Monty Haul Zero Issue now available!

For those of you were on the fence about whether or not to back my recent Kickstarter campaign, you can now take a look at what I was driving at: Monty Haul #0 is now digitally available.

Monty Haul #0 is a Proof-of-Concept issue, full of assorted optional rules, backgrounds for characters, and more! Featuring a new take on familiars, two new cleric domains, a simple and not-so-deadly critical hit system, the Divine Archeologist archetype for rogues, and several new backgrounds including an expanded trio of options for the noble: dilettante, disgraced noble, and knight errant! Also included is a Noble Family House generator to quickly design interesting families to plague your nobles.

It's a cornucopia of usable options, written in a light and conversational style and grounded in the gaming days of yore. If by "yore" we're talking about the early 1980's. Monty Haul is suitable for discerning DMs and players of the fifth edition of the world's most popular fantasy rpg.

You can get it here, on DriveThruRPG's website.

Top 5 Ways to Weather the Global Pandemic

I’m sure we’ve all seen the meme by now, the mock headline that says something along the lines of “Nerds Everywhere Awaken to a World where Sports Are Cancelled and Everyone Stays Inside Playing Games” or something to that effect. Har-de-har-har, Alice.

As a guy who owns and operates one of the very places the media is begging you not to visit, I’m of two minds, here. On one hand, stay at home, yes, do that. On the other hand, um…me and the missus and our dog need to eat, okay?

Suffice to say, I need a few distractions, and I suspect you do, as well. For example, I’m working on my Kickstarter campaign project, Monty Haul, and it’s going as well as can be expected. I’m also playing my first D&D game on Roll20 with Shane Ivey, Chris Spivey, and Megan and Aser Tolentino. If you’re interested in hearing it play out, you can check out Session Zero on the ArcDream website here. We’re playing through one of Shane’s Sword and Sorceries adventures, and so far, it’s very cool.

But what if you don’t have a lot of irons in the fire? It’s easy; just build a fire, and stick some irons in. I’m only sort of kidding. Even if you just do some spring cleaning, like culling old games and sorting dice and organizing shelves, you’ll feel better, more productive, and less inclined to climb the walls, wall crawler. Idle hands, and all that jazz.

Here are my top five suggestions for Getting Your Game On and staying safe. I’m not going to mention Roll20 or playing online; you already know that. Rather, this is about refilling your braincase with stuff to use when all of this Fauxpocalypse stuff blows over and we can all greet the daylight again like squinting morlocks.

The Kickstarter is Nigh!

I love using "nigh" in a sentence, don't you?

Hey, just in case you missed the first notification, here's another one for you: the Kickstarter for Monty Haul, an old-fashioned RPG 'zine for 5e, starts on Wednesday, but YOU can get notified when it drops so as to not miss out. All you gotta do is follow the link below and throw your email into the gaping maw of the Kickstarter beast.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/markfinn/monty-haul-fifth-edition-zine-with-an-old-school-vibe

I will post major updates here, but if you want to stay tied into what's up with the KS, please back the project (even if it's just for a buck) and you can follow along with the updates I will be (hopefully) posting regularly in the next couple of weeks.

Thanks, oh my gentle readers. I'll see you on the other side.

DIY Corner: Inspiration Tokens

One of the great additions to 5e D&D is the concept of inspiration, a way to instantly reward good role-playing, puzzle-solving, decision-making, or any other in-game thing a player does that the DM deems noteworthy.

The current rules suggest using a poker chip to give to the player with inspiration as a token to remind them and you that they get a do-over roll by handing it in.

You're probably award of the multitude of metal coins available to gamers great and small, ranging from the baffling to the bewildering, in a multitude of styles, and that's not counting the metric ton of inspiration counters, coins, tokens and d20 holders that can be found in all corners of the Internet with a simple search.

I'm not knocking any of those things. They are great. I've ended up with a few metal coins and tokens as ancillary throw-in items, and again, they look just fine and would doubtless make perfectly serviceable inspiration tokens.

But I wanted something a little different.

I love the idea of a durable poker chip, because players are, in very general terms, ill-tempered savages. The only problem is, modern poker chips are liberally festooned with card pips, aces of spades, and other gambling symbols, as well as being colorful and cheerful and oh just never mind. You could special order some chips, but that costs a ton of money. Likewise wooden nickles, although if I had my druthers, I'd use them exclusively. They look and feel old and you can put what you want on them. Now I just need to justify spending a hundred and fifty bucks to get 4 Inspiration Tokens and I'm all set!

While we wait for that little miracle to occur, I found a solution in the form of vintage poker chips. I was originally looking for anything that looked old, like something made out of Bakelite, but really quickly I stumbled across these. Look! It's a dragon! Or is that a griffin? They are old clay chips from the 1920s or 1930s. And as you can see, they are perfect.






There are a lot of other styles out there, moons and stars, owls, laurel wreaths, sailing ships, lighthouses, and so on and so forth. You can find them in groups of 1 to 12 (or more) and they are relatively inexpensive. I scored a lot of around a 140 chips for twenty bucks plus shipping. With so much surplus chip action at my disposal, I decided to experiment a bit.








Beige is boring. I wanted something that looked like a metal coin; that would be cool. However, I don't usually like the resulting texture of metallic paints, so instead, I used Rub 'n Buff. It's a wax polish with metallic pigment. It comes in a variety of colors, but I'm using silver.

To apply, you just need a little dab. That button will completely cover four chips, and then some. You can apply it with a brush or a sponge, but I think it works best if you do it using your finger. You get a feel for what it does and according to the manufacturer, the more you rub it, the more buff it gets. That feels like a come-on, but you never know with this stuff.

I apply the Rub 'n Buff in linear strokes, all going the same direction. This is because doing it the other way makes for an uneven coat. The goal is to lightly hit the surface, ignoring the small grooves that make up the dragon (griffin?). Do one side at a time, waiting for it to dry each time. It doesn't take long. Then you go around the edge and you are done. Unless you don't want to be.

You can do a thin wash and hit the groove if you want, or you can get a soft sponge and push/press the silver leaf into the grooves, and then smooth it out again. You can even paint the whole chip beforehand. You have options, here.


Now, let's talk about the aforementioned "variety of colors" that Rub 'n Buff comes in. This stuff is designed to add accents to furniture and other decorative pieces. In a weird fit of pique, I bought a set of 12 different tubes, just to try them out for myself.

 This is one of the many shades of gold they make. They work as well as the silver leaf and look pretty good. I put a black wash on the chip before I applied the Rub 'n' Buff so that the dragon (griffin?) would stand out more.

This is their antique white finish. It's intended to be a highlight for distressed wood. It's not metallic and the results are not good. But this is what it looks like.

This is their Spanish Copper, and I expected it to be more metallic than it was. The light is great on this chip, but under normal conditions, it's very dark and not so great.

This is another of their gold colors, this time over a red chip (hence the color of the dragon [griffin?]) They have like four different varieties of gold, so it's really just a question of brightness and personal tastes. I prefer the silver, but that's me.

Here's one I did for my ongoing Eldritch Piracy game. I did a black wash after the Rub 'n Buff dried, and the results were so-so. Better to paint the chip before and then do a light drybrush with your finger to apply the silver.

There is also a patina color that you can apply over their metallic brass. I tried it, but you have to be very sparing with it, and I could never get it to look right. But if you can, I'd do these chips in Grecian Gold and hit the anchor with a touch of the patina and call it a day.

And if you want to get really crazy, here's a two-color Rub 'n Buff project, using Silver Leaf and Antique Gold. I primed the chip with flat black, and lightly applied the silver leaf. When it was dry, I carefully, oh so carefully--maybe too carfully--hit the anchor with the gold. It looks okay, and with touch-ups, it'll look super swell.







The colors of Rub 'n Buff that yielded the best results for this particular project were the silver and gold, hands down. But your mileage may vary. You could even paint them (and seal them) some other color. Silver and Gold are the two colors of Rub 'n Buff you're most likely to find in craft stores. Anything more exotic than that and you'll have to mail order it.

One quick warning about these chips; they are durable, but not indestructible. I've dropped a chip from a height of about five feet onto a concrete floor and it shatters like rock candy. For flipping across the table, they hold up just fine.

I think these inspiration tokens add a little something extra to the game; it's not a prop, but it's more than a check box on a character sheet. And there's something tactile about handing it to the DM to get that extra roll. Everyone's game is different, but these suit my play style perfectly.

RPGaDay 2019: 29 Evolve

Looking at the evolution of Dungeons & Dragons is pretty interesting. Forty years. Let’s be charitable and say there have been seven iterations of the game, with each successive edition being a zeitgeist of the times. That’s what makes fifth edition so interesting. Sure, in many ways, it’s everything that forth edition wasn’t, but in terms of tone and can-do attitude, it’s more like vintage D&D than any other edition. In this regard, we’ve kind of come full circle.

Likewise, the players have evolved with the game—sort of. I think that gamer larvae start out pretty much the same: “I kill it with my sword!” But thanks to the rich vocabulary that has developed to support role-playing as a cultural pastime, and the highest levels of engagement in the hobby to date, and also a proliferation of tutorials and op-ed YouTube channels and podcasts and all of it, gamer larvae grow into gamer butterflies much faster these days. Or they leave and go back to Grand Theft Auto. But most, I would venture to say, see the value and the appeal of true freedom in gaming. My groups all have. They love God of War, but they talk about their table adventures with the same fervent and reverent tone of voice.

I can’t think of any other game that has tried so hard to keep up with the times. There’s a reason why D&D rules the roost; they have put the sweat equity in. Let’s throw a little love out.

First Edition/BEX/AD&D

This was the awkward, wonky, uneven, crude and strange version of the game and you know what? I still love it. I think it more for nostalgic reasons these days, but there is some great stuff still in the original game system. And there are a lot of old school players who feel that way, because they keep re-re-re-reprinting their version of the game, over and over, changing flavor and updating artwork but keeping all of the charts and tables that seem so quaint in the modern age.

There is still a lot to like about the original game, no matter how tangled its origins. It gets the credit for being the first and it really could not have gone down any other way. The language for role-playing games hadn't been invented yet. The systems for keeping track of things, combat, experience points, even skills--none of it was there. Not until this. And as creaky as it seems, if you sit down with a few friends and start playing it, it'll all come rushing back on you, muscle memory, and you'll be transported again--maybe not to Grayhawk, but definitely back to 1982.

Old gamers, the grognards and the neckbeards, often grumble and kvetch about these kids today not knowing their roots, and my first thought is always, "Oh, you make sitting down with you lecturing them for four hours seem so bloody interesting, it's a mystery why they don't."  I get the seed of their frustration, and I sympathize with it, but I don't blame all of the new gamers. Au contraire, I welcome them. For one thing, they are way less grumpy than a lot of the guys my age, so, right there, I'm on board with the new blood. And if my group gets a taste of the "old school" style adventures and classic modules via 5th edition, they are way more appreciative of my age and experience because I'm not talking down to them. But I digress. We were throwing love, not shade.

Second Edition
Okay, well, we might as well get this out of the way: I felt about this the way most Millennials feel about fourth edition. I didn’t like any part of what happened in Second Edition. Well, except for the artwork. The artwork stepped up, way up, and has stayed great ever since. But I hated the Monster Manual three-ring binder. I hated To Hit Armor Class Zero. I hated the “neutering” of the monsters (no demons or devils—and while I never used them in my games, this was all part of the same campaign that wanted to censor Warner Brothers cartoons and other such nonsense).

By this time I had moved on to other games. We still played AD&D, just not second edition. I did this up until probably 1991 or 1992.  Second edition was for the youngsters, with the new math and all of the fancy artwork. What a weird line in the sand to draw, but hey, that's what your twenties are for, right? 

Third/Three Point Five Edition

While I wasn’t in it at this time, in hindsight, creating the Open Game License was the smartest thing they ever did. I know that because I was selling it to game and comic shops at this time, and it was like a whole new game. Now, did that kinda backfire on them, eventually? Yeah, it did. Players (and DMs) felt the “keeping up with the Joneses” vibe in that there was always a new book coming out with new feats and three spells and you just had to have it all. Might have been great for Wizards of the Coast's bottom line, but it looked like a cash grab to me (at the time).

There are still a number of people walking the earth that think D&D 3.5 is the superior form of the game, no take backs. I mean, where do you think Pathfinder came from, anyway? I did appreciate what 3.5 tried to do, which was fix stuff that was wrong with 2nd edition. Well, that and the very idea of giving the core game away for free and allowing all of these small companies to prop up and support your product line. I never took advantage of it, but I always thought it was a genius move.

Fourth Edition

The dreaded 4th ed. This is so taboo that we’re not even supposed to talk about it, especially if we liked 4th ed. It’s like how the Klingons aren’t supposed to talk about the smooth-headed versions from the original Star Trek series. They acknowledge it with their stony silence.

This was actually my re-introduction into D&D. I bought the Starter Box for my niece one Christmas and I ran a game for her and my brother, cold. It was a lot like my initial introduction to D&D in that I had to stop and stare at the rule book and try and decipher some of the changes while my two players rolled dice and drew elves on scratch paper.

It wasn’t my favorite, but I did like some of the things they tried to do. Stepping back from it, I do think that they were trying to mimic the feel of turn-based video games, and it was a great success, as a simulation of that. But I think maybe they forgot that they were, at their core, not video games. They were Dungeons and Fucking Dragons. They don’t copy everyone else, they let everyone else copy them. 

Fifth Edition

Here we are. The current version of the game; simplified and also expanded greatly with just a few interesting concepts. Gone is Thaco, and instead is the elegant armor class that we should have had all along—a target number. And speaking of “all along” the idea of advantage and disadvantage is so simple to grasp that it feels like it’s been there forever. I love the idea of conditions that are hung around character’s necks. Simplified skills are all folded into proficiencies now. And there aren’t a string of plusses you have to count up.

The esprit de corps of 3.5 is present, in the DM’s Guild, a marketplace for anyone to publish their additions to D&D for anyone to try. Most of these additions are inexpensive and some are even free. This means that there is support for the game on a daily basis, freeing the developers up to concentrate on big ticket items.

Looking back, it’s weird to me that character classes like the Barbarian—a class no one would dream of leaving out of the mix—was a class I remember being introduced in Unearthed Arcana as a new thing back in the mid-80’s. There’s a lot of seemingly vintage ideas that are back in, the biggest of which is the role-playing part of the game. If fourth edition went too far into skirmish and tactics, fifth edition is practically touchy-feely with all of the different ways you can make a character part of the overall story.

And I’m sorry, but the background system is kinda perfect. The idea that you get to walk onto the stage having already done something is just brilliant. It’s the thing that keeps your players from rolling up dead-eyed baby killers who burn down villages. It’s much easier to apply consequences to actions. It’s accessible and playable as a referee with just a few tables in your hand.

I really do think it’s the best version of the game we’ve ever seen. It embraces everything from the last forty years and takes the best parts of itself and leaves the rest. Few other game systems have the longevity to even try that as an experiment and the ones that do have the history haven’t tried to overhaul themselves more than once, maybe twice. I mean, the seventh edition of Call of Cthulhu is out, and while there are certainly more rules than ever, the basic game still looks almost identical to the one I first picked up in 1983.

I don’t know what the sixth edition of D&D will look like, or when if ever we’ll see it. I can’t fathom what that would be or why they would need to get away from what they have settled on here. I mean, there was almost a perfect storm of 5e hitting the marketplace, timed to coincide with the fortieth anniversary of the game, and the outing of all the celebrities in geek culture who were “secretly” playing D&D. You couldn’t make that up.

It brought so many people back to the game, myself included, in a big way. And with few modifications, I was able to drop my old stuff into the new game and hit the ground running. Smart design, simple concepts, and a wide-open game license. It’s no wonder D&D is at the top of the food chain, the apex predator of role-playing games. And as of this writing, there is no meteor in sight to topple the old dinosaur’s reign anytime soon.

RPGaDay 2019: 25 Calamity

This is a war story.

My group was on the second level of a classic module. They had been slogging through it for some time and had just gotten out of a major trap and were pretty beat up. Half of the party wanted to go back to camp, and the other half wanted to stay and clear more rooms. This turned into a longer-than-normal table discussion.

One of my players (we’ll call him Cain) was built for action, not talk. He routinely zoned out if a discussion ran longer than a few minutes. Cain was a druid, but he was about as druidic as a goblin assassin, which he probably would have enjoyed playing.  He was in the “go back to camp” group. The other player (“Abel”) was a big, thick fighter and he wanted to clear more rooms. The four players were gridlocked at two and two.

While the rest of the group was yelling, Cain said to me, as quietly as he could, “I’ve got rope, right? Fifty feet?” We checked his character sheet and sure enough he had 50 feet of fine adventuring rope.

The party was on the second level, about 100’ high into the mountain tower. Their exit was an opening with a ledge on it and a straight drop down, or a careful spelunking with a Dex check at the end.

I naturally assumed that Cain was going to just start setting up the rope for everyone to descend. One of the party had a ring of feather fall, so he was fine. The others would have to solve this relatively minor logistical challenge.

As it was, I was trying to referee the discussion when Cain said to me, “I want to tie the rope around Abel’s leg.”

That got Abel’s attention. “What?”

Cain refused to look at him. There was a prank in progress. It was how they operated, this group. “Okay,” I said, “you need to make a Stealth roll, and you, Abel, get to make a perception check.”

They rolled. Cain rolled a 19. Abel rolled a 3.

That rope was now tied around Abel’s boot. “What now?”

Cain looked right at Abel and smiled. “I grab the other end and run for the opening and jump out.”

Abel said what we were all thinking. “Why?”

“I’m sick of talking about it. We’re leaving!” Cain looked at me and said, “I jump and take him with me.”

Howls erupted from the table. These guys were always doing stupid shit like this, but this was the first time that hit points were going to be lost. “Okay, fine, but we’re doing this in slow motion. First off, make a Strength save to yank this giant guy off of his feet.”

Cain rolled. “Sixteen!”

Dammit.

“Okay, Abel, you have been yanked off of your feet and you are sliding as fast as Cain is falling toward the opening and the ledge.”

“Can I grab the ledge?”

“You can try,” I said. “Make a Dex save.”

The d20 rattled into the tray. “2.”

“Okay, you can SEE the ledge as it zooms away from you, and now you are falling.”

The other players are now starting to laugh, mostly because they aren’t the ones about to take a bunch of falling damage.

Cain was not to be denied. “Can I pull Abel down faster?”

Abel said, “I throw my arms out, trying to grab anything I can.”

Sure, why not? “There’s a tree limb sticking out of the side of the rocks. Make a dex save.”

Dice rolled. “18!”

“Okay, you’ve got the limb, and you’re hanging on for dear life.” I turned to Cain and smiled. “Make a Strength save to keep hold of the rope, because you’ve just jerked to a stop about halfway down the cliff.”

Cain rolled. “15?”

“Yeah, you can keep hold. So, now…”

Cain interrupted. “I want to brace my legs and pull Abel off the limb.”

“Really?”

“Yes, really!”

“Okay, so, make a strength check. Abel, you, too.”

You can guess how it went down.

“Abel, you are falling straight down again,” I said.

“Am I closer to Cain now?”

“Yes, you are.”

“Can I catch up to him in the fall?”

“We’re in slow motion. Sure, why not? Make a Dex save.”

“Natural 20!”

Who am I to argue? “Okay, he’s within your grasp.”

“Wait, can I get out of…”

“No, you can’t. Abel, what do you want to do?”

“Are we close to the ground?”

“Oh, yes.”

“I want to position myself so that I’m on top of Cain.”

“And I want to be on top of Abel.”

Of course you do.  “Strength versus Strength. Go!”

Abel lost. Abel hit the ground first, and took enough damage to knock him out. Cain made a saving throw and took half damage from the relatively soft landing. The character with the feather fall ring floated down and threw the ring up to the last member of the group. Abel was healed, and Cain got punched, but they were all too busy laughing and telling me what an epic encounter that was.

It was like running a game for the Marx Brothers, but they loved it. And that effectively ended the session for the day. Oh, we did a little more, but we all knew nothing was going to come close to matching the intensity of the Tandem Slo-Mo Rope Fall.

RPGaDay 2019: 21 Vast

Here’s another term that probably seemed like a good idea at the time, but is too nebulous to adequately lock down into something meaningful, so I’m going to borrow from Day 11 and answer the previous year’s questions for Day 21.

#RPGaDay 2018 day 21: Which Dice Mechanic Speaks to You?

I have to give it to D&D 5e for Advantage and Disadvantage. It’s so easy, and so universal, and instantly translates to any part of the game. Plus, you get to roll two of the most exciting dice in the game. D20s are the Corvettes of your dice bag. Lots of people think it's d12s, but they are wrong. D12s are the Deloreans of the dice bag. What were we talking about?

#RPGaDay 2017 day 21: Which RPG does the most with the Least Words?

Godlike. It’s such a strong concept, stripped down to its essential components. Super Powers in war. No, make that, Super Soldiers in war. Yes. Your character gets one thing. It may not be impressive in the Marvel Universe, but in a world without super powers, the guy with toughened skin is godlike.  Bonus: you get to beat the shit out of Nazis. Never bad, always good.

#RPGaDay 2016 day 21: Funniest misinterpretation of a rule in your group?

No rules misinterpretation ever caused hilarity. We just acknowledged it and moved on. I did have a player that always mispronounced concepts he used. He always called “Bardic Inspiration” Bard-of-Inspiration and no amount of correcting would fix it. He could NOT say "bardic." Not exactly hilarious, but I’m trying my best, here, you guys.

#RPGaDay 2015 day 21: Favorite RPG setting

Pulps era. It’s so versatile. You can go dark and horrific, or slide into crimefighters and pulp heroes, or take the weird stuff out and do detective and film noir, or just mash it all up and have it bang into one another. 

#RPGaDay 2014 day 21: Favorite Licensed RPG

To this day, Call of Cthulhu remains a comfortable old friend. I know a lot about the early 20th century, more than most people, and that’s useful to know in a game set in the 1920s and 1930s (see above). And Cof C was the first game I came across with specific rules to handle the unique aspects of the game (sanity and the Cthulhu mythos). I haven’t played the game in years, but if I were handed the book this very instant, I’d be able to drop back into it with no lag whatsoever.  

There. A "VAST" array of interesting answers. How much you wanna bet I'm going to have to do this little trick at least once more before this is all over?

RPGaDay 2019: 16 Dream

I use dreams a lot in my game, especially since now I have a sorcerer, a warlock, and a cleric in my group. It’s the best way to give my players an info-dump’s worth of information without grinding table play to a halt. The way I do it is simple: I make it a handout. Specifically, I write a letter.

Giving players something that’s folded up and printed out so that it looks fancy is like free topping day at the yogurt place. Yeah, it’s maybe not as good as gelato, but everyone changes their tune when the chocolate sprinkles come out, don’t they?

I have some skill at prose writing, so I always take this opportunity to put a little literature on what I want them to know. Mostly this is tied to the player and how he or she would process a block of information. But the nice things about making a dream a letter is that the player can keep it and refer back to it. No missing a clue because they took the wrong notes; the dream is the diary entry that stays with them forever. And my players certainly look back on old dreams to see if they have missed anything.

I also use a different tone with them, mostly in an effort to get and keep that player’s attention. This is fun for them and also fun for me. I write each dream up with a fun font, and use my meager photoshop skills to add artwork if necessary. These letters are delivered at the start of each session, and they read them before we get going, as I am setting up my screen, papers, etc.

Below are a few examples of dreams I have given to the players in my Eldritch Piracy game.

Jaco the Draconic Sorcerer

Talos, Cleric of Poseidon

Earl of Carcosa, Warlock

Each of these dreams or visions is very pointedly specific as to what needs to happen. There should not be a dream interpretation portion of the table play, unless you do something like this:

“That night, you all dream that you are flying, on your backs, whizzing along with the breeze stinging your face. But when you look up, you can’t see the sky, or the moon, or even the clouds. You’re not worried about that; merely curious. The last thing you remember is something shiny and metallic, glinting in the moonlight, and then…”

“You wake up. All of you are on an embankment on the side of one of the mountains, looking down at the keep.”

I did this in a game where the players were trying to run down who was stealing building supplies from the keep. Spoiler: It was a Copper dragon, who was actively opposed to expansion and was playing jokes on the soldiers to make them think the keep was haunted. When the players started to get too close, the dragon clocked them with a sleep spell and flew them up to the top of the embankment.

No one has yet figured out what happened that night. They all come charging down from the mountain, asking questions, looking for footprints, etc.

But my point is, that dream happens at the table because everyone is involved and it’s a group-wide event. For everyone else, their dreams are secret, and usually private. This keeps the plots interesting as well, since it helps them pick a direction to pursue and that will always lead to dramatic conflict where someone will have to make a difficult choice. And that's how you get to those epic moments that (hopefully) the players will remember for the rest of their gaming days. All you have to do...is dream...

RPGaDay 2019: 14 Guide

This is a good product. Smart design.

The newest iteration of Dungeons & Dragons now includes rules for sidekicks. 

These are three simplified archetypes, the warrior (fighter), the expert (rogue), and the spell caster. These simplified character classes are easy to play, easy to follow, and do the workman’s job of propping up a narrative conceit. It’s good. Well, it’s fine. Okay.

I do it a little differently, and have for years. You still get to the same place, but there’s more variety and also some player agency. When the adventurers embark on their epic mission, they get a zero-level character. He’s got regular stats, four hit points, and one proficiency—usually the thing he can do.

That zero-level character joins the party, and works and behaves as normal. Typically that means he's the guide into the mountains or the cook or the stable boy, or whatever. He gets 1 X.P. each week that he stays alive. If he mixes it up or swings a sword or almost drowns but is saved by a party member, he gets 2 X.P.

At 25, the zero-level character becomes a first level…well, it depends on how the traveling is going. Are the players actively keeping the NPC alive? Who’s doing most of the protecting? Who does the NPC not like, and why. Using the existing character classes in the party, and looking at the adventures the NPC has participated in, I make a small list and randomly roll for it to see what the NPC will become.

And what’s interesting about that in a meta-game sort of way is this: you can create the new NPC’s background whole cloth out of the adventures your party has already been having. This really makes the character feel real and also ensures that he’s not left behind by the other players.

In the last game I ran, the cartographer’s guild hired the gang to clear out the cursed forest, and map the area and look for trade routes as you go. They were to be paid by the miles covered.

None of my miscreants had anything resembling mapmaking or wilderness survival skills so the cartographer’s guild sent a gifted apprentice along to help with the mapmaking. It was made abundantly clear that no harm was to befall the mapmaker, or they would not get paid.

With the motive and incentive clearly established, I sent them into the woods. Every week that Paidric the mapmakers stayed alive, he got one experience point. If he was in danger but escaped harm, he got two experience points. Their battle plans soon included a “where’s Paidraic” component. Would they squirrel him away from the fight, or just keep him in the back of the group?

When he finally racked up his 25 points, I did some calculating as to what he’d likely decide to be and it was pretty obvious that he needed to be a cleric of knowledge. So Paidraic the mapper became Paidraic the learned.  Mind you, by this time he was two levels below the player characters, and that was okay. He still mapped, and also healed, and helped them with puzzles when they got stuck.

It occurs to me that I could still utilize this system, and then transition over into a Sidekick instead of a fully realized character sheet. And that’s just what I am gonna do.

RPGaDay 2019: 13 Mystery

Jinkies! The Beholder!

The single hardest kind of adventure to write is the mystery, in any game. The reason is both simple and decidedly complex: too many moving parts. You can’t just drop a monster in a room and call it done. There’s a lot of plotting that goes into presenting a mystery in a D&D game. Also, role-playing, despite being descriptive and cinematic, is not suited for whodunnits. You can’t cut away from the heroes to show the killer’s hands as he takes off bloody gloves to reveal he’s missing his pinky. The players “camera” never leaves their side.

I tend to write all of my rpg mysteries the same way, with slight variations. These aren’t hard and fast rules; they represent what works best for my DM style, my way of telling a story. Maybe you can get some use out of looking at my process.

First things first. Figure out what the mystery is (usually, but not always, a murder). Figure out who did it, and why they did it, and how they did it. Simpler is probably better. Murder in a game with medieval monsters present need not be spectacular, but it should make sense. There should be a compelling reason for the suspect to commit murder, but really, any plausible reason will do.

Once you have those details established, figure out three pieces of evidence that scenario would generate. This can be a physical detail (muddy boot prints on the kitchen floor) or it can be statement from a witness to the crime. The evidence should be accurate and true. Ideally, the evidence must point to the killer in some obvious way, such as “the scrap of cloth in his hand is a perfect match for your torn cloak”

Now those three pieces of evidence are placed into your scenario for the players to find. I don’t ever make them roll to notice. They have to get this clue or they can’t solve the mystery. In fact, if it looks like they are going to miss a clue, I move the piece in question right in front of them so they can’t miss it.

That’s the structure, in its most basic form. You can certainly make it more complicated, but if this is your first mystery, don’t. If this is also  your player’s first mystery, then really don’t. Not until you can see if your players will enjoy such a thing. You need to gauge how challenging the clues were and how quickly they put the pieces together.

You can add more clues, or introduce false clues called Maguffins to baffle the party. These false clues seem important, but actually aren’t part of the murder. You can also introduce Suspects into the formula. Suspects must have a connection of some kind with the victim, and optimally, a reason to want them dead, however unreasonable. A murder plot should have at least three suspects, each with their own connections to one another as well.

These kinds of things get big and complicated real quick, which is why I think you should only do it if your group is really into being a Sword and Sorcery Scooby Doo gang. Most groups won’t be that hardcore. The basic outline ensures that players will need to engage in the back story but it won’t spiral out of control. That said, if you need to help a stumped group, have the murderer attack them for “getting too close.” They get to round out the evening with a brawl, and it looks like you planned it that way all along.

RPGaDay 2019: 11 Examine

Okay, this is the first prompt that does absolutely nothing for me. It’s too broad, too nebulous, despite its status as an action verb. “I examine…” What, exactly? I could write something about how D&D used to not have a mechanism for examining things in a dungeon, unless you were a thief, and even then, they could only look for hidden things and traps. The rest of the party was out of luck.

Over the years, the proficiency system has blossomed, morphed, and imploded into the relatively small and manageable stack of “skills” in the current iteration of the game. These areas of expertise are fairly broad, and the entire proficiency system is a simplification and a deliberate choice to help keep the flow of the game moving at a brisk pace.

Yeah, that’s pretty mushy, there. The history of the development of passive perception is not blog-worthy. In fact, I have an idea: since this is my first year doing this, there are five previous years I never had a crack at. So, for this challenge, I’ve taken it upon myself to EXAMINE the other lists of prompts and compiled them below, along with my answers:

#RPGaDay 2018 day 11 – Wildest character name?

I had a villain in Villains and Vigilantes named Mr. Devo. He was a computer whiz who bought into the band’s fictional identity and convinced himself he was a harbinger of the apocalypse. He carried a Roland Ax-Synth keyboard like Mark Mothersbaugh played in the 1980s, only it shot lasers and mood-altering beams and the like. My players HATED Mr. Devo. A lot. I used him sparingly, as a result, but now, in 2019, I guarantee you they are looking around and thinking, “Damn, Mr. Devo got some of this right!”

#RPGaDay 2017 day 11 – Which “dead game” would you like to see reborn?

This is kind of a moot question in 2019, when most of the big games have been reworked and re-introduced to the new generation, and the things that haven’t been updated have been supplanted by better systems doing much the same thing.

All that being said, I would love to see Gamma World  converted to the 5e d20 system, and while we’re at it, Star Frontiers, too. I know, they did Gamma World for 4th edition, and that’s my point, right there. One of the old school things that AD&D did was allow players to genre hop with Boot Hill conversions and Metamorphosis Alpha, and all of that. We need to get back to that. Mind you, I don’t think I’d ever run something like that, but I know other folks would and having it all ‘port straight over from 5e to 5e would be ideal.

#RPGaDay 2016 day 11 – Which gamer most affected the way you play?

Not as germane to me, since I mostly run games, and I have to be honest, I took something from every player I ever spent any time with. Those multiple sessions, countless hours spent laughing, talking, fighting; it all went into the bingo hopper. Those people, those gaming groups, are my points of reference when I, say, encounter a player who wants to wait until the fighting starts, or the player who insists on writing a complete character history complete with family scandals…you know, in case I want to use that for something. They all affected me. How could they not?

#RPGaDay 2015 day 11 – Favorite RPG writer?

My friend, the dearly departed Aaron Allston, put more great ideas into my head and sent me into hours of self-reflection and deep thinking about running games and using all of the tools in the box to do it. Lands of Mystery and Strikeforce remain key elements in my creative gaming matrix.

Second Place? Jason Morningstar.

Third Place is Robin Laws.

#RPGaDay 2014 day 11 – Weirdest RPG owned?

Psi-World, by Fantasy Games Unlimited. It was clearly wrought from the slew (more like a slurry) of Psychics on the Run from the Government movies that dotted the 1980s landscape. Movies like Scanners (1981), The Dead Zone (1983), Firestarter (1984), the Fury (from 1978, not even an 80’s flick), and….um…well, that’s about it.

The game was a collection of psychic powers and a sketch of an idea how to make that interesting. But it wasn’t, except for the cool Matt Wagner artwork. The rest of the game wasn’t bad, but it just wasn’t enough.

“Examine.” Boom. Done.

RPGaDay 2019: 10 Focus

I would be willing to put cash money on a wager that the cell phone is one of the most hated objects at the gaming table by dungeon masters everywhere. Worse than the guy who bangs the table for emphasis, worse than Mr. Cheeto-Fingers and his orange crime scene-dusted character sheets, even worse than “I forgot my dice” guy. The cell phone.  That infernal contraption that signals to you in real time that you have lost the interest of that particular player and they would rather talk to anyone else than listen to your table rap.

I don’t subscribe to the idea of any mystical significance to good dungeon mastering; it’s not magic, it’s practice. But I do think that keeping the players engaged is one of the most important things a DM can work on, whether it’s through the use of stirring oratory, animated description, or improvisational acting. Or all of it. Or none of it.

Deep in thought about what to do next.

Every group is different, every DM is different. Players are all different, and it’s hard to accommodate them for every second of a four-hour session. In fact, it’s impossible. And I think it’s folly to try it; you end up more frustrated and angry than anything else.

It’s not unexpected, after all. There exists in every game session and ebb and flow between in-game situations and the real world. Players need time to process new info. DMs need a minute to take useful notes that make sense and aren't gibberish. Bio breaks. Tension relief. 

Every player is drawn to some particular aspect of the game: Combat, role-playing, exploration. They come alive when you roll for initiative and glaze over when the NPC starts talking about the thing that happened fifty years ago.

Aside from the No-Cell-Phones rule at the table, I have a few things that I do to keep my players engaged during and between sessions.

1. Cliffhangers are my friend. I try to end every session before or after a major scene, or just as things go from bad to worse. Amid the howls of outrage, someone will ask, “We’re playing next week, right?”

2. Anytime I need to take a break, I give them instructions. “Okay, I’ve got to stand up for a minute, so while I’m taking a bio break, I want y’all to figure out how to get across the chasm.”

3. If there’s a way to bring the whole party into a role-playing scene, I will do it. Asking the people not directly involved in the conversation to do something, or roll to notice something that the people in the conversation wouldn’t notice ensures that everyone is engaged. “As Earl and the sage are talking about the book you found, I need you two to make a d20 roll and tell me if you get a 13 or higher. You did? And you didn’t? Okay, Hakim, you notice that as they are talking, there’s a shadow visible in the window, as if someone is listening to the conversation…”

Even if it turns out to be just the sage’s manservant, it creates a moment of tension and gives everyone something to do.

4. Whenever I am talking to the party, I vary my vocal inflection, tone, and speed to clue them in that they need to listen. “The crowd is busy, people milling about, and there’s a thousand smells all blending together. (Pause) But what you all immediately notice is…in the distance…there’s a ship pulling into the docks…and you all immediately recognize the red and black sails.”

That will put the shopping trip on hold as the group runs down the docks for a little payback. And it only takes one of the other sailors to drop the clue that you wanted them to get during the session.

These are things I do in nearly every session that keeps the players focused on the game at hand. If you think any of them would work in your game, give them a try. And as for cell phones…usable only during bio breaks.

RPGaDay 2019: 9 Critical

It’s impossible for me to associate anything other than grievous bodily damage to the word “critical.” In the cutthroat 1980s, there was no shortage of bloodletting. Critical hit tables proliferated and they were all designed to reward people with an instant, gory kill (or death, depending on which way the dice were rolling).

I never used them in my games, not because I didn't want to, but because no one ever wanted to play the one character class who could offset critical hit tables; the cleric. That was just NOT our group. The few times one player's character got close to death was always an area of great trauma, so I didn't feel like piling on.

Now? Nuke 'em from space. It's the only way to be sure. 

Clerics are strong, so strong, and they throw divine energy around like a toddler flings Cheerio's. Despite all of the ancillary fun stuff that clerics can do, they still have a primary purpose and that is to keep the party alive and intact. 

On the other hand...you can sometimes come off as churlish if you take delight in injuring and scarring player characters. I do think there is a middle ground, though; a place where you can make the critical hit more serious and something that has to be dealt with, but not so catastrophic (well, mostly) that there's no bouncing back. 

Here's a set of Critical Hit rules for your perusal. They are free to use if you are so inclined. Feel free to comment if you like. I wanted something that took no more than 3d6 to implement, and would be easy for a player to keep up with. I think this works well. If you try it, I'd love to hear some feedback.

Alternate Critical Hit System for 5e

My Unasked-For Thoughts on 5e

Well, they certainly solved the question of
scale. That's a second-level cleric.
I kid! I kid the Player's Handbook.
It's really a third level cleric.

It’s obvious, I think, to everyone reading this blog that I’m currently playing and creating in the fifth iteration of Dungeons & Dragons, or 5e, as the kids call it these days. Part of this was an economic convenience in that it’s what’s out right now, and also one borne of necessity, i.e. that’s what all of the content is aimed at. But it doesn’t HAVE to go down that way, right? I mean, there are a metric shit-ton of Old School inspired systems out there, all using some version of the Basic/Expert edition of D&D or the first edition of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. Or, if I wanted something insanely commercial, there’s Pathfinder, which is D&D 3.5 re-skinned.  Oh, who am I kidding? There’s no way in HELL I would inflict Pathfinder on anyone. I’m not a monster.

But that brings up another factor: I have been running games for newcomers to tabletop role-playing games. Twelve new players in all, spread over several games and campaigns, each one of them familiar with the subject matter, but have never rolled funny-shaped dice before in their lives. Is the current version of D&D a good “first RPG” experience for newcomers?

Playing Games, Part 8: Just When I Thought I Was Out...

Nobody does Pacino from Godfather 3. They all do
Silvio doing Pacino from Godfather 3. 

Several years ago, I was employed by a homeschooling family as their creative arts teacher for one of their kids; a smart, funny, creative young man who was a little shy and needed help with his verbal and language skills. When he was younger, I was initially reading comics with him, which we both got a kick out of. Now that he was older now, he was into video games and Skyrim and all of that stuff. So, I thought, let’s kill a few birds with one stone and try Dungeons and Dragons first edition. He really took to it, and I re-discovered, I did, too.