Behind the Screen: It may be junk to some...

I was in the basement tonight moving around some of my gaming stuff and I came across a few oddities:

The Random d30

Also known as the "sling bullet", I got one of these from a random cup of dice from the Chessex booth at GenCon in my earlier years. I don't really know what its good for, but it does have the uncanny ability to appear in all its purple glory in random locations throughout our gaming space. Now that we're in epic levels, maybe it is time to start using it as a damage die.

The Lone Skeleton

I don't know if it was a promo or just a random miniature that fell out of the box away from its fellows, but there's a Skeleton miniature that seems to find its way to the bottom of my bookbag, or he'll occasionally show up to jab me in the foot unexpectedly during gaming sessions.

I should make a t-shirt that says "Danger! Severe Skeleton Damage." That'd be great.

Ancient Documentation of Worlds Past

I have a bad habit of taking notes that make plenty of sense at the time, but end up being strangely arcane snips of text like "three yellow amethysts open the device" or "75 +2 daggers". Occasionally, I will find something that grants some vague context to a certain part of a past campaign but this certainly speaks to a need for more organization on my part.

I've given passing thought to learning a form of shorthand so I can actually keep real notes during a session and not be all distracted writing, so maybe these notes won't lack so much context in the future.

My co-DM does not suffer from this problem, when he documents something I usually get a 10 page story complete with good punctuation, maps, and details. He's just better than me in that regard!

Three Questions: Round 2 (resisting the urge to write "Electric Bugaloo")

Since the last one of these went so well, I thought we'd have a nearing-midweek Three Questions and see how it does in Prime Time. The rules are the same... treat this like a blog quiz, feel free to redistribute or just answer below by adding a comment.

Please notice: if you do choose to answer these questions on your own blog, drop us a line and let us know... we'll collect the links that arrive, some of the more colorful comment responses, and some of our own insights for a later post to be completed Whenever We Feel Like It (probably soon).

Without further adieu, the three questions:

1. What is your go-to character class, and why?
2. Have you ever played a pen and paper RPG remotely via the Internet, and how did that go for you?
3. Has someone ever been expelled from your gaming group, and why? (Change names to protect the innocent! We will not be held accountable for any skullduggery!)
   

Take whatever space you want to answer... the intertubes are large and wide and can withstand the extra kilobytes of text.

Remember, with answers come insight!

Ode to the Roleplaying Mom...

In honor of Mother's Day, I thought it best to say a few words about your character's mother. (No, this isn't going to be a series of "your character's momma is so fat" jokes...)

Sometimes nurturing, sometimes gone...

Often, your character's mother will fall into two categories: the nurturing type that readily awaits any update from their all-grown-up child, or sadly, she is dead and gone. Very rarely will she have some sort of mental illness or be the cold standoffish type.

This is where this post could diverge into a valuable discussion on how to give your character's mother some interesting characteristics, but I think I'll leave that one for when I'm in a less irreverent mood.

Another interesting thing about your character's mother: your arch-rival always knows where she is, and given the opportunity will capture her and hold her hostage. For this reason, I recommend your character giving ol' Mom a very valuable gift, if she is still among the living.




A necklace of fireballs, when you love her enough to give her the ability to do 10d6 damage. You know... to keep her safe from interlopers. Also, a few lessons on how to use it might not hurt so she doesn't incinerate her sewing circle showing it off. And sending her a letter from time to time wouldn't kill you, would it?

Behind the Screen: The End-Game Party...

I wish I could cite the specific source on this one (chime in if anyone recognizes it), but I remember reading a very interesting idea that suggested throwing a actual party with cake and general non-gaming merriment to denote the end of a campaign.

I like this idea for a lot of reasons (I mean, who doesn't like a party?), however I have the good fortune of having a tight-knit group of gamers in our squadron. We regularly get together on non-gaming nights to play Rock Band and hang out, however the non-roleplaying "partying" tends to peak when we've actively not roleplayed for awhile.

As Stupid Ranger has previously noted, we are in the middle of one of the more pronounced gaming droughts that we've had lately due to busy schedules and the dreaded Real Life, which happens to be at least a CR 30 these days for most of us. That means our next "session" will probably consist of vast amounts of pizza, music, and hilarity but likely very little actual plot progression.

Situations like this leave me a little dry on the whole end-of-campaign party front... we'd likely have to do something akin to a destination resort to muster up more of a party than we're likely to have when our group gets back together! I'm exaggerating a lot there, but it will be fairly difficult to differentiate an end-of-campaign event from our standard fare.

If anyone has any clever ideas for putting the big red bow on a major plotline, I'd love to hear it! For those of you that regularly host the end-game party, tell us your story! What do you normally do to make it special?

Behind the Screen: Inspiration from an unlikely source...

A thousand apologies for the lack of a meaningful post yesterday. With the ISP troubles, Stupid Ranger being on the road, and Vanir still taking care of junior we were somewhat out of options. Ah well, water under the bridge as they say...

Throw up the horns?

Well, probably not. Tonight I want to talk again about unlikely sources for roleplaying ideas, this time my topic will be classic rock. More directly, classic rock involving The Eagles. You see, the origin for this post comes largely from the alcohol that fueled our Cinco de Mayo celebrations around Stupid Ranger Central and my cousin, who exhibited wisdom beyond his years by recommending that we put some Eagles on to pass the time.

Several hours go by, and the mixture of beer and Don Henley vocals started to formulate into notions about Witchy Women, what lies along Seven Bridges Road, and whether or not love can truly keep us alive. I think the colorful vocals are what lent me toward campaign ideas, most notably during Witchy Woman and Hotel California... the portrait that is painted by these lyrics beg to find their way into a one-shot campaign for me.

Who knows, sometime soon these ideas may come into fruition... the only other artist that immediately springs to mind as one that constantly emits campaign ideas is Meat Loaf, but I'm sure Vanir will be along any time to explain how Meat Loaf is more of a characters icon than he is a DM's icon.

For those of you that enjoy morals to the story, we'll go with "don't hesitate to look for campaign ideas in unlikely places" and leave it at that.

ISP acting up...

This is just a notice that our local internet service provider is acting up, and due to the spotty service today's post will be delayed a bit.

Check back in several hours and we will attempt something a bit more complete and topical, until then please bear with us!

Behind the Screen: Spring Cleaning Your Campaign...

Stupid Ranger and I took a bit of a weekend getaway this weekend, and on our return trip I got bitten by the need to Spring Clean and get some of those tasks done that I've been putting over during the colder months (including previous cold months that have occurred years ago).

Out with the old...

As the weather gets warm (at least, in our part of the world) this year, take the opportunity to spruce up your own campaign. Got some old, tired plot point cluttering up your guest bedroom? Chuck it out, replace it with something interesting or at the very least different.

Being a fairly analytical nerd, I prefer to make lists. If you are similarly inclined, I highly recommend the classic "Pros and Cons" list focused on elements of your campaign. Is your story going well, everyone engaged? Pro. Too many powerful magic items or cohorts cramping your style? Con.

After you've got a prioritized list, take the top two items from your Con list and come up with some ideas how to bring them back toward the other side of the list. I actually like to propose a handful of in-game ideas how to rectify my Cons and then break them out into their own list to try to "crash" the idea, figuring out ways that my players could likely sidestep or derail my provided fixes.

I have previously explored this concept in my Failure Mode and Effects Analysis post, but it bears repeating as I feel this is a very good tool to use when breaking new campaign ground.

Take advantage of the nice weather as an excuse to start sprucing up your gaming sessions!!

The number of the questions shall be three...

Today we're going to try something new. You've all seen those blog quizzes that ask you a few questions and you can copy and paste your results into your own blog and feel happy about it.

Today, I'm going to ask some questions and everyone is free to either blog your answers and tag someone else on your own blog (a link back would be nice) or you can do it via a comment below.

1. Have you ever selected a character class purely for the fun of it?
2. Have you ever picked a weapon or spell for the fun of it instead of the amount of damage it did?
3. Does your character have any special, non-magical mementos? If so, what are they and how did they get them? If not, why not?

With answers come insight, so feel free to explain your answers as fully as you want. Hopefully as people pile on their answers you might find one or two neat ideas to incorporate into your character or your campaign, depending upon which side of the screen you are on!

Ten Words can win it all!

Today our good buddy Phil made us aware of his most current contest, which compels the succinct inner-DM in all of us to conjure ten words to create a campaign plot idea.

Ten short words can give you a great impetus to run a game, a great diversion for fifteen minutes of your workday, or even some fabulous cash-like prizes! Check out the link above for further details, and if you really want to stare into the maw of madness check out the comments, where you will find at least two contest entries by yours truly.

Thanks to Phil for alerting us of this excellent contest, everyone should head over there right now and throw down a few entries!

A Rogue's Guide to Alternagaming...

Stupid Ranger's post on the recent gaming drought that is plaguing various corners of the Internet seems to have struck a chord.

Lack of Gaming and your local DM

From a DM perspective, the lack of frequency can almost be a blessing because it earns you some precious time to actually plan upcoming sessions or take stock of the good and bad storytelling aspects that have crept into your world.

Lately, my co-DM Kanati and I have been discussing the abject pain and suffering that has been caused by our unseemly ascent into the Epic Levels, and discussing what we would do different if we could turn back time. This is mostly just lamenting and gnashing of teeth, luckily we are within a few short sessions of Campaign's End which (at least to me) is quite welcome.

Musings to pass the time...

In addition to the standard fare of Rock Band and Guitar Hero, I've found myself starting to think of some other nerdly pursuits to fill in the gaps where gaming used to go. Developing software for fun (yes, ladies and gentlemen, I am a True Nerd), exploring some other gaming systems/extensions (Mage and the Three Dragon Ante spring to mind), and enjoying the glorious first person high definition violence of my Xbox 360 have all been employed to while away our spare Friday and Saturday nights.

Unfortunately, for me the grind of running the campaign can become a chore. It's usually when nearing this "beg for mercy" stage of plot development that I truly take stock to determine when the best time is to finish up, and I am certain that time is near.

I have some topics to round out the week dealing with further alterna-gaming and some ideas for ending a campaign that I hope you'll like. In the meantime, I'd love to hear how some of you while away your non-roleplaying time and how you know when the point to stop running a campaign has drawn near.

Funny->Story...

Our good buddy Phil over at ChattyDM.net posted this great story about how a joke essentially helped shape the story, with the players essentially driving the whole production. This whole tale reminds me of so many memorable moments from our campaigns... I believe that it speaks to what makes roleplaying fundamentally great.

What's funny to you is often funny to everyone else.

People like participating in events that other people value, and funny events are no exception to this rule. If the initial notion of (in this case) a Microwave Ogre gets a laugh around the table, there is usually one or two people within the group that naturally want to carry on that shared experience by perpetuating the joke or heightening it in some way.

In my experience, it usually takes a "plot focused" person at the table in order for that gag to make the leap into campaign material. It usually manifests by the straight man (or woman) saying something to the effect of: "Hey... will any of the townspeople listen if I start telling the story of the Microwave Ogre?" then the bard of the group offers to make a supporting Perform check to influence the crowd.

Behold, shaping of the plot has begun, and that is awesome.

Support this stuff, people!!

Too often, a serious DM will attempt to squash this irreverent behavior. I am usually thrilled when things like this happen because a.) fun stuff rules and b.) I don't have to write stuff the players come up with on their own!

Maybe I should change my handle to Dante, The Lazy DM...

Of Castles and Keeps...

I began conceiving this post as a means to discuss the different living arrangements that your characters can undertake throughout the course of a campaign. Our campaigns have varied from purely nomadic "going where the action is" style living arrangements all the way to having a "home base" city where our characters would return to in between episodes.

This got me thinking about taverns, castles, keeps, and the like... and unfortunately I couldn't come up with something interesting to discuss relative to D&D or roleplaying.

So instead, its time for a confession.

I've always wanted to live in a castle. Ever since I was adult enough to have to contemplate home-ownership, this desire has existed. I've even gone so far as to research floor plans, building techniques, and actual ways to make this dream into a reality.

Interestingly, I'm not the only one that has this desire. In fact, a couple of SCA enthusiasts put up a website detailing the construction of their residential castle, from digging of the foundation all the way to the day they moved in. I have to appreciate their dedication to their dream and actually hatching it into reality, I hope someday that SR and I will be able to follow suit.

Strangely, I can honestly say that all of this doesn't come from the part of my being that enjoys roleplaying. For a long while, I wanted to be an architect and I have a great appreciation for interesting architecture, and I think that this drives this passion more than wanting to pretend in some recess of my brain that I am some duke or lord ruling over his land.

The couple that I linked above are into the SCA, and for that reason desired some level of historical period accuracy. That doesn't necessarily trip my trigger, as I have found from a few other hobbies that detail oriented things quickly pass into the "not fun" category. I just want something that looks and feels like a castle, but has as many of the amenities of a finished modern day home.

I suppose I should relate this in some way to roleplaying.

About the only thing that I can do to relate this whole post to any type of roleplaying is this: embrace the things that motivate you creatively. If that's wanting to live in a modern-day castle, or dressing up and attending a SCA event, or roleplaying or LARPing... go for it. Don't be ashamed of it, don't let criticism or naysayers dampen your spirits. From a roleplaying/campaign perspective, try something that falls in line with your creative passion and you may find a fertile ground for new and exciting material.

Just go for it!

Choose Your Own Adventure...

Our good buddy Yax over at DungeonMastering posted up a whopping 83 free D&D Adventures. I don't know whether it was the boldly advertised "adventures" in the title or the massive amounts of caffeine that I have ingested tonight, but it got me to thinking about the old school "Choose Your Own Adventure" book series.

I remember that one such book named "Space Vampire" (by Edward Packard) used to scare the crap out of me when I was a kid. It wasn't the storyline, per se, but there were several "failure" illustrations that showed your gaunt dessicated corpse after the Space Vampire did his thing. Judith Mitchell certainly had the "creepy enough to seep into my dreams" illustration thing down.

Write your own adventure, or use a stock adventure?

This is one of the eternal questions, and it comes down to matter of preference. Personally, I find it generally easier for me to invest myself in a storyline or plot point if I create it from the ground up. I tend to either forget (I'm not much of a note-taker) or fail miserably at adapting the stock adventure elements to my own storyline, so I tend to prefer hand-rolling my own modular adventures.

There was a small part of me that was somewhat compelled to write my own "Choose Your Own Adventure" book when I was a kid, and I have to believe that was some of my proto-DM tendencies wanting to be released to the world.

Has anyone else been otherwise inspired by these books, or am I just particularly insane for keeping a special place in my heart for them?

Is True Dungeon LARPing? My answer: no, but close!

Yesterday, I covered a topic that had been burning in my brain for quite some time: a discussion on Live Action Roleplaying and its place in our hobby. I feel somewhat vindicated in my stance on the matter after hearing the articulate commentary provided by you all out there in the blogosphere, however there is often another tangent to this discussion that always seems to come up when I talk about this with members of our group.

True Dungeon: The LARP Grey Market

I have had the good fortune to play most (if not all) of the incarnations of True Dungeon over the years. Often, when I discuss the topic of LARPing Vanir readily points out this fact to me and tries to make the argument that True Dungeon is essentially normalized LARPing for the masses.

I respectfully choose to disagree with my good friend on this point, and here's why. LARPing, by its very definition requires some aspect of roleplaying. Hopefully those of you that have been through True Dungeon can back me up on this point; there is little to no actual roleplaying taking place within the Marriott Ballroom walls by the players.

The non-player staff does a pretty good job of roleplaying, but due to time constraints roleplaying is usually a luxury that dies the moment the sounding carillon chimes to usher you down to the Pits of Doom. Do you get to act out character roles? Yes, but there is a distinct difference between this and actual roleplaying. Actual roleplaying would dictate that you have given your assigned character a background, personality, and motivation... none of this exists in the incarnations of True Dungeon that I have played.

The closest you get to any real personality for the players is when the bard of the group is forced to sing in order to maintain their bardsong effects, and strains of off-key (sorry SR) "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" doesn't qualify in the range of effective roleplay.

Why I classified this a Grey Market

When you buy your True Dungeon ticket, you are purchasing a dungeon crawling experience. The tavern that they make available and the in-character staff that serves drinks, provides orientation, and adds flavor is very adept at evoking the feeling of Greyhawk and in some cases are very good at playing the roles that they have been assigned (or created, I don't know how that works).

This makes it a very realistic D&D style experience, and honestly its why I love True Dungeon. I love the look and feel of actually being within a game, as if I am a life sized miniature with stats (please, withhold jokes there guys). It's like being on the edge of LARPing with a set of opera glasses watching the show, but with this show audience participation in the midst of the Dungeon isn't possible.

To me, its an in-between experience for us pencil and paper roleplayers and the world of LARP.

A frank discussion about LARPing...

Today I'd like to discuss one of the more interesting areas of the nerdly arts, the world of Live Action Roleplaying (or LARPing). I must admit, the strangeness of costumed folk at conventions that claim very fervently to be some character that only they and their friends know about is considerably unsettling to me. The level of passion that LARPers bring to their hobby isn't the only thing that bothers me...

Disclaimer: I have never LARPed before. It frightens me, and I apologize in advance if you are offended by the following.

Those of you that know me or have been paying even the slightest bit of attention to some of my posts know that I enjoy high quality props (both relating to films and relating to my campaigns). Unfortunately, the examples of craftsmanship in costuming and propwork have run the range from hilarious to extremely unsettling (most seem to be executed using Wal-Mart bargain rack fabric in roughly 36 minutes). That, and the penchant for tights and ill-fitting bosom supporting devices is intolerable, and don't lie to me and tell me you don't wear them, I've seen them with my own eyes at GenCon!

Heavan help you if you actually stop to ask someone who LARPs what the giant sword that they are carrying is supposed to be, or what (incorrectly assumed movie) character they are dressed as... because you're going to get a dissertation on the providence of said item that the person or someone they knew made up and nobody else knows about. This is usually followed by the Nerd Sound, usually a "nyahh" vocalization to indicate extreme satisfaction. I make it too (about other topics), so I'm not throwing stones... simply pointing out a fact. That sound is often used as punctuation when fulfilling ones nerdly genetic imperative.

I tend to lump LARPing in the upper echelon of what society assumes when it thinks of roleplaying "nerds." It is clearly within my personality to be mortally embarrassed if I was ever photographed LARPing and said photos were shown to my family/coworkers/dog. It is simply past my threshold of acceptable levels of nerding out.

That being said...

The rest of my disdainful perspective comes from ignorance. If there are any LARPers in our midst, I would love a few words about why you love your hobby and if it can be related to a classic roleplaying experience I would love to understand your point of view more.

Many stories exist on the Internet regarding LARPing and some of the unique characters (both real-world and created) that have existed in this genre, and I am curious what segment of our readership have experienced this type of roleplaying first hand.

Educate me! Share your stories!

If you agree with my general perspective, lets hear from you too!

(NOTE: I would prefer this not become an "is True Dungeon LARPing" thread. We will save *that* topic for later on this week.)

Behind the Screen: The Great Tavern Mug Debate...

Well... it wasn't exactly great... but even still this scenario did cause a bit of contention within our group and it illustrates an excellent example of how impromptu DMing can sometimes cause some issues.

What happened:

Well, to put it succinctly... one of our player characters (Bat Loaf, I believe) did something uncouth in a tavern and started a fracas. In the resulting fray, one of the patrons blindsided The Loaf with a thrown beer mug.

Since this was taking place outside of initiative, I simply arbitrarily selected an amount of damage (2d6) and applied it upside Bat Loaf's head. Someone noticed the die roll, since I was excited and didn't hide it all that well and it caused some discussion as to whether or not the damage was subdual and how I picked 2d6.

The Resulting Argument:

The argument that someone was trying to cause harm was easily enough won, but there was a lot of discussion about how much damage a thrown, broken beer mug would cause. If I remember correctly, there was a certain measure of punishment involved in selecting that much damage for such a mundane thing, however if you think about the breaking glass and resulting shards it might've been somewhat close to correct.

After a few iterations of hearing the tried and true "you're the DM and you can do what you want but..." argument, I think we compromised by backing off the damage a bit. Has anyone else experienced momentary gaffes relating to situational damage when you've been made to create something on the fly?

Let's hear some stories... it always pleases me to read others sharing in my pain!

Why must this always happen?

Yesterday, I was informed that the Hollywood sludgebucket has struck again. This time, their mark is one of the more charming movies ever to take on the topic of artificial intelligence gone wrong... Short Circuit.

Filmstalker reports that they intend to remake this movie, with some of the original cast returning but they don't say who... either way, I am not optimistic.

What's this got to do with gaming, Dante?

Well... on the surface, not much. However, once I started exploring why I was upset about this news I started thinking about a few things relating to gaming. Several members of our group were present during one of our more successful campaigns, and many times since then I have been tempted to do an additional chapter... a new campaign with some of our old favorite characters.

Whenever I bring up this topic among those players, it usually meets with mixed results. Sometimes they are excited about the prospect of revisiting their old characters and taking them on new adventures. I think this same motivation forces movie execs to think that this type of film remake is a good idea... on the rare occasions where its not all about the money, I am sure that it is done out of a desire to take these (sometimes) classic characters out for another spin.

Vanir often plays the counterpoint that things are never as good the second time around. I have to believe that this sentiment is true in most of the cases... it can never be as good the second time around, film remakes involving good chemistry and great characters often fall flat, and things like this are never a good idea.

But the notion sure is fun. There's a certain part of me that really hopes Hollywood comes to its senses before they go all Planet of the Apes on this thing, but I'm fairly certain they won't. Oh well, chalk another up to economics. *sigh*

My belated introduction to D&D Miniatures...

Over the weekend, SR and I hosted a houseguest in one of my old college buddies, Boyle. He brought with him this magnificent trio that you see (parts of) above, along with the rest of his collection of D&D Miniatures to show me.

Wow, you're late to the party, Dante.

Why yes, yes I am. I had originally purchased a starter set of miniatures when they first came out because I wanted them to augment my D&D campaigns with. Unfortunately, money was tight and I didn't end up getting too many that were directly applicable to my setting so I threw them quickly back into the starter box where they resided for many years.

Luckily, when Boyle produced his miniatures it was exactly two days after I had recognized that starter box in the top of my closet and made note of it, so down it came and before long we were creating our parties and having some fun.

It was better than I anticipated!

I'm not going to lie... when I first got the miniatures a few people tried to convince me to play the game that goes along with it and I rejected that idea on the premise that I knew the D&D combat rules and anything based on that was probably far too complicated for me to actually ENJOY. Could I play it? Probably, but rules lawyering is a pursuit best left for SR as she enjoys the ancient art of being right.

Boyle is one of my dearest friends, and I could never tell him that I wouldn't at least try it... besides... there were adult beverages involved so it couldn't be that bad, right?

Right! I have to say the simplified rules, coupled with some familiar D&D characteristics made the experience immediately recognizable and fun. It also helps that my starter set happened to include a Medusa, which I understand is somewhat sought after. I'm sure there are a few of you that are kind of sick reading that, sorry!

Regardless, we played several rounds but I stopped short of playing any scenario involving the dragons pictured above, since I was barely having any luck at all with my meager starter set.

From what I can tell, much of the stat blocks that I have seen related to the D&D 4th edition seems to approximate the simplicity of the miniature rules, so I have hopes that all combat will take place in similar fashion as the new edition hits. The only thing that bothered me a little was the rules for routing and running... it seems to me that shouldn't be so much determined by a die roll but I understand that miniature games are based more solidly in concrete rules so I can tolerate that minor annoyance.

It was a really fun evening, special thanks go out to Boyle for bringing his stuff over so we could give miniatures a try!

Behind the Screen: Regarding Chemistry...

Yesterday, Stupid Ranger posted a great piece discussing chemistry and group dynamics. As the Dungeon Master, it is important to cultivate skills in reading the group chemistry and tweaking the way you run your game.

Group Composition

Stupid Ranger mentions yesterday that often the reality of your group chemistry falls into group composition: that is, the people that make up your player group. If you do happen to find yourself in a situation where your group is unbalanced in some way (say, too many leaders or arch-enemies within a group) you can often leverage your storyline to help balance the mix within your group.

If you have a group with too many leaders, for example, and the group is very invested in the storyline you might be able to actually capitalize on this dynamic by creating a plotline that splits your group in some way. This will allow your multiple leaders to flourish and the rest of your group to get some respite from the conflict that comes from this particular type of chemistry.

Plot can be used to solve a lot of these problems, however it is not a silver bullet. Engineering too many of these "artificial" balms to group dynamics will quickly become obvious and hackneyed, so use them somewhat sparingly.

Balance is a difficult thing

I am running into the same difficulty that SR is... describing what good chemistry (and good management of group dynamics) is a difficult thing to explain in words. I am reminded, however, of a certain Futurama episode where Bender is set adrift in the universe and encounters a deep-space godlike entity.

Bender is perplexed at how to direct the small pocket society that had collided with him, and the godlike entity tells him he has to have a light touch, and eventually is quoted as saying: "When you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all."

Extending that notion to managing group chemistry is the mark of a truly fantastic Dungeon Master, I can only hope to aspire to this kind of effortless plot execution and group management!

Pointless Nostalgia...

As many of you recall, a few weeks ago we returned to our video gaming roots over here at StupidRanger Central by purchasing an Xbox 360. As I traversed the different options made available through the Live Marketplace, I was presented with many games from years past.

This made me particularly nostalgic and got me thinking about some of the things that led me into D&D. One such game was the Milton Bradley classic game HeroQuest.

Ah, the good ol' days

This game came out in 1991, and unfortunately it was during the Dark Times when I didn't have many friends that appreciated the nerdish tendencies that I possessed. My sister wasn't really old enough to play the game, however I was able to get a few of my neighborhood chums to play a few times.

I hadn't quite grasped the notion that you could have creativity alongside a board-game, so I stuck to the stock adventures that came along with the system. The game was played with miniatures and cardboard tiles, and the game master led the players through a dungeon and the goal was to escape alive.

The interesting thing about this game was that it had elements that spoke to pretty much all aspects of roleplaying gamers: character creation (you had to pick a class and learn their skills), dungeon creation (or just a storyline if you are a player), miniatures including set pieces (my first exposure to mini's), and my favorite part... the treasure cards.

Basically, they were fancied up "Chance" cards a la Monopoly. I remember that the cool things seemed to outweigh the bad, but there was always a chance of unearthing a monster or trap when you searched an area for treasure. They really tickled the part of me that would later embrace Magic: The Gathering for many, many years (thankfully, I broke that habit midway through college).

Reflecting

It is interesting to consider how this game was a good teaching tool for the budding Dungeon Master. All the elements are there... building interesting traps/encounters, doling out treasure, killing bad guys... and the best thing about it was it was designed to be a classic dungeon crawl.

I don't know what became of my set... I have a feeling it met with either a leaky closet ceiling or the wrath of my mother's Spring Cleaning... I found a link over at BoardGameGeek that indicates that I could replace it for a scant $111.

Unfortunately, I don't see that outlay of cash happening anytime soon... I'd rather have the memories intact anyway.

Musing about the past, looking toward the future...

I was reading through some of my backlogged blogs and came across this great post over at Jeff's Gameblog about his musings regarding original D&D (OD&D) house rules. The post continues to discuss the fundamentals that make a system important, and it is a solid read for anyone interested in a very intelligent look at the metamorphosis of D&D over time.

Looking Forward

I have looked at very little regarding the upcoming 4th edition, however I have heard many concerns starting roughly ten seconds after the announcement at GenCon last year. I decided to break the veil tonight, did some poking around, and came up with the pre-PHB that has been put together from pre-release materials by the fine folks over at the Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition blog.

I have to say that I'm feeling a lot better about this system seeing some of the known details laid out. Many of the stat block simplifications address some things that have dramatically slowed down our gaming sessions. I've not read into the detail surrounding the combat changes yet, but the character creation stuff looks decent too.

Dealing with Change

Let's hear your thoughts in the comments! I'd love to hear what everyone else thinks about the new edition and how your group plans to handle the transition. As previously mentioned, our group is somewhat change resistant... here's to hoping the good outweighs the bad moving forward!

Behind the Screen: How do you keep an idiot in suspense...

All throughout our co-DM experience, we've been trying to cultivate excitement and leave our player characters wanting more. As our characters have become longer in tooth, it is becoming harder and harder to make those special suspenseful moments pay off in a meaningful way.

Often it comes down to timing...

In our campaigns, we tend to like to build up to big reveals. Unfortunately, most of our attempts to build suspense and create that "oh crap" moment end up taking place at the end of a long session when everyone is thinking about the drive home, or are floating off to dreamland at the table.

In the situations where we see this coming, sometimes we forgo the Big Neat Thing until the following session. This often works, however in times when there is a few weeks between sessions this can get diluted by our players forgetting where we were last session, or the tabletalk that inevitably drifts in after a break like that.

Pacing is an extremely important skill to learn to combat these two boundary cases:

1. Play regularly and know your audience.
   
   Knowing who has to work the following day, or who just got done with a 12 hour shift might help identifying when to launch the major plot point for the night. Playing regularly helps to cut down on the cycle of getting re acclimated to the game and keeps your plot-to-date fresh in the players minds.
   
   
2. Keep long battles to a minimum (or early in the session.)
   
   Lately much of our plot advancement has been slowed down significantly by the extra time required for battles at a high level. If your setting and plot allows, try to get major battles out of the way early in the night to get everyone engaged and leave plenty of time for the storytelling before your player's off switches start to get thrown.
   
   
3. Design a plot puzzle.
   
   Sometimes the key to building appropriate suspense is simply not having a huge plot point to hatch. I have successfully used the "plot puzzle" design, where a series of small non-events get combined in a meaningful way to lead to plot advancement. These small elements can be sprinkled in with normal character development or in between battle encounters.
   
   This also helps character engagement and development, because often the pieces of the plot puzzle don't make sense on their own. As the characters try to put the puzzle together, they may lead you into some scenes that you didn't explicitly have planned. This can be a fun diversion for everyone and give you the opportunity as DM to work on your impromptu skills.

The final (and perhaps best) way to really build suspense is to not make every last piece of your plot obvious. Often, the thrill of the unknown is enough of a driver to really make the players engage.

Speaking of... there has been some suspenseful things going on around StupidRanger Central this week, you'll just have to tune in next time for the reveal!!

Behind the Screen: Coordinating Playtesting...

I received some very interesting feedback regarding my recent post on prestige classes, so I'd like to take a further look at playtesting of new campaign elements.

My own background

In the sake of full disclosure, I have to admit that aside from a few Dungeon Master directed forays into extending or modifying existing prestige classes I haven't done a lot of class creation. What I have done, however, is take an lesson from my former DM and create very tailored magic items as thematic elements to augment the storyline of my campaign.

Usually these items have very special features that emulate some of the progession abilities found in the Weapons of Legacy sourcebook (we did not have anything of the sort back then) and involved a very precarious balance between "useful and neat" and "way overpowered" that we often struggle with as Dungeon Masters.

Thinking about the comments that were left on Friday regarding the difficulty of balancing without extensive playtesting and the very real concerns about an individual player unbalancing a party made me start thinking about my own playtesting processes (or lack thereof).

A few things I like

When I would create these weapons or items for my players, I would usually tie them to some sort of uncertain providence, or make their magical auras indistinct. Add in a splash of roleplaying with the person performing the identify (it always takes someone skilled to identify an item of this power), or some archaic notes found in a ledger alongside the item and you've got a pretty good recipe for Room To Fudge Things.

Now before the tirades start, I don't usually fudge things all that much. However, if the situation arises where the character wielding the new item is unbalanced I have an "out" for adjusting things slightly so they are not quite so overwhelming.

This is usually accompanied by an out-of-game discussion with the player and if the fix is going to remain in place. I tend to remunerate the player in some other way to keep them happy, but in general this has been a good way to tweak things on the fly.

Also, I have a general rule to adjust campaign elements slowly, and I tend to lean toward the "nothing permanent" rule. This rule simply dictates that it is best not to introduce new (DM-created) campaign elements that are permanent and can't easily be removed from circulation. For me, it is always comforting to know that you're one disjunction spell away from removing your new item problem if it happens, and people are generally a lot less upset about losing an item than they are a character.

Disjuncting a character is often messy. I wouldn't recommend that.

Is Your Home-Grown Prestige Class satisfying? Find out now!

Answer these simple questions to determine if your home-grown prestige class is satisfying to your target audience:

1. Question: Are the class abilities or features too simple or too complex?
   
   Correct answer: No. If your prestige class is too simple, chances are good that you will achieve the same results by simply rewarding the character with some magical item that will emulate the increased prowess that you desire (see the Weapons of Legend sourcebook for some great examples).
   
   If it is too complex, then you run the risk of overwhelming your player with too many decisions and even worse, you could introduce some wildly powerful combination of effects that could unbalance your game.
   
   
2. Question: Does the power level of this class make sense given the level, skill, and class prerequisite requirements?
   
   Correct Answer: Yes. Always be careful to balance the base character class requirements against common prestige classes of similar types. For example, the Duskblade is combination fighter/sorcerer. Notice that the class does neither area particularly well, and I am certain that is by design, so the fighter in you gets a taste of the magic, and the sorcerer in you gets to swing a sword around (and miss, at mid to higher levels). You shouldn't have a fighter capable of taking on the Tarrasque and a sorcerer that can curl Elminster's beard all in one package at the end, that would be what the common folk call unbalanced.
   
   Be sure to not overpower your prestige class just to add to the cool factor, or else you run the risk of having a single player character capable of "ruining the game" for everyone else with their superior skills.
   
   
3. Question: Does the player running your prestige class constantly ask you for an increase or adjustment?
   
   Correct Answer: No. If you have a certain player that is midway through your prestige class constantly asking for an adjustment of skills or prerequisites this can indicate that you got some permutation of your calculation incorrect. In addition to the "wow factor" of a prestige class, you should always aim for the "satisfying player experience" prerequisite that will make the cool class that you created fun to play.
   
   You don't always want to leave your audience (in this place your player) wanting more. Prestige classes should gain skill and renown commensurate with experience, and not be handicapped in some aspect so much that they cease to be fun.

Behind the Screen: Wrangling prestige classes at epic levels...

Tonight's topic may seem a bit tailored to a given rule set, but if you've hung around this long you understand that we are a predominantly D&D oriented crew around here. As previously mentioned, we are in the late stages of an epic level campaign and are learning many lessons from our course thus far, and today I would like to examine epic character development and the challenges that it poses to both player and Dungeon Master.

As always, my inspiration is my Lovely Assistant

Well, not assistant so much as wife, but still... earlier this week Stupid Ranger provided a look at motivation behind epic level character development that touched on many important aspects of planning an epic level character.

She did directly mention the need to keep your epic character exciting, and that is something that the DM may be able to help facilitate. The real quandary that I can see is what to do with a character that has worked very diligently down a specific "career path" but finds themselves at an end as they get up in levels. That character has attained all the ranks of a given prestige class, and having topped out those ranks they now are forced to look at other avenues to continue down.

An example from my own past

When I was a player, I had one such character that completed his prestige class. I had built the notion of this prestige class so deeply around my character that reverting back to standard class ranks was far too mundane and didn't even seem to make much sense given the progression of his personality. I decided to take another path: knowing that my DM was open to "out of the box" thinking I asked if I could forge an additional prestige class (of course, pending his approval) that would heighten my character's skills beyond the published prestige class.

After several revisions, the result was satisfactory and the character finished out the campaign on his own unique road which happened to mean a lot to both the character and to me as a player.

Don't be afraid of this stuff, but be careful all the same!

As DM's, I challenge you all to be open to working with your players to do their characters the most service. If you're worried about game balance, simply take a look at modifying an existing prestige class to suit your needs, adjusting skills/feats/spells/effects as necessary. If you are comfortable with crafting an entirely unique prestige class, allow your players that option. Be very careful to keep game balance in mind with either of these options, make sure you're not over- or under-powering your abilities as you look at further development.

As players, don't be afraid to ask your DM to work with you if you feel that it makes more sense to allow your character to continue going down the prestige path that they have forged.

The worst they can say is no! (Unless they decide to devour your character using vorpal rabbits, which is always an attractive option.)

Behind the Screen: Spicing up tavern antics...