Or: A man's journey through the metaphysical intelligent mushroom patch.
Make the giant shrieking mushroom endearing, the otyugh in a state of quantum flux, and that chest full of ambiguity. Not all DM's have the free time and/or creativity to pump out a solid six hours of coherent thought that mimics fantasy, so pre-mades are a God send, but they can get really dull. By the time I'm done with a module or standalone I will have read it anyway from 2-5 times depending on its length and complexity of encounters. Those who're actually playing it will only have heard it once, and perhaps the writers at Paizo or WoTC did a perfect job in its composition, but to the DM who has read it myriad times or merely realizes the monotony mantle setting in this chunk of adventure needs to get weird fast. If you're any good at it a spontaneous DM can really help keep premades dynamic. I'd love to be able to run a sandbox where spontaneity and yet still interesting encounters takes place, but right now I can't do that. So have the some of both realities, keep the adventures linear and manufactured, but remember once in awhile that you're the one true say in the setting and you know what sometimes mushrooms need to be as smart as your average eight year old. For whatever reason sometimes throw a monkey wrench into normality, it might tick some people off to have their gold and shinies randomly stolen but not you.
Sunday, February 19, 2012
Monday, November 21, 2011
Dice
I love dice. They are simple herald's of fate, life, death and the physical embodiment of random herself. They've gotten me through critical strikes, plagues, and even a math test (don't ask). Realistically you'll need a full set for every player. I've played with one set shared among all players and so long as the group is small you might get a full set of the seven to work. Well technically if you use some basic division and ignoring the d"100" you only really only need a d12, d8, and a d20, and I guess if you worked with some probabilities you could play with only a d20. And technically with a computer you can find dice rolling programs so you really don't need any dice at all... Sorry, I got off track there for a minute.
Now realistically each player needs at least a full set. Rogues will need a pile of d6's and depending on what kind of character you're playing you might want more. Rolling and interpreting dice takes time so it's your job to maximize money spent on dice/ time spent rolling them. It might not take long to roll 2d6 with only one d6 but once you need to start rolling 5d4 for magic missiles you're gonna want to pick up some more dice. If its a one time influx of dice needed you can usually just nab an extra from a fellow player for a second without them noticing.
DMing's another story entirely. Since you're going to be rolling more dice in weirder combinations a starting DM's going to need at least two full sets of dice. That will deal with a lot of monsters quickly but just in case I usually have three to four sets behind my screen, or at least two and several extra d20s. Depending on what you're running your needs might change. Percentages are fine using two d10's but if you're running a plague campaign or a random romp through the wilderness invest in a zocchihedron (go look it up, its not perfect but its still darn cool) or learn how to get a random percent on your calculator/ computer. Also pack a big fat coin in your dice bag, it'll speed up 50/50 chances. I know these sound like pretty minor minimalistic time savers but after 6 hours of the same drawn out encounter you'll want to get quickly to the players' turns so they don't lose interest. Trust me I'm a self-proclaimed doctor.
Now realistically each player needs at least a full set. Rogues will need a pile of d6's and depending on what kind of character you're playing you might want more. Rolling and interpreting dice takes time so it's your job to maximize money spent on dice/ time spent rolling them. It might not take long to roll 2d6 with only one d6 but once you need to start rolling 5d4 for magic missiles you're gonna want to pick up some more dice. If its a one time influx of dice needed you can usually just nab an extra from a fellow player for a second without them noticing.
DMing's another story entirely. Since you're going to be rolling more dice in weirder combinations a starting DM's going to need at least two full sets of dice. That will deal with a lot of monsters quickly but just in case I usually have three to four sets behind my screen, or at least two and several extra d20s. Depending on what you're running your needs might change. Percentages are fine using two d10's but if you're running a plague campaign or a random romp through the wilderness invest in a zocchihedron (go look it up, its not perfect but its still darn cool) or learn how to get a random percent on your calculator/ computer. Also pack a big fat coin in your dice bag, it'll speed up 50/50 chances. I know these sound like pretty minor minimalistic time savers but after 6 hours of the same drawn out encounter you'll want to get quickly to the players' turns so they don't lose interest. Trust me I'm a self-proclaimed doctor.
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
Horses and Houses and Boats, Oh My!
Bam! Gauntlets of Ogre's Strength +x, Mithral Full Plate, and Belts of Healing are favorites of of any good adventuring party but these are only the transparent loves of the combat-loving ruffian. Behind the scenes players need a lot of stuff. Obviously food and water are needed constantly (unless your DM is nice or doesn't care) but from 1 to level 20 thousands of gold pieces are spent on all sorts of non combat related expenses. Socialism is fine but devoting the tiniest share of the loot to expenses helps. Lodging is big, if your DM's evil sleeping under the stars will grant you an early breakfast of gelatinous cube so long term thoughts on beds are a must. Apartments are dirt cheap in awful parts of the city but make your own guild house. If you don't mind converting a bunch try the 3.0 Stronghold Builder's Guidebook for ideas and base prices but your sourcebooks have basic info and Campaign settings should come up with more lodging options. Try designing your own castle for once, its very satisfying.
Unless you're agoraphobic I suppose you'll need some transportation as well. Easy answer for overland storage is to get a horse or five. One for riding, 2 for storage, 1 testing for traps, and a fifth for tax-returns --whatever you want. They're cheap to feed and at those early levels when a bag of holding is either too expensive or too small they're economically worth it. Alternatively get something big n' nasty which can work all purpose. Run over to the Talenta plains and wrangle a dinosaur or find yourself an axebeak, whatever works for you. Running a campaign in Eberron I found it helped to have the players keep a carriage or some other sort of moving platform. A stable base gives you speed, some protection, and a place to call home.
Oh and boats, those I could write a book on. Boats in RPG's are my life's work. I'm going to get back to you on boats.
Unless you're agoraphobic I suppose you'll need some transportation as well. Easy answer for overland storage is to get a horse or five. One for riding, 2 for storage, 1 testing for traps, and a fifth for tax-returns --whatever you want. They're cheap to feed and at those early levels when a bag of holding is either too expensive or too small they're economically worth it. Alternatively get something big n' nasty which can work all purpose. Run over to the Talenta plains and wrangle a dinosaur or find yourself an axebeak, whatever works for you. Running a campaign in Eberron I found it helped to have the players keep a carriage or some other sort of moving platform. A stable base gives you speed, some protection, and a place to call home.
Oh and boats, those I could write a book on. Boats in RPG's are my life's work. I'm going to get back to you on boats.
Saturday, October 8, 2011
PC Death
The death of a player is something that all gaming groups have to deal with at some point. Whether it is due to malicious DMing, poor rolls, or just plain old stupid roleplaying, there are a couple of things that need to be considered.
A) Can the body be recovered?
This is a pretty big thing when you think about it, as most forms of resurrection require the body (or at least some chunks of it) to work. This also matters for the items the body had on them; if the player wants to make a new character after death, but the party still has access to everything the dead PC had on it, what is the DM to do? I really feel that the players and DM should, right then and there, make an agreement on whether or not to take items and leave them.
B) Does the player want to be resurrected, or do they want to make a new character?
In a reality, death is a pretty annoying thing to have happen as a PC. From experience I can tell you that it makes you feel like the character that you built is weak, and that you should build a new character. This should be avoided; it's more than likely that you died not due to character weakness, but to a few bad dice rolls or bad situation that escalated beyond the party's control. Stick to the character, it's part of the game.
C) This is an odd one; did they die epicly?
I know for a fact that, after a sufficiently epic death (see Gandalf vs Balrog) that I wouldn't want to be resurrected, and that I would be perfectly happy making a new character after that, so that the legend could live on.
Well, that's my opinion on PC death, more may be added later. For that one guy reading this, I'll be sporadically putting more stuff onto here.
A) Can the body be recovered?
This is a pretty big thing when you think about it, as most forms of resurrection require the body (or at least some chunks of it) to work. This also matters for the items the body had on them; if the player wants to make a new character after death, but the party still has access to everything the dead PC had on it, what is the DM to do? I really feel that the players and DM should, right then and there, make an agreement on whether or not to take items and leave them.
B) Does the player want to be resurrected, or do they want to make a new character?
In a reality, death is a pretty annoying thing to have happen as a PC. From experience I can tell you that it makes you feel like the character that you built is weak, and that you should build a new character. This should be avoided; it's more than likely that you died not due to character weakness, but to a few bad dice rolls or bad situation that escalated beyond the party's control. Stick to the character, it's part of the game.
C) This is an odd one; did they die epicly?
I know for a fact that, after a sufficiently epic death (see Gandalf vs Balrog) that I wouldn't want to be resurrected, and that I would be perfectly happy making a new character after that, so that the legend could live on.
Well, that's my opinion on PC death, more may be added later. For that one guy reading this, I'll be sporadically putting more stuff onto here.
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
Why you need to run Tomb of Horrors
One word: Catharsis.
A good DM does nothing but keep their PC's alive. A good %95 percent of the time none of your players will die and after level 10 the chance only goes down to %85 percent tops depnding on what kind of a game you're running. And yes every single goblin you play is trying to kill the PCs but in reality if by some horrible will of God the PC should be on the brink of death by the hands of my CR 1/8 toad I can assure you the DM will find a way to save you the embarassment.
For this reason the Tomb of Horrors is beautiful. Not only can the Tomb be easily found online legal and free for most any version (cept 4.0 but that's running around $20 on Amazon) but it was originally written by the gaming messiah Gary Gygax himself. Furthermore the sad sorry lot that calls themselves players will die by their own hand. Not to give a single piece of the dungeon away the players will die. They are tasked with complex traps and puzzles and a few nasty monsters that will destroy the sorry lot of animated meatbags. Best part of their demises will be the fact that there are always hints to there upcoming dooms and even then PC's will usually be granted one free save before they are devoured by howler monkeys. And when those howler monkeys picked the last shiny kidney stone from your sorry remains the DM will begin to silently giggle behind their screen.
Now the extreme difficulty of this dungeon does give some issues for up and coming players. Its suggested for 4-6 lvl 9 players but higher level players can't hurt especially because much of their success hinges on their own metagaming common sense. Since the PC's will die, maybe all at once and sometimes their corpses and gear can never be recovered, you'll have to make some sort of societal contract. This isn't hard to do, as Dungeon Master you will receive the catharsis of having your howler monkeys eat the PC's entitled corpses and in return the PC's will get revived at no cost, they will only lose the gear they found in the tomb, or perhaps most logical the PC's build temporary, expendable characters just for fun.
If you're a DM at least read it you'll at least get some nice ideas for your next personal dungeon crawl.
A good DM does nothing but keep their PC's alive. A good %95 percent of the time none of your players will die and after level 10 the chance only goes down to %85 percent tops depnding on what kind of a game you're running. And yes every single goblin you play is trying to kill the PCs but in reality if by some horrible will of God the PC should be on the brink of death by the hands of my CR 1/8 toad I can assure you the DM will find a way to save you the embarassment.
For this reason the Tomb of Horrors is beautiful. Not only can the Tomb be easily found online legal and free for most any version (cept 4.0 but that's running around $20 on Amazon) but it was originally written by the gaming messiah Gary Gygax himself. Furthermore the sad sorry lot that calls themselves players will die by their own hand. Not to give a single piece of the dungeon away the players will die. They are tasked with complex traps and puzzles and a few nasty monsters that will destroy the sorry lot of animated meatbags. Best part of their demises will be the fact that there are always hints to there upcoming dooms and even then PC's will usually be granted one free save before they are devoured by howler monkeys. And when those howler monkeys picked the last shiny kidney stone from your sorry remains the DM will begin to silently giggle behind their screen.
Now the extreme difficulty of this dungeon does give some issues for up and coming players. Its suggested for 4-6 lvl 9 players but higher level players can't hurt especially because much of their success hinges on their own metagaming common sense. Since the PC's will die, maybe all at once and sometimes their corpses and gear can never be recovered, you'll have to make some sort of societal contract. This isn't hard to do, as Dungeon Master you will receive the catharsis of having your howler monkeys eat the PC's entitled corpses and in return the PC's will get revived at no cost, they will only lose the gear they found in the tomb, or perhaps most logical the PC's build temporary, expendable characters just for fun.
If you're a DM at least read it you'll at least get some nice ideas for your next personal dungeon crawl.
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
Sunday, September 25, 2011
My Kingdom for a Table
The physical environment for where you're playing means a lot. Easy answer is a dining room table, they're normally clean creatures that have a solid number of chairs loitering around them. Downside: they're right in the middle of house living and tend to be in active areas of the house, they're not always the most comfortable if the house is going for a colonial American feel, and that nice clean state needs to be resumed after you're done. No matter what you play on make sure its out of the way, having people constantly in and out and making noise can be infuriating. An attic, basement, odd tv room, or even an outside table on a non-windy summer day work nice. Like I said tables and chairs are preferred but if you're young playing on a low pile carpet (for dice rolling) with some friendly backrests is fine just make sure your DM has some defense against higher altitude players peaking over your screen. Other things to consider when finding a space are proximity to a bathroom, is there a TV in the room for breaks/distractions, and definitely lighting. Try out a couple places and be sure to be flexible, its nice having all your books laid out neatly before hand with chips already on the table but if your players want to play out on the deck go for it.
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