief” to show to the player what I thought a modern day thief should be capable of. My suggestions were ignored, and I didn’t realize this. As the game drew on, I realized the thief would not be able to perform any thiefly functions in the manner I envisioned. I had to adjust how the game was run, and the game suffered. My point, which is not related much to the horror genre, is that the GM should know what the characters are capable of, especially in an open-minded game system like GURPS. When designing your campaign, make sure the players are acutely aware of what you will expect out of them.

Using PC investments as adventure seeds

This post typically relates to the higher power characters where they have strongholds, investments, businesses and the like. Some systems, such as Burning Wheel, allow for PCs to start with substantial holdings. Once the PCs acquire such a thing, then they should become integral to the plot of the story. They are there for the GM to leverage for and against the PCs. If a character has a shipping company or an import/export business, then cut off some of their trade routes and inspire the group to venture forth to figure out what happened to the formerly abundant supply of a certain set of goods. It can make for a fun time.

This week’s Friday Five is a day late. I spent my writing time yesterday downloading my huge bundle of goodness from DriveThruStuff for my $20 donation to Doctors Without Borders. If you haven’t heard about it yet, then check out this link.

Use PC Backgrounds as a Roadmap for Campaign Design

I love it when players write backgrounds for their characters. I love it so much that I provide in-game bonuses for people that give me good backgrounds. It usually comes in the manner of free XP to start with, so the character starts at level 2 or 3. It might be in the form of a magic item to start with or something like that. You never know what I might give out. It all depends on what I can use out of the background to make the game/campaign better. The post over at Gnome Stew echoes my sentiments on using character backgrounds for the betterment of the game.

Railroading in a Good Way

Railroading good? I scoff! Then I read the post, and I kind of agree with it. If you’re firmly in the camp that railroading is a Bad Thing for any game, I dare you to go over to Critical Hits and see if your mind is changed just a little bit.

But My HMO Doesn’t Cover Procedure to Remove Curse!

The title of this post over at The Bone Scroll made me laugh for quite a long time. Then I read the post and found more laughter about a serious topic. What if HMOs ran the temples and clerics of the world? I shudder at the thought, but it’s still a great concept to use for an urban fantasy setting.

Eight Rules That Will Make You A Better DM

I’m always looking for tips to make me a better DM and the folks over at Dungeon’sMaster.com have eight simple rules to follow to get on the right road to better GMing.

My Favourite PC Travel Game: Campfire Chats

I’ve always hated hand waving travel time because it robs the players of a chance to earn more XP for their characters. I’ve equally hated the random encounters that serve no purpose other than to pad the XP box on the PCs character sheets. The campfire chats idea over at Campaign Mastery is one of the better ideas I’ve ever heard of for passing the time without forcing the PCs into a fight every third day of travel.

Cooperate with the bad guys? Sometimes, it’s the only way

“The enemy of my enemy is my friend.” This is a long-lived axiom, and I’m not sure of the source. Probably Sun Tzu or someone like that. I don’t have time to research it at the moment (but leave a comment if you know the source!) Sometimes things get so horribly bad that the PCs are forced to turn to someone who would normally be considered an enemy in order to defeat a greater evil. I’ve personally had a Cleric of Bahamut turn from the Platinum Dragon in favor of demonic allies in order to gain greater powers to attempt to overthrow an evil emperor and his countless inquisitors.

The Issue of Game Balance

I’m a huge fan of game balance. In the RPG that I’ve worked on in the past and will work on again in the future (once a year-long non-compete contract expires), I’ve written software to generate spreadsheets to guarantee that a game system I had in mind was balanced. No, the system is not that complex, but the math behind the system (think binomial distributions, ugh) is that complex. The players will never see my code, my spreadsheets or all of my work in a direct manner. However, in having a balanced and well-oiled system, they will see benefits.

It’s The End of the World Charlie Brown – Gaming With The Apocalypse In Mind

There certainly different phases to the end of the world, and I hadn’t thought them all through. However, John over at Gnome Stew has thought things through quite well. If you’re planning on ending (or drastically changing) your gaming world, then I would highly suggest reading his post to see what he has to say on the matter. It may change how you approach things.

City-State of the Invicible Twelve-Year Old

I’m linking to this post because I love the photos of the map that are included in the post. This is a great first effort for building a city, and I greatly admire the effort that went into making such a huge and detailed map. No, it’s really not all that pretty, but it’s definitely inspired work. Go spend a moment to check it out.

Addressing Your Weaknesses (Part 2)

I must have missed Part 1 of this post somewhere along the way, but I love what Ameron has to say about playing characters with low mental stats. It’s a great post, and if you have a character with these token weaknesses, then you may find some great role playing opportunities in his words.

World Building Week, Part V:Involving the Heroes and Tracking Growth

This is the last installment of the world building series over at RPG Athenaeum. This post involves the players more than the others because it’s taking the character backgrounds and merging them in with the existing world. This is the most treacherous part of the process because all of the GM’s well-laid plans may unravel at the introduction of a strange background from a player.

Gears of Ruin: Party Creation Session Template

Lots of my posts and links are about world building. It’s just what I’m interested in and fascinated by. This link, however, is just as important. It’s about building good groups. Without good party cohesion, the group will fall away into inner-party violence, bickering and possible PvP action. Unless you’re playing Paranoia, this is rarely what a group or GM is looking for.

Haunted House: 4 Tips To Terrify Your Players

In the past, I’ve only had one GM that truly scared me while in the game. I’m not talking about fear for my personal being, but fear for my character. To clarify further, I’m not talking about character loss to death or dismemberment. I’m talking about true fear of what my character was going to encounter next. Jim was a master at this type of setting, and it was only fitting that he would only run the game if we were in Ravenloft. I remember having nightmares about the NPCs my character met during the course of the game. If you want to instill this type of reaction into your player base, then check out these four tips over at Dungeon Mastering.

Why Do You Love Game Mastering?

I’m primarily a GM. I always have been. Sure, I go through phases where I do nothing but act as a player, but I’m almost always looking at the game from the GM’s point of view. It’s just in my nature. I guess it comes from years and years where I was the only person with all of the rule books and the only person with the desire to absorb them and put them into play. For Martin’s reasons on why he loves being a GM, check out the link. I may post next week my reasons for being a GM and why I love it so much. Look for it!

The Lost Art of Running Away

Ahhh… Running away. It is a lost art form. With all of the mathematical formulas for generating encounters these days, it seems rare for a group of PCs to be outclassed by the monsters they encounter. When this does happen, they are generally so shocked by the fact that running away seems to be the last thing on their minds. They’re always looking for an “out” or a “secret weakness” in the Bad Guy or something similar. Sometimes, it’s just good sense to run away from an encounter. It happens to the best of a group of characters.

This week’s Friday Five is the first of the year, and a day late. I’d like to claim hangover or some other ailment as an excuse for the tardy posting, but the fact is that I joined a new RPG group last night and things went really really well. I was so jazzed about the new group that I didn’t have the time or thought to do the posting.

So, without further delay, here is the Friday Five:

Greatest Hits 2009: I’m Your Cleric, Not Your Bitch!

The title of this post is good enough to link to just for the fun of it. I love this title, and I love the article even more because it brings up some intra-party conflict between the tanks that absorb the damage and the healers that keep the wounded from becoming resurrection fodder.

D&D World Building Week, Part I: Concepts
D&D World Building Week, Part II: Cartography and Conflicts
D&D World Building Week, Part III: History
D&D World Building Week, Part IV: Culture

The last four links for this week are from The RPG Athenaeum, and they are the best four articles that I’ve seen in a long time on world building. There are major sections of books and even some entire books on the topic, and I’ve not seen anything better than the advice given on this blog. I hope the series continues and maintains the fine standards that they have held themselves up to. If you’re interested in starting your own fantasy world for any reason, check out what these guys have to say.