Wish me luck!

Have you ever had a problem with determining what test a player should take when he wanted to perform an unusual action? If you have as inventive players as I do, you probably have to deal with this problem very often. In RPGs like Call of Cthulhu, we have the luck roll which is very useful in those situations but in Dungeons and Dragons there is nothing like that.

How lucky am I today?

Since I have run Call of Cthulhu, I could not imagine playing without such an "emergency" roll that solves all my problems, but I did not want to add another predetermined skill to D&D, because I think there is already too many of them. And then, a brilliant idea came to my mind - luck is not something constant: it changes all the time! Having this in mind, I introduced a D20 roll for each of my players at the very beginning of every session. I note the results on a piece of paper and put it in a visible place for everybody. This way I determine the today's difficulty check for the luck roll. When I need a player to test an action that does not really fit to any of the standard skills and abilities, I tell him or her to simply roll a die. If the result is the same or higher than the player's luck roll they made at the beginning of the session - the action succeeds, if it is lower - sorry, your abilities cannot help you when you have no luck.

This roll is also very helpful when a player wants to perform an action that is more than sure to succeed and you do not really want it to be so easy (and you do not want to cheat). On higher levels, players' characters tend to have + billion to everything and the simple actions become too simple. You can just say then, that it is not the matter of ability, but your player has to be lucky to do this. Of course, you cannot use the luck roll in this kind of situations too often because your players can start to feel that the development of their character is pointless when you test their luck instead of their abilities.

Modifiers? Of course!

To be clear, I honestly would not let the players buy any pluses to the luck roll with experience points. That would make the roll pointless. The word 'luck' is in the name of the roll for a reason and you should not treat it just as a name. However, you can reward your players with four-leaf clover or other items which are thought to give luck. Those items should not work longer than one session - they are not another artefact!

On the other hand, you can curse your players - black cats and broken mirrors can happen also to their characters! Consider it as a great way to punish your players for not listening to you or talking about stuff not connected with the session. Make them suffer!

Entering the Magical Kingdom of the Cake...

Game master bought a new supplement to his favourite role playing game. It was a campaign setting filled with descriptions of lands, countries, dungeons to explore, political relations and NPCs. He was amazed - the world presented in the book was picturesque and fit perfectly to his game. His head was full of ideas and the world started to live in his imagination.
Few days later players arrived to game master's home to play in this "new awesome setting", as the GM had described it to them. He did everything to present the atmosphere of the world, described common inhabitants' behaviour, introduced his players to elaborate political systems. He had prepared himself in every possible way before the play and he expected the players to be as fascinated as he had been.
After few hours of descriptions, dialogues and exploration, the game master was tired and his players... hated it. Not only that very session: They hated everything what happened, their characters, quests and the world which had been glorified by the GM. They did not want to tell that in this poor guy's face, but he is not stupid. He felt that something was not right, that something went wrong but he cannot tell what was that.

Common mistake

In fact, when working with such a complex material like world description, you can make a lot of mistakes, but the worse of them are probably caused by too much information put in players' heads in the same time. You have to realise that your players do not make notes and do not have a script of what you say. They have to imagine everything and if the pictures in their minds are not strong and interesting enough, they will not memorise any details about your world. That is why you have to give information gradually - let them process all those laws, politics, relations by giving them some time to do so.

Experiencing the world

You are entering the Magical Kingdom of the Cake. The country's society is built around magic. The people will not be surprised or impressed by your cheap tricks. The ruler of the country is Billy the Wizard but the Council of the mages are the second most important and powerful people around here. Their names are...

Maybe this example is slightly exaggerated, but think for a minute if you have not ever told your players something that they could not know and, what is more important, they have not had to know in that very moment.
My idea of first entering a country or a city is based upon my personal experiences from my childhood. When I was ten years old, my father took me abroad and after all these years I exactly remember all the details accompanying my first contact with a different country. I had general view upon Germany and Denmark, because they were the countries I visited as first, but I knew nothing what they look like.
First thing I noticed were roads in amazingly good condition in Germany. Later on, the cities of Denmark seemed to me as very peaceful and friendly places. They were very clean - there was no litter on the streets, everyone put his garbage into the bin. I saw a lot of bike lines - all picturesque little towns were connected by them and it seemed to me that people are able to travel across the whole country only by bike. Another thing were flags - in every town, beside almost every house there was a flagpole. Because of those particularities, Danish people appeared to me as a very active nation who is proud of their country.
In conclusion, people seem to build their view upon other countries and cultures by noticing small differences between those cultures and their own. To show something interesting, we should focus on details in sights, towns and people's behaviour rather than on politics and great matters of the world.
Second conclusion is a well known fact and is pretty obvious, but it is very easy to forget about. People do not notice thing which are normal - they focus on things that are different. So, when introducing a new realm, do not describe how the roads, people, towns, forests look like - tell your players how those things differ from the ones they already know!