As a DM prepares for each weekly meeting, its important that they consider the ongoing plot of their campaign. D&D is a form of collaborative storytelling and "story" is a vital part of a healthy campaign. The campaign plot is hard enough to track, but there can also be any number of side-plots affecting a party. Each of these plots is an "Arc:" the building blocks of a compelling story. Arcs come in different sizes and weave together to form the central story of the campaign. This week, I'm going to look at the different kinds of arcs.
Personal Arcs
Personal Arcs are neither the smallest nor the largest arcs in a campaign, but they have foundations that stretch into time before the "main" story gets started. A personal arc is the story of a specific character. When you get started, the size of a personal arc depends on how much effort the player was willing to put into their back story. Similarly, personal arcs can only grow if the player is willing to invest the energy to determine how their character reacts and is ultimately changed by the events of the campaign.
Encounter Arcs
Each encounter is a story, albeit a short one. The story of the average encounter is little more than "The party enters a room. Holy crap, monsters! The party exists the room." Every now and then, however, the stakes are a little higher. The encounter takes place on a rooftop or a platform slowly sinking into a lake of lava. The party may need to dispatch foes quickly or discretely to ensure the safety of a hostage. Once in a great while, the party will finally corner a hated foe for an epic battle to the death.
Quest Arcs
A Quest is a string of encounters that share a common purpose. Usually, this is a goal such as "recover the artifact," "find the missing person," or "get rid of that really big bear." The encounters that build into a quest arc tend to occur uninterrupted so that the goal or purpose can be fulfilled (or unfulfilled) as quickly as possible. On their own, quests do not contribute a tremendous amount to the campaign's story. When looked at together, however, one can see the tiny themes and hints that build into something greater.
Adventure Arcs
Adventure arcs are formed by quest and encounter arcs (and sometimes personal arcs) that share a common theme. The theme may be subtle, like a common monster type or more obvious, like a shared uniform. This theme will tie seemingly unrelated events together and point the party towards a greater foe. As the adventure arc continues, the party will learn more about their enemy and work towards a confrontation. These arcs tend to conclude after such a confrontation, but not before the party learns that it was all part of a greater plot.
Campaign Arcs
The campaign arc is the granddaddy of them all. It can and should bring together personal, quest, and adventure arcs into a cohesive story. As the party works through the campaign, this arc should always make appearances. The more disjointed events seem in the beginning, the better. As the story progresses, the characters should put together the pieces and realize what will be waiting for them at the end of their adventures. It should be apparent what's at stake should the heroes fail: nothing less than the end of the world as the characters know it.
Showing posts with label DMs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label DMs. Show all posts
Monday, July 18, 2011
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
Motivating Your Players
The Dungeon Master's Guide (and The Player's Strategy Guide) introduce the concept of "player motivations." These eight categories describe what a player is most looking for in a campaign. Any DM worth their salt can tell you the importance of tailoring your campaign to fit the playstyles at your table. Today, I'm going to share these eight motivations and give you an idea how you can work with (and against) these tendencies to create a more engaging game night.
The Actor
"I am Sir Edwin Von Nancypants and this is my ceremonial Toga-Robe."
The Actor is a player who doesn't just play their character, they are their character. Actors may speak in whatever accent they think their character would use or they may go all out and dress like their character. However they choose to express their motivations, Actors are looking to engage with the game world in a personal way.
Using the Motivator: Engaging Actors is easy; they do most of the work themselves. Make sure that you refer to the player by their character's name and make an effort to hide any negative feelings you have towards this play style. It's important to make sure that the rest of your players also keep their stigmas in check. Wearing strange outfits and speaking in character may seem like LARPing behavior, but it's still a valid way to play.
The Explorer
"I known it's just listed as 'Room and Board,' but what does the food taste like?"
The Explorer wants to know about the way the game world ticks. The descriptions of people and places aren't just filler for them, they're part of the gaming experience. Explorers will want to know the details of the lost city they've found and will want to examine every last crevice of the dungeon. When the party finds an item of note, it will probably be the Explorer who holds on to it.
Using the Motivation: When you build your campaign world, spend a little extra time thinking of the details of people and places. Your Explorer will really appreciate a couple extra lines of description and will love it when you can answer their questions about the history of a place. Explorers care about the details and are likely top remember them, so you can use certain colors or ornamentation to indicate what kingdom a person or place belongs to.
The Instigator
"I sure hope whatever is living here doesn't pop out of nowhere and totally pwnsauce us!"
The Instigator is a troublemaker. The reason may be that they're only interested in conflict or that they just bore really easily. Whatever their excuse, Instigators get a kick out of making things happen. They may pick fights with especially dangerous-looking enemies or have a habit of stealing from everyone the party meets. Whatever they do, it tends to send the party into conflicts.
Using the Motivation: Like Actors, Instigators do a lot of the work themselves. The hardest part about keeping them entertained in your game is planning for all of the stunts they may pull. If you want to punish the Instigator for being so reckless, remember that the rest of your party will be dragged along, too. Make sure that you don't lock the entire group into a no win situation because one of them couldn't keep their hands to themselves. Consider having the wronged NPC challenge the reckless character to a one-on-one duel for honor.
The Power Gamer
"The attack does 24 damage, but I also get 2 damage for charging and 6 for..."
On the battlefield, the Power Gamer is a force to be reckoned with. This player gets their kicks by maximizing the efficiency of their character. Most often, this is represented by their efforts to get the most damage possible out of every attack, but it can also involve the pursuit of the highest AC or even an enormous bonus to a certain skill. Power Gamers love to optimize and may even use online forums to get the best possible build.
Using the Motivation: A lot of the pleasure a Power Gamer is looking for comes from the work they do in between meetings. At the table, the best thing you can do for them is to put them is those situations where they do their best work. Make sure you also include situations where all their planning falls flat, too. If the player has created an unstoppable juggernaut, make sure to have some skill challenges or traps where all that killing power is useless. This will give your non-Power Gamers space to showcase their own talents.
The Slayer
"Is it dead yet?"
The Slayer just likes to kill things. Their satisfaction is derived from facing difficult foes and sending them to the dirt. Slayers aren't interested in dialogue or overly wordy descriptions and will likely space out until something arrives that they can kill. They will likely play strikers and will go out of their way to provoke things into combat. If it looks alive, the Slayer probably wants to kill it.
Using the Motivation: What Slayers want is your average Hack and Slash adventure. Keep lining monsters up and they will be perfectly happy knocking them down. To really engage your Slayers, give them an enemy that they will really want to take out, but keep them from killing it for a little while. This can be as easy as creating an especially vile Big Bad and keeping them safe from bloodthirsty players with bodyguards and political ties. Before the Slayer can sink their weapons into them, they will have to prove to the public that this person actually deserved it.
The Storyteller
"If I can pull the sword out, will I be the next king?
The Storyteller engages with the ongoing events of the campaign and how their character fits into it. For the Storyteller, the far-reaching effects of their actions matter. They may ask you to repeat important plot points or to slow down while they take notes on events. What a Storyteller is looking for is a chance to use their knowledge of your plot to give their character an edge in becoming a part of it.
Using the Motivation: As with the Explorer, a little extra work goes a long way with the Storyteller. Work out how the actions of your players influence the world, both in the immediate and long-ranging ways. Give the characters the chance to work out threats to important NPCs and foil them. As they get higher in levels, make sure to have their reputation precede them. NPCs pointing them out in a crowd, Lords asking for them by name, or even children arguing in a back ally about who gets to pretend to be the Storyteller's character.
The Thinker
"Four stones of different colors arranged in a circle... FETCH MY THINKING CAP!"
The Thinker is actually pretty straightforward. This motivation loves puzzles, coded messages, and fights that reward careful planning. The Thinker takes their time when planning actions, preferring to see what their opponents will do before making their own move. Thinkers get a kick from the strategy element of combat, working to outmaneuver foes before stabbing them to death.
Using the Motivation: To really get to your Thinker, you're going to have to think outside the traditional DnD mold. What Thinkers really want is problems that allow them to apply their real life knowledge. When designing a dungeon, include traps that can be avoided by a particularly observant person. Have doors that unlock following a small Mastermind-like game. In short, create obsticles that require more than dice throws to surpass.
The Watcher
"If you're having a good time, I'm having a good time."
The Watcher doesn't play for exclusively their own enjoyment, but rather for the enjoyment of everyone else at the table. They have the most fun when the whole group is having a good time. A Watcher will rarely call attention to their own character, but will encourage the other players to do what they do best. Watchers may not always seem like they're participating actively in the game, but they will always keep the team together.
Using the Motivation: The Watcher is a motivation of an entirely different nature. The Watcher doesn't want to be singled out for any singular participation and you need to respect that. This is made especially difficult by the fact that all good DMs must be part Watcher themselves and players who are Watchers don't always look like they're having fun. Throw your Watchers some bait every now and then, but don't force the issue. Not everyone wants to be the next king, after all.
The Actor
"I am Sir Edwin Von Nancypants and this is my ceremonial Toga-Robe."
The Actor is a player who doesn't just play their character, they are their character. Actors may speak in whatever accent they think their character would use or they may go all out and dress like their character. However they choose to express their motivations, Actors are looking to engage with the game world in a personal way.
Using the Motivator: Engaging Actors is easy; they do most of the work themselves. Make sure that you refer to the player by their character's name and make an effort to hide any negative feelings you have towards this play style. It's important to make sure that the rest of your players also keep their stigmas in check. Wearing strange outfits and speaking in character may seem like LARPing behavior, but it's still a valid way to play.
The Explorer
"I known it's just listed as 'Room and Board,' but what does the food taste like?"
The Explorer wants to know about the way the game world ticks. The descriptions of people and places aren't just filler for them, they're part of the gaming experience. Explorers will want to know the details of the lost city they've found and will want to examine every last crevice of the dungeon. When the party finds an item of note, it will probably be the Explorer who holds on to it.
Using the Motivation: When you build your campaign world, spend a little extra time thinking of the details of people and places. Your Explorer will really appreciate a couple extra lines of description and will love it when you can answer their questions about the history of a place. Explorers care about the details and are likely top remember them, so you can use certain colors or ornamentation to indicate what kingdom a person or place belongs to.
The Instigator
"I sure hope whatever is living here doesn't pop out of nowhere and totally pwnsauce us!"
The Instigator is a troublemaker. The reason may be that they're only interested in conflict or that they just bore really easily. Whatever their excuse, Instigators get a kick out of making things happen. They may pick fights with especially dangerous-looking enemies or have a habit of stealing from everyone the party meets. Whatever they do, it tends to send the party into conflicts.
Using the Motivation: Like Actors, Instigators do a lot of the work themselves. The hardest part about keeping them entertained in your game is planning for all of the stunts they may pull. If you want to punish the Instigator for being so reckless, remember that the rest of your party will be dragged along, too. Make sure that you don't lock the entire group into a no win situation because one of them couldn't keep their hands to themselves. Consider having the wronged NPC challenge the reckless character to a one-on-one duel for honor.
The Power Gamer
"The attack does 24 damage, but I also get 2 damage for charging and 6 for..."
On the battlefield, the Power Gamer is a force to be reckoned with. This player gets their kicks by maximizing the efficiency of their character. Most often, this is represented by their efforts to get the most damage possible out of every attack, but it can also involve the pursuit of the highest AC or even an enormous bonus to a certain skill. Power Gamers love to optimize and may even use online forums to get the best possible build.
Using the Motivation: A lot of the pleasure a Power Gamer is looking for comes from the work they do in between meetings. At the table, the best thing you can do for them is to put them is those situations where they do their best work. Make sure you also include situations where all their planning falls flat, too. If the player has created an unstoppable juggernaut, make sure to have some skill challenges or traps where all that killing power is useless. This will give your non-Power Gamers space to showcase their own talents.
The Slayer
"Is it dead yet?"
The Slayer just likes to kill things. Their satisfaction is derived from facing difficult foes and sending them to the dirt. Slayers aren't interested in dialogue or overly wordy descriptions and will likely space out until something arrives that they can kill. They will likely play strikers and will go out of their way to provoke things into combat. If it looks alive, the Slayer probably wants to kill it.
Using the Motivation: What Slayers want is your average Hack and Slash adventure. Keep lining monsters up and they will be perfectly happy knocking them down. To really engage your Slayers, give them an enemy that they will really want to take out, but keep them from killing it for a little while. This can be as easy as creating an especially vile Big Bad and keeping them safe from bloodthirsty players with bodyguards and political ties. Before the Slayer can sink their weapons into them, they will have to prove to the public that this person actually deserved it.
The Storyteller
"If I can pull the sword out, will I be the next king?
The Storyteller engages with the ongoing events of the campaign and how their character fits into it. For the Storyteller, the far-reaching effects of their actions matter. They may ask you to repeat important plot points or to slow down while they take notes on events. What a Storyteller is looking for is a chance to use their knowledge of your plot to give their character an edge in becoming a part of it.
Using the Motivation: As with the Explorer, a little extra work goes a long way with the Storyteller. Work out how the actions of your players influence the world, both in the immediate and long-ranging ways. Give the characters the chance to work out threats to important NPCs and foil them. As they get higher in levels, make sure to have their reputation precede them. NPCs pointing them out in a crowd, Lords asking for them by name, or even children arguing in a back ally about who gets to pretend to be the Storyteller's character.
The Thinker
"Four stones of different colors arranged in a circle... FETCH MY THINKING CAP!"
The Thinker is actually pretty straightforward. This motivation loves puzzles, coded messages, and fights that reward careful planning. The Thinker takes their time when planning actions, preferring to see what their opponents will do before making their own move. Thinkers get a kick from the strategy element of combat, working to outmaneuver foes before stabbing them to death.
Using the Motivation: To really get to your Thinker, you're going to have to think outside the traditional DnD mold. What Thinkers really want is problems that allow them to apply their real life knowledge. When designing a dungeon, include traps that can be avoided by a particularly observant person. Have doors that unlock following a small Mastermind-like game. In short, create obsticles that require more than dice throws to surpass.
The Watcher
"If you're having a good time, I'm having a good time."
The Watcher doesn't play for exclusively their own enjoyment, but rather for the enjoyment of everyone else at the table. They have the most fun when the whole group is having a good time. A Watcher will rarely call attention to their own character, but will encourage the other players to do what they do best. Watchers may not always seem like they're participating actively in the game, but they will always keep the team together.
Using the Motivation: The Watcher is a motivation of an entirely different nature. The Watcher doesn't want to be singled out for any singular participation and you need to respect that. This is made especially difficult by the fact that all good DMs must be part Watcher themselves and players who are Watchers don't always look like they're having fun. Throw your Watchers some bait every now and then, but don't force the issue. Not everyone wants to be the next king, after all.
Tuesday, July 5, 2011
Playing With Your Party
I am very happy to say that I will be playing DnD for the first time since college this week. I'm the DM and my party consists of two people who have played, but are out of practice, and someone who is entirely new to the game. For the next few weeks, I'll be posting things that directly relate to my current experiences at the table. Today, for instance, I want to talk about DMs also controlling a player character.
If your party is a little sparse and/or missing a vital role, you may consider building a character to tag along for the adventure. If you enjoy playing, there are some pretty obvious benefits to rolling up your own adventurer. In addition to fortifying the lineup and rounding out the tactical options, you get to share in the glory of the adventure. Your well-built encounters may still crumble, but at least you'll be doing some of the crumbling.
There are drawbacks and potential pitfalls when joining the party's ranks, however. The most difficult issues involve the problem of "Meta-Gaming." For those unfamiliar with the term, "meta-gaming" is when a player uses knowledge that their character would not or could not know. This includes an enemy's stats or the habits/origins of a particular beastie. When the DM plays a character, they not only know everything about every enemy, but also the entire planned campaign arch. Also, a DM-controlled character has a habit of dominating the action and hogging moments that the players should be a much bigger part of.
If the advantages outweigh the drawbacks for you, there are three basic levels of DM participation:
Full Character Participation
A DM engaging in full character participation has created a complete character. They have built everything from their skills to their equipment to their power selections. Full character participants are involved with the party not only during combat, but also when the party engages in skill challenges or talks to NPCs. In this way, the DM is both fully a DM and fully a player.
Pros: Full character participation lets you experience everything you love about playing DnD while still serving as DM. It allows you and the players to be partners as well as adversaries. It can also be an incredibly effective way to ensure that the players see and do everything that you intend them to.
Cons: Meta-gaming is a huge problem for this kind of participation. Not only will your character know everything about the world and the campaign, your monsters will also know exactly what your character is doing. Also, trying to manage both a full character and the workings of an entire campaign is a lot of work.
Limited Character Participation
When participating with a limited character, a DM still puts together a full character sheet. This includes picking skills, powers, and equipment. This character participates in combat, but has some reason to be useless when you need to play as NPCs. The easiest way to achieve this is to have your character be unable or unwilling to speak. This can be by design (a Warforged built without a mouth), trauma (a Drow raid survivor whose tongue has been cut out), or by choice (a priest who has taken an oath of silence).
Pro: The major advantage this has over full character participation is that you don't have to juggle your character and NPCs while the party is out of combat. You also hog less of the party's spotlight, becoming more of a tagalong than a full member. The story of how your character got their limitation can be a great way to drop quest hooks, too!
Con: Your ability to use your character to give the party information is severely, well, limited. A mute character cannot explain the history of a battlefield or share suspicions about the local clergy. In addition, you still have to juggle all the combat actions of your character along with your monsters.
Partial Character Participation
A partial character has the complexity of your average monster in terms of stats (in fact, you can use most standard monsters as is). The best way to create one is to follow the steps in the Dungeon Master's Guide 2 for converting monsters to companion characters. A partial character has no more than one of the basic, At-Will, and Encounter attacks and only two or three trained skills.
Pros: A partial character is very easy to keep track of, even when running multiple monsters in a combat. Depending on what monster you use, your character may also be unable to speak/not allowed to enter settlements, allowing you to be fully a DM when the party talks with NPCs.
Cons: A partial character is so limited that you may wonder why you've even bothered to have a character at all. Since your character is a monster, they will have limited healing surges and are unlikely to survive challenging combat. A partial character's skills also tend to be somewhat sub-par meaning the the party is more likely to fail in skill challenges that call for a group check.
If your party is a little sparse and/or missing a vital role, you may consider building a character to tag along for the adventure. If you enjoy playing, there are some pretty obvious benefits to rolling up your own adventurer. In addition to fortifying the lineup and rounding out the tactical options, you get to share in the glory of the adventure. Your well-built encounters may still crumble, but at least you'll be doing some of the crumbling.
There are drawbacks and potential pitfalls when joining the party's ranks, however. The most difficult issues involve the problem of "Meta-Gaming." For those unfamiliar with the term, "meta-gaming" is when a player uses knowledge that their character would not or could not know. This includes an enemy's stats or the habits/origins of a particular beastie. When the DM plays a character, they not only know everything about every enemy, but also the entire planned campaign arch. Also, a DM-controlled character has a habit of dominating the action and hogging moments that the players should be a much bigger part of.
If the advantages outweigh the drawbacks for you, there are three basic levels of DM participation:
Full Character Participation
A DM engaging in full character participation has created a complete character. They have built everything from their skills to their equipment to their power selections. Full character participants are involved with the party not only during combat, but also when the party engages in skill challenges or talks to NPCs. In this way, the DM is both fully a DM and fully a player.
Pros: Full character participation lets you experience everything you love about playing DnD while still serving as DM. It allows you and the players to be partners as well as adversaries. It can also be an incredibly effective way to ensure that the players see and do everything that you intend them to.
Cons: Meta-gaming is a huge problem for this kind of participation. Not only will your character know everything about the world and the campaign, your monsters will also know exactly what your character is doing. Also, trying to manage both a full character and the workings of an entire campaign is a lot of work.
Limited Character Participation
When participating with a limited character, a DM still puts together a full character sheet. This includes picking skills, powers, and equipment. This character participates in combat, but has some reason to be useless when you need to play as NPCs. The easiest way to achieve this is to have your character be unable or unwilling to speak. This can be by design (a Warforged built without a mouth), trauma (a Drow raid survivor whose tongue has been cut out), or by choice (a priest who has taken an oath of silence).
Pro: The major advantage this has over full character participation is that you don't have to juggle your character and NPCs while the party is out of combat. You also hog less of the party's spotlight, becoming more of a tagalong than a full member. The story of how your character got their limitation can be a great way to drop quest hooks, too!
Con: Your ability to use your character to give the party information is severely, well, limited. A mute character cannot explain the history of a battlefield or share suspicions about the local clergy. In addition, you still have to juggle all the combat actions of your character along with your monsters.
Partial Character Participation
A partial character has the complexity of your average monster in terms of stats (in fact, you can use most standard monsters as is). The best way to create one is to follow the steps in the Dungeon Master's Guide 2 for converting monsters to companion characters. A partial character has no more than one of the basic, At-Will, and Encounter attacks and only two or three trained skills.
Pros: A partial character is very easy to keep track of, even when running multiple monsters in a combat. Depending on what monster you use, your character may also be unable to speak/not allowed to enter settlements, allowing you to be fully a DM when the party talks with NPCs.
Cons: A partial character is so limited that you may wonder why you've even bothered to have a character at all. Since your character is a monster, they will have limited healing surges and are unlikely to survive challenging combat. A partial character's skills also tend to be somewhat sub-par meaning the the party is more likely to fail in skill challenges that call for a group check.
Monday, June 27, 2011
Tiers of Evil
Having well-built characters is good, but its a waste if they aren't involved in a well-built adventure. To help my DM readers, I'm going to start talking about how to build a strong campaign. I'm going to start with one of the most prominent obstacles in any party's travels: the villains. A memorable villain will give the party a reason to keep fighting. One villain won't be enough, however. As the campaign progresses, defeated foes reveal allegiances to still greater enemies. In the end, the party must go against the true villain- the man behind the curtain.
Tier Five: Faceless Legions
At the bottom of the food chain is the legions of faceless warriors who support the entire villainous empire. The party will be fighting these most of the time and they will never expect more than a couple lines of description before they lay into them. The Faceless Legions may not be exciting, but they are vital. Without a steady supply of mooks and lackeys, every fight would have to be against a memorable arch-villain.
Putting Them to Work: More than most of your encounters will feature the Faceless Legions. There isn't very much you need to consider when deploying them apart from basic strategy and stats. Make sure every encounter with hordes of nameless foes isn't the same, however. Even the most generic of lackeys has their own ideas on tactics. Overwhelmed foes might break rank and flee while especially cocky ones might attempt to take the defender one-on-one.
Tier Four: Elite Soldiers
Often, a villain will call in a more specialized warrior to slow down a group of heroes. These elites are tougher than their disposable counterparts, but they still won't last more than a single encounter. They may be a leader of their generic, faceless counterparts or they may prefer to work alone or in their own special group. No matter how they strike, they are noticeably different from other foes without adding significant story building to the fight.
Putting Them to Work: The most common use for Elite Soldiers is to spice up a battle with the Faceless Legions. Throwing in an enemy with distinctive armor or tactics can force your party to abandon their tried-and-true tactics. Just be careful how distinctive your elites are. A party doesn't have to be full of pros to figure out that the foe with the most description is the one they need to take out first.
Tier Three: Ringleaders
At this tier we begin to see enemies which the party will have some knowledge of before a battle. They may be the head of a notorious thieves' guild or the chief of a rampaging barbarian tribe, but all Ringleaders are infamous enough that the players will hear their name before running into them. Ringleaders may even be working for villains further up the chain. Numerous criminal organizations could be funding a single tier two evil without even knowing it.
Putting Them to Use: Ringleaders can be little "mini-bosses" at the end of a series of encounters. Their lackeys might give the adventurers grief over a series of quests, but the Ringleader isn't going to be able to avoid justice for long. Putting a Ringleader down is a minor reward for the players, a chance to make life marginally better for the people under their sway. It's also a great way to point their ire higher up the chain.
Tier Two: Faces of Evil
Tier two villains are the major evils of the campaign. They are likely to be people that the characters have been seeing or hearing about for the majority of the adventure. For a while, the party may have believed these baddies were the highest rung of the evil plaguing their land. These villains have connections everywhere and a ton of influence. Going up against them will test the adventurers to their limits.
Putting Them to Work: The Faces of Evil should be major foes in your campaign. They are likely to be in positions of power and getting to them will require numerous quest's worth of favors and equipment. When the party does manage to corner a Face of Evil, it should be a very difficult fight. These villains didn't get where they are by being pushovers. With them gone, the world may become a little lighter or maybe the world is put into greater danger from the evil on the next tier.
Tier One: World Eater
When the Face(s) of Evil have been defeated, the party learns of a far more terrible threat to the world. The World Eater is the top of the evil food chain; the end all and be all of the villain word. It could be a dark God or an elemental monster or even a super-powered wizard. No matter what form it takes, the threat remains the same. If the World Eater gets their way, the world as the adventurers know it will be gone forever.
Putting Them to Work: The World Eater represents the ultimate ambition of the villains of your campaign. It may be ageless and putting it's malicious intelligence towards enslaving the planet. It could just be a mindless force of destruction that the forces of evil were planning to use on their enemies. Either way, its bigger and badder than anything the party has fought thus far and it should be the epic concluding battle to your campaign.
Tier Five: Faceless Legions
At the bottom of the food chain is the legions of faceless warriors who support the entire villainous empire. The party will be fighting these most of the time and they will never expect more than a couple lines of description before they lay into them. The Faceless Legions may not be exciting, but they are vital. Without a steady supply of mooks and lackeys, every fight would have to be against a memorable arch-villain.
Putting Them to Work: More than most of your encounters will feature the Faceless Legions. There isn't very much you need to consider when deploying them apart from basic strategy and stats. Make sure every encounter with hordes of nameless foes isn't the same, however. Even the most generic of lackeys has their own ideas on tactics. Overwhelmed foes might break rank and flee while especially cocky ones might attempt to take the defender one-on-one.
Tier Four: Elite Soldiers
Often, a villain will call in a more specialized warrior to slow down a group of heroes. These elites are tougher than their disposable counterparts, but they still won't last more than a single encounter. They may be a leader of their generic, faceless counterparts or they may prefer to work alone or in their own special group. No matter how they strike, they are noticeably different from other foes without adding significant story building to the fight.
Putting Them to Work: The most common use for Elite Soldiers is to spice up a battle with the Faceless Legions. Throwing in an enemy with distinctive armor or tactics can force your party to abandon their tried-and-true tactics. Just be careful how distinctive your elites are. A party doesn't have to be full of pros to figure out that the foe with the most description is the one they need to take out first.
Tier Three: Ringleaders
At this tier we begin to see enemies which the party will have some knowledge of before a battle. They may be the head of a notorious thieves' guild or the chief of a rampaging barbarian tribe, but all Ringleaders are infamous enough that the players will hear their name before running into them. Ringleaders may even be working for villains further up the chain. Numerous criminal organizations could be funding a single tier two evil without even knowing it.
Putting Them to Use: Ringleaders can be little "mini-bosses" at the end of a series of encounters. Their lackeys might give the adventurers grief over a series of quests, but the Ringleader isn't going to be able to avoid justice for long. Putting a Ringleader down is a minor reward for the players, a chance to make life marginally better for the people under their sway. It's also a great way to point their ire higher up the chain.
Tier Two: Faces of Evil
Tier two villains are the major evils of the campaign. They are likely to be people that the characters have been seeing or hearing about for the majority of the adventure. For a while, the party may have believed these baddies were the highest rung of the evil plaguing their land. These villains have connections everywhere and a ton of influence. Going up against them will test the adventurers to their limits.
Putting Them to Work: The Faces of Evil should be major foes in your campaign. They are likely to be in positions of power and getting to them will require numerous quest's worth of favors and equipment. When the party does manage to corner a Face of Evil, it should be a very difficult fight. These villains didn't get where they are by being pushovers. With them gone, the world may become a little lighter or maybe the world is put into greater danger from the evil on the next tier.
Tier One: World Eater
When the Face(s) of Evil have been defeated, the party learns of a far more terrible threat to the world. The World Eater is the top of the evil food chain; the end all and be all of the villain word. It could be a dark God or an elemental monster or even a super-powered wizard. No matter what form it takes, the threat remains the same. If the World Eater gets their way, the world as the adventurers know it will be gone forever.
Putting Them to Work: The World Eater represents the ultimate ambition of the villains of your campaign. It may be ageless and putting it's malicious intelligence towards enslaving the planet. It could just be a mindless force of destruction that the forces of evil were planning to use on their enemies. Either way, its bigger and badder than anything the party has fought thus far and it should be the epic concluding battle to your campaign.
Friday, June 24, 2011
Five Habits of Highly Effective DMs
In an earlier post, I talked about ways to be a good DM. This week, I'm going to talk about ways to be a great DM. Good DMs lead campaigns that make every meeting fun, but a great DM keeps the party chatting about their adventures between game nights. Here are five tricks that will bring any campaign to the next level.
Trick One: Build Around Your Characters
"You are confronted by your long-lost brother who still blames you for your father's death."
When your group first got together to build characters, you made sure that your players built their characters around your world (to some degree). Now, its time to return the favor. Make sure you know important facts of each player's back story: hometown, family, occupation, childhood rivals. You might even consider jotting some notes in your DM notebook (you do have one, right?).
Tricking Out: The next time the campaign train pulls into a small, unnamed town, you can pull out a hero's hometown. Will this character be welcomed or shunned? Will anyone even recognize them? Want to give your party a little "friendly" competition? Pull together a team of NPCs that have connections to each of your adventurers. Always be looking for ways to pull pieces of back story into the adventure.
Trick Two: Know Your World
"This valley has been conquered by thirteen different warlords and I can name all of them."
It's very easy (and perfectly acceptable) to simply drop your heroes in the generic DnD world and be done with it. If you want to make a bit more of your weekly adventures, take some time to customize the world. You can keep the rules and deities or go full blown home-brew. What's important is that you know how your world works and that your players are able to access the information they need to play.
Tricking Out: An easy way to customize your world is to limit class or race choices (personally, I don't suggest limiting classes). Take a look at how each class/race fits into your world and pick out ones that just don't jive. Make sure you can defend your choices as one of your players is guarantied to want to use a removed option. Know the way that your cities are governed and what place magic holds. This work will make quest building a breeze.
Trick Three: Don't Let the Books Hold You Down
"I said it's a wizard, not a Beholder."
The DnD source books hold a ton of useful information. You can find incredible monsters and detailed stories within them. Take as much from them as you want, but always remember that you are the final word. You are not limited to the words or pictures in your DnD books. If a creature doesn't quite have the abilities or appearance you need, just fudge it. No one can tell you you're wrong about your own world.
Tricking Out: If you need an epic final villain for a quest arch, but all the monsters of the party's level are beasties you aren't prepared to use, just go ahead and manipulate size and appearance to fit your needs. Its easy to claim a troll is a freakishly strong humanoid or a Beholder is a ray-firing wizard. The stats are meant to work for you, not against you. Make them do what you want.
Trick Four: Descriptions, Descriptions, Descriptions!
"The city's gates are flanked at each side by large statues of men covered in chains."
A good campaign gets the players to believe in the world their characters live in. If you want to achieve this level of play, you need to make sure you tell the players everything they would notice about their surroundings. Describing the clothing and decorations of a city can tell characters that they're in a slave state just as well as simply informing them of this fact as they enter.
Tricking Out: Good descriptions are important whenever your adventurers are encountering something you want them to remember. A vicious scar or a pair of gold-rimmed glasses will stick out in their mind each time they encounter a hated foe. A kingdom's national colors will help distinguish fellow countryman from ruthless invaders. Every little detail helps your world jump out of the game and feel real.
Trick Five: Plan Ahead
"The letter is initialed 'MG' and sealed with a small picture of a bird."
DMing by the seat of your pants and throwing together each encounter the day of your meetings is certainly a viable strategy if you don't have a lot of free time. To make your campaign great, keep a long term plan in mind. Your villain will make a much greater impact if you've been dropping hints about them for the past few meetings. When your party puts together the pieces you've been dropping, they will feel like they've accomplished something.
Tricking Out: Leaving written orders for the party to find is an easy way to lay groundwork for latter events. There are a ton of others ways, including cryptic warnings from the village soothsayer or identical methods in a series of crimes. You might consider an elaborate prophecy in which the players are important figures or just a series of enemies with identical tattoos. However you do it, this sort of planning ahead gives your players something to think about and look forward to as your adventure unfolds.
Trick One: Build Around Your Characters
"You are confronted by your long-lost brother who still blames you for your father's death."
When your group first got together to build characters, you made sure that your players built their characters around your world (to some degree). Now, its time to return the favor. Make sure you know important facts of each player's back story: hometown, family, occupation, childhood rivals. You might even consider jotting some notes in your DM notebook (you do have one, right?).
Tricking Out: The next time the campaign train pulls into a small, unnamed town, you can pull out a hero's hometown. Will this character be welcomed or shunned? Will anyone even recognize them? Want to give your party a little "friendly" competition? Pull together a team of NPCs that have connections to each of your adventurers. Always be looking for ways to pull pieces of back story into the adventure.
Trick Two: Know Your World
"This valley has been conquered by thirteen different warlords and I can name all of them."
It's very easy (and perfectly acceptable) to simply drop your heroes in the generic DnD world and be done with it. If you want to make a bit more of your weekly adventures, take some time to customize the world. You can keep the rules and deities or go full blown home-brew. What's important is that you know how your world works and that your players are able to access the information they need to play.
Tricking Out: An easy way to customize your world is to limit class or race choices (personally, I don't suggest limiting classes). Take a look at how each class/race fits into your world and pick out ones that just don't jive. Make sure you can defend your choices as one of your players is guarantied to want to use a removed option. Know the way that your cities are governed and what place magic holds. This work will make quest building a breeze.
Trick Three: Don't Let the Books Hold You Down
"I said it's a wizard, not a Beholder."
The DnD source books hold a ton of useful information. You can find incredible monsters and detailed stories within them. Take as much from them as you want, but always remember that you are the final word. You are not limited to the words or pictures in your DnD books. If a creature doesn't quite have the abilities or appearance you need, just fudge it. No one can tell you you're wrong about your own world.
Tricking Out: If you need an epic final villain for a quest arch, but all the monsters of the party's level are beasties you aren't prepared to use, just go ahead and manipulate size and appearance to fit your needs. Its easy to claim a troll is a freakishly strong humanoid or a Beholder is a ray-firing wizard. The stats are meant to work for you, not against you. Make them do what you want.
Trick Four: Descriptions, Descriptions, Descriptions!
"The city's gates are flanked at each side by large statues of men covered in chains."
A good campaign gets the players to believe in the world their characters live in. If you want to achieve this level of play, you need to make sure you tell the players everything they would notice about their surroundings. Describing the clothing and decorations of a city can tell characters that they're in a slave state just as well as simply informing them of this fact as they enter.
Tricking Out: Good descriptions are important whenever your adventurers are encountering something you want them to remember. A vicious scar or a pair of gold-rimmed glasses will stick out in their mind each time they encounter a hated foe. A kingdom's national colors will help distinguish fellow countryman from ruthless invaders. Every little detail helps your world jump out of the game and feel real.
Trick Five: Plan Ahead
"The letter is initialed 'MG' and sealed with a small picture of a bird."
DMing by the seat of your pants and throwing together each encounter the day of your meetings is certainly a viable strategy if you don't have a lot of free time. To make your campaign great, keep a long term plan in mind. Your villain will make a much greater impact if you've been dropping hints about them for the past few meetings. When your party puts together the pieces you've been dropping, they will feel like they've accomplished something.
Tricking Out: Leaving written orders for the party to find is an easy way to lay groundwork for latter events. There are a ton of others ways, including cryptic warnings from the village soothsayer or identical methods in a series of crimes. You might consider an elaborate prophecy in which the players are important figures or just a series of enemies with identical tattoos. However you do it, this sort of planning ahead gives your players something to think about and look forward to as your adventure unfolds.
Thursday, April 28, 2011
Rules to DM By
Last week, we talked about some rules for players of DnD. This week, I’m going to drop some tips for the other person at the table- The DM. While the players spend every meeting telling a piece of the story, it’s your job to create the world and the sweeping plots of that story. It can be difficult to manage your story while still giving players space to create, but I have, once again created a memorable “golden rule” for you to use:
The Golden Rule: Don’t Be a Dick
Beginning to notice a theme? As DM, you are the lord and master of the game world and the players are guest artists in your masterpiece. It is really easy to be a dick to them, particularly if they are being a dick to you or their fellow players. Resist that urge and follow my five rules of DMing. Once again, Jonas and Jerkwad will help me with demonstration.
Rule One: Stay Open
When Wizards of the Coast puts out advice for DMs it’s always along the lines of “Say Yes!” While this is certainly a good aspiration, I have found that players have a tendency to push the limitations well beyond what is feasible. Unless they are absolutely ridiculous, always stay open to player ideas. Let the player make a case for what they want to do and then compromise. That way, you can keep your DM cred and the player can drop a zombie through a chandelier and onto another zombie.
Jonas is sending waves of enemies against a group of players on a bridge. Their Swordmage gets an idea and runs over the side of the bridge. Throwing his weapon- a transposing sword- the mage changes places with the largest foe and send it falling to its death. For a moment, Jonas is flabbergasted and tries to come up with some way it doesn't work. Ultimately, he has to accept it as legitimate and come up with ways to prevent it in the future.
Jerkwad is running a campaign of his own creation. For the sake of his world, he banned numerous classes and races, including dwarves. One of his players really loves dwarves and proposes that he plays a shorter, stockier human with second wind and a minor action- essentially, a dwarf. Jerkwad tells him no without bothering to explain why and refuses to hear anything else about exceptions.
Rule Two: Your Story is Not That Important
As a DM, your story is what drives the campaign and motivates the characters. It provides the backbone and structure for each adventure. It’s important enough to spend time thickening and developing, but it’s not important enough to hinder the player’s enjoyment over. Taking five to ten minutes to monologue about an important event or character is fine, but spending an entire meeting mulling over lost histories is a bit much. Make sure you involve the players, otherwise you’re just working on your book.
Jonas wants to detail an important event in the history of his world, but he knows his players won't appreciate a sit-down history lesson. He decides to send them to the ruins of a fort used during the battle and tells the history through notes scattered throughout the ruins. This way, he is able to tell his story and still keep the players engaged.
Jerkwad has a very important event that must happen in his plot, but doesn't trust the party to do it correctly. When the party arrives at the location of the climatic battle, he locks them in a Force Cage and uses his own NPC to battle the villain. The players are forced to sit and listen to the play by play of the battle with being able to do anything.
Rule Three: Your Goal is to Challenge, Not Murder
Sculpting encounters can be one of them most fun and challenging parts of DMing. You need to make sure your party won’t just skip through the battle like a field of daisies, but a totally party kill isn’t much fun either. You want to craft challenging encounters, but that isn’t always accomplished with bigger monsters. Terrain and traps can add complexity without necessarily grinding up everyone’s characters. Note : I once DMed for a party that was both optimized and synergized. For them, the only way to challenge was by trying to murder them.
Jonas is coming to a major climax in his campaign and he wants to make sure the heroes have a hard time with the final villain. He doesn't want to throw any random underlings into the fight, but the monster alone won't be enough of a challenge. Instead, he sets the fight on an electrified floor trap and gives his beastie immunity to its effects.
Jerkwad is running a notoriously difficult campaign setting and wants to make sure the party is always fighting for their lives (note: not necessarily a bad thing). To this end, he selects powerful monsters and grinds the party down, killing the defender twice. For their final fight, he takes a nasty brute monster and upgrades its damage output. This turbo-monster put all but one of the characters to zero hit points... and killed the defender again.
Rule Four: Cater to Your Players
Everyone plays DnD for different reasons and everyone gets enjoyment from different parts of the game. As DM, you should facilitate ways for everyone to have fun. Many players have the most fun when they are exterminating foes; they are certainly the easiest to please. Others, however, may prefer chatting up NPCs to get important information or infiltrating the baron’s manor after dark. Try to let everyone have equal time to succeed.
Jonas enjoys campaigns that are combat heavy and sends the party into situations where combat is the only answer. He has a lot of fun developing these encounters, but a player remarks that she'd like use her character's skills once in a while. Another player asks if he can try to negotiate with the hobgoblins that have ambushed them. Jonas begins to implement new kinds of encounters and develops ways to end an encounter without violence every now and then.
Jerkwad also enjoys campaigns with a lot of violence in them. When his players express an interest in other kinds of encounters, he tells them that this is his campaign and he will run it how he chooses. If they don't like it, they can leave. When a party member attempts to negotiate with enemies, he lets them roll, but then has the monsters attack them anyway.
Rule Five: Have Fun
Being the DM is harder work than most people give it credit. You have to set up elaborate plans and engaging worlds for the expressed purpose of letting some other people crash around in them. Some days, things are going to work perfectly and the party is going to destroy what you put together. Other days, your minions won’t be quite strong enough or that monster you made yourself is just going to get steamrolled. Remember when that happens that you are supposed to be having fun, too, and roll with it.
Jonas has been planning the first battle of his campaign for a while. He wanted to overwhelm the party with a hoard of enemies. Because his goal was to challenge, not murder, he went with a number of weaker enemies, rather than trying to swarm with enemies of the party's level. What he failed to realize is that this means the enemies cannot hit the players and the players cannot miss. After a few rounds of frustration, Jonas gives up and starts joking about how terrible the enemies are.
Jerkwad was really hoping to bring a cocky party down a few pegs in their latest meeting. The party proved to be even more resourceful than he predicted and breezes through the fight. Jerkwad gets frustrated and nasty and spend the rest of the night in sullen silence, making the players feel bad.
The Golden Rule: Don’t Be a Dick
Beginning to notice a theme? As DM, you are the lord and master of the game world and the players are guest artists in your masterpiece. It is really easy to be a dick to them, particularly if they are being a dick to you or their fellow players. Resist that urge and follow my five rules of DMing. Once again, Jonas and Jerkwad will help me with demonstration.
Rule One: Stay Open
When Wizards of the Coast puts out advice for DMs it’s always along the lines of “Say Yes!” While this is certainly a good aspiration, I have found that players have a tendency to push the limitations well beyond what is feasible. Unless they are absolutely ridiculous, always stay open to player ideas. Let the player make a case for what they want to do and then compromise. That way, you can keep your DM cred and the player can drop a zombie through a chandelier and onto another zombie.
Jonas is sending waves of enemies against a group of players on a bridge. Their Swordmage gets an idea and runs over the side of the bridge. Throwing his weapon- a transposing sword- the mage changes places with the largest foe and send it falling to its death. For a moment, Jonas is flabbergasted and tries to come up with some way it doesn't work. Ultimately, he has to accept it as legitimate and come up with ways to prevent it in the future.
Jerkwad is running a campaign of his own creation. For the sake of his world, he banned numerous classes and races, including dwarves. One of his players really loves dwarves and proposes that he plays a shorter, stockier human with second wind and a minor action- essentially, a dwarf. Jerkwad tells him no without bothering to explain why and refuses to hear anything else about exceptions.
Rule Two: Your Story is Not That Important
As a DM, your story is what drives the campaign and motivates the characters. It provides the backbone and structure for each adventure. It’s important enough to spend time thickening and developing, but it’s not important enough to hinder the player’s enjoyment over. Taking five to ten minutes to monologue about an important event or character is fine, but spending an entire meeting mulling over lost histories is a bit much. Make sure you involve the players, otherwise you’re just working on your book.
Jonas wants to detail an important event in the history of his world, but he knows his players won't appreciate a sit-down history lesson. He decides to send them to the ruins of a fort used during the battle and tells the history through notes scattered throughout the ruins. This way, he is able to tell his story and still keep the players engaged.
Jerkwad has a very important event that must happen in his plot, but doesn't trust the party to do it correctly. When the party arrives at the location of the climatic battle, he locks them in a Force Cage and uses his own NPC to battle the villain. The players are forced to sit and listen to the play by play of the battle with being able to do anything.
Rule Three: Your Goal is to Challenge, Not Murder
Sculpting encounters can be one of them most fun and challenging parts of DMing. You need to make sure your party won’t just skip through the battle like a field of daisies, but a totally party kill isn’t much fun either. You want to craft challenging encounters, but that isn’t always accomplished with bigger monsters. Terrain and traps can add complexity without necessarily grinding up everyone’s characters. Note : I once DMed for a party that was both optimized and synergized. For them, the only way to challenge was by trying to murder them.
Jonas is coming to a major climax in his campaign and he wants to make sure the heroes have a hard time with the final villain. He doesn't want to throw any random underlings into the fight, but the monster alone won't be enough of a challenge. Instead, he sets the fight on an electrified floor trap and gives his beastie immunity to its effects.
Jerkwad is running a notoriously difficult campaign setting and wants to make sure the party is always fighting for their lives (note: not necessarily a bad thing). To this end, he selects powerful monsters and grinds the party down, killing the defender twice. For their final fight, he takes a nasty brute monster and upgrades its damage output. This turbo-monster put all but one of the characters to zero hit points... and killed the defender again.
Rule Four: Cater to Your Players
Everyone plays DnD for different reasons and everyone gets enjoyment from different parts of the game. As DM, you should facilitate ways for everyone to have fun. Many players have the most fun when they are exterminating foes; they are certainly the easiest to please. Others, however, may prefer chatting up NPCs to get important information or infiltrating the baron’s manor after dark. Try to let everyone have equal time to succeed.
Jonas enjoys campaigns that are combat heavy and sends the party into situations where combat is the only answer. He has a lot of fun developing these encounters, but a player remarks that she'd like use her character's skills once in a while. Another player asks if he can try to negotiate with the hobgoblins that have ambushed them. Jonas begins to implement new kinds of encounters and develops ways to end an encounter without violence every now and then.
Jerkwad also enjoys campaigns with a lot of violence in them. When his players express an interest in other kinds of encounters, he tells them that this is his campaign and he will run it how he chooses. If they don't like it, they can leave. When a party member attempts to negotiate with enemies, he lets them roll, but then has the monsters attack them anyway.
Rule Five: Have Fun
Being the DM is harder work than most people give it credit. You have to set up elaborate plans and engaging worlds for the expressed purpose of letting some other people crash around in them. Some days, things are going to work perfectly and the party is going to destroy what you put together. Other days, your minions won’t be quite strong enough or that monster you made yourself is just going to get steamrolled. Remember when that happens that you are supposed to be having fun, too, and roll with it.
Jonas has been planning the first battle of his campaign for a while. He wanted to overwhelm the party with a hoard of enemies. Because his goal was to challenge, not murder, he went with a number of weaker enemies, rather than trying to swarm with enemies of the party's level. What he failed to realize is that this means the enemies cannot hit the players and the players cannot miss. After a few rounds of frustration, Jonas gives up and starts joking about how terrible the enemies are.
Jerkwad was really hoping to bring a cocky party down a few pegs in their latest meeting. The party proved to be even more resourceful than he predicted and breezes through the fight. Jerkwad gets frustrated and nasty and spend the rest of the night in sullen silence, making the players feel bad.
Friday, March 25, 2011
Checking Your Alignment
4.0 Edition brought a lot of changes to D&D. One of those changes was a simplification of the alignment system. Unfortunately, the new system is far too simple and the most popular alignments have been removed. As part of continuing efforts to improve the fourth edition system, here is my interpretation of the 3.5 edition alignments:
Lawful Good
"I don't care how evil he is, we are not going to murder the king in cold blood."
Done Right: The Lawful Good character is dedicated to something or someone. This could be a set of ideals, like a religion, a personal code, like chivalry or Bushido, or it could be a person. If your armored knight is dedicated to protecting the disguised princess he travels with, he could very well be Lawful Good (If your armored knight is dedicated to protecting the disguised prince she travels with, I might just love you). You don't condone the chaotic actions of other party members, and you may challenge them over more excessive acts, but you recognize that you need to be able to work with them in order to succeed.
Done Wrong: This is the Lawful Good you're most familiar with. A bad Lawful Good character follows every law to the letter and refuses to make compromises for other party members. A bad LG character is an RP killer. Everything must go their way or they will refuse to do anything. They interact with a chip on their shoulder and a stick in their ass.
Neutral Good
"Sure there are laws against that, but we can bend the rules just this once."
Done Right: In many ways, "Neutral" is the most difficult word in this alignment system. As a Neutral Good character, you are honest and trustworthy and all that heroic stuff, but you see the laws/rules as having a little flex to them. You do still believe in the legitimacy of the laws, though, so don't think you can pass every chaotic act off as an exception. The balance of law and chaos may be a constant struggle within you, or it may just be your way of getting by. Either way, your existence is a display of careful restraint.
Done Wrong: The wrong way to be Neutral Good is to be uncommitted. Your actions are good, but they tend to be whatever strikes your fancy at the moment. Rather than balancing the Law-Chaos axis, you ignore it entirely. This is not a terrible way to play a character and it certainly won't bring down an entire game, but it does hamstring your character as far as development is concerned. It will be very difficult to decide how the campaign's big decisions effect the character if they've been an alignment flake.
Chaotic Good
"It's not 'theft,' per say. It's 'reallocation of resources.'"
Done Right: Chaotic Good is an "ends justify the means" kind of alignment. You believe that any law or tradition that gets in the way of your 'good' actions should be ignored at best or dismantled at worse. Most adventuring parties tend to be Chaotic Good in their beliefs and actions, particular when they decide to kill a corrupt king or other public figure without any kind of trial. You tend to be impulsive, unwilling or able to create long term plans and generally failing to consider the subtle effects your decision may have weeks or months down the line. Do you struggle against your chaotic nature or do you embrace it? Has it gotten you in trouble before?
Done Wrong: Honestly? It's really hard to screw up Chaotic Good. You do have to remember the "Good" part of it, though. On its own, Chaotic is not an excuse to stab innocents and burn down villages. It may not even be an excuse to murder the aforementioned king. A bad Chaotic Good character is the same as any other bad Chaotic character- chaotic to the point where it upsets game play.
Lawful Neutral
"This is how we've always done it."
Done Right: You are a follower of rules and traditions, no mater how morally questionable they may be. This may be due to a commitment to your family or your society's sense of honor, or it may be because you are a knight in service to a morally questionable society. Most Neutral characters still find Good more appealing than Evil, it just isn't as important to them. You also recognize that your teammates do not follow the sames rules as you. This will certainly lead to conflicts, but it is important for you to know why you are sticking with this group. What keeps you from just leaving them?
Done Wrong: You refuse to do anything that contradicts your code. No exceptions, no compromises. Every adventure consists of you attempting to force your teammates into your belief system and restricting their actions. A player like this is arguably worse than the Lawful Good one. A Lawful Neutral character's code of conduct may include things that the party cannot afford to do, such as executing all criminals. If you've got a character who's trying to kill the rogue every time there's an important piece of information to steal, you've more than likely got a dead game.
True Neutral
"It is most important that we keep our options open."
Done Right: True Neutral (or, more hilariously, "Neutral Neutral") is the favored alignment of Druids and they actually provide an excellent way of explaining it. Your actions are motivated by something that transcends Good and Evil/Chaos and Law. Nature is a perfect example: wild yet structured and harsh but gentle. Your actions always serve this greater purpose, yet your actions seem complete erratic to anyone who only sees in terms of the two dimensional system. You may be the wrath of a storm one second and the warth of the sun the next. What's important is that you know why you're doing these things. No one else needs to know.
Done Wrong: In fourth edition, True Neutral is renamed "unaligned." That's an excellent way to describe the wrong way to play the alignment. Your character is a hollow thing with an all-consuming apathy to the ways of the universe. But alignment is about what you do as well as what you say, so a truly "Unaligned" character would have to never to anything that was too Good or too Evil. Honestly, they'd have to never really do anything at all. How boring is that
Chaotic Neutral
"Is that a button? I MUST PUSH IT!"
Done Right: In a True Neutral alignment, the character is devoted to a greater concept which determines their actions. In Chaotic Neutral, that greater power is yourself. You are a paragon of impulsiveness and your only concern is your personal wants and needs. You honor deals and contracts as long as you feel like it and you work with your team because it serves your purposes. Its important for you to know what your long-term goals are if you want to play this alignment. The sheer possibilities of a Chaotic Neutral character can make it easy to just dick around with no real reason for existing.
Done Wrong: You do whatever you want with no regard for anything, especially your fellow adventurers. You execute important prisoners and let villains escape simply because "it's what my character would do." Other players may find you amusing at first, but they'll soon grow sick of you screwing up everything they try to plan.
Lawful Evil
"All citizens will report to the palace for the mandatory 'listen to me rant' seminar."
Done Right: A villain who rules with an iron fist is the most obvious example of Lawful Evil. People and societies of this alignment use their power to oppress those below themselves. Control is one of the most important aspects of Lawful Evil; it represents a person or system which is highly regimented according to traditions, personal code, or the whims of a tyrant. Oppression is often a result of this, but it is not a defining characteristic. The Kobolds live in Lawful Evil societies that have strict hierarchies, but are not necessarily oppressive to to even the lowest on the social ladder.
Done Wrong: As with most Evil characters, the worst thing you can do with a Lawful Evil villain is fail to explain why he's doing whatever he's doing. If the Evil king is a tyrant just because he feels like it, its hard to imagine why his people haven't overthrown him yet. A bad Lawful Evil character or society has no traditions or personal codes defining their lives and seems to be oppressive simply because the quest calls for it.
Neutral Evil
"Some days are 'Oppress the Innocent' days. Today's more of a 'Blow Stuff Up' day."
Done Right: A villain of this alignment is an average kind of Evil. They aren't the head of a sinister organization and they don't have a maddening desire to crust everything that opposes them. In some ways, they are the most dangerous villains; not personal code to exploit and still level-headed enough to operate behind the scenes and keep numerous allies. Because a Neutral Evil character has no distinct leanings towards Chaos or Law, they are able to ally with a wider array of other people and races.
Done Wrong: Bad neutral Evil characters are like Goombas: They come at you in endless, indistinct waves and killing enough of them in a row nets you a "1UP." Each Neutral Evil character, race, or society is exactly the same; drudging through life in their Evil ways and existing only as quest fodder.
Chaotic Evil
"BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!"
Done Right: Chaotic Evil villains can be terrifying if they get enough power. Something or someone has convinced them that the only way to fix/control/get revenge on the world is to destroy it in its current form. These villains eat, sleep, and breathe destruction (The latter being literal in the case of Dragons). Players will probably be left with no choice but to put them down... unless they can figure out what set them off and cure/right the wrongs. Its important to know why your character is Chaotic Evil: What do they want, why do they want it, and how do they plan to get it?
Done Wrong: If you don't know why a villain is Chaotic Evil, he's just destroying stuff because he can. This actually isn't a terrible thing, it just limits the player's role-playing options. But maybe that's something you're doing on purpose- maybe the villain is too far gone and the party must deal with the idea that the only way to stop them is to kill them. Just don't pull that every time.
Lawful Good
"I don't care how evil he is, we are not going to murder the king in cold blood."
Done Right: The Lawful Good character is dedicated to something or someone. This could be a set of ideals, like a religion, a personal code, like chivalry or Bushido, or it could be a person. If your armored knight is dedicated to protecting the disguised princess he travels with, he could very well be Lawful Good (If your armored knight is dedicated to protecting the disguised prince she travels with, I might just love you). You don't condone the chaotic actions of other party members, and you may challenge them over more excessive acts, but you recognize that you need to be able to work with them in order to succeed.
Done Wrong: This is the Lawful Good you're most familiar with. A bad Lawful Good character follows every law to the letter and refuses to make compromises for other party members. A bad LG character is an RP killer. Everything must go their way or they will refuse to do anything. They interact with a chip on their shoulder and a stick in their ass.
Neutral Good
"Sure there are laws against that, but we can bend the rules just this once."
Done Right: In many ways, "Neutral" is the most difficult word in this alignment system. As a Neutral Good character, you are honest and trustworthy and all that heroic stuff, but you see the laws/rules as having a little flex to them. You do still believe in the legitimacy of the laws, though, so don't think you can pass every chaotic act off as an exception. The balance of law and chaos may be a constant struggle within you, or it may just be your way of getting by. Either way, your existence is a display of careful restraint.
Done Wrong: The wrong way to be Neutral Good is to be uncommitted. Your actions are good, but they tend to be whatever strikes your fancy at the moment. Rather than balancing the Law-Chaos axis, you ignore it entirely. This is not a terrible way to play a character and it certainly won't bring down an entire game, but it does hamstring your character as far as development is concerned. It will be very difficult to decide how the campaign's big decisions effect the character if they've been an alignment flake.
Chaotic Good
"It's not 'theft,' per say. It's 'reallocation of resources.'"
Done Right: Chaotic Good is an "ends justify the means" kind of alignment. You believe that any law or tradition that gets in the way of your 'good' actions should be ignored at best or dismantled at worse. Most adventuring parties tend to be Chaotic Good in their beliefs and actions, particular when they decide to kill a corrupt king or other public figure without any kind of trial. You tend to be impulsive, unwilling or able to create long term plans and generally failing to consider the subtle effects your decision may have weeks or months down the line. Do you struggle against your chaotic nature or do you embrace it? Has it gotten you in trouble before?
Done Wrong: Honestly? It's really hard to screw up Chaotic Good. You do have to remember the "Good" part of it, though. On its own, Chaotic is not an excuse to stab innocents and burn down villages. It may not even be an excuse to murder the aforementioned king. A bad Chaotic Good character is the same as any other bad Chaotic character- chaotic to the point where it upsets game play.
Lawful Neutral
"This is how we've always done it."
Done Right: You are a follower of rules and traditions, no mater how morally questionable they may be. This may be due to a commitment to your family or your society's sense of honor, or it may be because you are a knight in service to a morally questionable society. Most Neutral characters still find Good more appealing than Evil, it just isn't as important to them. You also recognize that your teammates do not follow the sames rules as you. This will certainly lead to conflicts, but it is important for you to know why you are sticking with this group. What keeps you from just leaving them?
Done Wrong: You refuse to do anything that contradicts your code. No exceptions, no compromises. Every adventure consists of you attempting to force your teammates into your belief system and restricting their actions. A player like this is arguably worse than the Lawful Good one. A Lawful Neutral character's code of conduct may include things that the party cannot afford to do, such as executing all criminals. If you've got a character who's trying to kill the rogue every time there's an important piece of information to steal, you've more than likely got a dead game.
True Neutral
"It is most important that we keep our options open."
Done Right: True Neutral (or, more hilariously, "Neutral Neutral") is the favored alignment of Druids and they actually provide an excellent way of explaining it. Your actions are motivated by something that transcends Good and Evil/Chaos and Law. Nature is a perfect example: wild yet structured and harsh but gentle. Your actions always serve this greater purpose, yet your actions seem complete erratic to anyone who only sees in terms of the two dimensional system. You may be the wrath of a storm one second and the warth of the sun the next. What's important is that you know why you're doing these things. No one else needs to know.
Done Wrong: In fourth edition, True Neutral is renamed "unaligned." That's an excellent way to describe the wrong way to play the alignment. Your character is a hollow thing with an all-consuming apathy to the ways of the universe. But alignment is about what you do as well as what you say, so a truly "Unaligned" character would have to never to anything that was too Good or too Evil. Honestly, they'd have to never really do anything at all. How boring is that
Chaotic Neutral
"Is that a button? I MUST PUSH IT!"
Done Right: In a True Neutral alignment, the character is devoted to a greater concept which determines their actions. In Chaotic Neutral, that greater power is yourself. You are a paragon of impulsiveness and your only concern is your personal wants and needs. You honor deals and contracts as long as you feel like it and you work with your team because it serves your purposes. Its important for you to know what your long-term goals are if you want to play this alignment. The sheer possibilities of a Chaotic Neutral character can make it easy to just dick around with no real reason for existing.
Done Wrong: You do whatever you want with no regard for anything, especially your fellow adventurers. You execute important prisoners and let villains escape simply because "it's what my character would do." Other players may find you amusing at first, but they'll soon grow sick of you screwing up everything they try to plan.
Lawful Evil
"All citizens will report to the palace for the mandatory 'listen to me rant' seminar."
Done Right: A villain who rules with an iron fist is the most obvious example of Lawful Evil. People and societies of this alignment use their power to oppress those below themselves. Control is one of the most important aspects of Lawful Evil; it represents a person or system which is highly regimented according to traditions, personal code, or the whims of a tyrant. Oppression is often a result of this, but it is not a defining characteristic. The Kobolds live in Lawful Evil societies that have strict hierarchies, but are not necessarily oppressive to to even the lowest on the social ladder.
Done Wrong: As with most Evil characters, the worst thing you can do with a Lawful Evil villain is fail to explain why he's doing whatever he's doing. If the Evil king is a tyrant just because he feels like it, its hard to imagine why his people haven't overthrown him yet. A bad Lawful Evil character or society has no traditions or personal codes defining their lives and seems to be oppressive simply because the quest calls for it.
Neutral Evil
"Some days are 'Oppress the Innocent' days. Today's more of a 'Blow Stuff Up' day."
Done Right: A villain of this alignment is an average kind of Evil. They aren't the head of a sinister organization and they don't have a maddening desire to crust everything that opposes them. In some ways, they are the most dangerous villains; not personal code to exploit and still level-headed enough to operate behind the scenes and keep numerous allies. Because a Neutral Evil character has no distinct leanings towards Chaos or Law, they are able to ally with a wider array of other people and races.
Done Wrong: Bad neutral Evil characters are like Goombas: They come at you in endless, indistinct waves and killing enough of them in a row nets you a "1UP." Each Neutral Evil character, race, or society is exactly the same; drudging through life in their Evil ways and existing only as quest fodder.
Chaotic Evil
"BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!"
Done Right: Chaotic Evil villains can be terrifying if they get enough power. Something or someone has convinced them that the only way to fix/control/get revenge on the world is to destroy it in its current form. These villains eat, sleep, and breathe destruction (The latter being literal in the case of Dragons). Players will probably be left with no choice but to put them down... unless they can figure out what set them off and cure/right the wrongs. Its important to know why your character is Chaotic Evil: What do they want, why do they want it, and how do they plan to get it?
Done Wrong: If you don't know why a villain is Chaotic Evil, he's just destroying stuff because he can. This actually isn't a terrible thing, it just limits the player's role-playing options. But maybe that's something you're doing on purpose- maybe the villain is too far gone and the party must deal with the idea that the only way to stop them is to kill them. Just don't pull that every time.
Monday, March 14, 2011
What's in a Number?
In my discussions of the various player classes I have frequently brought up the differences between the old 3.5 edition and the new 4.0 edition. I know this debate has pretty much sunk to to "squabbling unbernerd" level, but I wanted to share my opinions on the matter. The short answer:
"3.5 has much more space for creativity; the sheer number of options available to players and DMs alike ensure that whatever you want to do is possible. 4.0, on the other hand, is actually playable for anyone who hasn't memorized the Player's Handbook and the Dungeon Master's Guide."
The long answer:
Alright, I have a simple analogy to demonstrate the two editions: 3.5 is a PC and 4.0 is a Mac. Like a PC, 3.5 edition operated with most of its code laid bare. It had numerous supplements, all of which were easily compatible with the main system and allowed users an awe-inspiring level of customization. However, if you were not someone who understood the workings of the system, it was just lines and lines of text with no real meaning. Like a Mac, 4.0 is centered around user-friendliness. Instead of chunks of text, you have these app-like blocks for powers and monster stats. Although you are given a wide variety of tools to tweak your game, creating elements from scratch is all but impossible. To further illustrate my point, here are four examples of how these two systems differ:
Example One: Character Creation
3.5: Building a character in 3.5 edition was a very involved process. Picking skills alone could take upwards of fifteen minutes (more on that later). The standard method of determining you statistics was to roll four d6s and pull out the lowest die. This, of course, meant that some characters could be absolute monsters while others struggled to do much of anything. This system obviously had the potential to be rather unfair but you missed that somehow when your fighter was sitting on two eighteens, a seventeen, and three fifteens. Picking your class was relatively easy, though. As long as your party had a Wizard and someone with access to healing, you were all set.
4.0: Building a character in 4.0 edition is a little like playing with Legos. Skills are an afterthought at best (again, later). The standard method of stat creation is a point buy, but the handbook provides you with every possible spread. Picking your stats is just a matter of selection the scores you want and plugging them into place. Every character is determined by this system and so every character has an equal level of power (at least, in their scores). Party building is more of chore now, however. Now its not just healing and game-breaking you have to worry about; there are four roles that should be filled. No matter how awesome you character is, you may have to scrap it to make sure someone's actually healing in your party.
Example Two: Skills
3.5: By my count, there are forty seven unique skills in the Player's Handbook for 3.5 edition and I know that there were a few books that added even more. The skills were really a separate system from your weapons and spells. Sure, they all used the same basic rolls, but there was something very different about missing with a sword vs not seeing the key on the far wall.
The skill selection was vast and varied and included the classic "find loot set:" Spot, Listen, and Search, as well as the endless train of Knowledge skills, and the oddballs like Use Rope. Anything your character wanted to do could be linked to a skill, making success or failure an essential part of 3.5 adventuring.
4.0: There are only seventeen skills in the Player's Handbook and none of the books in this edition add any more. This stunned collection hinders skill checks from being any more involved than an occasional lackluster roll. It still feels different to be rolling your attacks vs rolling your skill check; the attacks feel like they actually matter whereas the skill are more something fun, but largely inconsequential. Your pallet of skill options has been boiled down to its absolute minimum. "Perception" has replaced "spot," "search," and "listen." "Thievery" has not only replaced "steal" but also "open lock." "Use rope" has been left completely in the cold along with "craft" and "preform." In fact, it seems like every skill that could not be directly used in combat was erased.
Example Three: Combat
3.5: Combat was a true struggle for survival in 3.5 edition. Your health was low and your enemies' damage output was high. Monsters could stun lock you round after round or hand you one of the infamous "save or die" effects. Doing epic things was possible, but you would pay if it failed. In 3.5 edition, the deck was stacked against players in combat. The hardest part about being a DM was a mix of keeping track of all the monsters' abilities, keeping the encounter a fun challenge, and not killing your party.
4.0: Combat is a whole lot of showing off in 4.0. Don't get me wrong, a skilled DM can still challenge a party, its just that the whole system is centered around pulling ridiculous and improbable stunts. Just take a look at some of the power names I pulled out in my awesome classes posts and imagine what using them must look like. Furthermore, the monsters have all been tamed quite a bit. There are now much stricter guidelines for assembling balanced encounters and any party with a decent idea of what they are doing (or even one or two members that do) can coast through these encounters. Also, there are no more "save or die" effects."
Example Four: Noncombat
3.5: Thanks to the complex skill system mentioned earlier, 3.5 edition remains fun and engaging even when there's nothing to stab. Chatting to a shifty character is a roll vs roll smack down as your Insight checks go up against their Bluff. Or maybe its the other way around; maybe you're trying to convince the town guard that your are not, in fact, the travelers they are looking for. Either way, you can never be sure how the dice will turn. On the more dangerous side of noncombat, the Rogue was one of the only classes to even have the option to disable a trap. If your party was missing the essential stabby element, good luck.
4.0: N/A
Alright, that's an exaggeration. A small exaggeration, but an exaggeration nonetheless. 4.0 does have a noncombat element to it, it just looks exactly like combat. When attempting to bluff or avoid being bluffed, the receiving party is more than likely using their passive insight. The passive score is more like a glorified second will defense than anything else, making a bluff check more like a bluff attack vs insight. You can still disable traps and participate in the king's war council; now those event are handled in a "skill challenge." A skill challenge is set up exactly like combat, with play proceeding in rounds and each player choose one skill attack on their turn. This isn't to say that its a bad system, only that it can be very unsatisfying for anyone who isn't a hack-and-slasher.
"3.5 has much more space for creativity; the sheer number of options available to players and DMs alike ensure that whatever you want to do is possible. 4.0, on the other hand, is actually playable for anyone who hasn't memorized the Player's Handbook and the Dungeon Master's Guide."
The long answer:
Alright, I have a simple analogy to demonstrate the two editions: 3.5 is a PC and 4.0 is a Mac. Like a PC, 3.5 edition operated with most of its code laid bare. It had numerous supplements, all of which were easily compatible with the main system and allowed users an awe-inspiring level of customization. However, if you were not someone who understood the workings of the system, it was just lines and lines of text with no real meaning. Like a Mac, 4.0 is centered around user-friendliness. Instead of chunks of text, you have these app-like blocks for powers and monster stats. Although you are given a wide variety of tools to tweak your game, creating elements from scratch is all but impossible. To further illustrate my point, here are four examples of how these two systems differ:
Example One: Character Creation
3.5: Building a character in 3.5 edition was a very involved process. Picking skills alone could take upwards of fifteen minutes (more on that later). The standard method of determining you statistics was to roll four d6s and pull out the lowest die. This, of course, meant that some characters could be absolute monsters while others struggled to do much of anything. This system obviously had the potential to be rather unfair but you missed that somehow when your fighter was sitting on two eighteens, a seventeen, and three fifteens. Picking your class was relatively easy, though. As long as your party had a Wizard and someone with access to healing, you were all set.
4.0: Building a character in 4.0 edition is a little like playing with Legos. Skills are an afterthought at best (again, later). The standard method of stat creation is a point buy, but the handbook provides you with every possible spread. Picking your stats is just a matter of selection the scores you want and plugging them into place. Every character is determined by this system and so every character has an equal level of power (at least, in their scores). Party building is more of chore now, however. Now its not just healing and game-breaking you have to worry about; there are four roles that should be filled. No matter how awesome you character is, you may have to scrap it to make sure someone's actually healing in your party.
Example Two: Skills
3.5: By my count, there are forty seven unique skills in the Player's Handbook for 3.5 edition and I know that there were a few books that added even more. The skills were really a separate system from your weapons and spells. Sure, they all used the same basic rolls, but there was something very different about missing with a sword vs not seeing the key on the far wall.
The skill selection was vast and varied and included the classic "find loot set:" Spot, Listen, and Search, as well as the endless train of Knowledge skills, and the oddballs like Use Rope. Anything your character wanted to do could be linked to a skill, making success or failure an essential part of 3.5 adventuring.
4.0: There are only seventeen skills in the Player's Handbook and none of the books in this edition add any more. This stunned collection hinders skill checks from being any more involved than an occasional lackluster roll. It still feels different to be rolling your attacks vs rolling your skill check; the attacks feel like they actually matter whereas the skill are more something fun, but largely inconsequential. Your pallet of skill options has been boiled down to its absolute minimum. "Perception" has replaced "spot," "search," and "listen." "Thievery" has not only replaced "steal" but also "open lock." "Use rope" has been left completely in the cold along with "craft" and "preform." In fact, it seems like every skill that could not be directly used in combat was erased.
Example Three: Combat
3.5: Combat was a true struggle for survival in 3.5 edition. Your health was low and your enemies' damage output was high. Monsters could stun lock you round after round or hand you one of the infamous "save or die" effects. Doing epic things was possible, but you would pay if it failed. In 3.5 edition, the deck was stacked against players in combat. The hardest part about being a DM was a mix of keeping track of all the monsters' abilities, keeping the encounter a fun challenge, and not killing your party.
4.0: Combat is a whole lot of showing off in 4.0. Don't get me wrong, a skilled DM can still challenge a party, its just that the whole system is centered around pulling ridiculous and improbable stunts. Just take a look at some of the power names I pulled out in my awesome classes posts and imagine what using them must look like. Furthermore, the monsters have all been tamed quite a bit. There are now much stricter guidelines for assembling balanced encounters and any party with a decent idea of what they are doing (or even one or two members that do) can coast through these encounters. Also, there are no more "save or die" effects."
Example Four: Noncombat
3.5: Thanks to the complex skill system mentioned earlier, 3.5 edition remains fun and engaging even when there's nothing to stab. Chatting to a shifty character is a roll vs roll smack down as your Insight checks go up against their Bluff. Or maybe its the other way around; maybe you're trying to convince the town guard that your are not, in fact, the travelers they are looking for. Either way, you can never be sure how the dice will turn. On the more dangerous side of noncombat, the Rogue was one of the only classes to even have the option to disable a trap. If your party was missing the essential stabby element, good luck.
4.0: N/A
Alright, that's an exaggeration. A small exaggeration, but an exaggeration nonetheless. 4.0 does have a noncombat element to it, it just looks exactly like combat. When attempting to bluff or avoid being bluffed, the receiving party is more than likely using their passive insight. The passive score is more like a glorified second will defense than anything else, making a bluff check more like a bluff attack vs insight. You can still disable traps and participate in the king's war council; now those event are handled in a "skill challenge." A skill challenge is set up exactly like combat, with play proceeding in rounds and each player choose one skill attack on their turn. This isn't to say that its a bad system, only that it can be very unsatisfying for anyone who isn't a hack-and-slasher.
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Welcome to the Fisher
In a world gone mad with power, no one is safe from the corrupting touch of optimization. Even in the fourth edition of Dungeons and Dragons, an edition that literally oozes flavor and description, many heroes have stopped choosing powers and items because they are cool and started looking for the "best" options. Many start looking at forums in the name of raising their mythic "dps" to levels unheard by the internet.
It must be stopped.
This blog is dedicated to combating the forces of raw optimization with the power of pure awesome. I will discuss what makes certain races and classes awesome, how you can be an awesome player, and many other things regarding awesome and the fantastic game that is Dungeons and Dragons. I will also discuss my own DnD experiences where relevant.
Feel free to read, comment, and share. I'll do my best to respond to all feedback (excluding trolls. Trolls will be dipped in acid and fire).
It must be stopped.
This blog is dedicated to combating the forces of raw optimization with the power of pure awesome. I will discuss what makes certain races and classes awesome, how you can be an awesome player, and many other things regarding awesome and the fantastic game that is Dungeons and Dragons. I will also discuss my own DnD experiences where relevant.
Feel free to read, comment, and share. I'll do my best to respond to all feedback (excluding trolls. Trolls will be dipped in acid and fire).
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)