There are those days… when we really just don’t have the energy… when real life just seems so overwhelming, how can we ever enjoy ourselves when the rest of the party is counting on us? How do we survive when our muse escapes us?

I have been suffering a distinct lack of motivation, and I firmly blame the absence of my muse. I haven’t gotten fully into the 4-years-in-the-future campaign. And I haven’t been particularly moved to create an inspiring post to share with you all. So here’s how I’m trying to win back my muse:

1. Reading inspirational literature. Not sunshine & light inspirational. D&D inspirational. I’ve recently discovered R.A. Salvatore’s Forgotten Realms novels… I know, about 20 years after the rest of the population. But nevertheless, they have helped me remember all the awesomeness of D&D, and inspire me to get out there and roll some dice.

2. Reading other blogs. While I’m not a DM myself, I read a lot of the DM blogs… Dungeon Mastering dot com, Treasure Tables, Chatty DM, and many, many, many others. And they inspire me by reminding me that the game isn’t just about me, it’s about everyone else, including the DM.

So, what else can you recommend for finding my muse?

Before I get into this post, I must come clean: in younger years, I was a Halloween FREAK. Monster movies, legends, haunted houses, trick-or-treating… I was in for all of it. Then, in 1995, the mood left me entirely. I couldn’t get excited about the holiday any more (I hadn’t trick-or-treated for at least 3 years at that point, but it hadn’t stopped me yet) and I couldn’t muster anything more than a passing handwave as I handed kids their hyper-sugar haul.

I never have gotten to the bottom of why this is, but nonetheless I find my thoughts returning to suspense and horror this year.

Is there a way to do this right?

I have made several attempts at suspense and horror in some of my campaigns, and I am sad to say that I am a better consumer of this genre than I am a creator. All of my attempts generally failed, some spectacularly, and I have pretty much written off any attempt at being able to do this genre justice myself, but I have seen it done.

Our college DM provided us with some of the most chilling scenes of torture that I have beheld since, and he used many classic elements.

Isolation

By machinations of plot, the characters arrived in a situation where they were isolated from one another and stripped of their weapons and abilities (spellcasters had their hands broken in a grisly fashion). This not only removed most normal means of diffusing the situation, but also heightened the sense of urgency for the other characters that were within earshot of the grisly acts that would occur.

Specific, Terrible Pain

Like any good torture film, the DM went on to act individually on one member of our party (played by our very own Stupid Ranger) and explained the acts of torture in such gory detail that it still makes Stupid Ranger cringe to this day when it is mentioned.

The vivid use of specifics and the descriptions that the DM chose to expand upon was what really painted the scene. It was made even more real by the fact that the rest of the characters did not know who or what was causing the anguished cries, nor could they really do much to effect the situation. After some vain attempts to break free ended in failure, the characters resigned themselves to the scenario which gave the DM license to really get inside the characters heads. This is what made the entire scene so horrifying.

Suspended in-game reality

This was done entirely outside of the realm of a system or rules, it was all storytelling. Knowing when and how to craft a situation that can exist outside of the system of rules is a tricky thing, especially when your characters can possess skills such as bluff and diplomacy that can seriously screw with a horrific scene.

This is not a skill that I have mastered, in fact I have extreme difficulty in making a situation that leaves so few paths out that I can exact my plan of suspense, fear, or intrigue. Matters become even worse when the players can see the plot coming, and have mentally prepared themselves for whatever badness was about to happen. That’s when out of character comments can really ruin the mood, and I don’t have much good advice for getting around situations like that.

My trouble with terror

My trouble with successfully executing a horror or suspense scene is usually the drawn out system of rules, coupled with the fact that obfuscating details or creating unseen twists usually leads to player frustration and disengagement in our group.

A campaign or two back, my co-DM ran a Call of Cthulhu campaign that was good, however the Fear system in that setting often left the players feeling a little cold. The setting itself was very intriguing and the storyline that he was running good, but when having to experience paranormal activities devolved down to a “make a fear check or lose it” roll it seemed to kick me right out of enjoying the storyline.

Has anyone had success applying a rule set to a horror or suspense type of setting? Are there any other key elements that helps drive the spook factor of a campaign through the roof?

When I was growing up, I couldn’t get enough sci-fi and fantasy. And the cheesier, the better. I remember many nights at my grandmother’s house watching Troma movies until 4am. Most of the things that happened in these movies didn’t make a damn bit of sense, but I loved them anyway. I’m not sure when it happened, but somewhere between then and now I found myself having more trouble suspending my disbelief when something goofy or unrealistic happens. (Which is kind of tragic, considering I’m a big Star Trek fan!)

I’ve played D&D a very long time, and for many years I never really gave a second thought to how combat worked. Then I read some passage in the 1st Edition PHB that talked about how a character’s hit points reflect a character’s toughness and experience in avoiding damage. I thought to myself, that’s kinda silly. And doesn’t Armor Class handle that sort of thing instead? This trend continued, and I began to notice more and more weird things that just didn’t mesh right with how combat actually works.

It must really suck to be an assassin in D&D. Zero-level targets are fine, you can kill them in one shot and sneak off into the night. But to kill a high-level PC…. geez, they’d need 20 minutes and a quiver full of arrows with explosive tips. And for their target to be unconscious already. All this just by virtue of him having enough hitpoints to soak the damage of a single attack.

And come on — SIX SECONDS for a combat round? Any idiot drunk enough to flail his arms can throw 10 to 12 seperate attacks in six seconds. But what do I know…. maybe that bar down the street is secretly training epic level fighters?

To Kill With One Blow

As we’ve mentioned on occasion here, all of us here at Stupid Ranger have some martial arts experience. This definitely does not help matters, because we have a lot more experience with hand to hand combat than the average joe. For YEARS, I’ve thought it silly that punches do nonlethal damage without the Improved Unarmed Combat feat. Sure, a trained person might have an easier time landing a punch, but that doesn’t mean some 300lb angry redneck at a bar isn’t going to push your off button with a big heymaker. A punch delivered by a skilled person causes a shockwave that can do all sorts of nasty stuff to one’s internal organs. I don’t doubt in the least that a hard enough punch to the head would kill a man, or at least cause him serious brain damage. (It’s getting past that pesky armor class that’s the problem.)

The nature of real combat is frequently that one hit does the job, especially if a weapon is involved. The blow might not kill the person outright, but a well-placed hit will end the fight (leaving the victor the option to coup-de-grace, if they so choose). This is what we’re taught to do in self-defense, and even when we’re sparring little weeny techniques are not counted. The Japanese term we use for this is ikken hissatsu, which means “to kill with one blow”.

I always thought it’d be completely awesome to have D&D or a videogame behave realistically in this way. That is, until I came across a game called Bushido Blade on the Playstation back in 1997. This game was all about realistic samurai swordfighting. One hit usually killed your opponent, and if it did not, it injured them somehow. And by “injured”, I don’t mean “his hitpoints decreased”. I mean “his leg doesn’t work anymore” or “he lost an arm so he can’t swing his sword”. As you may have guessed, if you got injured, you were very lucky if you won the fight. And usually the fights lasted about 15 seconds — 12 of which you spent approaching the opponent.

I thought it was completely amazing for the first half hour or so. Then I alternated between being really bored and impossibly frustrated (depending on how difficult my opponent was). And the matches were over so fast that it became a pain to start the game again and again. In short, it was an amazing idea on paper — but the execution left much to be desired. Applied to D&D, realistic combat would mean (like Bushido Blade) very few hitpoints or keeping track of injuries and their corresponding effects. And very short battles. And lots, lots more character death — which is really undesirable for a roleplayer (like me) who invests himself in a character.

Crash

The point of all this is, if combat was realistic in D&D it would be a vastly different beast than it is now. And I can’t honestly say it would be more fun. Need another example?

I don’t think D&D combat addresses the issue of adrenaline crashes at all. I can spar with Dante all night and usually we’re tired but we can go an hour or more and be basically OK. A real battle is a lot different — the body gives you a real nice hit of adrenaline which helps you out for a minute or so, and then you crash. HARD. While I haven’t been in many street fights, tournaments are frequently scary enough to give a lot of competitors the adrenaline crash. You drag butt to the point where you can’t breathe and you can’t hit anything to save your life. In D&D terms, I would say a CON check or a Fort save is necessary every round or you start getting fatigued.

Would it be fun to have your whole party panting and wheezing with large penalties to hit and saves during a long and protracted battle? Maybe, but I suspect not. The rules for combat have been balanced and they work — maybe not perfectly all the time, but they make for usually-just-long-enough epic battles. And you don’t want some random halfling to sneak up and shiv your 18th level barbarian with his tiny dagger, rupturing his pancreas and killing him in one shot. That would suck. However, if you’re playing an assassin — here’s hoping the DM sends you after a zero-level target or likes to waive the standard combat rules for the plot’s sake.

Que Sera Sera

After all this, I feel inclined to just suspend my disbelief for awhile, accept that the way the world works in D&D in a little different, and let combat happen. (At least, until my character dies and my rules lawyer decides to start issuing subpoenas!)

Whenever I sit down to plan the next session, I find that I have often collected a bumper crop of half-ideas. Sometimes these ideas are formed up enough to become a new content episode, however sometimes they are a result of inspiration from other media, movies, or just random thoughts that have bounced into my head in the past week.

Crafting halves into wholes

As I have mentioned in previous Behind the Screen articles, crafting a good hook is paramount to being able to use these half-ideas. I have found that often, the right hook cannot be engineered and it must be left to chance. My process is to take my half-ideas, put as much meat as I possibly can to them without a setup and file them away.

I usually let my players help set me up with hooks, and many times they deliver. Unfortunately though, I do have a fairly sizable backlog of ideas that just don’t quite fit my current storyline or plot but could very easily be repurposed for immediate use should the opportunity arise.

A great example of this would be a situation where I would come up with a few nautical themed plot elements, but I’m on a “travel across the countryside” point in my campaign. Our characters eventually came across a seaport and decided to try to commission a boat to help speed them to their next location, and BAM! out came the nautical elements even though I had not planned them before.

One of my favorite sayings: Just go with it.

This method of preparation works fairly well for me, however sometimes the ol’ gears get ground to a halt when I have nothing but half-ideas to go off of and no obvious hooks. Does anyone else use a similar approach, and if so how do you get past this stumbling block?

It’s so cute that you may need to make some sort of Fort save just to gaze upon it. If you’re feeling confident, you may gaze upon the preview.

I love my D&D way of life, but there was a time not so long ago that I didn’t know anything about the game. I was introduced to D&D back in college, and in the beginning, I wasn’t too worried. But then, when I moved out of my comfortable little group into a much bigger group, things changed, and I was a nervous wreck.

Round 1: The Introduction

I started out with just my husband (then fiance) Dante, and our friend, Chuck, who was the DM. Just the three of us… so if I screwed up, I wasn’t too embarrassed. I had a lot of random knowledge from miscellaneous myth systems, folk lore and legends; I figured I could handle the story side of things, though I was a little nervous about the mechanics of it all. After consulting the PHB, I opted to play an elven bard, so the guys helped me roll up my character and place my stats and all those little things that go into creating a character.

Dante & Chuck made things so easy for me in those first couple of session that I was brave enough to accept another friend (Boyle, another long time gamer) into our little group. The very first Evensbrook campaign was my very first campaign, and I had a marvelous time saving the world from the evil Drow.

Round 2: Big Isn’t Always Better

While our little campaign was my only campaign, Dante & Boyle were playing in another campaign that Chuck was running with a bigger group. Both stories ended up about the same time, and they guys encouraged me to join in with the rest of the group for the new campaign. And that’s when the nerves really set in for me.

This group was composed of long-time players from the early days of D&D; I felt like a D&D-infant having just started in the early days of 3.0. And I distinctly remember the fears PM described: I was sure I didn’t know enough of the rules, but I was more sure I didn’t know enough of the everyday-kind of D&D things that we would encounter. I was terribly afraid of embarrassing myself in front of the seven or so guys I didn’t know very well.

The Verdict

In the end, I didn’t make a huge fool of myself, but probably because I’m such a shy person. I played a support character; I stuck to the bard class into which I had already been introduced and offered support in the form of healings and Inspire Courage bonuses. I didn’t put myself in the spotlight, mostly because I was nervous about saying or doing something wrong, but in the end, it didn’t matter.

I came to realize throughout that campaign that all of these guys – most of whom I did not know prior to the campaign – were willing to put up with my inexperience because, in the end, we were all there to enjoy ourselves.

The Moral of the Story

I highly encourage new players to get their feet wet because it was one of the best things that ever happened to me. Stick with it, play more than one session at least, and try to suspend your nervousness. Don’t let the rules scare you; in the end, it’ll be just fine. Have fun, and welcome to the family. 🙂

This week we have received some positive feedback relating to Stupid Ranger’s Orientation series, so I decided to provide a few helpful hints on introducing new players for the Dungeon Master’s side of the equation.

Don’t make them feel stupid

In most areas of the Nerd Pantheon, new people are made to feel inadequate. It is basically a power trip from those who maximize their involvement in a subculture, and special care must be taken not to alienate people who are making their first foray into our azure waters. Oftentimes, new people to roleplaying are work acquaintences, friends, significant others, or relatives and none of these people will respond well to being made fun of.

Before you start in with cries of “DUH!” and “that’s obvious” I would have you stop and do some self-examination. I can distinctly remember a group of my own friends berating someone that screwed up Star Trek with Star Wars, to the point where they ended up saying “you guys are too intense for me” and left.

In this same vein, expect to have to explain the basic rules many times, including identifying what a d20 is, and which is a d8 and a d10, and various other commonplace elements of our hobby. This should be done with extreme patience, with special care not to sound exasperated if they don’t get it right quick enough to suit you. Being new at something that you want to get into SUCKS, and support is a nice thing to have.

Give them some things to do they can handle

When bringing a brand new player on board, it is good to give them some simple tasks to do that will let them cut their teeth with the gaming system, roleplaying, and basic system elements that they will be expected to handle.

My all time favorite multi-user dungeon (MUD) Gemstone IV has a system that indoctrinates new players by having guided assistance in simple tasks like moving around the town, purchasing gear, interacting with NPCs, and fighting simple creatures (in their case, it was rats). These concepts can be creatively applied as an episode in the plot that can draw the new player into the group, while having them play out some mundane activities to get them used to living in the world that you have created.

Have them interact with an NPC and be sent on an errand to purchase some supplies, and jump them with a Rodent Of Unusual Size and walk them through the combat. They’ll get the jitters out of the way and feel awesome about themselves for having beaten something, and then meet them up with the rest of the party. This is merely an example, any focused attention on getting them comfortable using the rules is crucial.

Give them a partner

This may go along with the previous point, but you should be sure to provide the new player a partner, both in-game and out of game. The in-game partner should take the form of an NPC and will be there to bail out the character should that ROUS get a particularly nasty bite in (this shouldn’t be required, but we’ll cover that later), or help the player to navigate around the town and find the appropriate location where they need to be.

The out of game partner should be there to help them with game mechanics, such as where on their character sheet to find armor class, attack bonus, skill checks, etc. They should be willing to help them determine what to add to their Spot check, and what to do when something unexpected happens. This will make them feel like they’re not all by themselves, which is a powerful thing in the early stages of gaming.

Finally, cut them a break

This is a special message to all you elitist DMs out there: don’t be an asshole. If you pride yourself on running a realistic campaign where conscripts die readily and its every man for themselves and you intend to apply these rules to everyone that plays, chances are very good that you are an asshole and you should not be allowed around brand new players. If you enjoy having NPCs swoop in in the last second and squash the bad thing to death every time, please see the previous statement.

We’re looking for a positive psychological experience out of their first encounters, do what you can to make that happen. It is of *utmost* importance that new players have fun in their first game session. I don’t have real scientific evidence to back this up, but I’m willing to wager that 90% of new players won’t come back for session #2 if they didn’t have one shining moment of feeling as if they did something awesome the first gaming session.

Use your option as a DM to fudge rolls such that the ROUS doesn’t crit them to death their first time. If it does happen to get them into low hit points, all of a sudden it had a blood disease and the next strike will render it unconscious. These players know nothing of our ways, they don’t know that most creatures have X hit points and one shot couldn’t possibly have killed it, they’ll just feel like they squashed that scary rat and life will be good for them.

These recommendations work for seasoned players too

Nothing is preventing you from applying some of these concepts with your seasoned players as well. You may not need to explain mechanics to the players that are longer in tooth, but you should still strive to give them that satisfying moment in every session.

I know there are some other seasoned vet DMs out there… how do you handle brand new players? Any recommendations that I didn’t cover?

When I was in high school, I played D&D almost exclusively with my best friend at the time. And since I was 13, I got some seriously amazing stupid ideas.

A Tale of Greed and Tragedy

I had just discovered multiclassing, and I decided to go for the gold. My character at the time was a Fighter/Cleric/Magic-User named Presto Perfecto, and he was completely awesome. Well, except for that part where it took him 3 times as long to advance as a normal single-classed character. My friend was playing a Fighter/Illusionist, and hated the slow advancement as well. We played these characters for awhile and then just couldn’t stand the burden of slow advancement anymore. So we did what any rational young teenage nerds would do: attempt to rules lawyer.

The plan was simple: we’d found a passage in the DMG that said 1 Experience Point is equal to 1 gold piece. Since it was just me and him, and neither of us was really “the DM”, we could simply come up with a lame exuse to give our characters as much treasure as we wanted to get as much XP as we wanted.

The problem was, I’d also recently gotten a copy of the Manual of the Planes. It was there that the seeds for Presto’s eventual downfall were sewn.

Thar’s Minerals in Them Thar Planes

If 1GP = 1XP, then jewels were worth a lot of GP. And what has more jewels than the Quasi-Elemental Plane of Mineral? So we decided to mine it for jewels and gems. We decided on some “standard” amount each mine would yield, and then set about drawing maps of our huge encampments, detailing where all our mines were.

At the end of the day, my friend and I compared maps, and he had drawn his mines significantly smaller than my mines, and there was consequently way more room on the paper for his. Thusly, his character (by our detailed calculations), was about a 5100th level Fighter / 5096th level Illusionist, and poor presto was only a 3000th level fighter / 2850th level Cleric / 2785th level Magic-User. My friend then declared his character evil and started ravaging the land, his former friend and rival Presto no longer strong enough to be a threat.

I was, of course, powerless to stop him by drawing more mines on a new paper. That would be against the rules.

Share Your Silly D&D Story

I could really stretch for a moral to this story, but there really isn’t one. I was 13, dumb as a post, and loving every minute of it. I guess it just goes to show you can have intense fun playing D&D even when you’re doing it horribly, horribly wrong. This is a prime example of why our D&D group consists primarily of people over 25 – so nobody dies.

At any rate, we’d love to hear your ridiculous D&D exploits, so share your tales with us! (Knowing I was not alone in my teenage stupidity might help me sleep at night.)

As you get accustomed to D&D as a way of life, you’ll find yourself creating many characters. And each time you start again, you’ll have to pick your race and class. We’ll explore your class options next time; today, we’re taking a look at your race options.

As detailed in Chapter 2 of the PHB, these are the 7 standard races:

1. Humans – no mysteries here. Humans are humans, with the same general characteristics you already know and love. They are considered very adaptable in the D&D realm, and as such, they gain 4 additional skill points and a bonus feat at first level. (Don’t worry, we’ll go over skills and feats in another Orientation session).

2. Dwarves – stone-working, ale-drinking, war-loving dwarves. Dwarves are shorter than humans, averaging 4 to 4-1/2 feet in height, but that doesn’t make them weak… oh, no. These guys and gals are hardy folk that can take a lot of damage; they have a +2 to their CON, but they have a -2 to their CHA; they’re not the most attractive of races, but then, they don’t have to be.

3. Elves – beautiful, and usually a little distant from others, these elves are not Santa’s helpers. They are often denizens of forested regions, living nearly as long as the trees around them. Elves are graceful, and as such, have +2 to their DEX, but, they are not the sturdiest of races, as reflected by the -2 to their CON.

4. Gnomes – thinkers and innovators, gnomes are inquisitive inventors with great senses of humor and an odd penchant for collecting names. Gnomes are shorter than humans, elves and dwarves, averaging 3 to 3-1/2 feet in height. Gnomes are hardy folk, like dwarves, and have the same +2 to CON; being smaller in stature, though, they have a -2 to STR.

5. Half-Elves – children from the marriages of humans and elves, half-elves live between these two races, not as adaptable as humans, not as graceful as elves. They don’t gain any bonuses to stats, but they don’t lose any either.

6. Half-Orcs – you may have guessed, half-orcs are the result of humans and orcs. Half-orcs are tall, short-tempered and not always personable, but they are strong. The have a +2 to STR, but a -2 to INT and -2 to CHA.

7. Halflings – mischievous and clever, halflings are curious and love adding to their collections, whatever those collections may be. Slightly shorter than gnomes, averaging around 3 feet in height, halflings are nevertheless very nimble; they have a +2 to their DEX, but a -2 to their STR.

As I’ve mentioned, many of these races have modifiers to their stats. After rolling your d6’s to determine your stats, as briefly mentioned in the previous Orientation session, you apply the modifiers for the race you’ve selected. But don’t worry about all that right now; we’ll review the steps for rolling up a character later, and I’ll remind you about these modifiers then.

Now, there are other benefits and drawbacks to each of these races, and they are all outlined in Chapter 2 of the PHB. I recommend now that you’ve had a bit of an overview, grab your (friend’s) copy and get a feel for the personalities and quirks, as well as the other racial traits, for each of these races.

Next time, we’ll start exploring the classes.

As my good buddy Vanir posted on Saturday, we had a problematic session. Problematic is kind… it sucked in Dolby Digital Surround Sound. What follows is an autopsy of what went wrong, and my thoughts on how to avoid it again in the future.

Lapses in Playing

As Vanir adequately detailed, we had a fairly long lapse in playing. This caused much off-topic discussion, despite the fact that we had a pre-game meal and plenty of time to socialize prior to game kickoff. I always do a player recap, and even that wasn’t enough to crack the indomitable wall of non-game chatter.

The only real solution I can see is to potentially physically change location, as was mentioned during the “Mastering Your GM-Fu” panel discussion this year. We could have our social time upstairs, then adjourn to the basement to play. Also, playing more would be a good balm for the situation, allowing the players to stay engaged because things are happening to their characters that they are concerned about.

Lapses in Judgement

My co-DM and I did a terrible job of planning during the week. Real Life had crept in, and we were busy or otherwise engaged and didn’t get a chance to even plant seeds from which the session would grow. This had lasted up until the time that we started the session, even our pre-game planning session didn’t break the writers block.

Unfortunately, with this campaign being new we’re still not quite through the prelude section, so my options for introducing episodic content are not plentiful. The only solution to this lapse in judgment is to plan early and more effectively.

This lack of planning was somewhat compounded by our characters collectively deciding to go off the rails and elect to ignore some very important information that was coming via a fairly obvious NPC messenger. Instead, they opted to craft another course of action more within their control, so I may get more practice DMing on the fly.

This was not necessarily a problem, it just throws some additional wrinkles into the plan moving forward. I suppose I could’ve blunt forced them down the path that we had expected them to take, but I disagree with that as a philosophy so we’ll have to get creative in responding to the player’s plan as it progresses.

Owning up and moving forward

Finally, the wrapup. I knew things had gone poorly, and some fun was had however it was obviously ill-planned and inelegant. So I did what any good DM would do: owned up to the fact that things were less than satisfactory and resolved to plan more diligently and come with “The Heat” next gaming session.

So I’ll open up the floor to comments: how do you handle an obviously bad gaming session? (And don’t tell me you never have them!)