Zen and the art of Dungeon Mastering Table of Contents 2 Dungeon Master Tips 3 Character Creation Tips 15 Plot Ideas 17 Death of Player Characters 23 Frequently Asked Questions 26 Group Dynamics 33 The Illusion of Free Will 36 Leads and Excuses 38 Scare Your Players 45 So You Want to Write an Adventure 47 Alignment Guidelines 50 Bringing Player Characters to Life 53 English Titles 57 Building Game Worlds 62 Taglines 71 Classic Blunders of Evil Overlords 75 Taverns 81 Dungeon Master Tips Make sure you keep the number of characters down to a comfortable amount. For example 2-4 characters. Any more makes the experience points to divided, and level advancing moves way too slow. Keep the treasure mild until the characters reach a high level. Otherwise they get to used to getting a lot of treasure and eventuely get almost every magical item in existance, or so it seems. Give players items and weapons that can be used by members of the party. Thus a two- handed sword is no good for a party of two clerics, a mage, and a druid. Never reveal to the PC's the hit points, hit dice, AC, damage, that a creature deals or has. If you, the DM, wants to bring one of your PC's on the adventure, make sure that you play it fairly and take nothing that you know to change the actions of your character. Never tell the players what kind of creature is present, just describe it. Tell them only if they can identify the monster. Play it as a game. Have fun. IT'S NOT LIFE!!! ------ The first thing to preparing a good adventure for your player characters is having the proper materials. If you have a great imagination, then this helps profoundly! Good things to have are: The Dungeon Master's Guide, and Monstrous Manual. I have practically memorized the DMG, but it's good to have one at hand when you need it. When making up a quest, it's good to know what kind of characters will be playing, so as you can include a part for everyone in your adventure. (More on this later). Now, think of a plot! Keep in mind, it doesn't have to be a great theatrical theme here. Now once you have a basic plot for the adventure, decide what will go into it! This includes the main NPC's (Non-Player Characters), items, and places. It's good to write all of this down, so it can be easily accessed during play time. And last, fill in all the details! This is where you get descriptive! (More on that later) Be Realistic: Ok, so you're looking at this and saying "Be realistic, in a FANTASY game, huh?". Well, read on, see what I mean. First, think about the Levels of your party. What fun is it for a level 3 fighter to have a +5 sword? None really, your players will be too powerful, too quick! One of the best adventures I DMed took around 5 months to play (and this is about every day, people). And with a party of 4 players, the highest achieved level 11 when it was over. It wasn't being powerful, or having awe inspiring artifacts that kept their interest in the adventure, it was the intruige of the quest. It was, for the most part, non-stop adventure. If they weren't fighting, they were getting themselves out of a critical situation. Try not to put too much Hack-n-Slash in your quest, make your party think as well! Don't put your party in an imposible situation. In other words, try not to have a cocky 15th level warrior come up to them at 2nd level! Sure, you say, "Well, they should know better than to try and fight him when they see the glowing sword, and sparkling eyes!". Well, I'm telling you from experience, they DON'T! Your party can, and sometimes will, fight just about anything! So, what fun is it to play a game, when you can't beat what you may be up against? The best way from getting your party dead from a Great Wyrm Red Dragon at 2nd level, is not to introduce the dragon at all! Simply don't put it in the quest, and there's no chance of it happening. Another thing is not to give your players too much too soon! I'm sorry, but it's ridiculus for a level 1 player to have ANY magical items, unless in very special cases, and the item isn't too much. (Keep in mind people, these thoughts are mine alone) Keep it simple to start, this way, the players will be proud when they get that +1 sword at level 4! (If you're running a campaign where magic exists commonly, then this may not apply. I, myself, do not run this type of adventure, because I think the rarer the magic, the more it's appreciated when found.) Be prepared to WING it!: One of the greatest things about the AD&D game, I think, is the fact that there are no limitations! A character can do anything they wish to do, no matter what the consequences. You will never be able to predict everything a character will do, so be prepared to wing it alot of the time. Don't be dis-heartened if a character, or party diverts from the quest's path, simply (and subtly) redirect them back. Some of my best quests came from winging the quest the whole time! And don't be too hard on them if they do something stupid! THEY WILL! Now, if extreme measures are taken (killing the King for no apparent reason...) then take the obvious (and realistic) route (capture them! Hold them on trial for it!). If this were to happen, don't make it impossible for the party to escape! This only discourages the players. But you can make them sweat! (hehe) Sure, teach them a lesson, but don't make it too impossible, just extremely hard to find a way out! Please keep in mind, that the above advice is from my experience only, and there are all kinds of players out there, and different things work with different people. I hope that this helps you make a better adventure for your PC's. ------ I recently realized what my essential strategy is if a new mix of players (who may or may not know each other) gets together to play with me as a DM: 1. Make up a high goal (to be realized in 3-4 sessions) 2. Give the players a start setting and develop details on the spot 3. Look for players interests 4. Mix these interests with your own ideas to advance to the high goal 5. Take notes of what players say or wish during the session without disrupting the playing 6. Slowly make the high goal obvious to players (1st-3rd session) 7. Confront them with their archvillain - archproblem (?) (battle or something) 8. Base your next set of sessions (this time 4-9 sessions) on the outcome of the confrontation and on the notes you took during the last few sessions to ... 9. Get the players in a related, but different start setting 10. and start all over again (more complex plot, more NSCs, more surprising changes in plot ..) This results in: -Players getting involved, because their character's aims and dreams are at stake -Because of this, I can use different motivations of PCs to get the story going -PCs do more things together (I hate split-up partys), since they share some of their goals -By the time they defeated (or not) their archvillain, PCs stick together just for the sake of playing (and because the got used to the other PCs) and so on. ---------------- STARTING Do *NOT* let players import characters from other campaigns. It totally destroys "game continuity." Unless you are an experienced DM. (See 04.1.1 JOINING AN EXISTING CAMPAIGN) Start Small. Don't use 25th level fighters and giant dragons and whopping big treasure troves rotten with magical items. Pit low level characters against low level bad guys and monsters. Be sure you know what you're dealing with before you present it to the players. Start DMing a small group of sympathetic players. You don't need some AD&D know-it-all second-guessing your every decision. Too many players (more than 3 or 4 to start) can be uncontrollable. If your players are all new too, agree on some group interaction ground rules before the first game. Three basic rules are: everyone gets a chance to play/speak; people keep their hands and eyes off other players' character sheets; look behind the DM screen and die. Run low-level modules, or steal ideas from them. They're generally fairly complete and can give you direction, even if you don't slavishly follow them (which isn't bad for a beginner to do). Go ahead and use published modules now, and you can modify them for further play later. DON'T try to learn all these complicated rules while at the same time constructing your own complete, complex world. That can come later. Get the rules down, and prepare for games before you play. Stand up for yourself if players don't agree with your actions and you know you're right; but be open-minded enough to see when a player's argument makes sense. Changing your mind on a call or outcome doesn't mean you're abdicting power. This is a COMMON error among new DM's we've worked with. Remember, the DM is in charge, but s/he's not infallable. If I had to name the most important characteristic of a good DM, I wouldn't hesitate. "Organization" and "imagination" are important. So are "consistency" and "fairness." But above and beyond these, is the ability to *THINK FAST* in an unexpected situation. Your players, if they're decent roleplayers at all, will confront you with all sorts of things you hadn't expected. ("We rape the elf.") You have to figure out how to adjudicate the results of these events, without hesitating, and stand by your decision in the face of the inevitable "Dungeon Lawyers." (One of the most useful words for a DM: "FIAT!" Which is a Latin word meaning "Make it so," effectively. Say it and brook no argument.). RULES AND LAWS DMs word is Law. You basically design the world, control the gods which in turn control the world, religion, magic. You also control all the kings which control thier sections of the world and make laws. So basically any laws or rules you want are yours for the having. One thing you should remember is once you make a rule or a law you should keep it constant (next) KEEP IT CONSISTENT One thing you should try to do is keep things consistant on the whole. This does not say that things cannot change. Certain area of your world things might operate differently, but there should be some reason for this. Maybe a hidden magical power source is effecting magic or a lack of magic in an area. Or some powerful wizard has effected an area for his/her liking. Or on certain rules in a kingdom, the King/Queen may decide to change the rules/laws halfway through the campaign, but again there should be some reason for the change. The PC's don't need to know the exact reason, but they should if they want to, follow it up to find out the reason. WORLD DESIGN Design at least three times as much "world" as you think you'll need. One thing I've found repeatedly (in 18 years of DMing) is that characters rarely do what you expect, and *never* what you want. Try to make encounters that are place independent. That is, they can be moved about without too much work. This way when the PC's are travelling down the path and then turn off for no reason you can move the cave to where they will no come across it. This way the PC's don't think there be forced into anything. The just happened to stumble across a secret cave. This can be done to some extent, but not with all things. VILLIANS AND NPCs Every adventure needs a good villain. To create a good villain you need, at minimum, the following: Her goals. Why is she doing whatever she's doing? Her power level. This should be commensurate with that of your party she should be difficult, but possible, for them to defeat. Reasonably complete description. What does she look like? What does she dress? How does she speak? Etc. If you have a villain you really like especially if she's given the party a hard time give her an emergency escape, so she can come back to trouble your players again after a few months have gone by. Make one recurring enemy and have him gain power with the PCs to keep him challenging. This can be anything from a childhood friend that one of the PC's took his/her lover, to a relative, to a child that one of your ancestors wronged in some way or another. BALANCE When you let a new player into a campaign, you have to give some serious thought to whether to make him come in as a first level, who is likely to die very rapidly at the hands of the critters the others face, or have him come in as a character from another town who's just moved in with his own experience, etc. (Or perhaps have him take over an existing NPC.) There is more to a good campaign than balance but not much. Player characters have to be kept nominally similar in power so that they can interact and not have one bossing the others around. This doesn't mean everything has to be absolutely *equal*, but that one character doesn't accumulate massive treasure and power without some compensating accumulations on the parts of others. There's more than this to balance. The next obvious point is balance between players and monsters, but that's so obvious it doesn't need much discussion here. (Rather, it needs entire tomes written about it, but that's another argument.) Then, too, there is balance of the world itself. Is your world ruled mostly by Law or Chaos? (At least in the area your campaign will begin.) Is it high-power, or low-power? How common is magick? Etc. Another issue of world- balance is the variety of NPCs your players meet. Remember that *MOST* of the people in the world will be neither wizards, warriors, thieves, nor priests, but craftsmen, farmers, petty criminals, government officials, merchants. . . You get the idea. Children. Old people. Make your world *complete* in its balance. FREEDOM Try not to force players in a certain direction. Most players that I have played with, hate when the DM forces them down a certain path. They try even harder to get off that path, once down it. Thus try to allow your players to roam where they want. In towns you can have them over hear a couple of drunks talking how they just mugged an adventure that came back from some nearby caves. If they want they will go explore the caves. If they PC's don't go in the direction you want then move the dungeon to where they will stumble across it. Or scare them back into the direction you want by facing them with an overwhelming force. This is a hard one because many times the PC's will actually try and take on the force. PC's often don't the sense to run away from things. ---------------------------- Here are some suggestions that I have found helpful in my AD&D campaign. There are rules suggestions, hands-on activities for outside of game time, books to read... all kinds of stuff. I'm a history major, so forgive me if the list is kind of heavy on reading and research. Feel free to discuss. In no particular order: 1. Go horseback riding (a MUST!). 2. Learn the names for various riding equipment and supplies. 3. Visit an authentic blacksmith's shop. Places like colonial Williamsburg, Virginia are good for this, even if not set in exactly the right time period. 4. Find and wear a replica suit of armor. This is even harder than it sounds; the first thing you will learn is a lesson about the relative sizes of people then and now... 5. Learn fencing. It's good exercise too. 6. Visit an art museum. The Cleveland Museum of Art is one of the best, but if you can get to the Louvre, I won't argue the point. Either way, this is probably the most important thing on the list. While you are there, see the following things: -- arms and armor -- clothing and tapestries -- calligraphy -- religious relics -- basically ANYTHING from the middle ages. -- basically ANYTHING from ancient Egypt, Greece, or Rome. The remnants of a previous time do much to add atmosphere to a campaign. 7. Think back to your art museum trip. Imagine everything you saw was some kind of magical item... 8. Read "Beowulf". 9. Read "The Canterbury Tales". 10. Shoot bows and arrows of various types. 11. Read a book about herbalism. "The Magic and Medicine of Plants" from Time/Life Books is one I recommend. In short, if you don't know the significance of, oh, say, the mandrake, you don't know anything about herbalism, even if you think you do. 12. Play chess, even if it is the degenerate modern variety first recorded in 1518. 13. Sleep under the stars. Ask yourself if any self-respecting 15th level nobleman would do the same. 14. Attend a Wiccan gathering. 15. Attend a Roman Catholic Mass said in Latin. 16. Visit a Gothic Cathedral. 17. Visit an authentic castle. If you happen not to live in Europe, there is a decent replica of one in Loveland, Ohio (!). (If anyone reading this has the address of Chateau La Roche, it would be much appreciated). 18. Read "The Name of the Rose" by Umberto Eco. 19. See the movie of the same name. A picture is worth 1000 words, and at 24 frames a second, that's a lot. 20. Be familiar with the following infamous villains and dastardly events: -- The Spanish Inquisition -- Sir Francis Drake -- The Spanish Armada -- Savanarola vs. the Medici family -- The Viking attacks on the Anglo-Saxons. -- The Huns 21. Find some Medieval recipies. Make and eat them, if you dare. 22. Go hangliding. It's probably the closest thing to a flight spell that we'll ever have. 23. Write with a quill pen. 24. While you're at it, learn a little calligraphy. 25. Learn a bit about the language of heraldry. 26. Learn the names for the various parts of a castle and cathedral. And I mean more than just "dungeon" and "altar." 27. Explore a wild (non-commercial) cave. Consider the difficulty of doing the same in armor. 28. Get an illustrated, full-color armor catalogue from an place that makes authentic armor. Sure, the stuff for sale will all cost a lot, but it's the pictures you're after. You may learn a lot just by paging through the catalogue. I once knew someone who had a catalogue like this, but alas, he is lost to the sands of time... Can anyone help? 29. Hear some recordings of early music, ie., that of the troubadours and Gregorian chants. 30. Go wilderness backpacking. Then YOU tell ME if AD&D movement rates make sense. 31. See a demonstration of falconry. 32. See a demonstration of jousting and swordfighting. 33. See a demonstration of archery. 34. Have your fortune told by a live fortune teller (NOT a dial-in psychic). Whether or not you believe in that kind of thing, the magic is in the presentation, and this is what it's all about. 35. Read "The Pilliars of the Earth" by Ken Follett. It's got lots of sex in it (and this is bad?), and it also has a lot of background on life in medieval England and the building of cathedrals. A fascinating book. 36. Ride a carriage over a gravel, dirt, or courdoroy road. 37. Read anything by Tolkien, but ignore the humans for the most part. Pay attention to the elves, dwarves, halflings, and humanoids. To keep them interesting, the races should all be SPECIAL and UNIQUE, and Tolkien understands this. 38. Take off your glasses. Now consider the importance of adding a PERCEPTION trait to your character sheet. (As a character, my PER score would probably be around 4 or 5 without my glasses). I'll leave it to you to work out the details. 39. Read the Book of Revelation in the Bible. 40. Read "The Wonders of the Invisible World" by Cotton Mather for information on witchcraft. 41. Read "The Pit and the Pendulum" by Edgar Allen Poe for an idea of what good suspense is like. 42. Read (or see performances of) "Macbeth" and "Hamlet". 43. Forget Monty Python. 44. Forget "Robin Hood: Men in Tights". 45. Forget Greyhawk and Forgotten Realms. Fun, yes. Authentic, no. (The same goes for the above two). 46. Consider carefully the availability of coinage in your world. The vast majority of medieval valuables came in the form of LAND and TITLES, not money. Land is the very basis of the feudal system. If you want easily portable valuables, use jewelry or gems. Coins were much rarer than most AD&D fantasy adventures have you believe. Jewelry is more fun, too. 47. See a replica of a medieval ship, of almost any kind. 48. Carry and use a torch, even a Tiki Torch, while trying to do something else. 49. Read James Michener's "Poland", especially the sections dealing with the middle ages. Heck, the whole thing isn't a bad read anyway. 50. Build a fire without matches or other modern equipment. 51. Remember that most people of the time are illiterate. 52. Remember that most people of the time are short of stature. 53. Remember that most people of the time are superstitious. The existence of actual, working magic will probably do a lot to further this. 54. Remember that most people of the time die young. Adventurers will have longer lives if they can pay for clerical healing, which is vastly superior to any other kind available. 55. Remember that adventurers are extremely rare. Fighters and rogues should be the most common, followed by clerics. Wizards should be the most rare, special, and MAGICAL of all. 56. A list of interesting good guys (and gals) to keep in mind: -- Charlemagne -- Joan of Arc -- Nostradamus -- Leif Ericsson -- Thomas Beckett -- Eleanor of Aquitaine -- Leonardo da Vinci -- St. Bede the Venerable -- Roger Bacon ...any one of these people would make a fascinating addition to your campaign world. 57. Invest in some candles for better atmosphere. 58. Remember the Afterword of the First Edition AD&D DM guide. It is a great loss to the second edition that it was removed, and this sentence in particular is worth repeating verbatim: "BY ORDERING THINGS AS THEY SHOULD BE, THE GAME AS A WHOLE FIRST, YOUR CAMPAIGN NEXT, AND YOUR PARTICIPANTS THEREAFTER, YOU WILL BE PLAYING ADVANCED DUNGEONS & DRAGONS AS IT WAS MEANT TO BE." -DMG Too often this is forgotten. 59. Watch the X Files and the Twilight Zone. Adapt these plots to medieval settings for really interesting adventure scenarios. 60. My players ABSOLUTELY HATE guns. Get rid of them! Also leave out submarines, ironclad warships, television montors and cameras, and tactical nukes. (I played in a really bad campaign one time that featured all of these in one night... Let's just say that the person responsible is no longer in our merry band of adventurers). 61. If you must have a dragon in your campaign, give it lots of history and background. He (or she!) shouldn't just descend upon the party from the sky at random. If you make the evil dragon the same one who killed the paladin's grandfather, the dragon's death will mean a lot more to the adventurers. 62. Discuss gaming with other DM's. I guess that's what this is all about. --------------- The Basics of Game Mastering by Peter M. Sepich The following steps are the basis of a simplified GM'ing method which emphasizes player enjoyment over rule-haggling, and makes the beginning GM's job easy to understand. Take the ones you think will help, and if necessary, change them to fit your needs. 1. Become familiar with the rules. Read the GM's material and player's material in your spare time. Learn the game mechanics (dice, rounds, etc.) and the rules you will need to apply to your game. A beginning GM should remember the acronym "KISS" ( Keep It Simple, Stupid!). 2. Plan the adventure carefully. If you are using a published module, become very familiar with it. Published modules are the easiest way for a new GM to start out. If you have to make up an adventure, use your imagination, but still keep it simple to understand (KISS!). As you go, you will learn to adjust the strength of the player character's (PC's) adversaries to present the characters with a good challenge. 3. Write everything down. As GM, you will handle loads of information and you need it to be accessible. Before the game, jot down any rules you may need during the game. If the monsters' statistics are not on paper, write those down also. To make combat easier, write each character's name and vital statistics at the top of a column on a page. Do the same for the monsters they will encounter. As PC's get wounded or healed, simply track the damage right below his/er Body score. [Editor's Note: 'Body' is an attribute in the Envoy system used by this webzine to make references generic among game systems. ] You can make a list of spellcasters' memorized spells on the same page. Work out ways of making notes that work for you. If your information is organized, combat and encounters will go quickly and smoothly. 4. Use a simple initiative system. In games where weapon speed, terrain advantage, and other initiative modifiers are used, the initiative rolls can take more time than combat itself. A simple system makes rolls quick and easy. If the PC's are fighting lots of opponents, use group initiative. The GM and a player roll d10s, the group with the lowest roll attacks first. In the characters' group, each player rolls d10, and they attack in ascending order. If the PC's are fighting one or two opponents, roll initiative for each as if s/he were a character, and everyone attacks according to their roll. The system may not be specifically fair to those with high Dexterity or light weapons, but combat is uncertain anyway. I still use this system in my most high-level games. 5. Learn to use dice quickly. Figuring out whether a blow hits can be time-consuming. In Advanced Dungeons and Dragons, for example, I simply use the attacker's THAC0, subtract the target's Armor Class, and see if the attacker rolled that high. If not, s/he missed. All dice rolling in all game systems can be simplified if appropriate. With time, everyone learns to use dice like a pro. 6. Visualize and describe well. When you plan an adventure, imagine walking through the adventure area and remember what you experience. Don't limit yourself to vision only. Smell the smells and hear the sounds. Is it cold? Hot? Damp? Remember the five senses when you relate the environment to the players. Good description is one of the most powerful tools you have in creating an enjoyable adventure. Use the senses as clues to what lies ahead. Players can be kept on the edge of their seats through detailed foreshadowing. 7. Pack combat with action. When characters fight, they don't stand there and exchange sword blows--they run, dodge, yell, hack and bash, charge, retreat, wrestle, punch, spit, and curse! Make it exciting. Try to imagine what the monsters see and feel, and control them accordingly. Describe combat through the eyes and ears of the PC's. Let them feel the desperation of mortal struggles, the excitement of turning the tide, the exhilaration of victory. This can seem daunting to a beginning GM, but keep these points in mind. With time, you can be an awe-inspiring Master of Games, and your players will thank you. Character Creation Tips In response to questions on how to improve a character's background and other roleplaying questions I'm posing a series of questions. Sit down and answer each of them carefully, and you'll have a much better idea of who your character is. Turning a "character" into a memorable "person" is the one thing that seperates true roleplaying from munchkinism (there's that word again) but it can be done. Questions for any characters creation. 1) Who were the character's parents? Did they raise the character? If not why? If not them who? 2) Did the character have any childhood friends? Any siblings? Where are they now? Does the character stay in touch with them or have they become seperated? 3) What was childhood like for the character? Calm and peaceful or turbulent and traumatic? 4) Does the character have any or did the character have any role models? Describe them? 5) What did the character do before he / she entered the story? Who trained the character to do what she / he does now? 6) What are the character's moral and religous beliefs? What lengths will the character go to defend those beliefs? Who or what taught those beliefs to the character? 7) Does the character have any unusual habits or physical traits? How do others tend to react to them? 8) What is the general reaction to the character of other characters? Why, in the character's opinion, do they act that way? 9) Can the character kill? Why would the character kill? Does he / she have any enemies at all? Would or could the character kill them? 10) What kind of relationships does the character currently have? Does he / she have any close friends? Bitter enemies? If so who? What are they like? 11) Does the character have any mental problems? Phobias? If so what are they? What do they stem from? 12) How does the character generally treat others? Does she / he trust easily? Or not? 13) What does the character look like? Does he / she have any scars or tattoos? If so how did she / he get them? 14) What is the character's normal daily routine? How does he / she feel when it's interupted for whatever reason? Next sit down with your DM and consider these questions: 15) Was the character present during any key events in the history of the campaign world? How did that event affect the character? 16) Does the character have a notorious or celebrated anscestor? What did he / she do? What do people assume about the character when his / her ancestery is known? Does the character actively try to live up to the reputation, try dispel it or try to ignore it? Finally, consider these questions: 17) What are the character's dreams? Ambitions? Goals? 18) How does she / he seek to obtain them? How does adventuring fit into this dream, or does it at all? 19) Does the character ever want to have a family of his / her own someday? If so with who or what type of person? 20) Has the character ever considered the possibility of his / her own death? Has he / she made a will? Only after going through this process should a player choose an alignment, since that is formed from past experiences more than anything else. Plot Ideas 1. Figure out what is happening to a farming village's animals! They kept disappearing, and no one knew why! Not to mention the fact the some locals reported strange happenings in the near-by forest... GHOSTS! Come to find out, the answer was quite simple, a magical Ring of Invisability was mistakenly dropped into a close stream by a traveler, and it's magic somehow had been wearing off into the water of the stream. The same stream that the animals were drinking from! And the "ghosts" in the forest were simply those invisible animals. Simple huh?.. but cool! Just some good Long Term campaign ideas I have encountered as both Player and DM in the past: The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse The Quest for the Rod of Seven Parts And for new DM's, some great opening scenes to bring the characters together and provide an Inciting Incident for the campaign: The Bar Fight (tried and true) The Trade Caravan Mercenary Cellmates in Prison Shipmates on "A Journey" Job Interview "Mercenaries Wanted" Adventures occur mainly because of conflict, here is a list of the most common of these: - Man vs. man - Man vs. himself - Man vs. god - Man vs. religion - Man vs. magic - Man vs. technology - Man vs. nature - Law vs. chaos - Good vs. evil - Sanity vs. madness - One of the PC's starts losing strength, there is only one antidote... - "This sword!? It spoke to me!.." - One of the PC's see someone who looks like him, follows, and sees the look-alike get killed. The killers say "that's three, two more to go." - Someone comes up to a PC and tells him that he is now the next in line to the throne of Zlah-bun, because the previous heir has gone missing. After a bungled assassination of the PC, they find out the previous heir has been kidnapped by the 3rd in line. - As the party go over the crest of the hill to look at the city, they find it is gone. Not destroyed, but actually removed, leaving a perfect symmetrical hole. - The island has been shrouded in a cloud ever since the battle between two evil wizards 100 years ago. Somewhere on this island is the egg of the Quetzal-Xuateal, needed for... - A noble says "look after my daughter"... - "I can see the birds can not fly through the rain, and the livestock try to hide from the thunder, but they find no rest because the ground swallows them whole. I can see the parents choke on the smoke, as they watch their children burn in the fires of the volcano. Watching them is a lone rider, dressed in darkness. The name of the rider? Death.." - It was a strange new religion. As it's priests walked the land, the worshippers spread like wild-fire. Their god spoke to their inner desires, their greed and their hate. The priests gained power, respect, and soon the avatar would be upon us. - "Take them to the arena..!" Get ideas from films, tv, history, books, landscape. - (Alien) The PC's are taking a boat trip, during the night their boat bumps into a `ghost ship'. They board it, and find all the crew are dead, and the whole ship is covered in cob-webs. Later, when they are eating, one of their crew-mates coughs up some spiders... - (Unforgiven) "Can you read? Or did you just not see the sign? NO WEAPONS. You look familiar.. were you the group who slaughtered the whole encampment of orcs? Their families turned up here,.. begging for food.." (The players are surrounded by crossbow wielding sheriffs). - (Terminator) And so it was that the mages wanted to create the ultimate defence. They gave up there magical essences and put them into the automaton. Soon, with all of the thaumaturgical energy, it started to evolve and became sentient. It analysed the threat, and decided it was humanity... (And you get to invent the `mercury golem' for T2!) - (Die Hard) The party have gone to a ball held in the castle (no weapons allowed obviously). One of the kings aids takes them to collect a small gift. Meanwhile the entertainers downstairs are not quite what they seem and the kings coffers will look very empty unless.. (potentially good for a high level adventure). The 36 Basic Plots: Supplication - Persecutor, Suppliant, a Power in Authority Deliverance - Unfortunates, Threatener, Rescuer Revenge - Avenger, Criminal Vengeance by Family upon Family - Avenging Kinsman, Guilty Kinsman, Relative Pursuit - Fugitive from Punishment, Pursuer Victim of Cruelty or Misfortune - Unfortunates, Master or Unlucky Person Disaster - Vanquished Power, Victorious Power or Messenger Revolt - Tyrant, Conspirator(s) Daring Enterprise - Bold Leader, Goal, Adversary Abduction - Abductor, Abducted, Guardian Enigma - Interrogator, Seeker, Problem Obtaining - Two or more Opposing Parties, Object, maybe an Arbitrator Familial Hatred - Two Family Members who hate each other Familial Rivalry - Preferred Kinsman, Rejected Kinsman, Object Murderous Adultery - Two Adulterers, the Betrayed Madness - Madman, Victim Fatal Imprudence - Imprudent person, Victim or lost object Involuntary Crimes of Love - Lover, Beloved, Revealer Kinsman Kills Unrecognised Kinsman - Killer, Unrecognised Victim, Revealer Self Sacrifice for an Ideal - Hero, Ideal, Person or Thing Sacrificed Self Sacrifice for Kindred - Hero, Kinsman, Person or Thing Sacrificed All Sacrificed for Passion - Lover, Object of Passion, Person or Thing Sacrificed Sacrifice of Loved Ones - Hero, Beloved Victim, Need for Sacrifice Rivalry Between Superior and Inferior - Superior, Inferior, Object Adultery - Deceived Spouse, Two Adulterers Crimes of Love - Lover, Beloved, theme of Dissolution Discovery of Dishonor of a Loved One - Discoverer, Guilty One Obstacles to Love - Two Lovers, Obstacle An Enemy Loved - Beloved Enemy, Lover, Hater Ambition - An Ambitious Person, Coveted Thing, Adversary Conflict with a God - Mortal, Immortal Mistaken Jealousy - Jealous One, Object of Jealousy, Supposed Accomplice, Author of Mistake Faulty Judgement - Mistaken One, Victim of Mistake, Author of Mistake, Guilty Person Remorse - Culprit, Victim, Interrogator Recovery of a Lost One - Seeker, One Found Loss of Loved Ones - Kinsman Slain, Kinsman Witness, Executioner ----------------------- The Great Plot Debate For a long time now, rec.games.frp.advocacy has been home to perrenial debate over how to structure campaigns. As a quick summary of some of the issues involved, you can look at a campaign as a GM and think about the following questions (thanks to David A. Bonar and Mary Kuhner): 1.Do I have a specific story I want to tell, a set of possible stories, or do I want to just explore a setting and genre? 2.How strongly will dramatic elements enter into my planning of events? Will everything be exactly tailored to the specific characters or will things be more like they are in the real world? 3.Will drama be used during action resolutions? 4.Will the PCs receive any special bonus just for being PCs? Will I modify timing, mechanics, or outcomes to ensure their success? What about ensuring their continued existence? 5.To what extent am I willing to adjust my setting on the fly? Alternatively, these could be formulated as: 1.When you are setting up a campaign or scenario, do you attempt to provide a plot for the PCs to follow? Will you design elements of the background to fit with this plot? i.e. I need an organization on about the same power level as the PCs to act as a recurring antagonist, so let's design one and place it in the setting. Will you change the world background in play to keep the plot on track? i.e. The PCs unwittingly destroyed the clue in location A, so I will provide a similar clue in location B. Will you adjucate the results of PC actions in such a way as to further the plot? i.e. If a PC doesn't notice this clue the group will go off in a totally nonproductive direction, so I will insure that he does notice it, rather than leaving it up to chance. 2.Do you deliberately attempt to engage the motivations and inner conflicts of the PCs? Will you design elements of the world background to do so? i.e. This PC is designed to be loyal, so I will make his superior wicked in order to force a conflict between loyalty and morality. Will you change the world background in play to do so? i.e. This character would react much more strongly to the situation if the attackers were of his own religion, not (as I originally thought) a different one. Will you adjucate the results of player actions in such a way as to further engagement of PC motivations? i.e. If the PC doesn't manage to save this NPC's life she won't be as emotionally engaged with the situation, so I will arrange for her to succeed. 3.Do the PCs have special advantages, or disadvantages, relative to NPCs of the same ability? Do you design the world background to specifically advantage (disadvantage) the PCs? i.e. I'd better set up some challenges which these PCs are specifically able to tackle, such as ones slanted at their particular powers. Will you change the world background in play to do so? i.e. With the kinds of abilities these PCs have they'll have trouble escaping from captivity, so I'd better add a traitor among the enemy to make it possible. Will you adjucate the results of PC actions to do so? i.e. An NPC who took that damage would be killed, but for a PC we'll allow medical intervention to save her life. 4.What kinds of preparation do you do? Do you think about upcoming sequences of PC actions? Do you design setting elements independent of the PCs? The Dichotomies Now, the varying answers to these sorts of questions produce a wide variety of answers. Various people have tried to categorize the responses in terms of various oppositions: "dramatic'' versus "simulationist' "romantic'' versus "realistic'' "natural'' versus "directed'' "plotted'' versus ''unplotted''. In a plotted campaign/episode, the GM prepares by thinking through how the plot will proceed - outlining a progression of scenes and the development of the central conflicts (in a literary sense). The campaigning chapter of Theatrix is the purest outline of "story- based'' planning in this sense. An unplotted campaign/episode is that way if the GM prepares by detailing the elements of the world: the setting, the characters and their motivations, plans, etc. There will, of course, be "plots" going on - characters naturally have goals and plans of how to achieve them. But the GM does not design a single plotline - just plans which various NPC's have. Of course, most campaigns are neither "plotted'' nor "unplotted''; but rather somewhere in between: from "lightly plotted'' to "deeply plotted''. Nevertheless, I think it is helpful to identify which extreme a given campaign tends towards. Preparation Plot (Light/Heavy Plot prep) World (Light/Heavy World prep) Drama (Light/Heavy Drama) Diagesis Realism (Realistic/Fantastic) Romanticism (Romantic/Nihilistic) Conflict (Conflictual/Mundane) Metagame Authorship (Auteur/Troupe) Direction (Directed/Natural) Mechanism (Mechanical/Freeform) Death of Player Characters by R. Sweeney The spirit of the deceased player ascends to the judgement. The god which looks over thatplayer (or race) sits in judgement over the PC. A tribunal of other spirits sits with the diety to judge the player. DM plays the major diety, the other players play the spirits. The DM turns to each of the playersand describes their spirit. The old character will be judged by a 'jury of his peers'. That means theother PCs are playing spirits of the player's 1) race 2) class 3) alignment 4) sex. Each PC onlymatches one description. Also include the patron spirit of stupidity and rudeness. Now go over the deceased player's accomplishments, trial, tribulations, and failures. Recap theirnumber 'stupid' moments (and laugh). Do a sort of 'best of' as well.. what will the bards sing ofthis fallen hero? The spirit of the player's race judges him as per a standard member of that race. Was he a gooddwarf, elf, gnome, etc...? Did the character take racial concerns to heart or accomplish greatfeets for his race? Judge on a scale of 1 to 10. (Role play the rational for the decision). The spirit of the player's class speaks next. Judge the player according to the goals/aspiration ofhis class. Was the warrior brave in battle, the priest pious and pure, did the mage quest forknowledge? Are their deeds fabled and renouned to others of their class? Judge on a scale of 1to 10. The third spirit to speak is the spirit of the deceased's old alignment. Once again, the judgement ison a scale of 1 to 10. The judge of stupidity comes next. He speaks of the player's various blunders and other stupidthings.. even if they player didn't know it was a stupid thing at the time. He judges on a scale of 1to 10, of course, he ranks really stupid things as a 10 and boring people as a 1. His score isreversed when calculated later. Etc... etc... 1) For Campaigns with Characters of Level 1-10 Now, the DM adds up the scores and divides by the number of judges. This number (whichshould be less than 10) reflects the level at which the new character is generated. 9 is 90%, etc... 2) For Campaigns with Characters of Level above 10 The DM adds up the scores and divides by the number of judges. He then multiplies this numberfor 10 and subtract the result from 100. The result is the % of XP of the old character that thenew character loses. Ex: the result from the judgment is 3, so 100 - (3x10)= 100-30= 70. The new PC will start with70% less of the old PC's XP, so if the dead PC had 100.000 XP, the new will start with only30.000 XP A new character is generated fairly of the level indicated. If the DM makes sure that this'scenario' comes across as a season recap fairwell type TV episode, the player should enjoy allthe attention and recover from the shock of finding their player dead. PS: I would have the new player come back as a class and race he didn't play the last timearound. Thus an elven fighter/mage/cleric is a thief of some other race. This encourages the PCsnot to multiclass out the yin-yang in the future. IMHO a character that can do everything doesn'tneed to cooperate with the other players as much. Alternative to Character Death If you want to keep the PCs alive however, work out some scale for your campaign. Forinstance: 100% of points (everyone gave him a 10 - god of stupid gave him 1) Character is at 1hp: no negative effects. 90% Minor loss: amputation of a finger, earlobe, etc.. cosmetic. PC is a 0 hps but stable. Healing revives, but cannot restore minor loss. 80% Serious Loss Disfiguring scar -1 CHA (or Comeliness if used).Some loss of mobility or function: wanderingeye, 2-3 fingers missing, nerve damage resulting in loss of feeling or pain in affected area, limping,backpain preventing serious lifting.PC at -1 hps and bleeding out for 1-4 days even if 'healed'. 70% Loss Loss of hand, hobbled food, shattered jaw. Nightmares of "death blow". 5% chance per night resulting in -1 to horror checks the followingday. Hps at -5 and 'bleeding'. Coma for 1-4 weeks. Permenant brain damage -1 INT or -1WIS. 60% Major loss Amputation of major limb (arm, leg.. etc..) or loss of one eye, loss of one ear. Hps at -8 and 'bleeding' Coma for 2-8 weeks. Suffers attentions of Nightmare Court while comatose (haunted by them occasionally thereafter). 50% Serious Head Injury -2d4 points INT and WIS. -8hps and coma 40% Paralysis (both legs) Possible amputation (50%). -8hps and coma 30% Paralysis from the neck. -9hps and coma 20% Pact with Death is the only way to survive. Below 20% no chance to avoid death. But you should make up your own table. You may want to save only characters getting betterthan 75% of avaliable points.... it's up to you. Notice, I have motives behind my system. Players tend to take races for the bonuses they impart,but deviate significantly from the norm with those characters' behavior (for example, they don'tact like elves). While characters can be different (a good Drow) they should be very rare. Byusing these rules, Min/Maxers have something else to think about when creating a character(since min/maxing this rule requires roleplaying). I could add "judges" for: Karma: Player/DMinteraction. If player argues a lot less points. Evil: Evil PCs get a -2 to Karma. Chaotic: -2 to Karma score. Excessive Gamespeak: -1 to Karma Score. Family: +1 if the PC has family members. Love: +1 if PC ever 'fell in love'. Quest Points: +1 per exceptional quest. (DM determination upon Quest Completion) History: 1to 10 about the Character's history. Motivation: 1 to 10 on character's motivation to adventure. You might like some other system.. for instance having everyone 'vote' on each category.. outloud or silently by place votes in a hat. (DM adds them up and divides.) That allows more'fairness'.. the player can't claim the DM doesn't like them. Frequently Asked Questions Q: Is there a right or a wrong way to role-play? A: Regardless of what I may infer later on, the only right way is when all of the people involved are enjoying themselves. There are several styles of game that people play: - The dungeon bash See monster, kill monster, take treasure, see mons.. - The political game And we shall ride down and crush the infidels bene.. - The detective game It was the orc assassin, with the rope, in the stu.. - The adventure game In the dark corner of the inn a hooded figure smil.. - The horror game We don't get many of your sort 'round these parts!.. Er,.. well you get the idea! :) Q: Are there any DO's and DO NOT's A: Yup,.. DO be neutral and fair. You can not favour any player over another, that just goes against the whole spirit of the game, breaks friendships, etc. DON'T play a game of DM verses players. The DM can always win. DO listen to players criticism. Find out what they like and don't like. They have ideas on how to improve the game too. Q: The characters just don't play the adventure, they go off and do their own thing. What can I do? A: MOTIVE. Why should they go on the adventure? Don't railroad the characters though, at least, not so they notice! Make sure the characters have a choice in what they want to do. Q: I have information only one player should know. What can I do? A: Either write them a note, or talk to them outside of the room. If you do this a lot it can severely restrict the flow of the game, and can be very boring to some of the players. Pre-written notes can be of great help. Q: How much XP should I give out? A: There is a chart detailing how much XP should be given out in the DMG. A fair amount of people ignore this chart however, since it is biased towards `killing things' rather then `role-playing', or they just take it as a guide-line. Many DM's do not give XP for gold (or treasure in general), because the treasure is reward enough, and because they do not actually gain experience (real experience not a game term) in doing so. The exception being a thief, but even then the experience is in using his skills. Other options include not giving as much XP. Q: How fast should the characters advance in level? A: Depends on the style of campaign. To advance about one level will usually take about 2 * current level in game sessions. This varies A LOT and is extremely subjective. Q: How much magical equipment should I give the players. A: To be roughly in line with the TSR adventures for their level this chart shows the greatest magical plus of weapon (against normal creatures) that will produce a challenge for the characters. This answer is highly subjective, therefore I provide the advice in my opinion only! :) level magical + 0-4 0 4-8 +1 8-12 +2 12-15 +3 15-18 +4 18+ +5 As far as general magical equipment, generally after playing TSR modules (the good ones) a player will have about 1/4 his level in notable magic items, and about 1/3 in general miscellanea and up to 1/2 in scrolls and potions. Q: The PC's are all at different `power levels' A: This is not always a problem, providing the players can handle the fact that they might be envious. Make sure that there is something in the adventure that each character can accomplish (for example while the more powerful characters fight the giant, the weaker ones can fight the goblins). Put in more non-combat puzzles, for example, a group of fairies think that the weaker character is a leader and will only listen to him. Have the more powerful characters act as `guides' and `teachers'. STORYTELLING QUESTION Q: What should be the format of an adventure? A: Each adventure should have the Begin-Middle-End cycle. Sometimes you may have several of these going on at once. It is best if only the begining and the end overlap, to keep things clear and fluid. Follow the format of books: - Introduction - Call to Adventure, or Hook - Successive Developments - Apex, Moment of Greatest Tension - Resolution - Denoument, or Tying it All Together CONVENTION GAMES Q: How long does a game last? A: Convention games operate under strict time constraints. They average to be about 6-8 hours, but this varies. You may finish before time however. Q: How do I deal with a time constraint? A: It is important to have the adventure `short and sweet' if you wish to finish on time. There are a couple of ways to help speed the flow of the game: Rather than role-play any character introductions, or even the beginning of the adventure, just explain it to the players (like a preamble to a book). Have them know each other, like each other, trust each other. Let each of them say a quick description of their character to introduce it. Plan it so that it would run an hour short, since unexpected things always happen. Plan it so there is continuous action of one kind or another as soon as the game begins. Pace must me quick with simple, effective plots. Goal-problem-reward. Q: What about rewards for the characters? A: Even though it is a one off, most players like to receive XP at the end of a game. You may find that because it is a one-off you let the characters become "Heroes" at an accelerated place, giving them rewards, such as items or money, much more quickly. The game should occur at a more quick-fire pace. ADVANCED QUESTIONS Q: How do I design a game world? A: Imagination, Pencil, Paper, Time. You have to decide on some fundamental aspects (local and global), such as technology level, magic level, politics and Government, climate, species, gods, and Darwin! (development of life), ecosystem, etc. Once you have drawn a map, and put in a few towns, roads, rivers, ponds, seas, forests, woods, cities, borders, countries, continents, races, cave systems, volcanoes, mountains, hills, underground caverns, trade routes, currencies, etc, you have to NAME them. Each city or town will have a name, notable personalities, pubs, streets, entertainment, history, income, army, militia, police?, rules (real and pretend), guilds, thieves, water source, allies, enemies, language, population, population breakdown, races, racial-allies, racial-enemies, etc. Putting you off? This is a lot of work, but remember only the places that the PCs will be affected by need a lot of detail, but the more information you have the better since it can potentially give you adventure ideas. Q: How do I go about designing an adventure? A: Start with an idea, write down everything you think of. Remember a few rules. - Motive. The PC's must have an incentive to actually adventure. This can be anything from simple greed, to something based on a characters past (always have players write down their characters history). Cause and effect. People don't always do stuff because they want to, they do it because they have to. The king raises taxes, the people can't afford to pay, thus is born Robin Hood. Victims of circumstance. Civil unrest, civil peace, drought, good farming years, etc will all effect people both directly and indirectly. - Encounters. What and who are they going to meet. Why are those people there, how do they eat, who do they work for. Don't just use the wandering monster chart because that does not explain why creatures are there. If you have time make your own for each area, for a random encounter. Better still, cheat, plan everything! It's always better as a player to know there is a reason for a monster to be where it is. - Rewards. What sort of character rewards are there? Land, money, magic, training, etc. Q: What makes a good adventure? A: PLOT, Surprise, Mystery, Romance, Puzzles, Magic, Horror, Suspense, and characters with personalities. Q: What makes a good campaign? A: A good plot-line, and series of sub plots. They don't have to be obvious to the players, but they should exist. Make sure that events not involving the PC's take place. A war might end, two nations might join, a river might flood, armies might be gathering, etc. Q: My players want to design spells / I want to design spells, what do I do? A: Write down the effects of the spell, the damage, area of effect etc. Usually the casting time is equal to the level, but there are exceptions. Compare the spell to existing ones and you assign a level, if you are not sure err in the side of making it more difficult (It not being a `common' spell means it is less practised, unusual, etc). Choose which sphere or school with regard to other spells. Don't allow spells which do exactly the same thing, at exactly the same level as a spell of a different sphere or school, because this defeats the object of the whole thing. In the case of a priest spell, the character will simply pray for it (in most cases everyone who worships that deity will have access to the spell, sometimes everyone who can cast that sphere). The deity may, or may not allow for it, or may require special worship etc before the priest may use the spell. To show greater commitment the deity might have the prayer put into an exact wording, may require fasting, a special task, etc. The prayer may even have limited access within the same preisthood, causing possible political and personal tensions. In the case of a wizard spell, the wizard must research the spell in a laboratory for a decent length of time. Further details are in the complete wizards handbook. Q: I want to invent a new creature, how do I do it? A: Before you get down the game statistics you have to ask the following questions: what does it look like, what does it eat, how long does it sleep, how does it breed, is it docile or violent, when, how was it evolved, what noises does it make, where does it live, what climate does it like, racial variants, etc. Not all of these are necessary, but do help to flesh out the creature. Now look at it's game statistics, first compare it to natural creatures like horses and lions. Then find a creature that it most resembles (if there is one) and look at the game statistics for that. Compare any natural weaponry it may have with real weapons (e.g. are its claws the size of a dagger, or are they like a club?). Compare supernatural attacks with similar creatures, likewise with supernatural defences. Once you have the creature designed, ask a few questions: how would this creature effect local wildlife, what other creatures would hunt it, what creatures are scared of it, how does this creature effect the local and global ecosystems, and even what does it taste like! Try attacking it with varying levels of NPC's (if you have the PC's character sheets even better). Try intelligent attacks and random attacks. In addition, try attacking this creature with other monsters varying from a chicken, a lion, a wraith, a basalisk, a giant, a werewolf, an owlbear, and a great wyrm. With each creature ask yourself which you would want to win and why, and adjust your creature accordingly. If you know someone who role-plays, but is not in your group, try and playtest it with him. Try it with the characters anyway, gradually fine tuning it. Put down any differences to racial variance and sub-species. Q: I want to invent a new race, how do I do it? A: Again, before you start with game stats, you must come up with their ecology, asking many of the same questions as above as well as: Is there a racial stereotype, how often is this deviated from, their psychology, their philosophy, their technology level, their ethos, their religion, their rituals and traditions, how do they relate to each other and other creatures or races, where do the live. With all of these question you also have to ask why. Then you have to design a `typical creature' as for humans, elves, giants in the DMG (i.e. a creature of no level). Like with a new creature, you should compare this creature to others, and see what role it fills in the echo system (could the take over the world, would the be wiped out, etc). Then see what `classes' the race can be, there is a guide chart in the DMG (and also in the monstrous compendium). This may depend on whether the race is humanoid or not. Is it a PC race or NPC only? How common are characters which have a character class? Q: I want to invent a new magic item, how do I do it? A: Like everything else the item should have a history to allow it to `really exist', the players need never know this but it helps give even an item a `personality': Who made it? Why did they make it? Did anything go wrong? Who was it for? Is it unique or was it copied? Do you want to make the item a bauble, minor-magic, major-magic or an artifact? Again compare it with other items. Then assign the game mechanics to it. COMMON HOUSE RULES Many DMs do not use the standard rules exactly as printed. Here are a few of the more common changes, and the reasons for doing them. - At first level (only) the characters have maximum hit points. The reason for this is simple survival, and to help the players enjoyment. A character with 1 HP will not be a lot of fun. - In addition to the rules of "knocking on death's door", whereby a PC is unconscious between 0 and -10 hitpoints, there are changes such as making that between 0 and half (or even a third) CON. The reason is to make it more varied and more character specific. - The stoneskin spell is often restricted in some way. Methods include making the duration 1 day, or only dealing with one "hit". The reason is simply to help in making it more of a challenge to the PCs. Group Dynamics or "How a game changes with more players" WARNING: These observations are based on my own experiences. I have played for eight years and GM'd for six. In fact, if you have differing opinions on this topic, please send me your own observations. I'd be glad to hear from you. I thought this might be an interesting topic to discuss. In my time immersed in the rich world of roleplay, it's been interesting to see how games work with different numbers. Something more to yabber about, but I hope it's interesting. NB. All the stuff about cheating is a lie. Solo player: Bad news. The domain of Fighting Fantasy books. I cut my teeth on this pulp back when I thought roleplay was something on computer games and stuff American college students did and sacrificed people. What they did in E.T. the extra-terrestrial just threw me further. Needless to say I cheated like a maniac. They say you're only cheating yourself but what does it matter when you win? Single player: I've played one or two of these. These games are very intense because the attention of the GM never lets up. It's just you and him. You can really flesh out a character here, go off on tangents without other players complaining, and never have to worry about gaining the GM's attention. These games are good for when a GM wants to playtest a system without five other goons harassing him about why they have 'Zoology' skill. Interestingly, it also makes it very easy for a GM to ad-lib a game, because there is less onus on him to provide some sort of solid plot. It can amble along with the player discovering their character and doing trivial things that would normally be bypassed because of time/attention/plot constraints. You can also have a very strong supporting cast of NPC's, since you are able to lavish the time on them. As a player, it's extremely hard to cheat in solo games. Unless you point and yell over the GM's shoulder. Or drop the dice on the floor, bend down then pop up and go 'It's a TEN!'. Grin. Two players: Some of the tightest and most furiously fast games I have run were with two players. In some aspects it is just the right number. The pair can bounce off each other and create a strong partnership (Starsky&Hutch, Wallace&Gromit, Murphy&Bartmoss, the Terminator and that annoying little brat...). The interaction is good because it is intimate. One of my two-player games graduated to three then four, but the original characters remained fierce friends, because of their initial adventures. It's good for the GM. If you do a lot of character upkeep; such as revising friends and contacts, local hangouts, then you are able to do it in depth with so few players. You can throw them together or bounce them off each other, but in such a small team the players will tend to stick together. Occasionally you might be under-manned. One character might be minding the car while another goes in, but who's covering the back way? Two- player games can get a bit hairy during combat situations. There's only the pair of you, and if you both go down, who's gonna pull you out? On the flipside, it's easy to capture, trap or apprehend such a small number, as they are less inclined to start a fight. Warning: It's wise to pick a pair that get along with each other fine. A bit of friendly rivalry is fine but if one thinks the other is a grass-eating idiot then it's not so hot. Also, beware of the dominant roleplayer. He might just be a good player or just likes to hog the limelight, so as a GM you have to make sure they get equal attention. Still hard to cheat here but if the other player catches you he might shut up because it's probably gonna benefit him too. Three players: I consider three player games to be the perfect number. Others may beg to differ. Three characters will generally have a nice spread of skills between them and it doesn't get too crowded on the table. A family-size pizza goes down perfectly. They may function well as a trio or there may be an outsider who hovers on the edge and does his own stuff much of the time. This is not bad, you just have to make sure they're together for the adventure. You also must be sure that the outsider has as many hooks and contacts as the others. In some ways this guy can be useful; if perhaps the other two are in trouble, their pal can bail them out. With a three player game nobody really misses out. There is time to go off on tangents but you must, as a GM make sure they eventually wind up back with the group. Rivalries and tension (character-based) can be good and sometimes it pays to help them along. Needless to say, if one player is disliked by the other two it just doesn't happen. Turf him out and look for compatibility. Easier to cheat with more players, also. Four players: I like four also. Pretty much the same deal although it can occasionally get hectic with four souls clamoring for attention. Most often I have seen a pair band together and the other two sort of orbit them, sometimes touching base. With more characters comes more diversity of skills and personality. It's interesting to watch relationships both between characters and players and to see if they distinguish between the two. It's good to watch, I've seen good friends become quite vicious toward each other; you just have to draw the line at the end of the session otherwise it gets ugly. Five players: How to make the GM busy. Occasionally with four you can sit back and watch them discuss tactics or the next job, take a break and shuffle notes but for some reason five keeps you on your toes. Here you can also watch a mix of dominant and 'suppressed' roleplayers; guys who will jump in and be active and do things of their own accord, and the other players who will sit back and shutup until you ask them their action. I've seen people like this, 'followers', maybe they're not so hot at playing or they're just naturally reserved until the end of the session where they tell you they didn't do much at all. Look out. Sometimes it's easy to ignore them. I try to solve the problem by seating them closest. Six players: Starts to get hectic. Some players will be sitting around doing nothing for good periods of the session if you're not actively running some sort of job or campaign. A friend runs a C-punk-Night City game based entirely around work in the fair citadel. Much of the time the team spends pursuing different leads or hanging at different bars, an intermixing of private and team affairs. An hour can go by without some players getting so much as a word in, so the atmosphere is less formal and intense. The idle players luckily have access to a pool table and computer games, and have the restraint to pull themselves away when their lot is called. It can get quite chaotic and some players may get disgruntled at the lack of attention. There needs to be an understanding between the players and GM that they will get a fair go but so does everyone else. Group situations, where all six are together and working, can also get heated when someone is trying to get a word in. Perfect here are dominant players who know when to back down. The best thing about games this size is the sheer diversity of skills and characters. It allows for specialization where in smaller numbers you were restricted, needing generic skills. It also means more heads working on a problem and massed firepower when everybody draws a gun or perhaps bow & arrow. And beyond: Not so sure about this. Starts to get stupid. Okay if it's a dungeon hack and everyone along the table gets a swipe. This is where turns and initiative need to be noted down. I once ran a ten-player game of Cyberpunk which fell in a screaming heap; it was an interesting experiment but never to be repeated. I've heard of twenty-player games from goons who've tried to impress me, but unless it was something like Paranoia, I'm inclined to believe they were a shambles. The Illusion of Free Will The exact opposite of the Adlibbed game is the `preset storyline' .type of game. In this game you've spent time and effort writing storylines, twists and subplots, and you'll be damned if any low level roleplayer is going to mess it all up. But how to keep it all together? How do we make this game run smoothly and conclude like a well planned story? How do we guide the players at every turn but let them think they're the clever ones? Ways you can do this (but I don't recommend) Keep them completely in the dark about the rules, make all rolls yourself. Tell them exactly what they're doing next. Never, ever show them the dice, except for particularly bad rolls (I've played in a game like this) Threats of physical violence (against the player, not the character). Say, `No, don't do that' everytime they do the wrong thing. Ban them from attending the game, ring them after and tell them what happened. Better ways of doing this. Pique their interest Anything can get the players interested enough to go to a location or speak to a person. Remember, you're guiding the characters, not forcing them in one direction. Let's say the team is standing around scratching themselves, when what you really want to happen is for them to be down the block getting in a fight. A news report, a volley of gunfire, some bright flashes, or people running the other way can all help to give the general idea that something should be investigated.. Let them do an intelligence or awareness test. The player might not be bright enough to think of something, but if his character's intellect is in the top 2% of population, let them roll the dice, then suggest something. This also works for fields of expertise, a character who is also a weapons tech might recognise the parts being loaded onto the cargo ship. A chemist might smell and recognise the explosive gasses and get the hell out of there. Remember, most roleplayers will follow something if they think you are trying to suggest it, but don't try to make it too obvious. Don't be afraid to change minor details Even in a detailed plot you can usually make minor plot changes without really affecting the outcome or flow of the story. Park the suspicious car around the other corner, put the acid vomiting beast in the other cave, put enough of a deterrent down passage A to make them go down passage B. Don't be afraid to change major details! Not always possible, but let's say they slay the guy who was coming to hand over the mission and lead them on great adventures. You could tear your sourcebook in half and run out of the room screaming, or simply say `When you look closer he is wearing a disguise' or perhaps, if they didn't know who they were looking for, have the real character come around the corner (`Who's this on the floor?'). I personally don't try to run a heavily preset game, choosing a loose description of what is to happen, with more detail written for several key `scenes' which the characters will encounter. Sometimes they think of sneaky things and waste my effort, but if this happens, keep these scenes if you like them. They may come in handy during another session. And now for a humorous tale... In a preset story line a friend ran quite a few years ago, he had a story line in which the players were pursued, and eventually kidnapped. One character leaped into a passing taxi, and to his consternation saw bars rise up from the doors, blocking the windows, while a bullet proof screen slammed into place behind the driver. At this point thick gas began pouring into the cab. Having a brain, the passenger tried to shoot out the windows. It went something like this... Player: I'll shoot the window out! GM: No, you can't, there are bars in the way. Player: I'll put the barrel of the gun between the bars and fire. GM: Okay. (rolls dice). You hit the bars Player: No, the barrel was against the window. I'll try again. GM: Okay.... No, you hit the bars again.... At this point the character succumbed to sleep gas and the player succumbed to extreme irritation. Scary as this may seem, it's a true example. This is the danger of sticking to your story line at the detriment to the enjoyability to the game. This game also saw players taking actions which they hadn't stated, but the GM thought apt. Yeesh. Leads and Excuses or Hooks and Grommets Two Basic Plot Devices by Brett Evill We have been having a lot of discussions about scenario structure recently, and we've all pretty much agreed that plot-driven scenarios are the way to go. There is a problem, though, in that plot-driven scenarios tend sometimes to jump off their rails, after which they wander aimlessly, bog down, or explode. This, in my opinion, is not because of some fundamental flaw in the concept of plot-driven scenarios, but because of a lack of technique among players (including GMs). This article is about two basic techniques, one each for GMs and character players, which will turn your plot-driven scen arios into all- terrain vehicles. First, I would like to say something about the nature of scenarios. (This is analysis, not definition.) Role-playing adventures are like opera. In opera there are arias, duets, trios and the like, pieces of music which are themselves of interest, and then there is recitative, a sort of sung dialogue of little musical interest, but which serves the dramatically important purpose of guiding the action to a suitable point for the next aria. The action in a role-playing adventure can be similarly divided, into scenes and sequences which are themselves of interest, which I shall call good bits; and play which gets the characters into position for the next good bit, which I shall call infrastructural play. A scenario is something which holds together good bits and produces infrastructural play. Two types of scenario are recognised by most theorists. Location-driven scenarios are the older form, and tend to cop a lot of flak from critics now adays. These are scenarios in which the good bits are provided by places, or by things in places. There is almost always a map. Infra structural play consists of PCs wander ing around the area shown on the map. When they stumble across key locations, good bits happen, or have a chance to happen. Well-designed location-driven scenarios can be fun, but the action tends to be incoherent, and the structure inherently limits the GMs ability to control the pace and course of the action. Plot-driven scenarios are a more recent in novation, are becoming more common (even in the publications of old and hidebound companies), and are admired by critics. These are scenarios in which the good bits are pro vided, as in a story or movie, by something that is going on, an overall plot. The scenario is driven forward by conflict: something is happening that the PCs think is bad, or something that the PCs think would be good is not hap pening, and in their efforts to reorder the world they encounter good bits. Plot-driven scenarios are less work to design than location-driven scenarios. They have more variety. They are not confined to small areas. And they have a much more natural feel in play. On the other hand, they require more from the GM during play. The secret of preventing plot-driven scenarios from derailing lies in careful infrastructural play, and the deliberate use of plot devices. { In the context of a role-playing game, a plot device is an object (event) which appears (occurs) or fails to appear (occur), other than as a natural consequence of the established nature of the game setting or of previous play, for the purpose of allowing a desired plot development, or to direct the plot in a desired direction.} The basic plot device for GMs is the lead. The basic plot device for other players is the excuse. You see, some good bits can just happen, but only good bits in which the PCs roles are entirely reactive. Good bits which require the PCs to take the initiative, or to be doing some thing particular, or to be in a certain situation, or to have made special preparations, have to be set up by the players. Now the players cant know in advance that certain actions, perhaps quite elaborate or unobvious, are going to lead to good bits. Only the GM can know that. But if the GM suggests a course of action, part icularly an unobvious course of action, or, worse, takes over the actions of PCs, the players senses of participation will be damaged or destroyed. Players like nothing less than being told what to do by the GM. The GM has to be more subtle. He or she has to give the PCs reasons within the game world to do the things that he or she would like to suggest to the players. In the first place, he or she has to give the PCs reasons for doing something rather than doing nothing. In the second place, if he or she wants a PC to do something in particular, he or she has to give the PC a reason to do that thing rather than, or as well as, any alternative. It is not enough that the player suspects that the next good bit will take place in Rio. If the PC does not have a better reason to go to Rio than to stay in Venice, or to go to Sydney, the story cannot proceed in a satisfying way. Either the PC goes to Rio, which is implausible, and leads to an incoherent and incredible story, or the good bit never happens. The basic tool here for the GM is the lead. A lead is a plot device which pro vides a character with a compelling reason to do a particular thing which sets the scene for a particular good bit. Leads can take many forms. Incomplete clues can be leads that suggest ways to get more evidence in a mystery. In action adventures such clues can be leads to confrontations with the bad guys. A PC can be led to do something by a piece of news, or by remem bering or overhearing something. These leads just mentioned are all pieces of information which lead a character to act in certain way. Changes of situation can also be leads. The acquisition, loss, destruction, or malfunction of equipment can be a lead. An action by, or something that happens to, a friend, enemy, associate, or acquaintance can be a lead. If PCs see something happening, that can be a lead. Anything that can affect the behaviour of a character in a predictable way can be a lead. Key words for the use of leads are obvious, cogent, plausible, extemporaneous, and false. Not all leads should be glaringly obvious, because glaringly obvious leads, particularly glaringly obvious clues, make players feel as though they are being treated like idiots. On the other hand, the idea is to get to the good bit, so impenetrable obscurity is pointless. The idea of a lead is to get the characters into a good bit, not to make the players scratch their heads. If you want to delay the good bit, to build up suspense or a feeling of frustration, withhold the lead, don't use an obscure one, and certainly dont wait for the infinite monkey effect to make to players take the next step. A cogent lead is one which gives a character a good reason for doing what needs to be done to get to the next good bit. The opposite of cogent is feeble. Never give feeble leads when you can give cogent leads. Always give the PCs good reasons to do the things you want them to do, the best and most compelling reasons possible. There is no conceivable advantage in PCs doing things for stupid, implausible, weak reasons when you can get to the same good bit by having the same characters do the same things for better reasons. When I say that a lead should be obvious, I mean that it should make some course of action the obvious thing to do, not that it should be obviously important at the time, nor that it should be obviously a plot device. Obvious plot devices should be avoided, because they threaten to make the game setting and the events of the game incredible. This is why leads have to be plausible, things that reasonably might take place. Don't unnecessarily commit yourself to using particular leads. If you decide that you are definitely going to use a particular lead at some juncture, you may exclude yourself from using another lead which might become available at a more appropriate time. You have to allow for extemporisation. Of course, you dont want the PCs always to find a clue in the first place they look, but neither do you want your adventure to flounder helplessly because the players are thinking of all the wrong things. If the PCs are looking in the wrong places, consider putting a clue in one of the wrong places. If they stumble across a clue too early, you can always use another clue in a different place. Dont despair, and cancel an adventure, because one crucial lead fails. You can always try another. False leads are another important gimmick. These are leads which draw characters either to blank walls, or to good bits which are not cent ral to the plot, and require the PCs to retrace their steps afterwards and try another lead. False leads can be used to elaborate the plot structure, or to pro duce the illusion that the players have important choices to make. The big danger of using leads too freely is that you can turn any adventure into a tunnel- of-fun. Once players realise that their actions actually make no difference to the course or outcome of an adventure they will begin to feel just as pissed off as if you told them what their characters were doing at every point. In the long run it is impossible to maintain an illusion of free will, and the only way that PCs actions can seem to make a difference is if they really do make a difference. You cant just steer your players along predetermined courses, toward predetermined good bits. You can, however, use leads to guide them in the general direction of major resolutions, and, continuing the analogy, to control the angle at which they run into good bits in their path. Nothing is ever going to replace the necessity to think up good bits on your feet. Judicious use of leads can, however, make it much easier to place them squarely across the course of a party of PCs. The basic technique of play in plot-driven scenarios is the excuse. There are good bits out there, which the GM is trying to give you a lead to. A useful, and indeed crucial, thing to do is to give the GM an excuse to give you a lead to, or simply to begin, the next good bit. There are a lot of different types of excuse. The most basic type consists of exposing yourself to as many potential leads and good bits as possible. Look for clues. Talk to wit nesses. Talk to expert NPCs. Search places, even ones which are only peripherally connected to the matter at hand. Do things that will annoy or inconveni ence the opposition, to provoke them into revealing themselves, or set traps for them. If all else fails, pick on some randomly-selected baddie on the chance that he or she may have connections with the major villain. The possibilities are too numerous to contemplate. The examples I gave in the preceding paragraph are of excuses which would be good play in under a hostile GM. But there is also a special type of excuse called a mistake, in which a character makes an oversight or error, leaving an opportunity for some plot develop ment. If the GM just punishes such as though they were blunders, rather than using them as excuses for good bits, there is, of course, no point in making them. But after years of pragmatic play, it is astonishingly refreshing to have ones male-lead character make the heroic mistakes for which the typical hero is so justly famous, and to have them lead to exactly the plot developments one would expect in a book or movie. The other week my archetypal pulp hero, Biff Davis, was walking through the dark, with his .45 in one hand and the main romantic interests hand in his other. Some way off, another PC (Lord Harrington, the eccentric scholar) was attacked by Tong members, and managed to get off a shot. Biff rushed to his rescue, and when he got back the main romantic interest had been kidnapped. It was wonderful! Classic mistakes include failing to guard a crucial NPC or item, or being distracted from guard duty, succumbing to the charms of the beautiful/handsome villain or foil, letting pity stay ones hand, trusting people one ought not to trust, underestimating the opposition, and allowing oneself to be captured. Of course, this is powerful medicine, and, like out-of-game knowledge, must be used with care. If you know that a course of action is a mistake, your character probably does too, or at least would work it out on reflection. Use mistakes carefully. Don't rely on making colossal blunders. Most mistakes should be in spur-of-the-moment decisions, not in consid ered and deliberate courses of action. It is important to make the right mistakes. Make mis takes of the type suitable to your character, not other characters. (For instance, Vila from 'Blakes Seven' would not act as Biff did in the example above, nor would Avon. Blake should make this mistake.) Mistakes should also be used sparingly. The GM should only need to use a few excuses per adventure, and conventional, good-play excuses are usually adequate. The plot can safely be littered with these, but if your character keeps making mistakes he or she will look like a blithering idiot, and without the comedy that accompanies Inspector Clouseau. You must develop a sense of plot structure, so that you can tell when a lead is due, guess what forms it could properly take, and provide an appropriate excuse. The technique of using excuses has applications beyond the immediate exigencies of furthering the plot. It greatly improves adven tures if the PCs are involved for a reason, and so it is helpful for a player to provide excuses for his or her character to get involved in adven tures, grommets for the GMs scenario hooks, so to speak. A good start is for the PCs to be linked to one another in some way that will automatically draw in the whole group once one member gets caught up in an adventure. It is slicker, per haps, if this link can of itself provide excuses for the whole group to be drawn in together, which is why there are so many firms of PC private detectives or effectuators, teams of reporters or secret agents, and groups that share spacecraft, ships, and aircraft. The problem with such arrangements is that all the adventures that a party goes on tend to have the same scenario hook, which can get monotonous. Whether or not such a plot device is used, every PC needs to have at least one reason to go on adventures, and a reason to hang around with the other PCs in the party. These scenario grommets should be firmly anchored in the characters nature, and should be designed to withstand repeated use. PCs should be involved, that is, they should be the kind of person who takes up other peoples problems, and they should engage in activities which bring them into contact with people with appropriate troubles or with evid ence that people have such troubles. If they are not characters of the type that gets into trouble, could perhaps have NPCs attached to them who attract trouble, and whom they will help. The technique of using excuses also has implications outside play, stretching back to character generation. A character should be conceived and designed to provide excuses. From the example from 'Blakes Seven' given above, one sees how characters personalities can provide excuses. In my opinion, this is the primary purpose of character quirks, and the problem with the personality feature systems of most games is that the features they produce do not achieve this purpose. If the game you are playing randomly assigns personality features, ignore them. Design a personality for your character which will make it reasonable for the character to provide excuses of a characteristic type. Select skills and bodies of knowledge which will give the GM excuses to give you leads. (Your characters know ledge of any particular subject need not be deep, but the more subjects the party covers, the more excuses the GM has for a PC to recall some thing.) Skills that give the character information, and whatever it is that you roll against to notice or remember details, or to have ideas, are every bit as important for getting into the good bits as athletic and combat skills are for getting through them. Then, of course, there are a characters relationships with things in the game environment. Friends, enemies, and possessions of a player character can all provide the GM with opportunities to advance the plot. Friends, for instance, can provide help, or information, or bring news. They can offend major villains, and thus draw them into the open. They can do things that interfere with the PCs plans, causing things to go wrong and turning a cakewalk into a good bit. And of course they can get into trouble and need to be helped. A PCs personal enemy is something that his or her player should cherish. An enemy can be a great asset. For instance, an enemys efforts to harm a PC can interfere with a major villains schemes; an enemys actions can complicate an otherwise trivial situation, forestalling the dreaded cakewalk. Pursuit of, retaliation against, and precautions taken against personal enemies can lead to a PC stumbling across something big. Truly, an enemy can be a good thing. Possessions can be stolen, or destroyed, or can malfunction, dropping the PCs in the soup, or forcing the PCs to recover or replace them. Any of these possibilities can lead PCs to a place they might otherwise have had no reason to go. In addition, equipment can be used to gather information, and can draw attention to a PC. Favourite possessions, like Jack Burton's truck in 'Big Trouble in Little China', can be powerful tools for the GM to lead characters around. When equipping a character, think of getting him or her into situations as well as getting him or her out. In my experience it has been a mistake to design attached NPCs with specific adventures in mind. These are obvious plot devices, which are either wasted by GMs on minor points, or hang around unused like Chekovs gun. Nor should the relationships between PCs and their attached NPCs be complicated, nor other wise unusual, because the GM is unlikely to understand what one has in mind, or to spare the effort necessary to detail complicated bits not having to do with his or her adventures. Attached NPCs should stand in simple, easily understood and specified relationships to the PC. In other words they should be two-dimensional characters in cliched roles. Such characters can be used by the GM in a variety of ways, in hooks, in leads, and in good bits. Complicated, unusual, original NPCs are less useful, as their unusual properties can get in the way of some uses. A more useful device is for PCs to be specified as standing in particular relations to certain groups or categories of NPCs. For instance, Dirty Harry is disliked but respected by San Francisco policemen, feared by San Francisco criminals, loathed by the San Francisco Police Department administration, detested by San Francisco judges, and disapproved of by the San Francisco television audience (most of whom wouldnt recognise him, though). These details cant be ignored, because they are con sequences of the characters nature. They are also more useful to a GM than single, individual NPCs, because they tell him or her something about the way his or her NPCs should act. Better still, they are suitable for repeated use without requiring that careful track be kept of shifting and developing attitudes, because these NPCs can be used up (not necessarily killed they might simply have their attitudes changed) without this eliminating any possibilities for future situations. Best of all, they can be ignored without looking like conspicuous irrelevancies, and they can be used without looking like plot devices, because they are natural consequences of the character and his or her environment, and only their appearance in a certain place at a certain time can be unex pected. A characters history, his or her life before character generation, need not, indeed should not, be featureless, but it should be simple. The characters history is detailed to define clearly the relationships between him or her and NPCs, and to let the GM know what NPCs should remember. Anything too long or complicated for the GM to understand quickly and remember accurately will be wasted at best. More likely it will be a source of misunderstanding between the player and the GM. The last thing a player wants (whatever the character might desire) is for his or her character to lead a quiet life and win easy victories. PCs lives should be complicated by interesting attach ments. They should cultivate, or fail to throw off, interesting NPCs as friends, enem ies, and professional associates. They should live in places, own things, and have habits that can form excuses. As is true of leads, it is possible to go overboard with excuses. Only give out excus es when you feel that a lead is imminent, and remember that just because you give an excuse, that doesn't give you a right to a lead. Don't burden your characters life with scores of bizarre acquaintances. They are unlikely to be useful to your GM, and a suggestion, without details, that bizarre acquaintances exist is more useful, and less likely to seem superfluous if not used. Relatively normal friends and relatives have the same attractions. Dont produce reams of history. Enough to explain and define your characters relationships with NPCs is all that you need, and no- one cares about the rest. Leads and excuses are essential tools for co-operative, extemporising role-players. They are not sufficient equipment, other plot devices are also important, and the ability to extemporise good bits is essential (for players as well as GMs), but unless the players are able manipulators of leads and excuses, any but the tightest of plot-driven scenarios is liable to be becalmed or blown off course. Scare Your Players by Jeffrey A. Rees Whilst preparing to move yet again (college life, course 342, advanced moving), I was packing up the olde gaming materials and decided to take a break. I picked a back issue of Dragon at random and came up with issue #162 - Halloween. I came upon an article by Bruce Nesmith in the Game Wizards column. The subject was scaring players. Notice the word players as opposed to characters. The article had some good ideas for doing this. For those GMs that have been able to scare the players, it is quite a treat (unfortunately, rare). The article suggests that you use the most powerful tool you have against the players, the player's mind. Set up situations where the players have some time to think about the situation that you describe. Take the time to emphasize the sounds and sights that will help build suspense. Players are so used to getting ambushed at every turn that they do not think about attacking what attacks them. Give them a few minutes to think about what *might* attack them is more effective than what actually does jump out. We all know (I hope) that you should never give out the name of the critter the PCs are attacking. We should describe the beasty and let the PCs decide what it is. To take that a step further, make the descriptions related to the PCs point of view. A good example in the article is describing the height of a monster. Instead of saying "it is 10 feet tall", say "The beast towers over the tallest of you, nearly scrapping its head on the ceiling of the tunnel". Just little things to make the scene more personal and less stats and numbers. The final tip they had was have the monsters attack in a way the PCs did not expect. If the PCs are setting up an ambush by the door, have the beasty burst through the wall! Having a huge arm around a PCs neck holding him about a foot off the ground through the wall tends to get people's attention. Have things happen for effect more than damage, like having giant centipedes crawl over the PC and head for the face. You give the PC a chance to escape unharmed, but most people do not like insect like critters crawling over them. Like all tricks and traps, one does not use the same one over and over again. Do not try to scare the PCs in every encounter, and the players with see through your plots if you continue to have their plans fail by a monster coming through the wall instead of the door. A good scare goes along way for the rest of the session. After reading the article, I was thinking "Yeah, it sounds wonderful, but will it work on my group?" I already had my answer. Long before ever receiving the issue, I ran a little scenario that did scare the players. I play in a group that only retreats if you are getting your collective asses whipped. I have never seen the players scared about a situation. They (I included as a player) were never scared of what might happen. I sprinkled around a few rumors that led the players/pcs to think there was a vampire about (it also helped that they were low level, this had them worried but undaunted). I had them meet a NPC in a friendly setting, and they liked the fellow. One night, the NPC disappeared in unusual circumstances. They found a blood trail that led to the local graveyard, of which they had heard rumors about also. The setting was at dusk. A natural but chilling fog was about, limiting vision to about 2 or 3 horselengths. The were strange lights and plenty of noises (bats fluttering about). Occasional footsteps could be heard, and the clincher was the creaking sound of a door opening. They were not going to go into that graveyard for anything! That is the first time I had ever seen a full strength party dodge a main encounter. They had just a little too much time to think about messing with whatever was in that fog. The one tip that I have to add is to use NPCs to emphasize the horror of the scene. NPCs slain easily while defending themselves gets the players thinking ("He ripped his throat out like it was clay!). Anything to make the scene more suspenseful. The above graveyard scene was done without any props and on a bright sunny day. If you use props, make sure it adds and not detracts from the scene (do not use a figurine for the monster until you need to, let their imagination shape the monster). So You Want to Write an Adventure by Rob Bolin Sooner or later, you may want to write your own adventure. Maybe you have just been invited to run a special adventure by your usual DM, or maybe you are a DM who wants to run a special adventure specifically incorporating your group's backgrounds, it doesn't matter. The following article is a simple method by which I generate adventures which you may find useful to use yourself. Believe it or not, it helps if you think of an adventure as an interactive story. Most sources that I can think of, and many DMs and Players, say that if an adventure is a story, then the process of self determination, or freedom of choice is removed. But I counter that to contain the elements of the actual process of writing the adventure, it is easier to think of it as a story, a story whose actual ending is in doubt. The elements I use to write the adventure are (in order) as follows: Plot, Setting, Characters, Theme, Flesh, Trimmings, and Final Touches. I will deal with each item separately, in order to explain their place in the whole. Examples, throughout the article come from a large adventure I was writing for my regular group "the Storm Wardens". To explain a key point, the Sceptre of the Sorcerer- Kings is a powerful magical artifact from the Forgotten Realms. Plot: Obviously a story/adventure must have a plot and it is always easier to formulate this at the beginning of the creation process. When designing, think about what you wish the Characters to do then jot it down on paper and keep it handy. However, as a word of warning, don't allow the plot to run more that a couple of sentences in length, otherwise it may be that the plot is too detailed (remember the plot is a sort of synopsis not a story in itself). Keeping the plot handy helps when you get lost within the myriad of details you may want to put in. As an example, here is the plot from the Storm Wardens adventure I was writing: "Party Clerics are informed of existence of the Sceptre of the Sorcerer-Kings and instructed to search for it which the rest of the party help with. After searching for the Sceptre the Party retrieves it and is then instructed to destroy the artefact all the time being harried by every other god's followers." Simple, I know, however it drew together the entire adventure into a format I could easily work with. Setting: This is a relatively simple requirement to fill, usually. Just note down all the reasonable locations the characters will have to travel to whether this is streets or wards in a local big town or even entire towns, countries or planes. Be as specific as necessary, having a list of locations helps in the detailing of the action later. For example: "Stormwardens' Castle, Deepingdale, Battledale, Mistledale, Shadowdale, Sembia and the Pirate Isles." As those of you familiar with Forgotten Realms are aware, I could have listed "Stormwardens' Castle (which is in Cormyr, just outside Arabel), The Dale Lands, Sembia and the Pirate Isles" but noting that the characters travel to specific Dales lend movement and some division to the adventure. Characters: This does not just include the player characters, but also the important Non- player Characters (NPCs) as well. Take for example the Sceptre adventure: "The Storm Wardens, Red Knight (Goddess of Planning and Strategy in Battle (The Assistant to Tempus, God of War)), Tyr (God of Justice), Kunstoff (CE hm F5 hp 40) and Fahsis (NE hm M6 hp 20)." This list is only a rudimentary list as the adventure was never finished. Kunstoff and Fahsis were to be the villains of the story, and the current possessors of the Sceptre. Other characters that were to appear on this list were the lord and head priest of each dale, a mad drunk beggar and several other key people. Theme: This is a good idea to include in the adventure creation process as this can be as important as the plot to guidance of the process. Theme basically translates as the "Why" of the adventure. Why are the characters required to do certain actions during the course of the adventure and what would be the result? As with plot, short and sweet themes are best. In my example, the theme was to be the testing of the characters perseverance in the face of adversity ie continuing with the mission from various gods regardless of the constant attacks and ambushes from other parties. Flesh: This is where all the traditional creating goes on. Using all the working aids you have generated previously, write the details out as specifically as you feel is necessary. I always attempt to divide the action up into chunks or chapters depending on convenient breaks. For example, the Sceptre adventure was broken into chapters along the line of the various locations. Alternately, a dungeon could be divided by the levels it contains, or an investigation into the clues discovered. The adventure is yours, divide it as you see fit. Items to include in this section are Action, Roleplaying, Problem Solving, Flexibility, Discovery, Rewards and a Lead. The first three are self explanatory so I won't go into them. Flexibility must be put in as players take the most perverse delight in screwing up the most carefully laid plans. I once had a trap that was nullified when the party mage just levitated across with a rope. Discovery comes close to the climax of the adventure, when the players finally learn why the villagers died or where the head villain is or how to stop the evil god from returning. Rewards is also self-explanatory - why else do adventurers adventure? Finally a Lead - this a convenient time to introduce a catch to the next adventure. At the end of the adventure, the players hear of something that inspires them to adventure again - the villain didn't really die, a scrap of a map in the treasure gained or the village knows of another village similarly oppressed - it's up to you. Finally Trimmings and Final Touches: This is where you, as the DM/writer, to adjust or add anything that stands out as requiring it. The drunken bum should be a crazed old man, there should be a few less magical items in the Temple but more in the catacombs (or even that there should be a catacombs), or the priest of Lathander should be a priest of Chauntea (which would fit in better with the rural background) etc. These modifications may or may not be needed but now is the time to consider them. I hope that this has given you something to think about in the creation of your own adventures. By all means ignore me if you feel you must - it is your adventure. Alignment Guidelines Adapted from Palladium, by Brian S. Leybourne Generally I keep a record of transgressions and if a player tallies 10 in any one direction (good/evil/law/chaos) I will force an alignment change, as he is obviously playing a different alignment to the one he is supposed to be playing. Lawful good Always keeps his word. Never lies Never attack, harm or kill an innocent foe Never harm an innocent Never torture for any reason. Will not allow torture. Always helps others. Always work within the law. Respects honor, self-discipline, authority and law. Works well within a group Never take 'dirty money' or items Never betray a friend. Ever. For ANY reason. Neutral good Always keeps his word. Is VERY unlikely to lie, expept perhaps to an evil person. Never attack or kill an unarmed foe Never harm an innocent Never tortures for any reason. Is very unlikely to allow torture for any reason. Never kill for pleasure Always tries to help others. Works well in groups Never take dirty money or items Never betray a friend. Chaotic good Keeps his word to any other good person. Lies only to neutral or evil people. Never attack or kill an unarmed foe Never harm an innocent Never torture for pleasure or information. Threats may be permissible. Never kill for pleasure Always tries to help others Distrusts authority. Works well in groups, but dislikes confining rules and 'red tape' Never take dirty money or items Never betray a friend. Lawful Neutral Keep his word of honor Lie and cheat only if very necessary Never attack or harm an unarmed foe. Never harm an innocent Does not use torture unless ABSOLUTELY necessary. (Never for pleasure) Never kill for pleasure Usually helps those in need Works in groups well, especially if it suits his needs. Will quite possibly take dirty money Never betrays a friend Has a high reguard for life and personal freedom Chaotic Neutral May keep his word Lies and cheats if he feels it necessary Never kill an unarmed foe, but may knock out or beat up one. Never kill an innocent but may harm or kidnap Will use torture to extract information but not for pleasure Seldom kills for pleasure Is not likely to help someone without an alterior motive. (Even if its just showing off!) Has little respect for authority Does not work well within groups - tends to do as he pleases, despite orders to the contrary. Will usually take dirty money or items Is very unlikely to betray a friend. Lawful Evil Always keeps his word of honor Lies and cheats those not worthy of his respect May or may not kill an unarmed foe Never kill an innocent but will harm, harass or kidnap Never torture for pleasure but will to extract information Never kills for pleasure - always has a reason May or may not help someone in need Respects honor and self-discipline. Has no time for the law Will work with others to attain his goals. May take dirty money Never betray a friend. Neutral Evil Will not necessarily keep his word to anyone Lies and cheats indiscriminately Will happily kill an unarmed foe Will harm and use an innocent, killing if necessary Uses torture to extract information. (And enjoys it! May torture for pleasure) May kill for sheer pleasure Feels no compulsion to help others without some sort of tangible reward Works with others if it will help achieve his personal goals Will take dirty money etc without hesitation Will betray a friend if it serves his needs. Has little respect for others lives. Chaotic Evil Rarely keeps his word. Has no honor Lie and cheat anyone Most certainly attack and kill an unarmed foe (those are the best kind!) Will hurt and/or kill an innocent without a second thought. (or for pleasure) Uses torture to extract information and pleasure Will kill for sheer pleasure Is likely to help someone only on a whim Despises honor and authority and self-discipline. Views them as weaknesses Does not work well in a group. Constantly vying for power and/or command Will always take dirty money etc Will betray a friend. After all, you can always get another friend. Associates mostly with other evil alignments. Bringing Player Characters to Life If the characters in your role playing game are just a collection of statistics on paper, or if you make decisions in the game based on what you would do rather than what your character would do, then you are missing out on one of the most fun aspects of the game. In the above scenario, each of the characters has a personality, with likes, dislikes, tendencies and phobias. Brun misses female dwarven company, likes medium rare steak, drinks gutshaker by preference, and tugs his beard when thinking rude thoughts. Kree's main physical feature, her hair, comprises a part of her name. She tosses said physical feature when she is annoyed. Aleena is a nice person but who only shows genuine feelings (she didnt smile at the waitress, as some may have done). Aleena is a vegetarian who probably doesnt like living in the city, and spends time in the garden to relax. William is a chaotic neutral who did have a fear of utter blackness, but has been working hard to overcome this liability. He was hoping to pleasantly surprise the party, not become an object of suspicion. He just wanted to try a rare steak, not realising the effect it would have. The party also has a joint characteristic - that is whenever they return from an expedition they always have a big steak dinner. The High Priest, annoyed at being dragged away from playing with his grandchildren, will pronounce William normal as can be expected, and then charge according to his mood. This is not to say next time the party's suspicions will be unfounded. So how can you bring your PC into four dimensional life? Well to start it would probably be a good idea to make sure you know what your character looks like, either by choosing features or by random selection. A history or background for the character is also essential. Giving your character personality also makes it easier for the player - it is far easier to make decisions in the game for your character if you know their short and long term goals. It is also an essential ingredient for good role- playing. One of the major components of a story in any medium is the detail and beleivability of the main characters. To make it more fun for the DM and players, and to make the game more "real", you should take time out to put flesh on the bones of those numbers on your character record sheet. Note that all the information about your character will not be known by other player characters straight away. Some information about his/her past may come out in play, and some may never be known by anyone other than the DM and the player, although they may see symptoms of that history. For example a character had a close encounter with a huge spider while under training, resulting in that PC's near death. The rest of the party don't know about this, and may never find out. However they do know the PC concerned has a fear/hatred of spiders, especially large ones. Part of the fun of role-playing is finding out the character traits of your comrades. It is also a story-telling way of finding out when things are amiss (such as detailed above), which is better than just rolling an intelligence check to see if your character notices anything unusual. Following are suggestions for determination of your character's personality. 1. Look at your PC's character ability scores - does he/she have any high/low scores? 2. Did these scores result from circumstances in his/her early life? 3. How did these scores affect the PC's life? 4. How did they affect him/her in their chosen character class? 5. Why did the PCs come to choose his/her chosen character class and kit? 6. Were they forced into being a priest by their parents/guardians? 7. Did they choose to become a warrior to leave behind a life of poverty? 8. Why is the PC adventuring? 9. What does he/she expect to get out of being an adventurer? 10. What are the PC's long term hopes/goals/dreams, and how does adventuring fit into these plans? 11. Reread the description of the character race in the appropriate handbook. Do any of the descriptions suggest any background or history? 12. Where is the PC's home town? 13. What is the area like, and how did it affect the PC? 14. Look at the PC's weapon and non-weapon proficiencies - how did they acquire them, especially the unusual ones? 15. For example was fishing just a favourite pastime, or does the PC come from a fishing community? 16. Does the PC have any family, and how do they relate to them? 17. Are there any black (or white) sheep in the family (including the PC), does the PC love/hate one member of the family in particular? 18. Is there one family member special (as confidant, mentor) to the PC? 19. How did the PC's upbringing affect his/her personality? 20. What does the PC's family do for a living? 21. What are the likes and dislikes of the PC? 22. Does he/she have any rational or irrational fears or phobias? 23. What are the origins of or reasons for those fears or phobias? 24. (There does not have to be a reason!). What is his/her favourite colour, food, style of clothing, of wearing their hair? 25. Does the PC have any affinity with an animal of some type? 26. Does the PC have any heroes, either from legend, contemporary, or from his/her past? 27. What are the physical characteristics of the PC? 28. Does he/she have any scars, tattoos or birthmarks? 29. What are the origins and/or significance of these? 30. Does he/she have any striking features or dominant personality traits (definately should have at least one if the charisma score is above average). There can be both good and bad traits. On average pick or roll two good personality traits, and one bad one. If you play AD&D see the DMG page 114-115 (first printing) for a list of traits both good and bad. Is the PC boastful, modest, egotistical, aloof, forceful, rude, taciturn, vengeful, courteous, pessimistic or rash? 31. Is there any reason she/he has developed this personality type? 32. Also of great assitance with traits and flaws for AD&D characters is Players Option: Skills and Powers. Does he/she have any unusual mannerisms when talking, thinking, afraid, under stress or even having sex? 33. (Cugel the Clever from the Dying Earth series by Jack Vance used to whistle through his teeth when engaged in bedroom activity). Do any of these appear from past incidents? 34. Does the PC have any strong opinions about the other sex, peoples habits, particular types of races/monsters, or politics? 35. Why? 36. Does the PC have any hobbies? 37. Does he/she collect rings, daggers, banners, porcelain, goblets, religious items, books, wine or anything at all? 38. Does she/he enjoy horse riding, jousting, lute playing, weaving, weapon-smithing or fishing? 39. Does he/she have an interest in religion, art or politics? 40. How did the character become the alignment they have chosen? 41. Were the people he/she grew up with of similar alignment? 42. Was there a special person, father figure, mentor or confidant who influenced the PC's morals and ethics? 43. What is the religious persuasion of the PC? 44. Is he/she secretly a member of a cult, orthodox worshippers of a particular diety, part of a fringe church? 45. How did they come to be so? 46. Is the PC impious, rarely worshipping, or devout and praying every day? 47. Is the PC an athiest? 48. How is the PC with regard to material wealth? 49. Is the PC miserly with his/her share, or is the money spent freely? 50. Is she/he greedy or generous? 51. Does he/she see material wealth as a mark of success, or just as a stepping stone to achieving his/her goals? 52. Is the PC a supporter of the current ruler, or is he/she anti- government? 53. Is the PC part of an anti-government organisation? 54. Does he/she have any dark secrets in his/her past? 55. Is she/he who they claim to be? 56. Is the real reason from being an adventurer different to what is told to the party? 57. Are there any enemies from the past who may involve themselves in the affairs of the PC and the party? 58. Finally, what is the attitude of the PC to other members of the party? As you can see this is rather a large list - don't feel you have to use all of these suggestions, nor confine yourself to what is listed here. There are many other facets of personality not listed above which you may think of. Above all the personality of your character should evolve, so some of the effects of youth will disappear with time, and the PC may pick up other character traits. With the DM's permission you can also add things to the history of the character as you think of them, although I personally would not recommend doing this. To be believeable the history of your character perhaps should be solid and unchangeable, just real people have regrets and proud moments in their past, so should your RPG character. Consider your PC carefully, then write down a history and personality for him/her. As stated above this will make it very easy for you to make decisions in the game on behalf of your character. Remember the DM should be consulted after you have fully created your character, in some cases an adventure can be woven into your character's history. English Titles by Jo Beverly A brief run-down of British titles for use by writers. This is by no means comprehensive, but covers the more common situations arising in novels. The British peerage basically runs according to primogeniture (i.e. the eldest son gets everything). If a peer has no eldest son, the title and possessions that belong to it go to the next male heir, probably a brother or nephew. There are a very few titles that can pass to a female if there is no direct heir, but they will revert to the male line when the lady bears a son. (Such as the monarchy.) Some titles can automatically pass through a female heir (when there is no male heir), and most can be revived by subsequent generations by petitioning to the Crown. (This is an area about which I am not at all confident!) The eldest son is called the heir apparent, since he is clearly the heir. If there is no such son, the heir is called the heir presumptive since, no matter how unlikely (the duke is actually an ancient Benedictine Monk on his death bed) the possibility of a closer heir being created is still there. Thus an heir presumptive does not hold an heir's title, if any. (See below about heir's titles.) If a peer dies leaving a wife but no son, time must be allowed to be sure she is not pregnant before the heir presumptive assumes the title, etc. An heir must be legitimate at birth. A peer may adopt children, or legitimize bastards but they cannot be his legal heir. Peers automatically have seats in the House Of Lords. Note, however, that courtesy titles (those held by heirs) do not give seats. Most peers do not use their surnames as their title. Thus, the usual pattern would be something like Arthur Bingham, Earl of Middleborough. He is Lord Middleborough, never Lord Bingham. (Or, for that matter, Lord Arthur.) Dukes & Duchesses Leaving aside royalty, the highest rank is Duke. His wife is the Duchess. They will be duke and duchess of something, e.g. Duke and Duchess of Manchester. Address is "your grace", though familiars may address them as Duke and Duchess e.g. "Fine weather for shooting, eh, Duke?" or may address the duke by title. "Care for more port, Manchester?" Note that the duke will also have a family name (i.e. surname, such as Cavendish), but will not use it in the normal course of events. The duchess does not use the surname at all. If Anne Pitt marries the Duke of Stone (whose family name is Cherry), she will be Duchess of Stone and will informally sign herself Anne Stone, not Anne Cherry. The duke's eldest son is his heir and will have his father's second-best title as his courtesy title. Nearly all peers have a number of titles marking their climb up the ranks. The heir to a duke is often the next lowest ranking peer, a marquess (or marquis -- spelling is optional.) The title could, however, be an earldom, or even a viscountcy. NB, remember, a courtesy title does not give the holder a seat in the House of Lords or other privileges of the peerage. (There has been some debate on GEnie as to whether in the Regency a duke's heir was always addressed as marquess regardless of the actual title. This is not confirmed.) If the heir has a son before the heir becomes duke, that son will take the next lowest title as a courtesy title. If the heir dies before his father, his eldest son becomes the heir apparent and takes his father's title. Apart from the heir, a duke's sons are given the courtesy title Lord with their Christian name, e.g. Lord Richard Somerset, Lord Peter Wimsey. They are never Lord Somerset or Lord Wimsey. All a duke's daughters are given the courtesy title Lady, first name, surname e.g. Lady Mary Clarendon. (Never Lady Clarendon.) If they marry a commoner, they retain the title. If Lady Mary marries Mr. Sticklethwait, she becomes Lady Mary Sticklethwait. If they marry a peer, they adopt his title. If Lady Mary marries the Earl of Herrick, she becomes Countess of Herrick (i.e. Lady Herrick). If she marries the holder of a courtesy title, then she may use his title or her birth title as she wishes. Please note that in all cases, the titles Lord or Lady and Lord or Lady or are exclusive. No one can be both at the same time. Moreover, Lord or Lady <first name> is a title conferred at birth. It cannot be gained later in life except when the father accedes to a title and thus raises his family. So, Lady Mary Smith is not Lady Smith and vice versa. Lord John Brown in not Lord Brown and vice versa. If Mary Smith marries Lord Brown she is Lady Brown, not Lady Mary. (If she marries Lord John Brown, she becomes Lady John Brown.) Writers should bear in mind that a duke was a Very Important Person, and there were few of them. A Regency duke, especially an eligible one, would find it as easy to hang around being an ordinary guy as royalty would today. If you don't want this, don't make him a duke. Marquesses & Marchionesses Next in rank is a Marquess (optional spelling is marquis) whose wife is a Marchioness. He will be Marquess of something, e.g. Marquess of Doone. He is called Lord, so the Marquess of Queensbury is Lord Queensbury and his wife is Lady Queensbury. She will sign herself <firstname> <title> e.g. Marylou Queensbury. His heir apparent takes his next highest title as a courtesy title. All other sons have the title Lord <firstname> <surname> All daughters have the title Lady <firstname> <surname>. Details are as for Dukes. Earls & Countesses Below marquess is Earl, whose wife is a Countess. He will nearly always be earl of something. Style of address is "my lord" or Lord Cranthorpe. He is referred to as "the Earl of Cranthorpe" or "Lord Cranthorpe" or "Cranthorpe" to his familiars. Some earls do not use "of" as with Earl Spencer, but this is sufficiently unusual that it should be avoided unless it's a crucial plot point. His wife is Lady Cranthorpe, and she will sign herself Desdemona Cranthorpe. As with a duke, the earl's heir will take the next lowest title as a courtesy title, and the heir's son, the next again. All daughters of an earl are given the courtesy title Lady <firstname> -- see Dukes. All details are the same. Younger sons of an earl, however, are merely "the honorable" which is not used in casual speech. Viscounts & Viscountesses Next is a Viscount, whose wife is a Viscountess. He is not "of". He will be, for example, Viscount Brummidge, usually known as Lord Brummidge, or just Brummidge. His wife will be known as Lady Brummidge and will sign herself Anne Brummidge. His heir has no special title. All children are known as The Honourable. Barons & Baronesses The lowest rank in the peerage is Baron whose wife is a Baroness. Note that the terms baron and baroness are only used in England in the most formal documents. No one would say, "Oh look. There's Baron Pottersbar!" or, "I must introduce you to the baron." General usage is simply to call them Lord and Lady. She will sign herself <firstname> <title> Children as for Viscount. Baronets Next in rank -- and not of the peerage -- is Baronet. A baronet is called Sir, first name, surname, e.g. Sir Richard Wellesley. His wife is called Lady <surname> e.g. Lady Wellesley, not Lady Mary Wellesley unless she is the daughter of a duke, marquess, or earl. She will sign herself <firstname> <surname>, such as Mary Wellesley. His children have no special distinction. The title, however, is inheritable which distinguishes it from.... Knights A Knight, who is the same as a baronet in usage, but is a title for life only. His wife will be Lady <surname>. Other Matters Dowagers When a titled lady is widowed she becomes a dowager, but the practice has generally been not to use that title until the heir takes a wife and there could be confusion as to who is the real Lady Middlethorpe. Even if she has a daughter-in-law, in general usage she would still be referred to by the simple title unless there was likely to be confusion. So, if the Dowager Duchess of Teale was at a house party while her daughter-in-law was in London, people would not be constantly referring to her as the dowager duchess. Peeresses in their Own Right There are a few, very few, titles that can pass to a daughter if there is no son -- the Royal Family, for example. In this case, the usage is the same as if they were the wife of a peer of that rank, but their husband gains no title from the marriage, just as the Duke of Edinburgh is not king. A Peeress in her Own Right retains her title after marriage, and if her husband's rank is the superior one, she is designated by the two titles jointly, the inferior one last. Her hereditary claim to her title holds good in spite of any marriage, and will be passed on. Since the husband gains no title from such a marriage, it's possible to have the Countess of Arbuthnot married to Mr. Smith. Her eldest son will be her heir and take her next lowest title. If she has no son, her eldest daughter will be her heir, but will hold only the title that comes from her birth -- e.g. Lady Anne -- if any because an eldest daughter is always an heir presumptive. There might still be a boy. Common Problems Seen in Novels 1.Interchanging courtesy titles like Lady Mary Smith and Lady Smith. 2.Interchanging peerage titles, as when Michael Downs, Earl of Rosebury is variously known as Lord Rosebury, Lord Downs, and Lord Michael Downs. 3.Applying titles that don't belong, as when Jane Potts marries Viscount Twistleton and erroneously becomes Lady Jane. 4.Having the widow of just about anyone, but especially a peer, remarry before time has elapsed to be sure she is not bearing a child. Or rather, whose child it is that she bears! 5.Having the heir presumptive assume the complete power over the title and property before it has been made clear that the widow in not going to produce an heir. (I'm sure this was a legal matter taken care of in probate etc. but I don't know the details.) 6.Having an heiress (i.e. a daughter without brothers) inherit a title and convey it to her husband. It could be done -- anything could -- by special decree of the Crown, but it was not normal. I hope this helps, and though I'm pretty sure it's right it is open to debate and amendment. Building Game Worlds James R. Palmer I would like to share with you and our captive audience my favorite way of building game worlds. As far back as I can remember playing, I've always built my own worlds <if the system allowed> and IMHO it was one of the most fun ways to blow time when it comes to gaming. Anyways following is a LONG layout of how I do it, and I must admit its a bit unusual. First off I always want my worlds to be realistic, none of this Deserts surrounded by Frozen tundra stuff, but rather a world that could exist out there in the cosmos somewhere. But I also want the fantastic setting, nothing could be more boring that roaming about in a presettled European North America world. <'Less you go heavy on the Aztecs.> I fear I shall digress from time to time, but hopefully I can make this sound semi coherent <even with all my typos> [I think I've corrected most of the typos. - BSB] The first thing I do besides get a lot of blank paper, is to draw out the plate tectonics. HUH ? You might say, this is a bit too realistic James.. well actually it makes it easier for me.. I draw out the plates, not even thinking yet about my coast lines etc.. Just big weird shaped circles, then I draw arrows to show their direction of movement. Once this simple task is done <Takes all of 2 minutes> I use it as a reference for when I am laying out my mountian ranges, flat lands and so on. Now I'm not saying I stick to it religously, but just as a guideline. It makes the mountian ranges seem more beleiveable. Now I'm not going to go into the geography part, we have all had enough of that by the time we were 14, but if you would like to read up on a simple example of it all, I suggest picking up ADND's world builder book, its a blue book, and thats not its real name, but its something like that. It has a wonderful section on geography. Well enough about that, here comes the fun part, the people. Now in each of my worlds I try to throw in an ancient, highly advanced culture, sorta like the Aztecs, or Egyptians, etc.. Hmm how to describe this part... Well, First off when I "settle" my newly drawn out map, I start with say 4-5 races, these are the dominant ones, the ones that shape the world. Not the Trogs or Orcs etc, but rather the ones that build cities and so on. So then with a photocopy of my world I draw out the migration of these people, just lines following coast lines, rivers, or what not. I branch them and so on, till I feel they have gone a good enough distance. Then I do this for each race. At this point I sorta have a feel for what kind of people they are. Nomadic, Conquering, etc.. And I keep this in mind when doing this. Then I go about and put settlements, just somewheres along the course of the migration. Now I begin with time. I set a date some "Before Today" type thing in years, to when they first came to the world, and using this as a guide I put dates on the little cities I scattered about. I try to place cities at anywhere they meet a river or a branch occurs in the migration. All right, so now we have a map with lots of colored lines on it and dates. Now I go back and destroy a lot of those cities, just making a note to whether or not they are there anymore. The whole reason for this is "lost ruins" and such. The next step in all of this is the religion/culture of the civilizations. There are two ways to handle this, one the culture makes the religon, or two the religon makes the culture. Basically if the religon makes the culture you have one where the gods show up occasionaly, pester the people about this and that. If Greek mythos were a fantasy world, I would say this is one of those cases. Myself I like the second choice, so I'll ramble on about that one. So each original culture gets a religon of its own, I've never been one who follows the Dragonlance world, where everyone worships the same god, too boring... I'll not go into religons at this point, since in itself it could cover a whole tome of writings, if you are interested look at Gurps Religion, it covers all of this very well. There is one point in it though, which has intrigued me, and I have been dying to try out and it keeps within the bounds of what we are discussing. And that is let the players play a "campaign" as the gods. Start off the new world with the players as the dieties, then run adventures and such along this way. When its all over you have a world and patheon based around the player characters actions, and one which they are intimately familiar with the patheon, rather than just having some name listed under religion on the character sheet. Example World: Okay here is a sample world one might use. The basic races I'm using are Human, Elf, and Orc. You could toss in any you would like. Okay first off we have drawn the map, and now are dealing with the races. 40,600 B.N. <Before Now> - A race of highly intelligent "turtle-like" beings arrives on the continent after emerging from a suboceanic world that was invaded by something else. These beings are bipedal,but have turtle like features and have an extremely long lifespan, though they move very very slow. <Like you can't see them move>. 39,500 BN - First Turtlese city built. <Takes them a while.> Since they move so slow they have building techniques that are far superior to any known. Their minds move at normal speeds to our time, but their bodies, near immortal and impossible to harm by known means. So they have lots of time to think. Also they need buildings that withstand the elements. 28,000 BN - Turtlese "conquer" all of planet. An age of peace and wisdom ensues. Okay so we do a bit, add another races that show up, or maybe some strife in the Turtlese people, whatever. But we wipe them out, with just a few remains of their cities about and maybe their actions have created some other races. Say by-products of experiments or such. Anyways, we move closer to present - 4500 BN - The refuges from sinking Atlantis come to this world, led by their god in an Ark type situation. They create a religion based nation, one of peace. 3700 BN - The religon breaks into to doctrines, war ensues. 3500 BN - Barbarian Horde sweeps out of the north, destroying many cities. Whatever.... Basically you create a time line. As you go along the world will reveal itself. You'll see nations come and go, and religions born. For easier comparison for your players, so they can imagine it better, I advise to sticking with cultures that are somewhat like our own historical ones, even if mixed. Try a Greek Egyptian one, with thinking men and great Pyramids etc.. Or a military Roman Empire faced off against a Elven Samurai type one. etc.. Then adding the religous beliefs into it and you can end up with an Elven culture that believes Magic is to the key to salvation, and thru karma and Magic, one can reach enlightment... etc. Thus they may not be very interested in human pursuits, since it's such a short term things anyway, but would be sought after highly by humans due to the knowledge and power they have.. etc. Well enough for now, this has gone way out of hand as it is. Happy Gaming! ------------------------------------------------------ How to Design a Bottom-Up World: 1.Define the "Key Areas" which will be affected by the Campaign 1.Identify the geographical regions where the party will be operating in. 2.Identify the key groups (e.g. national, social, trade, religious, racial, species, linguistic) which will influence the Campaign. 2.Develop the relations between these key areas. 1.Go one level of detail past what you believe the campaign will need. 2.Be as "open ended" as possible with motivations for individuals. "Those wacky players do the most unexpected things!" 3.Be as consistent with tie-ins as possible. Try to derive some motivation for connecting plot lines and regions. Answer the question, "why are these things related?" before you spring it on the player characters. 4.Define the motivations behind various groups important to the campaign (e.g. racial, theological, economic, etc.) 3.Place maguffins in the campaign to draw the characters into the background of the region. In this way, you can direct the campaign development to some extent. 4.Be willing to ad lib, but write down your ad-libs as soon as possible after the game session. Ok, so you decided the Grey Wizards ear was green! Fine, but the next time the characters run into the Grey Wizard again, they will expect his ear to be green. If it is not, you better have a good explanation ready to go. 5.Keep a good campaign diary. Use the notes to redefine the key areas based on the players actions in the session, and then start over again with step (1) above. F) Helpful Hints in Designing a Bottom-Up World: 1.As you organize for an adventure, be willing to discard material that does not fit what already exits in your campaign world. Never say "I did it, because it was in the module." 2.Likewise, be willing to add material to tie together the current adventure with adventures that came before or that you are planning to run in the future. For example, if there is a religious faction that is the lynch-pin to a module you would like to run in your campaign in the future then you will want to drop hints that such an organization exists in earlier sessions. That way, it does not seem so incongruous when you introduce the sect later and does not beg the question "Hey, if these guys are so influential how come we never heard of them before?" 3.Write down plenty of notes and lots of maps. Make several potential plotlines up. Let these sit for a couple of days. Re-evaluate them. Ask yourself the following questions: 1.Are they reasonable? 2.Will the party find them plausible? (Not the same as (1) above.) 3.Are they consistent with the campaign to this point? 4.Are they complete enough to cover the major expected courses of action the campaign is expected to take? 5.Are there sufficient "safety nets" to draw the party back to the central campaign themes if the group strays in unexpected ways? Parties always do unexpected things. If you have a particular theme you want preserved in the campaign, or if there are things which must occur from a plot continuity standpoint then you should have back up plans of how to get the party involved if they do something quite the opposite of what you expect. 4.Be willing to accept suggestions from the party to help you develop the world. In practice, it is useful to spend five minutes after each session asking the players about what they want to see more of and anything they have questions about from the session. I have also found it is very useful to give the players some handouts each session like maps, old documents, diagrams, etc. It helps them picture the campaign world more easily. 5.Try to create interesting characters and plotlines. Be careful never to fall in love with a particular NPC or place in the campaign, because the PC's are sure to find some way to destroy that NPC or place through pure chance without malice or forethought! 6.The purpose of gaming is to have fun; if creating the world is so time consuming and difficult that it is no longer fun then you should do something else (e.g. let someone else referee for awhile, etc.) Top-Down or Deliberate World Creation A) Overview: It's time consuming! It is difficult! It is incredibly rewarding! It creates a very consistent world. This is generally not for a first-time referee!!! B) Description: This method develops the world beginning with the fundamental cosmology and works down to the size and description of the sandgrains the hobbit, peasant girl has between her toes. One can view this as the Calculus textbook approach to FRP world creation. Every portion that is added is logically self consistent and at the same time flows from earlier portions developed. C) Advantages: 1.The referee has total control over the development of the world. 2.The world is logically consistent. (At least the world is as logically consistent as the referee can imagine.) 3.The referee runs little risk of being caught off-guard with respect to details or background in the campaign. 4.It is one of the most direct creative processes possible. When you are finished, your world will be a direct reflection of your creative energies. D) Disadvantages: 1.The players have less input in the creation of the world. 2.The process is very time consuming. 3.If the campaign is not a long one, the referee runs the risk of spending large amounts of time on detail which the players will never directly experience. E) How to develop a Top-Down World 1.Select a gaming system that conforms to your fantasy world view. If you are fortunate, you can use an existing system "off the shelf", but it may involve large modifications to existing systems or even development of an entirely new system. Here are a few things to consider: 1.Is the system consistent with your own moral and political "comfort zone"? If it is not then choose another system. There is no shame in this. You are the referee afterall. It would be the height of arrogance for a gaming group to ask you to contribute hundreds of hours in time and energy to a system you feel uncomfortable with. 2.Does the system have the right "feel" for your concept of the fantasy world? 3.Are the mechanics workable? Some systems have great atmosphere, but the mechanics are too great a burden when you actually try to play. 2.Determine the scope that your world must cover. Do you need to design a "world" that encompasses an entire solar system or will something the size of metropolitan Boston do? A few helpful questions to help you determine the scope of your world would be: 1.Does your referee style support the grand quest motif? (Larger) 2.Do you like lots of local detail? (Smaller) 3.Could you do a whole campaign in a single village? (Smaller) 4.Do you like to see lots of exploration? (Larger) 5.Does the rules system you are using have provisions for long travel? For example, teleportation, tall ships and wagon trains all imply long journeys. (Larger) 6.What is the technology level in the campaign? (Higher=Larger) 3.Develop the cosmology. Answer all of the following questions. (Note: the players may never know these things, but you should.) 1.Where did the world come from? 2.What happened to the deities (if any)? 3.Are they still active in the world? 4.Are other planes or worlds accessible? 5.Is magic possible? Psionics? 6.How accessible are these things? 4.Develop the physical world. 1.Develop the geography. What fraction of the world is water versus dry land? How many suns, stars, planets and moons are there? Where are the mountain ranges? Are there any areas of geological instability? Why? 2.Develop the climate. Are there tides in the ocean? Are the tides related to the cosmology? Which areas are frigid? Arid? Wet? 3.Highlight any peculiar (different than Earth) features. 4.Are there any special (e.g. magical) areas? 5.Determine how you would like to populate the world in gross terms. What races would you like to include? What general types of societies would you like to have? Are these compatible with the results you obtained in steps 3 and 4 above? If not, can you modify the results to accommodate the cultures and races? (Possibly by including some special areas?) Otherwise, go back to step three and re-work the world until the results are consistent through step 5. 6.Develop an eco-structure. 1.Determine the food chain. 2.Where are the fertile areas? Waste areas? 3.Place the vegetation or lifeforms at the base of the food chain. 4.Are there areas with exotic or unique eco-structures? Try to tie these areas of the world in with the remainder of the world. 5.Place animals or other creatures towards the top of the food chain. Place the lowest members of the food chain first (e.g. herbivores on Earth) then work to the higher order creatures. 5.Develop the cultures. 1.Place the culture in the world at an appropriate location. Explore the interaction between the culture and the geographical/eco-structure the population finds itself in. 2.What race will populate this culture? 3.Look at the following items: 1.Resources (physical/lifeforms/spiritual/magical) 2.Subsistence patterns 3.Religion 4.Technology level 5.Social structure 6.Symbolism (architecture/art/mysticism) 7.Languages (per race/per culture/per region) 8.Trade, currency 6.Tie the cultures together. 1.Is there competition for resources? 2.What kind of trade there is between cultures? 3.How flexible are the cultures? 4.Have past climatic or geological events influenced the culture (e.g. big floods, ice ages, comet impacting on planet, angry gods, etc.)? 5.How quickly do the races reproduce? 6.Are there religious, political, or ethnic conflicts or compatibilities? 7.Write the histories of each of these cultures. 7.Make the nations: Nation attributes: 1.Social system 2.Racial groups 3.Major religions 4.Major religious figures 5.Major laws 6.Customs 7.Holidays 8.Style of clothing 9.General mindset 10.Educational system 11.Economic system 12.Notable products or commodities 13.Major economic leaders 14.Major trading partners 15.Army: quality, tactics, equipment, technology (magic items?) 16.Prevalence of magic 17.Legal status of magic 18.Magical institutions 19.Magical education 20.General attitude towards magic 8.Although you may have considered them previously, take particular care to highlight "special" aspects of your world. (In other words, what things make your world truly unique? Why would someone want to play in your world in particular?) 1.Are there unique races or species? 2.Do the races have special symbiotic relationships? 3.Are there periodically repeated geological, cosmological or climatic events? 4.Does your world have unique aspects to the magical or psionic manipulation or use? 9.Let your world sit, and do not look at it or think about it for at least two weeks. Then go back and look at it. Is it logical and internally consistent from a cosmological, historical and ecological standpoint? Here is a brief list of some questions to ask: 1.Are there lots of caves filled with large creatures with no food source? Why? How? 2.Are there burning deserts next to glaciers? Why? How? 3.If the good gods/desses are so darn powerful, why are there still evil entities around? 4.Why doesn't the water spill off the edge of the world? 5.How far can you see? Where is the horizon? Why? 6.Is there enough fertile ground to support the population? 7.Why did the high technology races allow the low tech races to survive? Do they compete for resources? (Think about it! Maybe there are religious or cultural issues involved.) 12.Develop the PCs to take advantage of or highlight unique aspects of your world. 13.Introduce maguffins in the campaign to help PCs explore interesting areas and relationships in your world. 14.Be willing to ad lib, but as before, write it down so you remember it! F) Helpful hints for designing a Top-Down World 1.All those NPCs and "schtuff" --- they are all imaginary, really! 2.Be willing to modify part of the world later if it proves to be inconsistent. But, carefully consider the effects of doing so before you dig out the eraser! Items in a fantasy world just as in the real world tend to be connected in ways we poor mortals cannot hope to see without very deep thought. Unfortunately, you, a mortal, will not see all of the interconnections right away. But, fear not! If there is an advantageous one for the PCs, they will spot them at the worst possible time! 3.Make lots of notes in the creation process. Writing down your thoughts tends to organize and crystallize them. 4.The more different your world is from Earth, the more exotic and interesting it will be, but it will also be harder to visualize and referee. 5.Start small! Do not go out and develop a Jupiter sized planet as your first project. 6.Humans are multi-sensed creatures. Be willing to use visual and audio items to help suspend disbelief and draw the players into your world as well as using good dialog. 7.Develop the cosmology and physical world to completion or near completion, but only develop outlines or skeletons for cultures which the gaming group will most likely never encounter. Spend 80 percent of your time developing things that the party is likely to spend 80 percent of its time interacting with! G) How to organize an FRP World 1.Get a bunch of binders. The easiest way to organize is to break up the world into a bunch of smaller portions. 2.Here are several sample organizational schemes: 1.By geography... 2.By historical era... 3.By culture... 4.By race... 5.Any combination of the above... 3.Index your world early on, or it will become an insurmountable task later on. 4.Always include a brief description of what a binder contains at the beginning. Ten years from now, you are unlikely to remember it contains "samples of Overmannish wedding garb from the Huvis-Kanine era". Taglines "Ah, here we go... Fireball... wonderful spell." -- Fizban "All trust is foolish." -- Drow Proverb "And the mage draws her two handed sword." "We're in trouble." "And then you turn the corner," as the DM chuckles... "As I go forward, I hold my sword high in honor of you." "As swords part, I bid you good battle!" "As the dew forms upon the morning rose, I bid you farewell." "A thing here more than a week is an heirloom." -- Kender Proverb "Axe held high, I go." "Back in the saddle again." "Shut up, bard." "But where does the water buffalo fit in?" -- Vladmyr Tethosh "By the gods, I'm adventuring with a troop of dancers!" "Darkness is both friend and enemy." -- Drow Proverb "DM's lie.": AD&D Players Golden Rule "Do as you are ordered, and live." -- Drow Proverb "Don't worry about the bugbears; I'll talk us out of this." "Don't worry. Nothing ever happens at first level." "Geez... have you ever seen so many frigging Orcs? Guys? Guys?" "Geez! I must be Lawful Good! I believe in the Rules!" "Gimme a light!" SHIRAK! "Uhm... Bud Light." "Gosh, I bet that dragon bite really smarts!" "Humph! Bugger off!" -- Dwarven Proverb. "I bet it's an illusion." "I can give you a deal on this Gnomish Helm..." -- The Arcane "I could always kill you and ask your corpse." -- Strahd "I couldn't *find* any traps." "I have a tarasque for a familiar, you know." "I hope you don't fight like you talk!" -- Sherman Cliverbun "I'm a *real* boy!" -- Alaeseus Starbreeze "I've been to the Abyss. NOT a fun place." - Tasslehoff Burfoot "I've never been at a siege before." - T. Burrfoot. "Lolth be praised; all victory is her doing." -- Drow Proverb "Matron Mothers know best." -- Drow Proverb "May the seasons turn many times for you see evil again." "May your sails be dry and blade slick with blood." "Never swallow a Halfling." -- Half-Giant Proverb "No road is ever old." -- Tasslehoff Burrfoot "Not me. I thought *you* were mapping!" "Of course I'm a wizard, son. I've got a tall pointy hat!" "Oh, great, a chasm. Okay, who's got the rope?" "Oh, wizardry has really very little to do with magic." -- Ingold "Olore." "Paladine, Father of Good, teach your servant not to fear." "Paladins is *sooooo* stupid!" -- Many Games, Many Times. "Push the red button, and then the blue. No wait!" "Show me a rich roleplayer and I'll show you a thief!" "That damn plate mail o' his didn't save him from the oil..." "That wasn't a demi-lich you just stepped on, was it?" "The best knife is the unseen one." -- Drow Proverb "The foolish and unwary find waiting death." -- Drow Proverb "The DM lies." Note inside a used Player's Handbook. "The DM won't hit us with anything till we get to the dungeon." "They're just kobolds." "They're just kobolds. What are you worried about?" "This just in... GDW apologizes for Dangerous Journeys..." "This looks like a safe place to camp." "Uh... why has our torch flame turn blue." "Until the stars fall, I think of you!" "'Ware and were, friend." "You bash the Balrog, while I climb the tree..." A bard with a 10 charisma. Not good. A dagger in the back will cramp any wizard's style! AD&D: 15 Years as a Player. 14 Years as a Dungeon Master. AD&D players do it for the experience. Aquatic Huge Giant Space Hamster. A wizard, huh? I throw my drink at him. A wizard without a sword, thank you. B.A.D.D. news, kid. Roleplaying is dangerous! Bards do it for audiences. Bards do it then make into a bawdy tale. Bards do it to music. Bards make good cannon fodder. Bard, smard. I want a fighter. Beware of magicians, they manifest anger in strange ways. *BOOM* So much for the find traps roll. Carpe DM: Sieze the Dungeon Master. Chain Lightning: For when you just can't stop at one. Damn all wizards, anyways! Damn it, Jim! I'm a doppleganger, not a doctor! Damn it, Jim! I'm a roleplayer, not a Satanist! DM Advice: All dice rolls are whatever you want them to be. DM Advice: Cast Detect Magic on a TSR module and it'll explode. DM Advice: Conan cannot safely be translated to AD&D stats. DM Advice: Dead monsters are *always* naked and penniless. DM Advice: Every tavern scene should end in a brawl. DM Advice: He who buys the pizza, lives. DM Advice: Lead figures do not taste very good. DM Advice: Magic items should be as rare as Drow romance novels. DM Advice: Maps on the table have a tendency to attract soda. DM Advice: Never grab a miniature after picking your nose. DM Advice: Never kill a character without first humiliating him. DM Advice: Never let a monster die without doing some damage. DM Advice: Never let the PCs get your bag of Doritos. DM Advice: The only wands are those with 1 charge and sticks. DM Advice: The rulebook you want is at the bottom of the stack. DM Advice: The rules shouldn't. DM Advice: To maintain game balance, all wizards must die young. DM Advice: Used character sheets make good tinder. DM's don't lie, they just arrange the facts to suit them. DM's Lie A Lot. Players Just Cheat. DM's love a hero; DM's also love a good joke. Think about it. Egg-Laying Giant Space Hamster. Elf-Eating Giant Space Hamster. Elves do it in the trees. Explosive (and messy) Giant Space Hamster. Giant Giant Space Hamster. Giant Space Hamsters are sexy! Giant Space Hamsters: Better pets than Giant Space Pit Bulls! Giant Space Hamsters: Fluffy, but with substance. Giant Space Hamsters never get lost behind the fridge. Giant Space Hamsters offer a veritable plethora of wonders. Giant Space Hamster spit cures male-pattern baldness. Giant Space Hamsters: Tastes great. Less filling. Giant Space Werehamster. Go get the bard off the floor. We got some killing to do. Great. Just what we need. A manic bard who can't sing. I am a mere dabbler compared to some of the wizards in here. I disarmed the trap. Magically Endowed Polka-Dotted Sabre-Toothed Giant Space Hamster. Magma Giant Space Hamster. Miniature Giant Russian Dwarf Giant Space Hamster. More hit points than you can possibly imagine. *Munchkins* cast Control Cthulhu. Never ask a bard to play the banjo. Nightmare: A bard who plays the accordian. Normal hamsters ar cute, but Giant Space Hamsters are cuter. No true wizard ever breaks his word. Play it again, bard. Poisonous Displacer Adamantine Giant Space Hamster. Quick! You! Make a Fright Check at -6 now! Radioactive Giant Space Hamster. Sex and Drugs and Rock and Role-Playing! Slaads are schmucks. Space Hamsters Rule! Death to Unbelievers! The Dyslexic Bard: Master-of-all-trades, jack of none. The Incomplete Handbook (Class to Be Named Soon). The only good troll is a fireballed troll! The very idea of a Giant Space Hamster of Ill Omen. Mwah Hah Hah Three thieves and a bard. What a pitiful group. Valley Elves do it on the beach, man! Van Richten's Guide to Rabid Beaver Zombies. Van Richten's Guide to Van Richten. Van Richten's Guide to Zombies with Red Hair. Vegepygmy... And I thought bugbear was bad. We need to get a new bard. All this one does is sing and drink. Why be an Abjurer? Illusionists throw better parties! With a Mage's THAC0 Vampiric Touch isn't much of a spell. Within the earshot of the bard, everyone is annoyed. Classic Blunders of Evil Overlords The original had no author's credits. There is a later version floating around with a 1996 copyright by Peter Anspach, which has subtle differences from this one. In particular, #8 is better in this version. However, his version has many more entries, so it is included in its entirety. If one believes the movies, any Evil Overlord will make one of a small number of "Classic Blunders". This Blunder will inevitably lead to the downfall of the Evil Overlord (by whatever title s/he is known). Therefore, I have made a list of Things to Avoid, should I ever be in the position of Evil Overlord. If I ever become an Evil Overlord: -My legions of terror will have helmets with clear plexiglass visors, not face-concealing ones. -My ventilation ducts will be too small to crawl through. -My noble half-brother whose throne I usurped will be killed, not kept anonymously imprisoned in a forgotten cell of my dungeon. -Shooting is not too good for my enemies. -The artifact which is the source of my power will not be kept on the Mountain of Despair beyond the River of Fire guarded by the Dragons of Eternity. It will be in my safe-deposit box. -I will not gloat over my enemies' predicament before killing them. -When the rebel leader challenges me to fight one-on-one and asks, "Or are you afraid without your armies to back you up?" My reply will be, "No, just sensible." -When I've captured my adversary and he says, "Look, before you kill me, will you at least tell me what this is all about?" I'll shoot him, and then say "No". -After I kidnap the beautiful princess, we will be married immediately in a quiet civil ceremony, not a lavish spectacle in three weeks time during which the final phase of my plan will be carried out. -I will not include a self-destruct mechanism unless absolutely necessary. If it is necessary, it will not be a large red button labelled "Danger: Do Not Push". -I will not order my trusted lieutenant to kill the infant who is destined to overthrow me -- I'll do it myself. -I will not interrogate my enemies in the inner sanctum -- a small hotel well outside my borders will work just as well. -I will be secure in my superiority. Therefore, I will feel no need to prove it by leaving clues in the form of riddles or leaving my weaker enemies alive to show they pose no threat. -I will not waste time making my enemy's death look like an accident: I'm not accountable to anyone and my other enemies wouldn't believe it. -I will make it clear that I _do_ know the meaning of the word "mercy"; I simply choose not show them any. -One of my advisors will be an average five-year-old child. Any flaws in my plan that he is able to spot will be corrected before implementation. -All slain enemies will be cremated, not left for dead at the bottom of the cliff. The announcement of their deaths, as well as any accompanying celebration, will be deferred until after the aforementioned disposal. -My undercover agents will not have tattoos identifying them as members of my organization, nor will they be required to wear military boots or adhere to any other dress codes. -The hero is not entitled to a last kiss, a last cigarette, or any other form of last request. -I will never employ any device with a digital countdown. If I find that such a device is absolutely unavoidable, I will set it to activate when the counter reaches 117 and the hero is just putting his plan into operation. -I will design all doomsday machines myself. If I must hire a mad scientist to assist me, I will make sure that he is sufficiently twisted to never regret his evil ways and seek to undo the damage he's caused. -I will never utter the sentence "But before I kill you, there's just one thing I want to know." -When I employ people as advisors, I will occasionally listen to their advice. (End of original, start of new section) -I will not have a son. Although his laughably under-planned attempt to usurp power would easily fail, it would provide a fatal distraction at a crucial point in time. -I will not have a daughter. She would be as beautiful as she was evil, but one look at the hero's rugged countenance and she'd betray her own father. -Despite its proven stress-relieving effect, I will not indulge in maniacal laughter. When so occupied, it's too easy to miss unexpected developments that a more attentive individual could adjust to accordingly. -I will hire a talented fashion designer to create original uniforms for my legions of terror, as opposed to some cheap knock-offs that make them look like Nazi stormtroopers, Roman footsoldiers, or savage Mongol hordes. All were eventually defeated and I want my troops to have a more positive mind-set. -No matter how tempted I am with the prospect of unlimited power, I will not consume any energy field bigger than my head. -I will keep a special cache of low-tech weapons and train my troops in their use. That way -- even if the heroes manage to neutralize my power generator and/or render the standard-issue energy weapons useless -- my troops will not be overrun by a handful of savages armed with spears and rocks. -I will maintain a realistic assessment of my strengths and weaknesses. Even though this takes some of the fun out of the job, at least I will never utter the line "No, this cannot be! I AM INVINCIBLE!!!" (After that, death is usually instantaneous.) -No matter how well it would perform, I will never construct any sort of machinery which is completely indestructable except for one small and virtually inaccessible vulnerable spot. -If I am engaged in a duel to the death with the hero and I am fortunate enough to knock the weapon out of his hand, I will graciously allow him to retrieve it. This is not from a sense of fair play; rather, he will be so startled and confused that I will easily be able to dispatch him. -No matter how attractive certain members of the rebellion are, there is probably someone just as attractive who is not desperate to kill me. Therefore, I will think twice before ordering a prisoner sent to my bedchamber. -I will never build only one of anything important. For the same reason I will always carry at least two fully loaded weapons at all times. -If my supreme command center comes under attack, I will immediately flee to safety in my prepared escape pod and direct the defenses from there. I will not wait until the troops break into my inner sanctum to attempt this. -My pet monster will be kept in a secure cage from which it cannot escape and into which I could not accidentally stumble. -Even though I don't really care because I plan on living forever, I will hire engineers who are able to build me a fortress sturdy enough that, if I am slain, it won't tumble to the ground for no good structural reason. -I will dress in bright and cheery colors, and so throw my enemies into confusion. -All bumbling conjurers, clumsy squires, no-talent bards, and cowardly thieves in the land will be pre-emptively put to death. My foes will surely give up and abandon their quest if they have no source of comic relief. -All naive, busty tavern wenches in my realm will be replaced with surly, world-weary waitresses who will provide no unexpected reinforcement and/or romantic subplot for the hero or his sidekick. -Any and all magic and/or technology that can miraculously resurrect a secondary character who has given up his/her life through self sacrifice will be outlawed and destroyed. -I will not fly into a rage and kill a messenger who brings me bad news just to illustrate how evil I really am. Good messengers are hard to come by. -I will see to it that plucky young lads/lasses in strange clothes and with the accent of an outlander shall REGULARLY climb some monument in the main sqaure of my capital and denounce me, claim to know the secret of my power, rally the masses to rebellion, etc. That way, the citizens will be jaded in case the real thing ever comes along. -I won't require high-ranking female members of my organization to wear a stainless-steel bustier. Morale is better with a more casual dress-code. Similarly, outfits made entirely from black leather will be reserved for formal occasions. -I will not employ devious schemes that involve the hero's party getting into my inner sanctum before the trap is sprung. -I will not turn into a snake. It never helps. -I will not grow a goatee. In the old days they made you look diabolic. Now they just make you look like a disaffected member of Generation X. -I will not imprison members of the same party in the same cell block, let alone the same cell. If they are important prisoners, I will keep the only key to the cell door on my person instead of handing out copies to every bottom-rung guard in the prison. -If my trusted lieutenant tells me my Legions of Terror are losing a battle, I will believe him. After all, he's my trusted lieutenant. -If an enemy I have just killed has a younger sibling or offspring anywhere, I will find them and have them killed immediately, instead of waiting for them to grow up harboring feelings of vengance towards me in my old age. -If I absolutely must ride into battle, I will certainly not ride at the forefront of my Legions of Terror, nor will I seek out my opposite number among his army. -I will be neither chivalrous nor sporting. If I have an unstoppable superweapon, I will use it as early and as often as possible instead of keeping it in reserve. -Once my power is secure, I will destroy all those pesky time-travel devices. -I will offer oracles the choice of working exclusively for me or being executed. -When I capture the hero, I will make sure I also get his dog, monkey, ferret, or whatever sickeningly cute little animal capable of untying ropes and filching keys happens to follow him around. -I will maintain a healthy amount of skepticism when I capture the beautiful rebel and she claims she is attracted to my power and good looks and will gladly betray her companions if I just let her in on my plans. -I will only employ bounty hunters who work for money. Those who work for the pleasure of the hunt tend to do dumb things like even the odds to give the other guy a sporting chance. -I will not rely entirely upon "totally reliable" spells that can be neutralized by relatively inconspicuous talismen. -I will make sure I have a clear understanding of who is responsible for what in my organization. For example, if my general screws up I will not draw my weapon, point it at him, say "And here is the price for failure," then suddenly turn and kill some random underling. -If an advisor says to me "My liege, he is but one man. What can one man possibly do?", I will reply "This." and kill the advisor. -If I learn that a callow youth has begun a quest to destroy me, I will slay him while he is still a callow youth instead of waiting for him to mature. -I will treat any beast which I control through magic or technology with respect and kindness. Thus if the control is ever broken, it will not immediately come after me for revenge. -If I learn the whereabouts of the one artifact which can destroy me, I will not send all my troops out to seize it. Instead I will send them out to seize something else and quietly put a Want-Ad in the local paper. -My main computers will have their own special operating system that will be completely incompatable with standard IBM and Macintosh powerbooks. -I will make the main entrance to my fortress standard-sized. While elaborate 60-foot high double-doors definitely impress the masses, they are hard to close quickly in an emergency. -If one of my dungeon guards begins expressing concern over the conditions in the beautiful princess' cell, I will immediately transfer him to a less people-oriented position. -I will hire a team of board-certified architects and surveyors to examine my castle and inform me of any secret passages and abandoned tunnels that I might not know about. -If the beautiful princess that I capture says "I'll never marry you! Never, do you hear me, NEVER!!!", I will say "Oh well'' and kill her. -I will not strike a bargain with a demonic being then attempt to double-cross it simply because I feel like being contrary. -Finally, to keep my subjects permanently locked in a mindless trance, I will provide each of them with free unlimited Internet access. Taverns It's normally inevitable that the characters will end up in a tavern at some point. If each tavern has is different it can improve a normally mundane aspect of the game. If there is a main tavern that the players use, put in more `pub personalities', and remember, even the same pub has different customers depending on the day of the week. THE ORCS BLADDER. (So called because of the authentic sign) Location: Middle of nowhere. Battered looking, but warm glow. Rating: None. Bad food, bad service, the drink is strong and home brewed. Rooms: 2 small rooms, 1 large room with a fire. No stable. Landlord: Jameth, middle-aged, human, fat, big and mean! (also the cook) Landlady: Alasia, middle-aged, human, fat, big and mean! Barstaff: Kaidra, halfling female, treated like dirt by everyone, timid. Clients: Entirely human, fight every night, especial if non-human present, but are usually without weapons. Most are hunters, trappers, woodcutters, and a few farmers. Often used as a neutral ground for smugglers. Quote: "Well, if it ain't one o' dem pointy ears, in OUR pub!" THE COME ON INN. Location: Halfway house, on well used road. Large, clean, warm. Rating: **** Cheap, common food and drink, but large servings. Provide free hay and grooming if staying the night, large stable. Rooms: 5 medium size rooms with fires, 2 small rooms without. Landlord: Erik, middle-aged, human, fat, friendly. Landlady: Delia, young, half-elven, pretty, flirty. Barstaff: Josh, human, young, cook. Simon, human, boy, stable-hand. Selia and Natasha, human, female, maids. Clients: Almost any type of character found here. Quote: "Oh yeah! Well I caught one THIS big!" THE CAT `N' BUCKET. Location: Middle of a small village. Small, but warm. Rating: *** Cheap, common food and drink, but large servings. Large `self help' stables, Rooms: 3 medium sized, 1 small, all with fires. Landlord: Gamry, very old human male. Grumpy. Landlady: Amy, middle-aged, cook (Gamry's daughter). Friendly, but plain. Barstaff: Calabar, `dashing-young-wanna-be-a-swashbuckler' type, elven. Clients: Locals, farmers, priest, etc. Clear segregation between the card playing elders and the young "I'm gonna go to the city me.." Quote: "Crop rotation, pah! I jus' lets me `orse crap on it. Crap rota.." THE BULL'S MILK (Don't ask!!!) Location: Near a port. Small and cold. Rating: ** Variety of food and drink, but food is badly cooked. No stables. Rooms: 6 very small rooms, no fires. Landlord: Kris. Old ugly human. Wierd. Landlady: none. Barstaff: Two female twins, Tabatha and Mariella, flirty, heavy make-up. Clients: Sailers, traders, smugglers, others. Illegal business is normal. Fights here are quick and with weapons. Quote: "If tha's what ye want, I can get it for ye cheap.." THE DRAGONS TAIL Location: Near a merchants guild. Huge, warm, segregated stables. Rating: ***** If you've got the money of course. Rooms: 4 small, 4 medium, 2 large, all with fires. Landlord: Thalamos, middle aged, been-there-down-that look about him. Landlady: Sheadra, slender, attractive middle age. Mind like a knife. Barstaff: Too many, and they don't seem to have names! Clients: Merchants and Nobles. Security on the door prevents weapons. Quote: "My word, they let anyone in here these days!"