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!
Over the past couple of weeks, the D&D Nerd has posted some great articles on D&D for Beginners. Regardless of whether you are introducing new players to 3.5 or waiting for 4E, these are some great articles to help explain the fundamentals and get new players into the game.
I encourage you to check out these articles if you are new to the game, or share them with someone who is.
D&D for Beginnings – Roleplaying 101
D&D for Beginners – Understanding Dice Notation
D&D for Beginners – Player vs. Character Knowledge
Beginner’s Guide to Creating a D&D Character
Enjoy!
This comic about Seinfeld characters playing D&D (mirror here, it’s getting Dugg) reminded me very much of this post on Seinfeldian magic items I did awhile back.
Seinfeld was never my favorite show in the universe, but I did watch it now and then and it did get me thinking a little this morning — rarely a character shows up on that show that isn’t put under a microscope and all their weird little idiosyncrasies examined in detail (and usually poked with a cattle prod, causing hilarity to ensue). I like it when D&D characters enjoy that same kind of character development. I frequently like it much more than I do the main plot of the story, which I’m sure is the source of at least six or seven aneurysms in Dante and the other DMs I’ve played with.
To wit: my favorite sessions are usually the first two or three, when the crap hasn’t hit the fan yet and we’re getting to know everyone, followed closely by the “break” sessions in the story where we usually follow one character’s personal story (which may or may not be woven into the main story). But barring those weird times when we’re all arguing about which direction to go because we can’t figure out the clues laid before us, those sessions where we’re not doing anything particularly “useful” per se are what I really look forward to, especially with a new character to play.
Making a character that has some strange personal idiosyncrasies, in addition to making everyday roleplay with your character more interesting, may have an impact on everyone’s lives (good or bad!) in much the same way that the folks on Seinfeld frequently have misadventures because they’re really freaking neurotic. I mean, they devoted half an episode to Kramer trying to defend himself from deadly birthday wishes. And I was enraptured.
I’m a believer in that the small stuff can be every bit as interesting as the epic. Characters should be more than a bunch of combat stat blocks! The difficulty, of course, is that as you get higher in level, the monsters you fight are optimized to be a challenge to people who are prepared to fight them. On several occasions (but especially with Bat Loaf), I’ve picked spells and items that weren’t particularly combat-friendly and it cost me. It’s just a fact of life that the vast, vast majority of D&D campaigns revolve around stuff killing other stuff and you need to keep that in mind before you go too overboard. If you don’t, you’ll quickly find yourself frustrated week after week.
But don’t abandon the fact that you have a character to play. DM’s — let them! And try not to dogpile in the end battle on the guy that picked Percussion to give a little atmosphere to his nightly trysts with the barmaids. Dante.
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:
- What is your go-to character class, and why?
- Have you ever played a pen and paper RPG remotely via the Internet, and how did that go for you?
- 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!
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?
I found this way-cool quiz to tell which dragon you are over at DungeonMastering:
Sun Dragon
In the war between good and evil, types take the side of the noble and good.
When it comes to the powers of Chaos vs. those of Law and Order, your inner dragon walks a fine line between Law and Chaos.
As far as magical tendancies, Your inner dragon has the ability to conquer the world of magic, but it will not be easy.
During combat situations, whether by spells or by claw, your inner dragon will do whatever it takes to get the job done.
Dragon Description:
During its adolescent stages, a Sun Dragon’s body begins to excrete an oily substance through it’s skin which burns slowly over time, like napalm. When it reaches this age, the Dragon is ignited by it’s elders. Sun Dragons are totally immune to fire.
After it is ignited, the Sun Dragon’s flames will continue to blaze for the whole of the dragon’s natural life span. Sun Dragons are extremely fierce in combat. The Sun Dragon is among the noblest breed of dragonkind.They are revered both for their ferocity in combat and their great wisdom.
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?
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.
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!
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!!
