"Few days earlier..."

Few days ago I read a great article on slyflourish.com about strong starts of RPG sessions. Since this is merely a comment and one additional trick I came up with, I strongly recommend you to read the original article before reading this post. I am not going to retype anything what is in the article by SlyFlourish for two reasons: Firstly, the guy did a very good job and, secondly, that would be copyright violation in my personal view. So, read the article and come back to my comment.

I really wanted to introduce this pattern to my game, but the problem was I had the scenario ready and I did not want to change the beginning. I could have done that, but one of the main assumptions of the campaign is that the characters always start sitting in the kitchen of their house. Maybe it seems stupid but I have my reasons.

I came up with a nice trick how to bring these two goals together. Sly Flourish in his article gave examples of movies which have a cold open - the action starts in the first seconds. However, some other type of introductions in movies came to my mind. The movies I am talking about also start with a fight or other kind of a strong scene that attracts the audience's attention and gives no explanation what has happened before, but after this punch-in-a-face intro, the screen fades to black and we can see white letters: "Few days earlier...".

How to bring this idea to RPGs? Pretty simple: Describe the scene, the enemies, ask the players to roll the initiative and that is it! Let the fight go on for a few turns - I think playing the whole of it is not a very good idea since stopping it in the middle creates even more suspense.

The important part of the trick is to note all information about the fight, so, when the main story will get to the point before the few-days-earlier intro, you and your players will be able to start from the moment where you have stopped. I have even tried to remember the way in which I described the scene and the enemies just before the fight - I repeated myself to clearly state that this is the moment. After that I have summarised these few turns we had already finished and the fight could be continued.

the final word from me: I believe that the fight picked up for this kind of intro should not be the main fight of a scenario. The players will know the setting of the fight, so they will be able to prepare themselves in any way possible, and the point of this trick is not to make a boss easier to deal with, but to help them dive into the story from the very beginning of a scenario.

Few words about D&D Next and choosing the first system to play

Some may say that I overgeneralise, but for me RPGs can be devided into two groups: those focused on story, plot, intrigues and actual role playing, and those which are filled with much more numbers and statistics, what basically means that fights are on the spot, but, certainly, all RPGs are the mixture of that all. Generally speaking, I prefer the first group from the aforementioned two and that is why I consider Call of Cthulhu my favourite RPG, in which numbers on a character sheet are rarely needed and I have run a lot of sessions when my players did not even touch their dice.

The reason why I am typing all of this is that I played my first session in D&D Next yesterday and I want to share my feelings and remarks about this system and say few words about the first step which everyone has to take before entering the magical world of role-playing games, namely, choosing a system.

The first glimpse of D&D Next

Let us start with a small review of D&D Next. Since all my experience with this system was gained with the third edition, I cannot evaluate the new product of WotC without comparisons to this release. I had never asked myself a question 'what would I change or remove if I wanted to improve the third edition?', but after the first encounter with D&D Next I did and my list of  changes and removals consists of everything what Wizards have done.
The major change is the introduction of the proficiency bonus, what basically replaces the attack bonus, skill points, basic saving throw bonuses and the weapons and armour trained/untrained status. The rule is simple: a character class (and a background) determines in which weapons, armours, saving throws and skills your character is proficient, and, when you use them, you add, apart from other pluses, the proficiency bonus (which value depends on the level of your character) to the test result; if you lack proficiency when, for example, you attack with certain weapon, you just simply rely only on your ability modifier. That makes the play and leveling extremely easy and more enjoyable.
When my players were gaining a level in third edition, the biggest problem for them was to spend skill points and choose a new feat. As I have already mentioned above, skill points were replaced by the proficiency bonus, what gets rid of ridiculous situations when I as a DM had to rise the difficulty level to infinity to create a proper challenge. As for the feats, they are optional: when leveling you can choose between rising your abilities or taking a feat (if your DM permits them in his or her campaign). They are also more significant and give you really cool features.
The last thing I want to mention are Advantages and Disadvantages. Some tests in D&D 3.0 got really terrible when you had to add all the pluses and minuses from countless sources. In fifth edition, when something makes your test easier, you get advantage, roll two D20 instead of one and choose the higher result. The same thing is when something makes the condition worse, but in this case you roll two dice and you have to accept the lower one. For example, the elven resistance to enchantment effects which in 3.0 gave you +2 to the corresponding saving throw, now is replaced by an advantage. Simple, is it not?

Few words about criticising a system

When I read forum threads about various systems, their bright and dark sides, when it comes to D&D, people tend to criticise the fact that the system is focused mainly on fights, the most extensive chapters in the rulebooks are about battles and the 'role-playing' and investigating skills are underestimated. That is definitely true and it is hard to argue with that, but I cannot understand this critique. It is like criticising a screwdriver because it is hard to hammer a nail with it. This system was designed to provide this type of entertainment and if you fancy a complex role playing or unsolved mysteries, you should probably choose a different system. I do not want to say that any critique is wrong, for all systems have a certain purpose and they can serve it or not, but criticising the purpose itself is somehow pointless.

Choose your system

At first I was about to type here something like: 'before you start playing, choose a system that suits your needs.' That sounds like an advice from a rag and I am glad that I did not do that. First of all, it is rarely a case when someone starts playing RPGs on his own. I myself was introduced by a friend and the last thing I wanted to do during my first session was to dictate the rules. That is why I have two advices: one is for people who want to start playing, despite the fact that they probably are not here, and the second one is for people who want to introduce new players to RPGs.

If you have gathered a group of people and you want to start playing, in my opinion, the best thing you can do is to choose three or four different systems, and I am not talking about settings, like fantasy or SF. Some game mechanics are perfect for fights and others for solving complex crimes. If you get to know three or four different systems, you will have a choice.

If you are an experienced player or game master and you want to show someone what your hobby is about, you should make this guy aware that RPGs differ among themselves and each of them offers different emotions and experiences. Prepare for him several sessions, with several game masters, if possible. Do not assume that the thing you love the most, battles in D&D for example, is the best and everyone likes it - maybe this guy will feel better trying to survive in a haunted house playing Call of Cthulhu. To sum up: Give this new guy a choice!

Mature RPGs for mature people: romances, marriages and sex on your sessions

Some time ago I have read an interesting thread on /tg/ on 4chan.org generally connected with sex in RPGs and I have decided to cover this topic in an article on this blog. Since my latest group of players consisted of only females and romances and sex was a big part of my campaign, I have few words to share about, especially that everything has gone smoothly and added only positive aspects to the game. There are several facets of the presence of this kind of relationships in RPGs and I will discuss them one after another. The whole purpose of this article is not to encourage GMs to introduce sex and everything connected into their game. I want to enlighten you on all advantages and disadvantages and what it can bring if you decide to let your players have opportunities to have sex with your NPCs or other player characters.

Maturity of players

First point to consider is the maturity of your players: are they mentally ready and prepared to approach the subject in the mature way? My advice for you is not to underestimate the importance of this question. If your players are immature childish people who laugh whenever they hear the word "bosom", after the introduction of sex your sessions will become some kind of pathetic meetings for guys pretending they are the biggest lady-killers in the world, and your great ideas and plot twists will be overwhelmed by piteous sex scenes which will kill the whole spirit of RPGs.

Pros & Cons

Before you decide to introduce one of your player to a sexy NPC and let him begin seducing her, make a simple list of pros and cons. You are the person who knows your players and your skill in GMing well, so such a list will be completely different from another GM's list, but I want to give you some clues. I am going to cover the most general pros and cons which comes to my mind.

First of all, romances can make your game more developed. Think about your favourite movies or books: in most of them, apart from epic plots, intrigues and stories, you can find romances. The greatest heroes always can find some free time between fighting and killing dragons/aliens/dark presence and spend it seducing farmers' daughters or visiting ladies of their heart. If you put such seducible NPCs into your story, make them a part of it, it will appear to your players as deeper and more complicated one, without too much afford which you would have had to put to achieve such an effect just by means of plot twists.
Secondly, by putting romances into your game you can easily get your players more engaged. When a player's character starts a serious relationship, a player has to develop character's personality and has another reason to care more. He starts treating the character as something more than a few numbers on a sheet.

As I have said in the beginning of this article, the biggest problem with romances in RPGs is maturity of your players. I do not want to repeat myself, but you should seriously think if introducing romances and, fist of all, sex will not make your sessions a disaster during which nobody will be able to have fun.
But if you decide to do so and everything will be O.K., everybody takes it seriously and so on, there is another thing which has to be said: Your players can start to like it too much. It is not necessarily a problem; a GM's role is to provide fun to his players at last, but it can become quite tiring when instead of Lord of the Rings you have to run Dirty Dancing. You have to either get used to it or clearly explain to your players how much time you want to spend on characters' relationships.

Conclusion

One thing at the end of this article. I have one rule about sex in RPGs: The whole role playing stops when all protagonists concerned head to bed and I am pretty strict about it. Every situation like that I end with words: "...and the rest is in your imagination." 

I am the game master, not a porn director!

(Art by Drathe: http://drathe.deviantart.com/)

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!

Story hook: A mother with evil in her heart

Some time ago I found an image which inspired me to create a very interesting villain. In my belief, the best stories consist of at least one difficult choice for players to make. I do not like worlds where it is obvious which side is good and which is bad - I like when players have to choose between two bad decisions, previously having predict the consequences of every option.

A mother with evil in her heart

Possible introduction

There are plenty of ways in which you can introduce this story to your players but I think the easiest way is just a simple quest from a local governor for killing a bandit who terrorises the vicinity. In my opinion the beginning of any quest should be simple - players should be able to contain their task in one sentence. In this way they are able to fully focus on the story progression without feeling lost from the very start.

The mother

Her name is Malena and she is vicious and merciless bandit. She not only lives stealing and killing people - she also loves what she does and she is proud of that. She often prepares traps on main roads where she can meet many caravans and rich noblemen and since she is a great assassin too, she kills people in cities for politicians or just for her own - for fun or for revenge.

Apart from all of that she has her second side: she has two babies and she loves them more that anything else. One very important facet of using this story hook is that her two faces cannot be connected. She cannot be someone who steals and kills to provide for a living for her babies - she loves to be a rascal but her children are the most important for her.

The confrontation

When players finally confront the mother, they should be put in a situation when they have only two options to choose: To kill the mother and to orphan two little babies or to let her go and do what she has been doing before. Each of these choices brings evil and good simultaneously and players should know that from previous experiences with the mother's activities.

What is next?

After some time, you can bring back this story in some way depending on their choice: If they decided to let the mother go, they can hear about someone famous and important killed by her and if their choice was different and you played long enough to let her children grow up a little, they can seek for revenge. In any case make it hurt.

Feast of the Moon

As I mentioned in one of my previous post, in my D&D game I have got a druid and a bard. Tercora, the servant of the nature, had really wanted to participate in the druidic annual holiday which takes place on the shores of Lake of Steam, during the Feast of the Moon. Since I, as a game master, do not let my players to just take the prestige classes and I require them to put some effort to get one, we had decided that it would also be the time of her change into the Shifter (info).

The main problem that occurred was what to do with Arvolethe the bard. I talked to my player who plays as Arvolethe and together we agreed to let her character stay and have some rest at the their house in Elbulder. I created another druid whose role was played by her and this way she could participate in everything what took place. This was perfect solution: There was no glitch in the story, everything stood as it is in the setting and I did not have to run two stories at the same time. There were no experience points to get from this story, even if there could have been, but when one of the characters had been absent, there would have been some sort of unfairness, so the only reward from this session was the prestige class for Tercora.

The inspiration for this scenario came from Umbra from World of Darkness RPG. I have not played in WoD for a really long time, but the idea seemed perfect. After Tercora's arrival, all druids started to meditate and with a little help of some mixed herbs they entered some sort of the inner world of nature. Tercora's task was to defeat monsters destroying nature in the woods where she was naked and her magic did not work. The only ability she had was to change herself into animals. Since I did not want them to get bored, I put few old friends who they had not seen for a long time. Those friends were NPCs to save from the same creatures. At the end of this adventure was a cove of Shifters. There the other druid disappeared. Some kind of ghost told Tercora that if she wanted to become a Shifter, she had to defeat the one who she loves the most.

The main boss of this story was Arvolethe - the regular character of the second player, however, this time Arvolethe was evil. In fact, that was just an avatar of real Arvolethe, but this version of her hated Tercora so badly that the only thing that mattered for her was to kill the druid. I have to admit that the Player who played Arvolethe did the best job I have ever seen. She acted like there was real hatred in the Arvolethe's heart and soon it appeared that Tercora has only two choices: to die or to kill her best friend.

When a GM wants to do this kind of trick, there are two things that matter: First of all, you have to know well your players and you have to trust them. You have to be one hundred per cent sure that a player can act it in the right way. Second one is performance: A player who is object of this trick has to be unaware of the fact that an opponent that he or she is fighting is not in fact is not who he or she appears to be. It is important because the whole point of the trick is to rouse strong emotions and force a player to make difficult decisions. If she had known that all of that was not real, she might have neglected the whole scene.

In the end, Tercora discovered the power of the place. In that cave she could change herself into any form and that was what she did. She changed herself into a big purple worm and she killed Arvolethe. In the world of nature the strongest survives and even if some creature is the most powerful, one can still loose if one hesitates to make the hardest decisions. Tercora was more powerful in this cave but she could still loose...
...but she did not. She chose nature over her best friend and became a Shifter.

Controlling player characters' senses

Today just a short tip for GMs. As you run RPG games, you probably know awkward moments like that:

GM: "Make a spot check."

Player: "I failed."

GM: "Oh... So, never mind."

I think I do not have to explain in details why it is so pathetic, but let me tell you just a few words. After this dialogue players perfectly realise that they have missed something. In D&D and other RPGs where action is on the first place, it does not matter so much, but in Call of Cthulhu, where atmosphere is everything in fact, it destroys all the GM's work. Imagine a situation when characters enter a new room and there are some evidences of the crime or a presence of a daemon which they failed to notice. After the "...never mind" presented above they know that something important has been in that room and instead of moving forward, they are going to try to re-enter the room again and try to examine it once more. How to improve it?

Be prepared to make all the checks connected with characters' senses by yourself. Note somewhere what bonuses your player characters have to spot, listen and so on. If you do, that situation is going to look completely different. Next time, when your players enter a new room, you will check their senses by yourself, and your job will be just tell them what they have noticed, and if they fail, you will just remain silent. No more awkward text during your sessions.

One important thing is not to exaggerate. I am not telling you to ban your players from making those checks at all. If you just want to check whether characters noticed a hidden enemy or not, let players do that - characters will meet the consequences two minutes after that so it does not matter, but if it is something which is to make their task easier (especially in detective stories), do not hesitate to use my tip.

Dead villains are (well, were) humans too!

Dungeons & Dragons is a very peculiar role playing game. There are lots of people who really hate it and, honestly speaking, I can see their point. On the other hand, it gives you an impression of playing the very first RPG and the ambience of swords and wizardry has some magic inside. When you run D&D you have to be careful to avoid one common mistake which is very easy to make especially if you stick to this system for longer time: You can become a ‘spawner’ – a Dungeon Master who do nothing more than spawning countless, more and more powerful crowds of monsters and villains whose only one task is to be smashed by your players. There are tons of articles in the Internet which can guide you how to improve your NPCs, how to make them more vivid and real, but DMs seem to forget that evil wizards, barbarians and thieves who are their main bosses are living creatures either. Honestly, in most games a dragon which has lived in a cavern for his entire life has more personality and better story to tell than a necromancer who was born and grown up among people in big cities of Faerun.

There is an example of a standard adventure located in catacombs or something similar: Four characters, let’s say a warrior, cleric, thief and a wizard got inside and after countless corpses left behind them, they finally find themselves in the main chamber – big, beautiful, filled with columns, stairs and everything what can make the nearest battle more interesting. Off course, in the middle of the room there is a tombstone where the main loot waits for its finders. Suddenly, tens of undead start to attack our main protagonists and finally the big star shows up – The necromancer Black Andrew The Master of the Dead, who wears black robes and a traditional skull on his head. Battle is very hard and our protagonists end up with ¼ of their hit points, no spells and potions but with the awesome loot in their bags. Yay! Great story! But wait… What had Andrew eaten? Where had he slept? What had he done when he had been bored of rising the undead and doing all other evil stuff?

That is my point. Do not let those villains to be just spawns to kill. You can simply add a few things to your story to make Andrew more vivid and, well, real. First of all, create another room just next to this main chamber. Put a bed, desk and a cupboard inside. If you have got any problem with that, picture yourself as a bad guy and imagine that you have got a door in your main chamber which leads to your private room. Think about your friends’ rooms and what they have on desks, walls and how those things express their personalities. Look at those two lists below:

Awesome loot	Loot that makes your bad guy real
·      Awesome sword of awesomeness (+5 to being awesome) ·      Dark shield of darkness ·      Screaming dagger of killing mothers-in-law ·      More awesome items which make your players’ characters look like a sparkling exhibition of a sex shop	1.       Basic needs: Some salted meat and an old bread; Bed, table, chair, candles and other stuff like these 2.       Interests: Among books over necromancy: Romances, D-I-Y handbooks, hidden paintings of naked sexy elven women (well, that one fits better in Basic needs above, doesn't it?) 3.       Look what YOU have in your room

I think you have got my point. Those are really easy things to add and they do not make characters more powerful in any way. Next time your players will know that Andrew is a human and has to eat and sleep just like their characters and he is not just a spawn.

Furthermore, if you want to put a little more afford in Andrew’s story, you can prepare some letters (not extremely well-built – they can just begin with “How are you?”), notes over his researches and similar hand-written supplements. This way, besides eating and sleeping, you show your players that the villain is set in the world – he/she has friends, things to do, work which he/she had been doing just before the moment when PCs attacked him.

Think this way: This stuff does not take much time but it can make another facet of your play more real.