At my game table I have a bowl filled with poker chips. At the start of every game, my players look at their inventory and pull out a number of white chips equal to their ammunition, red chips equal to their torches/lantern oil, and blue chips equal to their rations. As we play, chips go into the bowl when these consumables are used, and come out of the bowl when they’re purchased. When the game ends, the players count their chips, and update their character sheets. It’s an efficient system which allows me to be strict about consumable use, without requiring my players to perform a lot of annoying bookkeeping. I think I originally got the idea from Telecanter.
Prior to using this system I was the bad sort of GM who just hand-waved consumables out of the game because they were too much of a pain in the ass to keep track of. I find I enjoy the game much more since I’ve started using this system, though. Tracking ammunition has the largest impact on the game, since players need to be much more conscious about how frequently they use their bows. After a few hours of frequent combat, the ranger starts to get nervous, and that makes the game exciting. Tracking light sources has less of an impact, but it serves as a timer for how long your players can travel underground. Gods help them if they use more than half of their lantern oil on the way down into the dungeon.
Rations, on the other hand, have yet to play any important role in my games. My players track them because I’ve told them they need to do that. They dutifully toss a chip into the bowl at the end of each adventuring day, and when they free a prisoner or find someone in need, they share their poker chips with that person. But tracking rations has never served an actual purpose in the year or more that I’ve been doing it. It’s just a rote action of taking chips out of, and putting them back into the bowl. What is the point?
I don’t want to return to hand-waving rations because of this issue. Limited food resources has too much potential value. There’s a huge desert in the northern part of the continent my players are on. If they ever try to travel there, days away from any town, running out of food is going to be a serious concern. I’ve also begun work on a megadungon which extends dozens of levels beneath the earth. Again, in that situation, the possibility of starving is going to create excitement and urgency in the game. I won’t sacrifice that. But I also don’t want to continue tracking rations day-by-day, purchase-by-purchase for all the sessions where there’s no actual danger of food running out.
Starting with my next Pathfinder session in a couple weeks I’m going to switch things up. First off, I’ve been having players track 1 week’s worth of rations as 1 significant item using my encumbrance system. (A system which I intend to revisit and revise soon). Based on how much food actually weighs, rations in my game are far too light. Looking over military rations used by the U.S. within the last 30 years shows that a single meal can weigh as much as 2.7lb using relatively modern technology. Assuming three meals a day, a week’s rations is nearly 60lb! That’s hardly in line with other significant items, such as a greatsword, which might weight 10lb. Three days of food, at about 25lb, seems like a much more reasonable weight for a single significant item.
Having determined how a character’s carrying capacity converts into food, I’ll then have my players tell me how much of that carrying capacity they’re willing to devote to food. If they allocate 1 significant item to rations, then they have 3 days worth. If they allocate 2 SI, then they have 6 days worth, and so on. It will be assumed that any time the players visit civilization, (barring extenuating circumstances), they’ll find time to purchase food. The cost will be rolled into their standard upkeep costs. Using this method, the players can just write “6 days of food (2 SI)” on their inventory sheet. All I need to do is ask once every 3 days away from civilization if the players have enough food. If they do, we continue on without a hitch, if they don’t, then things start to get interesting.
Using this system should maintain all of the interesting aspects of tracking rations, but reduce the bookkeeping aspects to a minimum.
Evil rituals will show up in any fantasy themed adventure game from time to time. Maybe some cultists are trying to summon their lovecraftian god, or perhaps they’re attempting to transform their high priest into a huge monster. Either way, the GM will need to produce a ritual for the players to try and stop.
The way I see it, each ritual has three essential elements: preparation, preamble, and catalyst. There are also a fourth element which is optional: Timing. While not all rituals will require it, sometimes they will only work if they are performed at a certain time, such as during a full moon, when the planets align, or on the anniversary of an important event.
The preparation for a ritual may involve gathering the necessary components, or learning an ancient incantation which must be spoken for the ritual to succeed. Strictly speaking the preparatory phase is not part of the ritual proper, but it is vital to the success of the ritual. Additionally, the preparation phase is frequently how the players will learn about an upcoming evil ritual, and it serves as the best opportunity to nip the villain’s evil plans in the bud.
When the time for the ritual actually arrives, it begins with the preamble, which can go on for a long while The length serves two purposes. First, it lends greater weight to the upcoming catalyst portion of the ritual. This buildup is essential, because nothing of great importance is accomplished quickly. Secondly, the duration of the preamble is the only period of time when the ritual has begun, but has not yet resulted in anything really bad happening. This gives time for the players to act to stop the ritual, which can be exciting.
The final phase of a ritual is the catalyst. This is short, generally a single action which will trigger whatever end result the ritual was intended to produce. If the cultists are summoning their evil god, then the moment the catalyst action is performed, then the portal will open, and the dark god will step through it.
Below are ideas for the preamble and catalyst of an evil ritual. Mix and match as you choose! A ritual could even combine multiple preambles together, as many real world religious ceremonies do. Additionally, almost any of these rituals could require a certain number of people to participate.
Preamble
Reading from an important book: Sacred texts have great power, particularly in religious ceremonies. But an arcane ceremony could also include this trope. Perhaps a wizard summoning a demon must read that demon’s 20-page true name in its entirety before the demon will respond.
Singing/Chanting: While it may sound a little silly to sing at a ritual, this is actually quite common in many real world rituals. Imagine, for example, most christian ceremonies. They include a great deal of singing. Many Native American rituals do as well.
Praying: Normally a very particular prayer would need to be said, one which glorifies the being who will choose to grant, or not grant, the ritual’s end result.
Telling a story, giving a speech: Storytelling has long been an important part of human culture. To use a real world example, imagine that those performing the ritual wished to ask Heracles to bestow his strength upon them for an upcoming battle. Part of that ritual may involve a recitation of the 12 labors of Heracles.
Torture: The victim here could either be willing or unwilling, and the torture need not end in death. Perhaps the victim of the torture will even end up being the beneficiary of the ritual’s gifts. The god must see that the person they are empowering is willing to endure suffering.
Creating An Appropriate Environment: If done ritualistically (especially in combination with one of the other Preamble elements above) this could be part of the ritual itself, rather than part of the ritual’s preparation. Imagine, for example, a dozen cultists painting arcane symbols on their bodies, while a high priest chants the words of a magic spell.
Catalyst
Sacrifice: The numerous ways in which a victim could be sacrificed could be a post unto itself. Nearly any way a person could be killed might be used in an evil ritual. I, personally, would avoid the cliche of tying the person to an altar and stabbing them with a ceremonial knife. Be creative, and make the catalyst match the theme. If the cultists are summoning a tidal wave to wipe out a city, then drown the victim. If they’re summoning the god of snakes, then have them kill the victim with poison snakes.
Sex: This one works best if the result of the evil ritual is being applied to the child which is being conceived at the time. By having sex under the full moon while a dozen cultists chant prayers to The God of Horribleness, the child will be born as the Avatar of Horribleness.
Inducting New Members: Evil religions make a big to-do out of bringing new members into the fold. At the conclusion of an evil ritual, a new member could be baptized (whatever that means for the particular religion), thus increasing the number of the evil god’s followers.
Desecration of a Holy Object: Destroying a sacred artifact of great power, or otherwise desecrating something which radiates holy magic is sure to please any evil god, and weaken the followers of good.
Cannibalism: It’s difficult to imagine an act more evil than this. Once a person eats another, there can be no redemption for them. So it makes the perfect centerpiece to an evil ritual.
I’m a big fan of the idea of ‘natural magic’. By which I do not mean magic with a naturalistic source, such as the magic used by a shaman or a druid. Frankly I’ve always found ‘nature’ as a power source for magic to be boring. Rather, by ‘natural magic,’ I refer to magical effects which have no caster. Magic which merely exists for one reason or another. Sometimes it is merely a law of the universe that when X or Y occurs, a magical effect will happen. Other times a place may become inherently magical because a great deed was performed there. Or in some cases there may have even been a caster involved at one time, but it was so long ago and the magic has taken on an effect so different from what the caster intended, they can’t properly be called responsible it.
Natural magic could come from any school. A natural abjuration effect may prevent demons from treading upon the ground where a saint was martyred. Whereas a natural enchantment might come about because two famous lovers once carved their initials into a tree, and now any who sleep beneath that tree fall in love. But as my readers well know by now, Necromancy is kinda my thing. It also suits the Halloween season.
And since I went to all the trouble of dressing the site up for Halloween, I ought to write some seasonal shit, right? Right. Lets do this.
Necromatic Rift
Occasionally a rift will form at an intersection between two planes. An opening into the abyss might allow demons to come through into our world. Likewise, a rift which opened between the material plane and the plane of negative energy could cause any number of necromantic spell effects to occur. I like the idea that the shape of the rift determines how the negative energy filters through, which determines what spell effect it produces. The size of the rift could affect that spell’s power. I explored this idea in detail in an old post of mine called The Crypt of Ancient Wisdom.
A Necromatic Rift ice nice because it has the greatest potential for variety. They can appear anywhere, and cause anything. For example, a necromantic rift could sap the strength of anyone who dared venture into a certain valley, leaving them physically weak for the duration of their time there. Another necromatic rift could cause anyone buried in a certain graveyard to rise as vampires, or, as in the case of the Tragedy of the Gorovik Family, it could cause everyone in a certain crypt to be affected by a constant “Speak with Dead” effect.
Necrotic Rifts need not be a bad thing, either. While necromancy is regarded as an evil art, many spells of the Necromancy school (at least in Pathfinder and D&D) are not inherently evil. Spells such as Speak with Dead interact with death, but do so in a manner which is respectful. Or, at least, not an overt desecration. It would be easy to use a rift as a source of conflict within your game, but it could also serve as a prize for the party’s caster. Upon discovering and recognizing a Necrotic Rift, a caster could sacrifice one of their spell slots for the day to manipulate the rift, and cast any necromancy spell of equal level to the one they sacrificed. (They need not have the spell in any of their spell books to do this.)
Type of Death
The dead rising based on how they were killed or laid to rest has strong mythological and cultural grounding. If you’ve ever seen a slasher film you know what I’m talking about. The villain returned from the grave because they were betrayed, or because they were buried in a Native American burial ground, or simply because they were so damned evil that Lucifer himself rejected them.
The manner of death always affects the manner of undeath in these cases. A woman who is drowned by her lover and his mistress, for example, will spend her un-life on a quest to drown any pair of lovers she encounters. Particularly if they’re being unfaithful to others. Note that type of death can cause natural necromancy through either the action, or the inaction of the living. If the living actively cause the death of a person, such as in the example above, it can create a vengeful undead. If the living neglect the proper burial rituals of a corpse (whatever those rituals may be), that can also create an undead creature. Though these are often less specifically vengeful, and more generally aggressive towards the living.
Necromatic Fallout
I like nuclear fallout. Not in a literal sense, of course. Literally speaking, nuclear fallout is awful. But I love the idea that a large event can leave a residue of itself behind for centuries. Countless events could leave a necromatic residue behind on the landscape. For example. I imagine the spot where Vecna’s tower once stood, before it collapsed, would still be an area of powerful necromatic magic. Perhaps anything which died there would rise as a zombie or skeleton. If it is particularly powerful, perhaps anything which even enters the area must make a save versus death. Vecna is a god now, after all.
Other examples of events which could cause necromatic fallout would be the birth of an evil god, or a place where powerful necromancy spells were cast over and over again over a long period of time. The site of a great plague or genocide might also create a necromatic fallout. I also like the idea that an unsanctified graveyard or crypt might draw necromatic powers to itself, making itself an unholy place in the absence of blessings to keep evil at bay.
All the way back in April, I declared that I was fed up with the way magic items are identified in Pathfinder. Furthermore, I said that I was going to fix it. I’ve been lazy, but I’m going to work on not being lazy anymore. So lets get to work. Forgive me if this post is a little more brusk than my writing normally is.
There are two steps to identifying a magical item. The first step is to determine whether the item is magical at all. In some cases this may be obvious, such as in the case of a glowing sword. But not every magical item will be obviously magical. And some items which seem as though they should be magical might not be. A jewel encrusted shield might just be a fragile display piece, good for selling, but not for using. Once it has been determined that an item is magical, the second step is to figure out what the item actually does, and how a character can make the item do that thing. Depending on how the game works, a +1 mace might always be a little more accurate and deal a little more damage, but something less obvious could require some know-how in order to use. Such as an activation word for a wand.
Before I go further, I’d like to review precisely how Pathfinder’s item identification works according to the core rule book. That way we’re clear on where we’re starting from. Relevant parts of the system are described in a number of places. First, from the “Spellcraft” skill description.
“This skill is also used to identify the properties of magic items in your possession through the use of spells such as detect magic and identify.“, “Attempting to ascertain the properties of a magic item takes 3 rounds per item to be identified and you must be able to thoroughly examine the object”, “When using detect magic or Identify to learn the properties of magic items, you can only attempt to ascertain the properties of an individual item once per day. Additional attempts reveal the same result.”, “Identify the properties of a magic item using detect magic: 15 + item’s caster level.”
The spell description for Detect Magiccan be found on page 267 of the PFCRB, but essentially all the spell allows you to do is identify that magic auras are present, and help you determine the school of said aura, and which specific items or persons they are emanating from. The spellcraft skill can then be used as described above (DC 15 + item’s caster level) to determine the item’s specific use and activation word, etc. The spell description for Identify can be found on page 299 of the PFCRB, but it pretty much only says “+10 to spellcraft checks made to identify magic items.”
I don’t like this system because:
I hate it when spells are neutered so that they can fit within the broken skills system. Identify should not be a +10 to your identification ability.
I don’t see the point in having a failure chance for identifying magical items. At least not a completely random failure chance. It could be interesting to construct the rules so that players could miss magical items through poor play.
I’ve recorded game sessions in the past. I like to listen to them and judge what works and what doesn’t as an outside observer. Here’s what the discovery of a magic item sounds like:
ME: You find 100 gold pieces and a sword with a silver blade and a dragon’s head carved into the wooden handle. Players: Check to see if it’s magical. Sorcerer/Wizard/Whatever: I roll to see if it’s magical. [Success]Me: It is a +2 sword. [Success]Players: Yay! Who needs it? [Failure]Me: It does not appear to be magical to you. [Failure]Players: It was a low roll. Lets keep it and try again tomorrow!
This conversation is boring. It is pointless. And it is a waste of everyone’s time.
Here is my proposal for Pathfinder magic item identification. I haven’t playtested this yet, but I’ll implementing it in my game, and hopefully it will be an improvement over the way the system currently works. Magic Users–Wizards, Sorcerers, Clerics, etc.–can identify whether an item is or is not magical by focusing on it for about five minutes. Characters who cannot cast spells are unable to do this. If the party does not wish to spend the time necessary to determine whether an item is magical, the spell Detect Magic can be used to immediately identify all magical items within the caster’s field of vision. When using this spell, the items will glow a particular color, corresponding to the school of magic which the item is most strongly associated with. Only the caster is able to see these auras, and they do not provide any more information than the fact that the item is magical, and what school it is associated with. Each magical item in Pathfinder has a “Caster Level.” If the caster level of an item is equal to or lower than the caster level of a magic user, then that magic user may determine the item’s function and method of activation by studying it for 5 minutes. If the players do not wish to spend this amount of time, or if the items in question are too high level to be identified, then the caster may use the Identify spell. This spell must be cast individually for each item which needs to be identified, but works instantaneously. Also, using the Identify spell, a caster may determine the properties of a magic item up to 3 caster levels above their own. If no magic user is available, or if an item is too high level to be identified by the party’s magic user, then the party may seek out and consult a sage. Sages are very learned, and often have magical powers of their own to call upon. For a fee (200gp * Item’s Caster Level) the Sage will identify it for the party. It will require at least one week’s worth of time. For particularly powerful magic items, or artifacts, the sage may require additional funds and time, or may be entirely unable to identify the item at all. In that case, the sage would likely know of another sage which the party could consult, and offer them at least a partial refund. What do you think? I’m open to criticism here.
During my most recent pathfinder game, a number of my players were absent. Among them was the group’s sorceress, Phoenix Darkmatter. Her absence was particularly relevant because the primary quest of the party currently revolves around her. Without her there to participate, I assumed that the party would want to pursue some other goal, so prior to the game I prepared a number of quest threads in the town they had ended their last adventure in. True to form, however, they completely bypassed everything I had prepared. As I had predicted, they didn’t want to continue the arachnohomnid quest line without Phoenix, but they weren’t even slightly interested in protecting dwarven caravans either. No, this party of low level adventurers recalled hearing about a lich which lived in the southern lands, and determined that killing it would be an appropriate use of their time.
The rogue participated only under strong (and well justified) protest.
Fortunately, a random roll of the dice brought the party to their senses. After nearly being killed by a pack of wolves they randomly encountered while crossing the planes, they settled on a more reasonable goal: find out why the nearby forest was filled with half-ogre monstrosities. It’s a quest thread I had introduced in one of our first sessions. They had never seemed particularly interested in it before. I had to leave the room for a moment to find some of my older notes related to that quest–and what I had was not much. A mad wizard with ogre minions had taken up residence in the ancient elven ruins of Gorak Torar, where he was experimenting on transforming the local Gnoll population into Ogre-kin servants for himself. That’s all I had.
Oh, and the ruins were made of blue-white stone. Because this place was not at all a ripoff of Dire Maul.
The players asked intelligent questions and quickly found a trail of clues leading them to the ruins themselves. They’re starting to get too good at this game, I can’t rely on them fumbling about for too long while I find my bearings. It didn’t take them long after finding the ruins to gravitate towards the large building at the center, and make their way into the dungeon beneath it. A dungeon which I had absolutely no plans whatsoever for. So I improvised.
I’ve always prided myself on my improvisational skill, and everyone enjoyed themselves. It was easily the most fun I’ve had recently, and my players were still talking about the adventure a couple days later. Once the game was over, and I had a moment to review my performance, I went over my methodology for creating the dungeon, and retroactively codified 8 rules I had used to help me go about the task.
Steal. Do it rampantly, and do it shamelessly. Even if you were to completely rip off the layout of an environment your players were intimately familiar with, it’s not likely that they would notice. And if you change a room shape here, and add a few more doors there, a dungeon layout lifted from another game becomes completely unrecognizable.
Don’t make the dungeon fancy, just make it. Don’t waste a bunch of your time thinking about how to make things interesting, or how to create a theme, or complicated multi-room puzzles. You don’t have time. Draw corridors, draw doors, draw rooms, and figure out what’s in them. That’s all you have time for. If you want to add depth, do something simple like a locked door, or a key hanging on the wall. Then you can easily insert the matching element later.
While your players are discussing amongst themselves what they want to do in a given room, that’s your opportunity to figure out what’s behind all of the room’s doors. You don’t need to pay attention to everything they say, but you should already know what’s behind every door of the room they’re in.
You don’t need to worry about anything beyond the rooms which are adjacent to the one your players are in. There’s no need to waste time detailing a room which they might never even get near to. If you have spare time, focus your attention on adding details to the rooms you’ve already got. Something like a trap, a secret door, or some unusual monster or treasure adds depth to your dungeon.
Restroom breaks are a perfect opportunity to expand your map.
Select a small number of enemy types, maybe 2-3, and have those creatures constitute most of the dungeon’s population. Some rooms might have a special monster of some kind, but a small number monster types repeated gives the dungeon a sense of consistency. Don’t be afraid to put those monsters in a variety of situations, though.
If your players are looking for something in particular, it will not necessarily be along the path they take through the dungeon. They will likely pass a number of doors on their way through the dungeon, and it could easily be beyond one of those. If you’d like to handle this with as much agency as possible, roll a D6 each time the players descend to a new level. On a roll of 5-6 (or 4-6 for smaller dungeons) what the players are looking for is on that level of the dungeon. And each time the players enter a new room on that level, roll a D20. On a roll of 19-20, what the players are looking for is in that particular room.
These are just the rules I came up with off the top of my head during the game. I’d be curious to know if anyone else has similar methods, or tips on how I could improve my own!
One of my multitude of flaws as a GM is that I do not run a very organized campaign. Notes are often scattered, and obtuse. An NPC’s name is buried in the middle of a paragraph of the notes from two sessions ago. I don’t want to waste everyone’s time, so I just come up with something new off the top of my head and hope the players weren’t paying enough attention to notice. And that’s terrible. As GMs, we want our worlds to be consistent and life-like. No, our players probably won’t notice if we rename an NPC they’ve only seen once before, but that’s because they need to hear an NPC’s name three or four times before they’ll start to remember it. And if we can’t give them that repetition, then the setting is just a vessel that they use to play the game. It will never become a persistent world in their minds, and thus the game can never achieve its full potential.
Unfortunately, we GMs are but mortal men and women. We do not have the power to hold an entire world within our minds, with all the characters, locations, and events such a feat would entail. Perhaps gods would make better GMs, but players will have to settle for those of us who just think we’re omnipotent. And if we want to pull that off, we need tools. I’ve spent the last week reevaluating and updating the various methods I use to help me manage my campaign, and I think I’ve assembled a tool box which is relatively comprehensive, easy to use while in play, supports a dynamic world, and is simple to keep updated. That last one is particularly important because my note-taking has always been atrocious.
The campaign calendar is one of my newest tools. Based on my old post, Suppositions on Time Tracking, I created a calendar with 7 days in a week, 5 weeks in a month, and 10 months in a year. It might seem arbitrary to deviate from the gregorian calendar most of us are familiar with. However, I didn’t feel the gregorian calendar was sufficiently easy to use. Not only do the number of days in a month fluctuate throughout the year, but since the number of days in a month is not divisible by the number of days in a week, the whole thing turns into a big mess. In my system, each unit of time measurement can be fitted neatly into the next largest unit of measurement without any remainder. The only problem is that the 4 seasons cannot be distributed evenly amongst 10 months. But I just made the transitory seasons (spring and fall) two months long, and the other seasons three months long. That seemed suitable enough to me.
As an added bonus, changing from the gregorian calendar adds to the atmosphere of the game world. Even if the players never need to think about the game’s calendar themselves, the fact that I now know how the calendar works helps make NPC dialogue seem a little more authentic. If you’re interested, the seven days of the week are Famday, Moonsday, Skyday, Earthday, Seaday, Kingsday, and Godsday. The five weeks of the month are Squire’s Week, Knight’s Week, Baron’s Week, Earl’s Week, and Duke’s Week. And the ten months of the year are the “The Month Of…” Rising, Blood, Healing, Blades, Victory, Restlessness, Glory, Defeat, Wisdom, and Remembrance.
Functionally, I use the calendar to track events over time. I keep track of what in-game day it is when we play, and note down any significant events which happen during that day. I try to avoid too much detail, just making quick notes, such as meeting with an NPC I want to bring back in the future, starting or completing a quest, things like that. Going back through the calendar, it can serve as a log book of sorts. It also helps me track cooldowns. If I tell the players it’ll take a week’s worth of time to research something, then I can mark down when they begin researching it, and I won’t forget when it’s time for them to be finished. This also helps with cool downs, or establishing other time limitations. I am coming to appreciate that the passage of time is potentially one of the most interesting aspects of a D&D game–both on the adventure level, and the campaign level. The calendar should help me use that tool more efficiently.
Part of what makes the calendar relevant is a pair of tools which I’ve taken to collectively calling the Quest Log. The first of the two is a list of the PC’s stated goals. It only takes up a few lines, but it serves as an essential compass to me when I’m preparing for each new session. I know from listening to my players that they’re interested in stealing an egg from a great and terrible mountain-sized spider which lives far to the north east. So if the land between where the players currently are and where they need to go doesn’t have any towns or monsters in it, I know I need to work on that to be ready for the next session. The second part of the Quest Log are a list of ‘open hooks.’
Open hooks are ongoing events which the PCs know about. It is important to note that, while there is some overlap, not all open hooks will be among the PC’s stated goals. For example, my players expressly decided not to involve themselves in the war between the Orcs and the Elves in the Western forest. Likewise, not all of the PC’s stated goals count as open hooks. For example, one of my PC’s stated goals is to acquire the hair of a drow. Unless there’s a contagious epidemic of baldness amongst the drow, this doesn’t really count as an ‘ongoing event.’
Using the ‘Lines in the Water‘ mechanic devised by Eric of Dragon’s Flagon, I assign a die to each of the open hooks. More volatile situations use a die with fewer faces, while more stable situations use a die with more faces. Once every in-game week, each open hook’s die is rolled. If the number is a 1 or a 2, the situation gets worse, if I roll the die’s maximum number, or one less than the maximum, then the situation gets better. I heartily recommend you read the original post on this mechanic to get a fuller explanation. It’s one of the most innovative and elegant mechanics I’ve seen in awhile. By using it, I can quickly determine how my game world evolves around my characters. They’ll learn that an opportunity they choose to pass on will not always be there for them in the future, and I avoid any biases I may have about how I would like the event to develop without the player’s help.
Perhaps one of the most obvious tools in my toolbox is a keyed campaign map. My world is printed on a hex map, the value of which I’ve written about a number of times in the past. I created the map using Hexographer, which is the only digital tool I’m using right now. Everything else is done on paper, and fits neatly into a binder. Each hex on the map is keyed twice. First, each hex is part of a numbered ‘region,’ which is outlined in red on the map. Each region has some very basic information associated with it: ‘World NPCs’ which live there (I’ll get to that later), important locations which exist there, the government of the region, a very brief description of what is currently going on there, and an encounter table.
For example, region 1 on my campaign map is home to no World NPCs, and the only important locations are Honon village, and the Dwarven Trade Road. Region 1 is ruled by the human Korrathan Empire, but is on the edge of their territories. The only thing currently going on in region 1 is that the town of Honon is attempting to rebuild after it was destroyed, and there is a group of bandits which attacks small groups of travelers. Based on that information, I created a small encounter table where there were not many encounters with monsters, since the area is considered civilized territory. There is a 15% chance of encountering bandits, a 10% chance of encountering wolves or dire wolves, and the rest of the encounters are just with traveling merchants or patrolling guards.
For most hexes, the region key is all that I need. However, for added detail, each hex is also individually numbered. Most of these numbers correspond with nothing. But if a hex has something particular in it, such as a town, or a monument, or a dungeon entrance, then that information is keyed to the individual hex number rather than the regional key. Again using region 1 as an example, there is only one hex with anything specific in it. Hex 28.18 contains the lakeside town of Honon. So here I would quickly note the name of the town, and the names and purpose of any NPCs the players have interacted with before. Depending on how important the town is to the game, I may have more information as well, such as the town’s purchasing power or the services it has available. In the specific case of Honon, I once ran an adventure where I thought the players might attempt to barricade the town to defend against an attack. They didn’t, but I’ve got a map of the town none the less, which I keep next to hex 28.18’s individual key in case I ever have another use for it.
The only one of these tools I devised myself is the list of the ‘World NPCs’ I mentioned earlier. World NPCs have a larger sphere of influence than standard NPCs do. They are queens, popes, generals, mighty wizards, and dragons. The players may not have met them, but their actions can none the less affect the player’s environment. All world NPCs have a short description of what they want, and how they want to get it. For example, for Grum Okkor, king of the Trolls, my description might read “Wants to build the first Troll empire. Is banding the numerous Troll dens together. Will attack the Korrathan Capitol city on the Squire’s Week during the Month of Blades in the year 3999. Chance of success: 70%”
World NPCs are my method for making the world seem fluid around the players. Events they’ve heard of are not the only ones which affect the world. If the players are nowhere near Korrothan during the Month of Blades this year, then they may return home to find it’s not a safe place to be anymore. Or, at the very least, they’ll return home to a nation recovering from a brutal war. And if they are in Korrothan during the Month of Blades, then they’ll have the opportunity to participate in the war and save their homeland.
The final tool in my box is a simple list: enemies of the PCs. These are characters which the players have insulted, or harmed in the past, and who are angry enough to seek revenge. Each of the PC’s enemies has a plot. One of them might be waiting for the players to return to their town before they strike, while another might be actively tracking the players down. If the players unwittingly stay in one place for too long, their enemies might catch up!
And that’s everything I’m currently using to manage my campaign. I will admit, it’s a little ambitious considering how bad I normally am at maintaining notes. But I think it’s also structured enough, and minimalist enough, that I should be able to avoid many of my characteristic problems, such as including far more detail than necessary. I am hoping these tools will help me improve, but campaign management is still one of my weakest skills as a GM. If anyone has any advice they’d like to share, or ideas on how I can improve the tools listed above, I’d love to hear about it!
In the Gygaxian Era, it was common for every PC to start at first level, regardless of the level of their fellow adventurers. While it was not unheard of for players to start at a higher level, my understanding is that it was not common. And from what I’ve read, it certainly doesn’t seem to have been something Gygax himself liked very much. If you were a new player in an ongoing campaign, you could expect to start at first level even if the rest of the group were in the mid teens or higher. And if you were unfortunate enough to lose a high level character to one of oldschool D&D’s numerous hazards, and your compatriots either could not access, or could not afford, a resurrection spell, then that was it. Back to first level for you.
This style of play has gradually fallen out of style, to the point that many players are unaware that it ever existed. And many modern gamers who are aware of it (either anecdotally or by experience) are openly scornful of the idea. The general consensus among many of my fellow modern gamers is that players who are significantly lower level than the rest of the party will be left with nothing to do. Rather than ‘pointlessly punish’ players for being new to the game, or losing a PC, the GM should let them begin at least two levels below the average party level. And in fairness, there is a logic to this argument.
For my part, I’ve always been at least interested in this kind of play. Which isn’t to say I always thought the idea was good. Quite the opposite, I often joined in on conversations deriding this type of play. I thought it might be a fun way to spend an evening sometime, but never expected I’d enjoy that kind of fundamental imbalance in my games. It might have worked in earlier iterations of the game, I thought, when even high level characters were not particularly powerful. But in the modern game, the difference between a high level character and a low level character is too large. The villains in a high level game would wipe the floor with a low level PC!
Last October, however, I learned I had been wrong. Low level players in a high level game were not useless. Nor were they boring for the people playing them. In fact, that game was an immense amount of fun. As I noted at the time, I don’t think I’ve ever seen that particular player have quite so much fun before. But that was a one-off session. The situation was unusual, and I was unsure of whether that level of fun could be maintained across an entire campaign. If level imbalance were the rule, rather than the exception, would it still be fun?
In the hopes that it would, my Current Pathfinder game is using much stricter rules for character creation. The group I’m playing with has grown slowly, from the three original members, to a fourth two sessions later, to a fifth the session after that, and even a sixth two sessions after that. By the time the most recent player joined the game, the rest were already pushing level three, but I had them start at first level none the less. And while the lower level characters are certainly less capable than the higher level ones, there is not a sense that they’re contributing any less to the group’s success. Often the low level players are able to completely change the course of a battle because they come up with innovative tactics for the party to use, or because they let the higher level characters occupy the monsters while they attempt something clever.
As the average party level gets higher, though, I’ve been more wary about starting players all the way at level 1. The last two members to join the party did so with +1 weapons at their disposal, because I was worried about alienating those players by throwing them into a game where they felt as though they were at a disadvantage.
Earlier today, however, I ran a game where one of the highest level PCs in the party met their end. The player made two extremely poor decisions in a row, and she paid for it when she was reduced to -27 hit points in the first round of combat with three ogres. While the rest of the players continued to explore the dungeon, I told her to begin rolling a new character. I figured that once she was done, I’d have the party encounter her as a prisoner who would join their party, so I told her not to bother rolling starting gold or buying equipment.
Shortly thereafter, the party encountered the ruler of the dungeon: a 6th level evocation specialist wizard with a gear-less paladin chained to the wall. I didn’t know how much the new character would be able to contribute to the battle, but I figured that in the wrost case scenario, one of the other adventurers would free her and give her a spare weapon so she could join in on the fight.I waas particularly worried when I learned that the player had forgotten to select either of the feats they were entitled to as a first level human.
But oh, was I surprised.
First, they asked if they could make a strength check to break the chains that were holding them to the wall. I allowed it, but set the DC pretty high. She not only made it, but she surpassed it by enough that I told her she had pulled chunks of brick out of the wall along with the chains. She asked if she could swing them as weapons, and I agreed. So in a fluid motion, she both broke free from the wall, and smashed the wizard’s two goblin minions in the head with chunks of stone, killing one, and reduing the other to a single hit point. Already she’d significantly affected the battle by effectively removing two nuisance fighters, but I’ll grant you, her success here was largely the luck of the dice.
But she wasn’t done yet.
On her next turn, she asked if she could tackle the wizard, who had just cast fireball on the rest of the party, reducing most of them to dangerously low HP. I told her to make a combat maneuver check, and she easily surpassed the measly combat maneuver defense of the wizard. She tackled him to the ground, and the two rolled down the stairs of his dais together. On the wizard’s next turn, he cast the only spell I thought would still work–shocking grasp. He rolled an 18 on his concentration check, and sent 6d6 volts of electric energy through the shiny new character, reducing the level 1 paladin to -6hp.
The following round, the rest of the players in the group managed to finish the wizard off, but each member of the party was on death’s doorstep. Two of them had only a single hit point remaining. If not for the round of distraction afforded to the group by the paladin, the battle would have resulted in a TPK.
Let me say that again: A level 1 paladin without any equipment, weapons, or feats, managed to single-handedly turn the tide of a battle which was designed as a challenge for 6th level characters.
If you think low level characters can’t have an impact on a high level game: you are wrong.
I work hard to be the best game master that I can, and if I do say so myself, I’m not too bad at it. My groups always seem to have a lot of fun, or at least enough fun that they’re willing to return to my table. Plus there’s the few hundred people who seem to think I’m interesting enough to warrant reading this site, so I figure I can’t be failing completely. Unless a lot of you are just google bots and image wranglers.
…damnit, that’s exactly what you are, isn’t it?
Regardless, I believe that a person should always look for ways to improve, and I need to improve as a GM in more ways than I’m comfortable admitting. I rarely come away from a game session without feeling as though there’s something I could have done much better. I am honestly embarrassed to admit to some of these flaws, and I questioned whether or not I even wanted to share this post. But I also believe that the best kind of writer is one who is brutally honest. Especially regarding themselves. So here we go;
I wet the bed into my teen years.
There. Everything after that should be easy, right?
Consistency is a big personal battle for me, and my failure to be consistent has often affected my GMing in numerous ways. The extent of my preparations, for example, varies wildly. Occasionally I’ll come to a game with ten or twenty pages worth of notes, but more often I’ve got maybe a page of sloppily assembled chicken-scratches. I have a terrible habit of letting other concerns get in the way of my game mastering responsibilities.
Fortunately, or not, my greatest strength as a GM is improvisation. I can pull a varied and interesting game out of thin air without too much effort. But I think this ability can become more of a crutch than a boon. Even the best improvisations are rarely consistent with games I’ve run in the past. Players start to notice little oddities: “If half of the villagers have disappeared, shouldn’t there be empty houses we can stay in? Why do we need to stay in the mayor’s spare room?”
Perhaps my worst inconsistency is in my scheduling of games. I often put off arranging the next game session, because I find social situations so draining. It’s strange that someone like myself, who always feels exhausted after spending an extended amount of time with people, would be so attracted to a game that is inherently social. I’m a walking contradiction, apparently.
Overland Travel has been a weakness of mine for years. The way I handle it did vastly improve when I began mapping my overworlds with hexes. But drastically improved does not mean good enough. I still truggle with basic elements of presentation. I currently have my players indicate how they’d like to travel on a hex grid, and I fill in the blanks as they do so. Not only is it a waste of time to have me filling in hexes, but I hate that my current method has players interacting with a grid, rather than using their imaginations to create the environment for themselves.
I’ve been reading a series of posts written by The Alexandrian on this subject, which address many of the issues I’ve had with running hex crawls. Hopefully after tinkering with it, and trying to run a hex map according to his guidelines, I’ll have a firmer grasp of how a game like that should function. I would like overland travel to be one of the highlights of my games, where adventure hooks lurk behind every hex, and players can spend an entire session being entertained by a lengthy journey. I’ve been able to capture some element of that in my games so far, but I want more.
Economies in my games never make much sense. Going back to the problem with consistency, there’s rarely a set buying power for a gold piece, or any real gauge on how common it is. When my players approach their wizard friend and ask for a completely reasonable magic device that they should be able to acquire (but for which there is no precedent), I come up with a price that ‘seems right.’ Only later do I realize that I’ve significantly over or underestimated the item’s value. I also have a bad habit of being a great deal more generous with treasure than I ought to be, because I’m worried about keeping my players engaged in the adventure if they don’t feel suitably rewarded.
Yes, I know that’s ridiculous.
Focus isn’t something I even realized I was failing at until recently. I started making audio recordings of my games, and realized that my group and I spend a lot of time chit-chatting during game sessions. Worse: more often than not those tangents originate with me. Time for a big surprise: I like the sound of my own voice. You could make the argument that so long as everyone is having fun, it’s not really a problem. But, having played in Brendan’s OD&D game, I’ve seen how much better the game is when everyone keeps their attention on the game. Brendan does a great job of gently guiding everyone’s focus back to the game when it strays. In that way he’s provided a model for me to learn from.
Traps are my weakness when it comes to dungeon crawls. Otherwise, I think I do a pretty decent job of making dungeons work in my games. But when it comes to traps, I’ve never been able to pull them off satisfactorily. Either they’re so non-threatening as to be boring, or they’re so deadly as to be cheap. In part, I blame the game systems I’ve GMed for this one: D&D 3.X and Pathfinder. Skill checks are not a very fun way for a player to search for traps, nor are disable device checks a fun way to get rid of them. I covered this a bit in my skills analyses of both perception and disable device. However, having now played in Brendan’s OD&D game where traps are handled properly, I feel as though I have a better understanding of what makes them fun, and why I’ve only had limited success with them in the past. I guess here, again, Brendan has provided a model to help me improve my own GMing. Thanks!
Low Magic eludes me. I dislike fantasy settings where magic serves as technology. It can be fun now and again, but the world is much more interesting when magic is rare. Yet I always seem to end up in high-magic games. I’m not quite sure how it happens. One minute there’s only one wizard in the area, and he’s a crusty old curmudgeon. The next moment I’ve offhandedly mentioned to my players that there’s a wizard’s college in the capitol city. Fuck! Butter luck next campaign.
There you have it. My biggest failings as a GM. Hopefully I can get them sorted out soon and move on to more minor issues with my style.
Upon going through my budget for the month I realized I had some spare money to spend on toys. After ordering a hardback copy of ACKS, as well as a kickass shirt, I decided to take care of something which was long overdue. I hunted down, and purchased, a set of Zocchi dice. For the uninitiated, Zocchi dice (named for their creator, Lou Zocchi) are role playing dice which are funnier than the funny dice we’re all used to. Every tabletop gamer quickly becomes well acquainted with the standard set: d4, d6, d8, d10/d%, d12, and d20. A full set of Zocchi dice includes a d3, d5, d7, d14, d16, and a d24. Mine arrived a few days ago*, and I’m rather in love with them. I think my girlfriend is getting really frustrated by the incessant clattering of my d5, as I roll it over and over again to marvel over the way it consistently lands on its edge. It doesn’t look like it should, and yet it does!
Long time readers may recall that I have something of an obsession with randomization, so gaining access to different ranges of numbers I can randomize is exciting. I will admit that zocchi dice lack some of the beauty inherent in regular polyhedrons, but in my opinion, they make up for that lack of inherent beauty by being examples of the beauty which is human ingenuity. Seriously, that d5, mang. It mystifies and fascinates me. I also have a more utilitarian need for the dice, since Dungeon Crawl Classic (which I received as a birthday gift) utilizes a full range of Zocchi dice, as well as a d30 (which I also purchased). Furthermore, while fiddling with the mechanics of the RPG system I’ve been working on, I’ve concluded that part of the game will work best if a d24 is used.
I think the last week’s worth of posts have referenced that project. I guess it’s pretty easy to tell what has inspired me to write recently. But after all of this talk, I’m going to look like a real dick if I’m not able to deliver, wont I?
The decision to include a d24 in my game has given me pause. While I have no delusions of grandeur about my project, I do hope I’ll be able to share it someday and get feedback from others. As it stands, this will be my first full-fledged attempt at game design. It’s hard enough to get people to pay attention to a sourcebook written by an untested designer. If people need to buy a new die to play the game, will they even bother? I wonder how Gygax and Arneson felt when they created a game which required a 20 sided die way back in the ’70s.
The relative success of DCC RPG would seem to imply that there is a market for games using non-standard dice. After all, the designers of DCC were able to get a wide release for not only one hard cover sourcebook, but a special edition as well. Given that, I have no doubt that it’ll be easier to release a game using Zocchi dice now than it would have been before. But I still wonder if I can get away with putting such a game out there, without it being completely ignored. It doesn’t help that a complete set of these dice is a pain in the ass to find.
I put it to you, readers: would you buy Zocchi dice if a game you were interested in required them? If you aren’t willing to buy the dice, would you be willing to play the game using standard dice to model the appropriate ranges? You could always replace a d24 with a d12 and flipping a coin. (heads is normal, tails add 12 to the result).
*My set, oddly, is missing the 7-sided die. Further research indicates that Game Science (Zocchi’s company) does not produce d7s using the same style or materials that they use to produce their other dice. I couldn’t figure out why this is, however, so if anyone has information I’d love to know!
Everyone who has played a tabletop RPG, loved the concept, and thought to themselves “Hey, I bet I could make a better system than that!” has come up with at least a few of the standard newbie ideas. These are the ideas that sound really good, but the trick is finding a way of putting them into practice in a tabletop environment. I was guilty of more than a few of these myself. If I ever find the notes for my Metal Gear Solid RPG, I’ll prove it to you. Many of the thoughts new players have revolve around injecting a higher level of ‘realism’ into the game, particularly with regards to combat. And while there are certainly some very good games with more realistic combat than D&D, it’s important to realize that abstraction is a gamer’s friend. Pointless realism can make an RPG about as exciting as doing your taxes.
One idea in particular I’ve heard a few times is separating a person’s body into segments. Something like left arm, right arm, left leg, right leg, torso, and head, each with their own hit points, armor class, etc. I won’t say that no game has successfully pulled this off before, because there are a lot of games I haven’t played. But, in my experience, where this idea always fails (and where most realism ideas fail) is in formulating simple mechanics. This level of realism implies a lot of complexity which can’t easily be made gameable.
But just because it’s not easy doesn’t mean it’s impossible, right? In the system I’m currently working on, I have two design goals which are relevant here. First, the game should be simple for the GM, and extremely simple for the player. The way the it’s taking shape right now, a GM should be able to completely explain character creation to a new player within about 5 minutes, after which the actual characters should be generated in half that time. The other relevant design goal is that I want to encourage mythical battles, where players must tailor their tactics to suit the creatures they are facing.
To that end, I’ve been thinking a lot about monsters with “weak spots.” There’s tons of literary precedent for that kind of thing. Such as Bard the Bowman firing his black arrow into the tiny area of Smaug’s belly where a single scale was missing. Or Odysseus and his crew ramming a spear into the eye of the Cyclops. I like the idea of a game where monsters are often completely immune or at least extremely resistant to standard forms of attack. A game where the players need to think: should we just attack the creature straight out, or should we attack its legs to see if we can slow it down? Pathfinder does this somewhat with DR, SR, etc., and older editions of D&D did it more so with monsters who couldn’t be hurt by weapons below a +X bonus. But I’d like to see a game where player skill could be used to overcome these difficulties, rather than simply needing better equipment.
I flipped through a mental catalog of ideas for how this could be accomplished, and came up with a few options. The one which stood out to me the most was using a type of called shot system. You may be familiar with this concept, as it often shows up in a splat book, or house rules. At its core, the idea is that instead of making a standard attack, the player indicates they’d like to attempt hitting a particular part of their enemy, in exchange for taking a penalty on their attack roll. It’s pretty simple, and when combined with GM rulings, I think it could work well at the center of a combat system.
So, what about a gradient of called shot difficulties which each increase AC by a certain amount, tied to the difficulty class? Using 3-5 levels of difficulty should keep things simple enough to prevent combat from being slowed at all. Additionally, if the rules can attach plenty of examples for each difficulty class, it would help GMs get a good picture of how real-world difficulty translates to mechanics, allowing them to make on-the-fly rulings without needing to consult the book. Consider, as an example:
Easy Shot, +3 AC: Arm, Leg. These are on the outside edge of a human combatant’s defenses, making them a simple target. Moderate Shot, +6 AC: Belly, hand, head. These are smaller areas, or they are on the inside of a human combatant’s defenses, making them somewhat more difficult to hit. Hard Shot, +9 AC, Finger, Eye, Mouth. These are really quite small areas, which would be difficult to hit even if the target was standing still. Impossible Shot, +12 AC, eyes behind a visor. These would be impossible for any standard combatant to hit. It would be a great feat of luck or skill to accomplish this.
On a successful hit, the GM could decide based on the damage dealt relative to the creature’s total HP, what the result of the attack is. If the adventurer makes a called shot to an enemy’s sword arm, succeeds, and rolls 10 damage, the results of that could differ based on what percentage of the enemies’ total HP that 10 damage represents. For a foe with 100 hit points, 10hp is not a significant amount. It would be deducted from the enemy’s current HP normally, but would not have any additional effect. For an enemy with 50 HP, dealing 10 damage to their sword arm might give them a penalty to future attack rolls, or they might need to roll a saving throw to avoid dropping their weapon entirely. For a creature with only 11 HP, 10 damage to the arm would lop it clean off.
Bear in mind that there should be no exact or expected result here. The common sense of the GM should be the only deciding factor for the effects of a called shot. Nor should the damage be treated as cumulative. Each called shot to a certain area should be considered separately from any previous attacks against the same area. If the player wants to worsen damage which has already been done, then they’re not aiming for the monster’s arm, they’re aiming for the wound which is on the arm. That’s a much smaller target, and hitting it would be at least hard, if not impossible during the jostling of combat.
Aside from the on-the-fly rulings, monsters could have special weaknesses listed in their monster entry. A giant insect’s wings (easy shot) could take double damage from fire. Or a slime monster could be completely immune to damage unless you make the hard shot of hitting the brain which floats inside of its goo. Furthermore, creatures could have particularly strong defenses on areas which adventurers might commonly think to attack. A monster with giant eyes would probably need extra-tough eyelids that grants its eyes greater protection than the rest of it.
It’s just a thought experiment at this point, but I’m growing fond of using called shots as a central combat mechanic. Do you have any experience with a mechanic like this which could come in handy?
