Category: RPGs

The Paragraph Bio

So there are a lot of things I like to use for my players when they bring a character into the campaign. I’m a huge fan of the 9 character questions, but that can be a little daunting. I also like having players know each other, and sometimes have a little dirt on each other’s past.

Yet, sometimes I get a new player in that just hasn’t thought out much of a background (other than what race and class they want to play). Or I’ve got a player that wants to jump into an existing group, and he is suddenly the new guy that doesn’t really know the other players (so that past history is a little sparse). I do put my foot down that the player has to give me something to work with. I think character backgrounds and bios are important. They are really a great source for thinking up future sessions and tailoring adventure hooks.

I ask players to give me a one paragraph bio. Just 3-5 sentences on where their character came from, and how he sees himself in the world. I always tag on one more question that they also have to answer, “Why are you an adventurer and not X like your kind?” This last question is very important and I throw in a little information in with it.

The ‘X’ varies, depending on the race of the player. I usually put some description of what I think most people of that race are in my campaign with the question. Some examples:

Goliaths – Why are you an adventurer and not hunting the plains with simple nomadic clans like your kind?

Tieflings – Why are you an adventurer and not enslaved by the evil Lord of Gorran like your kind?

Eladrin – Why are you an adventurer and not at war with the firbolg in the fey like your kind?

Now, I let players put whatever they want into their background. If they are from an educated family of Goliaths that love to read and are experts at arcane magic. Or the player is an Eladrin that longs for peace and the quiet solitude of the woods with his kin. I let them run with it. At the same time players know that most other people of that race are like something else.

Likely he might stand apart from his kind even more given the background he puts down. But at least the player has a better idea how his character fits in with the world, and possibly can serve as a motivation to broaden his character. Maybe that Tiefling suddenly thinks he should strive to free his kin (or he is fearful he will be recaptured). It’s a small detail, but can add a lot to such a simple paragraph.

This is a pretty stress-free way for a player to write up a bio. I like using it, especially for new players. So what do folks use for bios in their games?Trampier-AdventurersReturn

Starting that big campaign

I think it’s always a challenge when first sitting down and thinking about that first session to kick off your campaign. I usually have a ton of ideas going through my head, and trying to get something cohesive out of that jumble can be a challenge. For a new DM, I think the task can be a little overwhelming. Sure that first small adventure is easy enough to run, but what then? Here are a few bits of advice I hope new DMs find helpful:

Talk to your players – Bounce a few ideas off them. If you want a convoluted campaign of political intrigue against the backdrop of high fantasy. Yet, your players want a gritty, sword and sorcery game. You have problems. Be flexible. Work out a campaign environment and theme that most of your group will be happy with.

Steal stuff – For your first few campaigns, don’t bother drawing out that huge world map, filling in every detail. A unique homebrew campaign does not necessarily equate to a fun campaign for your players. There are tons of existing campaign worlds and maps. Take from those works. You’d be surprised how much material is available that can add some sparkle to simple campaign beginnings. Take Winterhaven as an example. A pretty generic place, but some renderings really give it some life, like those at D&D Doodle.

Make it your own – Don’t feel hampered by adhering strictly to a published setting. Modify the stuff you pilfer to make it fit your game. This is where you can let your creativity go. Take that published setting and mix it up.

How about making the use of undead servants (zombies and skeletons) commonplace? Select a few PC races and state they are commonly used as slaves. Take that neighboring city and make it an evil necropolis. As long as these changes are consistent throughout your world, making changes to existing works is an easy way to make your campaign unique.

Start small – There is a temptation to get players into a grand epic adventure right from the start. Slow down the pace. You’re working with an imaginary world, most players need a little time to get a feel for it. Once players become familiar with their surroundings (recognizing an NPC innkeeper and such), then consider moving on.

Starting small keeps things flexible and allows your campaign to grow. You might find your players bored with a main villain, but really interested in tracking down that kobold gang. If you have too much planned out, you risk pushing your characters along the storyline rail. Keeping things small with a few open plot lines, gives the players a chance to slightly direct their future paths to adventure.

That’s it for now. And while you are sketching out your next big campaign, don’t forget FreeMind. It’s a great tool to keep your grand plans for future sessions organized.

Spreading out the story

Some discussion has popped up in the WoTC boards with a group I am part of. One poster was really excited about starting up his own campaign and wanted a little advice. A lot of people dispensed their words of wisdom, and I had my own advice. Mulling over what I posted, I thought there were some points I should expand on a bit.

One campaign technique I am a huge fan of is spreading out the story. The basic idea is planning out the main story elements of your campaign in small steps. Instead of running your sessions with each plot point being sequential (A, B, C, D), spread out the story shuffling smaller, one-shot adventures in between each element (A, 1, B, 2, C, 3, D). Gnome Stew had a post which is a great example of this. Something I’ll quote a bit here:

“…After some brainstorming the main outline looks like this:

  • The Cult attempts to kidnap the Captain of the Watch
  • The Cult infiltrates the Thieves Guild
  • The Cult smuggles a set of religious artifacts into the city by ship
  • The Cult kidnaps the Princess
  • The Cult attempts to open a portal to their deity using the artifacts and the Princess in a ritual

…Now, Using dilution, we can lengthen the story arc with some individual stories:

  • The Cult attempts to kidnap the Captain of the Watch
  • The Heroes rescue some merchants who have been attacked by bugbears
  • The Heroes help an older mage collect some dangerous spell components
  • The Cult infiltrates the Thieves Guild
  • The Heroes go on a quest to find a friend who has gone missing
  • The Cult smuggles a set of religious artifacts into the city by ship
  • The Heroes find a lost wizards tower
  • The Cult kidnaps the Princess
  • The Cult attempts to open a portal to their deity using the artifacts and the Princess in a ritual…”


This is a fantastic way of building up your campaign to something truly epic. There are a lot of ways to add small adventures to your campaign. Dungeon Delves and Side treks (out of the Dungeon mag) are great resources for this. Whipping up a small sidequest using encounter templates, even using a random dungeon can work.

The key to using these adventures in spreading out your main story, is to work for small, concise adventures that can be completed in 1-2 sessions. These smaller sessions revolve around a simple objective or quest. You don’t need an intricate background story to run these. After all, they are just filler adventures for your main arc.

Once you get the hang of running these type of sessions, you can expand your story and weave other main arcs into the campaign. You can end up having 2-3 main storylines going on simultaneously. But be careful having too much going on at once, or spreading out your main arc too thin. You’ll end up having to spend 15 minutes recapping each session with highlights from the past. And likely have your players forgetting pertinent details from something that happened 5 sessions ago.

A cannot stress enough using this technique for running your campaigns. It adds some intricacy to your plot and helps give your game breadth. There are some great points by stretching out your story:

Makes good ideas last – Week after week, planning for your next sessions, you are going to hit a creative roadblock. By introducing smaller adventures, you have more time to pick up another idea and flesh it out. If you are doing things right, you’ll have interesting villains and NPCs dotting an exciting adventure. The constant pressure of keeping things fresh and new can lead to creative burnout. Spreading out the story gives you some breathing room to think of your next big arc, and utilize those story elements as long as possible.

Provides an expansive story – On paper it may not look like much, but through your player’s eyes, they will feel like they’ve saved the world 10 times over. Once the arc is completed, they can really savor the victory because of all the things they went through getting there. They won’t necessarily feel like they’ve been lead along step by step, and have had the opportunity to explore other options. They can get the experience that they’ve really grown and explored a world, rather than doggedly running after the footsteps of a villain.

Dispenses small victories – You might have a main story where the players fail again and again, only to be redeemed at the last session. Yeah, that makes for a great campaign, but sometimes players need little victories. Having small adventures where heroes can do some good, and accomplish a small goal keeps them in the game. Players need to feel like heroes once in a while. If your main arc can’t accommodate that, then you have an alternative. Okay, so in the big story, they suffer setbacks continually. After a while the players may feel disillusioned and struggle with why they are even bothering trying to stop your baddies. Little victories can help keep up the group morale, and the spiritual fortitude to keep after the main bad guys.

Fodder for future stories – Once you are nearing the end of your main arc, you now have a ton of material to draw from for your next big story. You can expand on past adventures and revisit old NPCs. Best of all, your characters have already crossed paths with certain locales, NPCs, and villains, to make moving on the next arc a lot easier.

As you can tell, I’m a big fan of spreading out the story. It is a simple, effective way to get a lot of sessions out of your main story idea. Give it a try and I’d be interested to hear folks experiences if they’ve done something similar.

Expeditions of Amazing Adventure: The virid woods of Vayndaar

The immense thick woods of Vayndaar serve as home to many elven clans. For centuries the woods have stood, the dense tangle of trees and dark earth only broken by an occasional bed of gray stone. It is these outcropping of stones that have served as simple trail through the woods. The four-day trek through the verdant woods would nearly be impossible due to the massed throngs of high trees.

It is said that the woods hold portals to other worlds. The barrier between other planes of existence wane with the setting of the sun. At midnight these walls fade, allowing wild creatures of the fey to cross over. Such portals however are jealously guarded by elves. Perhaps they fear other races mingling too frequently with their Eladrin cousins, a right only the elves feel is theirs alone.

The few human villages that border the woods, took up the habit of marking the lone trail with small piles of stones. The elves which inhabited the forest took these piles to be a peaceful sign, offering safe passage to those that remained along the path. Those that averted from this makeshift trail were watched however, for any transgressions they may inflict on elven kind.

This arrangement has stood for well over a century, and it is well known among the few merchants that travel the woods, safe passage can be found along the stone trail. Some villagers claim that more ferocious denizens of the forest avoid these stone piles. That somehow magic has infused in the small humble markers, such that they offer effective wards against beasts at night. It is a common saying that if one must rest within the woods, one should remain near these stones.

Still a few others state that the stones are not markings of man, but that of Eladrin hunters. During the longest day of the year, they claim barriers between worlds are at its weakest. During that brief night, Eladrin hunters and warriors in fine regalia slip into the woods of Vayndaar and hunt the beasts within. The piles of stone offer a simple marker of the path Eladrin take on this great hunt, ensuring they find their way back before the break of dawn.

Is there a reason you have a second-guessing player?

So a few sites have brought up a topic just about every DM has had, a player that is second-guessing how you run a game. Both newbie.dm and the musings of a chatty dm have offered their own takes on what causes this how to handle it.

My comment on one of the blogs got me thinking, and I felt more needed to be said about this.

You know the situation. You have that one player pulling out information from the top of his head, metagaming to the extreme and pointing out flaws in your session. He’ll be the one challenging your record keeping skills when a particular nasty solo monster has not dropped (or dropped too soon). He’ll be the one demanding to know why his skill check didn’t pass, when it’s obviously a DC 23, as listed in the DMG, pg 142 (and willing to show you the page). He’ll be the one challenging you why the main villain escaped an encounter, when it clearly has a speed of 4 in heavy armor, and that his character can easily catch up with it before the turn’s end.

You’ve got a player sucking the life out of your game. He is reducing the game to its most mechanical elements. And worse, demonstrating you are either not competent, or breaking the rules for your own purposes.

Before you decide to have some divine intervention incinerate him with a bolt of lightning, or conveniently flip him into a pit of lava. Take a step back. Think for a moment and ask yourself why is the player doing this?

Maybe he is being a metagaming jerk. That’s just the way he plays. He knows the rules. He is right and you are wrong. With a player like that I don’t even worry about it. I put my foot down. I tell those players flat out that, while they are correct by the rules, I’m running a game here to have fun. If they don’t like it, they can take a hike. I have no qualms about having one less player in a group if that person is ruining the fun for all.

But what if his second-guessing is justified? Maybe you deserve someone challenging how you run your game. Ask yourself a few questions:

  • Are you being fair and impartial? Are you favoring certain players? Does this guy feel you are ‘out to get him’? If you are bending the rules, is it to benefit one player while punishing others (like him)?
  • Do you have an engaging story where they are the main players? Or are the player’s extras to your awesome NPCs? Are events unfolding around your players that make them shine and feel heroic? Or are they constantly being beaten down and put though an emotional meat grinder, with no chance to improve their situation?
  • Do you have your players on the storyline rail? Or are they actively making decisions? Do your players feel that their choices matter and have an impact on their fate?
  • Are you providing players with enough chances to succeed? Every campaign should have its emotional highs and lows, where sometimes they fail. But if you think the group always make ‘stupid’ and ‘wrong’ decisions, think about the situations you are placing them in? Are they constantly choosing between the lesser of two evils? Are they always making choices that break their personal code of ethics? Maybe you need to provide some guidance or a clear cut ‘right’ decision once in a while.

    If you constantly have the group feeling weak and powerless against opposition, don’t expect them to keep lining up for another string of failures. Constantly clashing against the superevil cult and never winning a victory gets tiring. Eventually the group will do the worse thing ever, stop caring about their characters and the game. Victories are important.

  • Is your campaign universe stable? If you have a verisimilar story, and suddenly pull some wacky, earth shattering phenomenon out, better have a reason why. Maybe your group is perfectly fine with a chance of pace. But if aliens suddenly landed and started shooting knights with particle guns, expect your group to take pause and possibly not like the new direction of the campaign.
  • Are you running a fun game for most of the players? Maybe that one guy is bored out of his mind. That’s okay, you can’t keep everyone happy. But if half the group is not having fun you’ve got a problem. Are you spending a little time after each session to talk about how things are running? Are you giving the group a chance to give some feedback?

    Maybe that one bad call really got a player worked up. Each time you flub a rule, it’s adding to his aggravation. Giving them the opportunity to talk about it, just to get it out and clear the air, all can do wonders with diffusing tension. Your players should be having fun. Take the time to ask them if they are.

If a player is second-guessing you as a DM, take a long hard look and see if there is a reason why. Sometimes it’s just the player, but sometimes it might be the way you run your game. I’m looking forward to folks providing their own experiences and thoughts.

Skill challenge scenarios: Discover the river pirate lair (part 2)

Last post was the set up for my group to find a pirate camp. After describing the situation they deliberated a bit on what to do next.

The rogue thought she’d keep a diligent eye out to see if there was any evidence of the pirates landing their boats (passed perception check). Seeing no obvious breaks in the vegetation, they likely were still on the river. The artificer of the group decided to provide another set of eyes and see if he could discern any trail (passed perception check). He also could not make any obvious trail along either shoreline, so thought it prudent to remain on the river. The warrior of the group felt he could help in finding the trail, looking ahead (failed perception check). However he found he was unable to see anything noteworthly in the surroundings.

Turn one tally: 2 successes and 1 failure

After nearly half an hour the party found themselves at a branch in the river. One appeared to flow into low hills, while the other appeared to be drawn into a canyon, having one shoreline becoming flanked by a sharp cliff. The rogue again felt it prudent to see if she could pick up a trail (passed perception check). The artificer wondered if he could find a way to determine which branch in the river the pirates took. A nature check seemed appropriate. Passing the check the dwarf determined that the river that moved along the cliff would likely offer more defensible positions if the camp was near the shore.

The fighter decided his skills for hunting down a trail on the river would be poor. Possibly a higher vantage point might be helpful? He convinced the group to beach the boat and see if they could pick up a trail on land. I let him make a difficult athletics check. Passing with flying colors, I said he was able to scale a cliff face and get a good lay of the countryside. He was able to notice several cave entrances further down the river.

Turn two tally: 3 successes for a partial success (earning half the XP)

It was well within the night now. The group crept along the river, noticing a minute flicker of light further up. As they carefully approached, they saw a large cave entrance in the face of a cliff, with the river’s water flowing deep inside. A campfire roared deep inside, and the players felt they had finally found the pirate camp.

That’s it for now!

Skill challenge scenarios: Discover the river pirate lair (part 1)

As part of a continuing series, I’ll be posting a few of the skill challenges I’ve run in my games. After describing the challenge goals and the mechanics of the outcomes, I’ll follow up on what the group did and how it played out.

Skill challenge goal: Find river pirate’s camp along the river.

The Setup – The river boat the group was guarding was attacked by pirates. After fending off the attack, the surviving pirates fled down a river branch on small boats. Using one of the crafts the attackers left, the group set off to pursue them, and hopefully find their base of operation. As they chased the pirates, they lodged their boat on a sandbar. Frantically trying to get the skiff dislodged, they saw their quarry round a river bend and out of sight. Several minutes later the group continued, only to lose track of the pirates. Did they pull off and head out by land? Or did they continue down river? The sun was setting and they had to move quickly to take advantage of what little light they had left.

I all ready set my mind that the players would eventually discover the pirate lair. What I wanted to determine in the skill challenge was how easy would they find it, and if they could approach the lair at an opportune time of their liking. The camp is a series of caves under a cliff that can only be approached by water. Also, I noted to the players that the surrounding countryside was dangerous and likely resting through the night would mean being attacked by some creature (3 in 4 chance of a random encounter). So taking their leisurely time to track down the pirate camp would be unwise.

Skill challenge rating: 2, moderate DC (encounter worth 2 monsters of the group’s level)

  • Complete Success (6 successes) – Players manage to track down the pirate camp efficiently. They stumble across a narrow crevasse in one of the canyon walls. It would be an ideal place to rest up for the night (1 in 10 chance of a random encounter) if the group chose to. Continuing on, they discover the pirate lair in the early evening. They could move in quietly now, or rest through the night and try to attack the camp later the next day.

As they deliberate on a course of action, they see a boat creep out of the lair. Two pirates are paddling upstream to scout around. Players could dispatch them, capture and interrogate them, or let them go. Either way, the entrance encounter will be easier as some of the guards have left the camp.

  • Partial Success (4-5 successes) – Players approach the pirate camp late in the evening. They have spent their reserves trying to make ground and are tired (losing 1 healing surge). Resting however, would be a dangerous option as all around them they hear the howls of beasts. They may be able to surprise the pirates, but unlikely at this late hour
  • Failure (4 failures before either condition above is reached) – Players eventually come across the pirate lair early the next morning. The push through the night was tiring. Also they were harassed by particularly nasty river crayfish. While not a serious threat, some of the group suffered some nasty bruises from their powerful claws. Each player has lost 2 healing surges.Also they find the entrance to the lair guarded by a lone pirate. The element of surprise will be very difficult, and likely any pirates they find in the caves will be ready for them.

Primary Skills: Nature (+1 to rolls), as the ability to read the land and find likely locations that could hold the lair would be based on this skill. Additionally this skill can be assisted by other players.

Secondary Skills: Perception (+1 to rolls, cannot be assisted), simply being each party member carefully scanning their surroundings. As each player is busy looking for signs individually, players cannot assist each other when making this check.

That is the setup. Next post will be how it ran with my group.

Thoughts: Dungeon Master’s Guide 2

So WoTC seems to be keeping with the theme this year being the ‘book 2’ of releases. While AV2 was a nice addition, I’d tag it up with the MM2 of being simply more of the same (more treasure and more monsters). While not necessarily a must have, both had some nice additions to improve campaigns. PHB2 I think added a lot to the holes in the first book, giving players a ton of new options when rolling a character. So what about the DMG2?

I have to say I think the DMG2 is a great addition to the core books. They really kept with the idea of making this book an advanced guide that takes off on topics the first DMG covered. It covers a lot of topics, including treading over some old ground to further refine and explain some items from the first book (skill challenges especially).

There is one overall theme I see from the DMG2, ‘make the game what you want’. While the first book laid down the rules, DM2 gives a lot of options to the DM. Nearly all of them lay down a groundwork for rules, and throw in the recommendation to alter whatever to make it work for your game.

I think this point is seen strongest in skill challenges. The overall rule set is presented again, but so many options, alternatives, and examples of these variants are provided. I think the DMG2 has shown how free-flowing skill challenges should be. If DMs were struggling to run them before, I think they will have better ideas of how to incorporate them in their game now. And by not demanding DMs adhere to a strict format, I think folks can use them in their games to a higher degree of success than when they were first introduced.

When the group pushes well beyond the heroic tier, I think you tend to risk burnout as the players become to feel they are encountering more of the same. The DMG2 shines in this respect offering a lot of pointers and suggestions to elevate a DM’s campaign to the paragon tier. Like the first DMG that provided a groundwork for an initial campaign with Fallcrest and Kobold Hall, the DMG2 introduces Sigil and a doorway to planar adventures. This introduction is great, as it gives DMs a means to explore other campaign ideas into the Planes, something which can be tricky to incorporate into the ‘worldly’ beginnings of most heroic campaigns.

I also think normal burnout of running campaigns can encroach just about any DM. Again the new book gives ideas for cooperative story-telling, bluntly surveying your players for ideas and opinions, and outlining other potential campaign themes. More tools and ideas are presented to get your player’s characters into grand adventures, and much of it is great stuff.

There is still some chunky material with new hazards, artifacts, and NPC class templates provided. Traps have been given some more discussion and examples (albeit the section is pretty much the same material from the previous Dragon article). I think they also refined creating monsters which is nice. Clearly WoTC saw improvements that needed to be made to the stuff they put out in the first MM. MM2 incorporated a lot of these design attitudes (such as having solo monsters do something cool when first bloodied). Having similar guidelines provided in the DM2 means folks can make up monsters that will fit in well how DnD games have changed since release.

The Good – There is a lot of good things about this book. While I think the focus of the first DMG was for beginning DMs (which it did its job well, and was a great audience for that book), this book is definitely geared towards those DMs that have had a few sessions under their belts. I think it helps address a lot of problems that come up when your group hits the paragon tier, looks around, and then say, ‘Now what do we do?’ Having a lot of suggestions for campaign arcs, and further character development, go a long way to addressing these problems.

The Bad – While the book covers a lot of ground, more would be nice. Give us more templates, traps, hazards, and especially more artifacts. How about more organizations or campaign themes? The DMG2 does a fine job, but more entries world be nice. I still think having more ideas for campaigns would be helpful. How about some guidelines on governments and commerce? No strict rules and tables please, but a few pages covering some basic concepts. Also, ideas on speeding up your game and help in running combats are noticeably absent. There is a lot of chatter on the web about DMs having this issue, some useful guidelines would have been a welcome topic.

The Verdict – While I think most of the ‘book 2’ releases this year would be optional, I’m going to put the DMG2 alongside the Player’s Handbook 2 as a must buy. There is simply too many good ideas, suggestions, and topics included here. All DMs are going to get into higher levels of play, and having ideas for the epic and paragon tier games are incredibly helpful. The chapter on running encounters was also great, stressing the importance to taking the action up a notch for higher end play. This is a great addition to the core series, and I think nearly every DM will find it a good buy.

One page dungeon goodness with a helping of a module template

Currently I’ve been using two tools to help get my adventure ideas ready for a session. The first is a module template from the guy at Key Our Cars blog. I have heavily modified my own template, but I like the layout and it follows pretty close to WoTC adventure formats.

I like having the overall theme and behind the scenes plans of the villains laid out. I list out a few hooks with major and minor quests. I put together an opening scene and sketch out any interval situations (including planned skill challenges). I’ve been leaning away having a detailed encounter write ups. However, if there is a lot going on in the manner of environmental effects, traps, or hazards, all which might require some additional tactical notes, I do give a general write up of specific encounters.

One of the nicest features about this template is that I can cut and paste monsters from the DDI compendium directly into it. So at the end of my adventure write up, I have every monster or trap listed out. While I run the game I have all my notes neatly organized, and have every baddie my group runs across right at my fingertips. It’s a nice template, check it out.

The second tool I’ve been using is the one page dungeon. This was originally an idea proposed by Sham’s Grog and Blog. The concept is simple and its elegance is noteworthy. Get your entire dungeon together on one page. Fill in each room with a slim list of details and monsters. Then just run your game. Don’t bother with a detailed description of each room, just sketch out the details and improvise when you need to. All the meat for the session is planned out and summarized nicely on one page.

I’ve not completely transcended into the zen-like state of the 1 page dungeon for my entire preparation. As I said, I still fall back to having more details prepared for specific encounters. I also like having my major plot lines written up beforehand. So I fall back to the module template from Key Our Cars quite a bit. Still, using both I am able to get a lot down efficiently with limited prep-time.

I’ve been dabbling in using another tool. It seems to be a nifty program but I need a little time to work with it. Expect another post in a few weeks after I get a chance to plan a few sessions using it. Still, it looks pretty awesome.

Until then, I’ll leave a link to a recent contest that Chatty DM had hosted. They compiled all the 1 page dungeons that were submitted. Be sure to browse through them. There are some absolute gems there and tons of neat ideas for your own game. Good stuff.

So what other little tools have folks been using to prep their own games?