When the whole MMPORG craze hit, I avoided it. I know my limitations, my ability to get sucked into computer games for hours on end. So no...I stayed away. Best for everyone that way. Really.

So what happens? I get invites for these "apps" on my Myspace page. "Hmm...what are these?" I asked myself. Myself replied "Check it out for yourself, rather than asking stupid questions, jerkface". So I did. Basically, for those who don't know of these, you create a character, selecting a certain "type" or class if you will. The object is to collect whatever means of valuables the app has (gold for Pirates and Dragonwars, blood for Vampires, dollars for Mafia Wars), do little quests, form alliances with other players, stab other players and take their stuff, go up levels, lather, rinse and repeat.

And of course, I'm sucked in, hook line and sinker.

Dammit.

As if I needed more things to waste my time on. Geez.

So, if you are a sucker like me, and you happen to be on Vampires, Mafia Wars, Pirates, or DragonWars, then be on the lookout for Count Bluh, Destructo Don, Bermuda Backwash, and Chucko Assclown IV respectively. That's me.

Tags: Apps Stupid Time Waster Myspace Mafia Vampires Pirates Dragons

CHAPTER TWO: Of Dire Rats and Bad Die Rolls

Hammer (January) 2-5, 1374 DR (September 6^th, 2008)

Role Call: Barundar, Draelic, Forsythia, Josey, Kendrick, Laurus, Sendar.

The group wakes up in the Duck and Bucket, the adventurer-friendly inn located in Crossroads Keep. The innkeeper, Harriman, points them in the direction of the local alchemist and the pawn shop.

The alchemist is a female elderly gnome named Batty McBatShite. She goes by “Aunt Batty” to those she favors. She identifies the group’s potions found last adventure, and mentions that she’ll make cheap potions if the adventurers find certain ingredients for her, such as trolls’ blood. She also points the group in the direction of the local Trackers/Scouts Guild. Kalindra, a female halfling who runs the Guild, sells the group a map of the environs, and gives them information on some of the gnoll bands that lurk in the area.

Once all of the business at Crossroads Keep is finished, the group heads out and decides to return to the ruins of the Wolves Den. The remainder of the day is spent in travel, and they arrive with no incident. After a discussion about whether or not to head north to reconnoiter the gnoll lair, the group decides against it and hunkers down for the night in the still-standing stable.

The group travels north towards the High Moors, about five miles away. They arrive at the moors, a barren desolate place with patches of ice, snow, and mist, and begin looking for the gnoll lair. A wind shift presages a change in the weather, possibly an approaching storm.

They find the lair, and a plan is hatched. Josie and Kendrick, with Barundar and Laurus as backup, are to head into the lair and scout out the passages. The rest remain behind, hidden, ready to ambush.

The four adventurers enter the cave and find that it’s a passage sloping downward into the earth. After following it for at least 100 feet, it opens into a cavern that has a huge crevasse as its main feature. On the other side is a wooden drawbridge. The gap is at least 60’ wide. A gnoll sentry steps out from the shadows on the opposite side and begins firing arrows at the intruders, while a hue and cry is raised.

Our heroes back out of the area, heading to surface; all that is except for Kendrick, the rogue, who remains behind hidden in the shadows. But when he sees the size of the force coming across now the deployed drawbridge, he hightails it out of there as well.

The gnoll army emerges and battle is joined. A free attack from the group shows the gnolls who in the party is the most effective and the wise gnoll cleric of Yeenoghu casts a Hold Person at Laurus. The fighter fails, and there goes the most effective melee power in the party- held.

A gnoll attacks Josey the halfling Druid, injuring him. As a result, Josey’s dire rat companion is furious and launches an attack against the gnoll. Draelic heals Josie, and Barundar wades into the battle. Forsythia smites a gnoll, but is dropped in a counter-attack from the gnoll’s allies. Sendar attacks the cleric with warmage spells, causing the cleric to retreat back down the tunnel.

Laurus snaps out of the Hold Person and goes on a tear through the gnoll ranks. The rest of the gnolls begin a retreat back down the tunnel, but Laurus takes out two more, and Kendrick trips one and takes it prisoner. With the prisoner tied up, the group returns to the ruined inn.

Once at the inn, the interrogation of the prisoner proves fruitful. Hey, as far as the gnoll is concerned, he’ll just wander off and find another gnoll clan; the area is full of them. Why should he care about his previous clan? That’s Chaotic Evil for you. So, he spills it. The gnoll leader is their equivalent of a Ranger, with the favored enemy “Human”. The chasm is deep and populated by dire bats that are trained to attack anyone who doesn’t give the command phrase. The gnoll teaches Kendrick the phrase. There’s about twenty gnolls remaining, including non-combatant offspring. Once the gnoll has said all there is, he’s released.

The group decides they’ve done enough for now, and heads back west towards Crossroads Keep. However, around mid-afternoon, the party encounters some brigands who want to relieve them of their gold. While Kendrick and the bandit leader exchange pithy quotes back and forth, Laurus has enough of this and just charges at them. So much for negotiations; it’s clobbering time!

(What follows is one of THE worst performances by a group of NPCs that I have ever seen, in terms of dice rolling. The number of Natural 1’s I rolled, witnessed by the players, was horrendous; and it didn’t matter which dice I used. It was awful.)

While Laurus wades into the brigands, Kendrick hits the leader with a sap and pleads for him to surrender. Josey’s rat goes for the throat of a brigand and begins really hurting the guy. Barundar’s attack drops the leader, while Kendrick tries to convince the brigands to surrender. They refuse. Laurus plows through the ranks of bandits, cleaving as he goes. Sendar casts Whirling Blade and sends it flying into the group of brigands.

At this point, the brigands attempt a fighting retreat. Josey’s rat kills a brigand. Laurus catches the remaining two brigands and they surrender. With two prisoners in tow, the group returns to the Keep.

Once at the Keep, the group is directed to the main tower, which is where the place is ruled from. The prisoners are turned over for jail and a trial (which is a quick affair, followed by a hanging). The Chief Constable of the Keep is Captain Trevaylion, a Paladin of Helm. After thanking the party for their efforts (and paying a bounty for the brigands), he tells them that he knows of the knight whose spirit the party met at the Wolves Den. He was Sir Asdrubal, and he talked at length with the chief priest of Helm at the Keep, Sir Garrit.

The party returns to the inn for a hot meal and bed. During the night, Josey wakes up and tends to the fire in the fireplace, and notices that the snow is beginning to fall outside. The next morning, the group has a hearty breakfast and heads to the temple of Helm. There they meet Sir Garrit, a former Knight of the Black Iron Watch at Dormin Keep (several hundred miles to the east of here). He’s now a Priest/Knight of Helm, and is in charge of the spiritual welfare of the Keep, at least as it pertains to Helmites and those seeking defense.

He has notes on Sir Asdrubal, who passed through here on the way to recruiting an adventuring band to help him with some rescue mission. The mission was brought to the knight’s attention by an ally from Calimshan, a Paladin of Tyr named Ali Ben-Radah. Sir Asdrubal was supposed to recruit his band of adventurers, then go to Calimport and meet his friend, who would show him what must be done.

Guess who’s inherited the job…

The group thanks the cleric, then goes to the market to sell off some of the equipment salvaged from the brigands. They decide to spend the rest of the day waiting out the snow, and resting up.

But there is one more thing…Sir Garrit spoke of Sir Asdrubal’s faith leanings, how Helm was his patron god, and Hoar, the god of Vengeance, was sort of his “minor god”. Garrit spoke of the knight’s holy symbol, which on one side had the gauntlet and eye of Helm, and on the other the two-headed coin of Hoar. During dinner, something occurs to Draelic…something clicks. Abdiel, the old man in the Wolves Den, had paid the innkeeper with a two-headed platinum coin. And when he was asked who he was, he responded “I am a collector of debts”.

Something to think about….

Hello people! Well, as promised, here's the first chapter of our new D&D 3.5 campaign, set as usual in the Forgotten Realms. Enjoy!

 

The Cast

Arasu. (Jason)- A male fire genasi Ranger from Calimshan. Not much is known about him.

Barundar. (James)- A male gold dwarf Dragon Shaman from the Great Rift. A hard-drinking, short-tempered dwarf whose totem is the gold dragon.

Draelic. (Aron)- A male human Cleric of Tymora. Picture Two-Face, only without scars, without evil behavior, and with dice instead of the coin. Every decision he makes depends on the roll of his own personal dice.

Forsythia. (Allison)- A female half-elven Paladin of Sune. Just as insufferable as a Cleric of Sune, but with armor and a sharp sword.

Josey Sweetleaf. (Seth)- A male halfling Druid. Take a halfling, put a floppy hat on him, give him a slow country-style drawl, an easy-going laconic demeanor, a Dire Rat animal companion, and a cart drawn by a pony. There you are.

Kendrick. (Dibz)- A male human Rogue. He’s smooth-tongued and well-mannered, and is already moving towards being this fledgling group’s spokesman.

Kudzu. (Bruce)- A male human Druid. Kudzu worships Malar, the Beast Lord, and has already displayed his concern for animal welfare. His companion is a wolf.

Laurus. (John-John)- A male human Fighter. He hails from Waterdeep, and is keen on strategy and tactics. He’s wields a mean Glaive.

Sendar. (Chris)- A male human Warmage. Not much is known about him.

CHAPTER ONE: Night of Fire

Hammer (January) 1-2, 1374 DR (August 23^rd, 2008)

Role Call: Arasu, Barundar, Draelic, Forsythia, Josey, Kendrick, Kudzu, Laurus, Sendar.

Our story begins on a cold night, the first night of the new year, 1374, the Year of the Lightning Storms. The place is the Trade Road in the Western Heartlands, southeast of Daggerford, northeast of Candlekeep. The High Moors lie to the north, and the Troll Hills and the Trollclaws lie to the south and southeast respectively.

There’s snow and freezing rain in the air, and a group of travelers, all unknown to each other, stagger into a warm in called the Wolves Den. In the space of an hour, nine of these people enter the place, looking for a hot meal, something to drink, a fire, and perhaps a warm bed.

The inn’s common room is filled with a score of hardened warriors, fifteen men and five women, all of them laughing, talking, gaming, and carousing, and the innkeeper seems to know them, since he’s joining in. He sticks all nine newcomers at two trestle tables in the back of the room. The only other clientele are a pair of regal-looking elves dressed in splendid furs, and an old man sipping his drink and staring fixedly at the candle on his table.

The innkeeper, Rolf, seems annoyed at all these guests, who are taking his attention away from this what is apparently a mercenary band.. In fact, the gathering has all the makings of some reunion of a military unit or some such. Anyways, Rolf half-heartedly serves the nine newcomers some food and drink, and tells them that the only rooms available are three rooms with four beds each. There’s also a flop area here on the ground floor, which can be utilized for a far lower price for the more economy-minded. Kudzu and Kendrick opt for the flop room. The others, after introductions are made, decide to use two of the rooms.

Rolf the innkeeper snarls at the old man and asks if he intends to stay the night, and if so, he’d better pay. The old man pulls out a two-headed platinum coin, and flips it to the innkeeper, who changes his tune just enough.

The old man wanders over to the two trestle tables and introduces himself as Abdiel. He seems pleased to see the party, and actually gives each person a piece of silver jewelry. He advises them to hold onto the jewelry, never be without it, at least until the next sunrise. Afterwards, they can do what they want with the pieces. They attempt to question him, but Abdiel simply says that he’s a collector of debts, and that he has taken a liking to this band of strangers.

After he leaves, a few of the mercenaries begin hitting on Forsythia. Although she initially flirts with them, they make known their intentions to take her from the common room, bring her elsewhere, and take turns with her. This looks bad. Just when it seems that things are going to come to blows, Kendrick steps in and tries to be diplomatic and diffuse the crisis by offering to buy the mercenaries some drinks. It works, and the mercenaries are mollified. The group also learns that the mercenaries are part of a group called the ThunderBlades. Eventually, the group decides it’s best to bunk down and steer clear of the increasingly drunken and rowdy mercenaries. The old man, Abdiel, bunks in the flop area as well, but the elves leave the inn.

In the middle of the night, around two in the morning, everyone awakens to the sound of screaming, shrieking, and what is clearly a struggle of some sort. It’s coming from everywhere. Kudzu and Kendrick, downstairs in the flop room, awaken and find Abdiel the old man gone. They dash out into the common room. Before they head upstairs, Kendrick notices that the kitchen door is hot and glowing. Checking it out, he sees that the entire kitchen (and Rolf’s rooms beyond it) are ablaze.

Meanwhile, upstairs in the bedrooms, the group is trying to get themselves together and armed for whatever it is that’s causing the ruckus, when spirits begin to rise out of the floor. Although they reach for the heroes, they are somehow stopped by a barrier. The rooms are as cold as the grave, and it’s clear that these phantoms are some form of undead. Frustrated at their attempts to touch the heroes, the spirits move on to other rooms.

As our heroes emerge from their bedrooms and into the hallway, the doors of the other bedrooms explode open and out stumble the mercenaries, no longer alive, but rather as reanimated dead. They see the living folk, and turn towards them slowly, shuffling towards our heroes.

The only person who decided to stay in bed was Draelic who, when awakened, rolled his dice to decide whether or not to get out of bed, or just go back to sleep and let events sort themselves out. The latter won out. Barundar the Dwarf, seeing at least a dozen zombie mercenaries shuffling in the group’s direction, starts to bellow “Get that priest out here! NOW!”

Laurus, his Glaive at the ready, begins a systematic cutting down of the newly created zombies. Josie lowers the a rope out the window situated at the end of the hall. Kendrick runs upstairs (and sees the zombies with their backs to him) and yells out that the inn is on fire. Kudzu chooses not to go upstairs; instead, he dashes out of the inn and runs to the stables, to save any horses that may be there.

Draelic is roused from his sleep and he manages to turn and destroy five zombies outright. Josey, Forsythia, and Sendar shimmy down the rope to safety outside, while Arasu fires arrows at the zombie horde, and Kendrick, Barundar, and Laurus engage the undead in melee. Draelic manages to turn three more zombies, and everyone agrees that it’s a very good idea to jump down the rope.

Laurus, Josey, Kendrick, and Sendar circle the inn and find no tracks in the area. Kudzu discovers that the stable has twenty light warhorses, the mounts of the mercenary company. He evacuates them to safety while the rest of the group starts trying to put out the fire. Unfortunately, the inn’s supplies of alcohol and flour go up, and it’s clear that the place is a total loss.

By four in the morning, the flames are dead. The group starts tidying up the stable for a place to sleep for what’s left of the night, when they see Abdiel standing on a snow bank. He congratulates them on their surviving the crisis, and that if they wish to learn more answers and also do the right thing, to dig in the remains of the burnt-out inn. He then prophesies that, as their adventures began in fire, so shall they end in fire. A burst of wind, some swirling snow, and he’s gone. Attempts at finding his tracks yield none whatsoever. Weird.

The party digs in the inn’s ruins, and eventually clears a path to the cellar. In one of the four rooms, they find a large stone lid with chains on it. It takes the combined strength of Forsythia, Laurus and Barundar to open it, and a hideous stench pours out of the hole, rendering some of the group ill. Most importantly, Forsythia and Laurus are nauseated and let go of the chains, leaving Barundar to go sailing through the air as the lid comes crashing back down on the hole, shattering in three pieces.

Once the shattered lid is removed, the party looks down in the pit and sees dead bodies in various states of decomposition (the further down you go, the older and more decomposed they are). At the top of the heap is a recently dead (within a tenday) warrior sort, with his throat slashed.

As the group begins the grisly task of sifting through the dead, two things become apparent: first, the faces of many of the specters that attacked the inn were the same faces as many of the dead. Second, all of the bodies died from a blow to the head, a blade to the chest, or a slit throat.

It becomes clear to the party that these dead need a proper burial. After a discussion, they decide to make a funeral pyre, and say a blessing. As they do this, they see a host of spirits, gratefully heading towards the east, where the sun’s about to rise. They voice their thanks for a decent burial at last. One of the spirits is the man who was clearly the most recently killed, a noble knight of some extraction. This spirit begs the party to take up his quest, and as he tries to explain it, the celestial choir swells up, drowning out some of his words. What’s more, the pull from the east is becoming irresistible. He manages to utter a partial message, with the words “keep”, “princess”, “dragon”, “rescue!”, before he’s dragged off to his eternal reward.

The final two spirits are that of an old man and an old woman, clearly a married couple. They thank the group for the burial, and explain that they ran the inn, which they called “the Cat and Hearth”. Then, this mercenary band called The ThunderBlades stayed there one night, and one of their number, Rolf, decided that he wanted to retire from the mercenary business and make a fortune as an innkeeper instead. So, while his comrades looked on and cheered, he murdered the old couple and declared the inn his, renaming it “The Wolves Den”.

But his crimes didn’t end there. According to the old couple, Rolf was a psychotic who occasionally murdered wealthy guests in their sleep and dumped their bodies in the pit in the cellar, then sold off their goods. Apparently, he didn’t do it often, so as not to attract too much attention. His final victim was this noble knight who was on a quest, only to get killed in his sleep, his quest now unfulfilled.

Until now…

Before the old couple drift to the east (they tarried longer since they were dead longer), they warn the characters that the mercenary band is actually a bit larger, and not all of them were present in the inn during the night of vengeance. They also mention that more answers will be found at the keep at the crossroads. After a final “thank you”, the old couple, reunited at last, go to eternity.

It should also be noted that the group found two small stashes of coins, weapons, and magic that Rolf apparently had secreted away in the event of dire need.

The group decides that they should just strike off to Crossroads Keep, a place that Laurus passed by while traveling from Waterdeep to this locale. At about Highsun, they find the road blocked by a pack of wild hyenas, which advances hungrily at the party. As the animals attack, some members of the party notice that the animals all wear collars.

Kudzu casts an Entangle and traps three of them. Laurus slays a pair. The hyenas rally and attack Sendar, dropping the warmage. A few more are slain, then Josie uses Speak With Animals and actually manages to intimidate the three entangled ones. Cowed, they tell Josie that their pack serves a band of gnolls north of here, on the edge of the moors. The hyenas are sent out to harry a likely band of travelers, then the gnolls can swoop down and engage the weakened, bloodied victims.

While the party tends to Sendar, Josie extracts a promise from the hyenas that they will not return to the gnolls, but rather go off elsewhere on their own. With the promise given, Kudzu releases them.

With Sendar healed, the party continues their travel west to Crossroads Keep. Upon arrival, they sell of the majority of the warhorses they rescued from the inn’s stable. They then hole up at an adventurer-friendly inn called the Duck and Bucket, and get some badly needed sleep.

When we take up again next time, the group clearly has some questions that need answering, as well as a gnoll lair that needs eliminating.

Greetings, Bombers! This morning's offering is a new series I'm trying out: Tales from the WTF Files! These "tales" would consist of "war stories", explaining certain situations where you can only sit back and wonder "What the $%^#% was John thinking?". Call it "Tales of DM Insanity" if you will; things that just...well....make you want to shake your head. Every once in a while, though, I'll expand it and throw in tales of past players doing WTF stuff. But for the most part, this'll be DM-related atrocities. And so, without much further ado, I bring you the first tales from the WTF Files:

Kurok- The Slug Who Talked Like A Man!!!!!

So one night about ten years ago,  I was watching the original Star Trek (aka "Star Trek: TOS") for what must've been the umpteenth and fifth time. This particular episode was called "The Paradise Syndrome". Trek-Bombers know this one. This is the "Captain Kirk beams down to a planet populated by American Indians while the Enterprise gets hurled far, far away and will take weeks to get back. Meanwhile, Kirk, who's lost his memory, is adopted by the tribe as the new medicine man, calling himself "Kurok". Naturally, the chief has a hot daughter, and naturally Kirk ends up doing what Kirk usually does to alien women, and before you know it, they're married, she expecting their child, and life's good. Then of course, since the show's called "Star Trek" and not "Hot Native American Nookie", everything turns to crap, and a restored, rescued Kirk eventually ends up back on the Enterprise. Roll credits.

Anyways, during the climactic scene, the tribe begins stoning Kirk and his bride, because Kirk (or Kurok, to keep things accurate) can't do the mojo to save the tribe. At one point, William Shatner goes into "Overacting Hyperdrive Super Happy Fun Shouting Mode" and yells out "I am Kurok!!!!"

Right then and there, I decided "I want an excuse to yell out 'I am Kurok!' in my D&D game!"

But how? Lord knows, I didn't want to teleport William Shatner into the Forgotten Realms! But how, oh how, was I going to yell out "I am Kurok!"???
That's when the most sacred two words in the DM Toolbox come out... "What If?"

WHAT IF:
A giant slug wiped out a party of adventurers, using its acid spittle?
WHAT IF:
The slug devoured the undissolved remains of the adventurers, including their gear?
WHAT IF:
A piece of that gear was an unused potion or other such item, that boosted intelligence?
WHAT IF:
The giant slug gained sufficient intelligence to become self-aware?
WHAT IF:
The slug's newfound intelligence helped it grow the slug-equivalent of vocal cords?
WHAT IF:
This newly intelligent, talking slug, decided to call itself "Kurok the Conqueror", and spent its days coming up with plans to conquer the Realms? (cue "Pinky and the Brain" music here)

So yes, the party eventually found this large subterranean cavern and encountered this giant slug with a battered crown on its head, proclaiming itself "Kurok the Conqueror". The "SAY WHAT!!?!?" looks on some of the players' faces were priceless; I wish I had a camera.

And the thing is, Kurok was a buffoon. He was about as intelligent as your average junior high school student; he just happened to be a colossal slug who could spit acid at you. He was one of those "ridiculous, yet still somewhat dangerous" foes.

Naturally, the PCs made short work of him. As he was dying, he defiantly bellowed out:

"I AM KUROK!!!!!!!!!!!!"

I was one happy guy, let me tell you. Sure, my players shook their heads, and the Trek-aware players added an eye-roll to the head shakes, but it was worth it. Worth it, I tell you!

Tags: WTF DM Slug Insane Drugs Kurok

It is my considered opinion that a terrific Dungeon Master is:

One part Rules Lawyer
One part Referee
One part Impartial Mediator
One part Good Buddy
Two parts Actor
Two parts Writer
Three parts Storyteller
Five parts Complete and Utter S.O.B.

Let me break it down.

Rules Lawyer: While no one asks you to know every single rule, you better have a good grasp of the fundamentals of the game you're running. Missed/blown calls frustrate players and makes them lose any trust and respect they have towards you. And if your players don't trust you, you might as well pack it up.

Referee: OK, you know the rules....can/will you enforce them, and do so consistently? And yes, knowing the rules and enforcing them are two different things. If you don't enforce the rules, the players walk all over you, and you lose their respect, as well as control of the campaign.

Impartial Mediator: Disputes arise between players, and you better nip those sort of things in the bud before they get the chance to shatter a group. You can't play favorites; hell, you can't even afford the mere APPEARANCE of playing favorites. As a sidebar, it's even a greater challenge if your kids and/or wife/husband/sweethear/bf/gf/lover/sexual plaything, are in the campaign. Wow. Seriously, whenever they do something spectacular, if you have anyone in the group who's disgruntled, they will start casting suspicions about. "Funny how he/she knew the right thing to do, isn't it?", they say. Because obviously the person in question couldn't just be a good gamer and/or extremely bright and has been paying attention, now could they? That's why I personally tend to be more harsh with Carol and the kids. And if there are rolls to be made regarding which PC is attacked by the monster, I'll roll it in front of everyone. I had a trio of disgruntled gamers who started complaining that Carol's PC never died. Never mind that her PC wasn't a front-liner (a Rogue/shadowdancer to be exact), she also played her character smart and careful. It got to the point where she privately suggested that I deliberately kill her PC, just to shut them up. Although I appreciated the offer, I turned her down. On a final note, of the two guys who complained longest and loudest about my alleged favoritism, one of them ran a campaign where his girlfriend's starting resources were far beyond what was allowed, and the other made his girlfriend the actual center of the adventure (everyone was along to protect her). I wasn't in either of those campaigns.

Good Buddy: The DM role isn't always adversarial. A good DM has to know when to be the good guy. Sometimes it may be something as simple as NPCs making a big fuss over the PCs. Other times, perhaps it's a bonus reward for good play. And yet other times, it could be something more passive, as in conceding when the PCs have you outfoxed and letting things happen. One former gamer of mine told me that the point where he fell in love with my campaign (his choice of words) was when the party spent about 15 minutes coming up with this spectacular plan for raiding a frost giant encampment. They made some plans that exploited a few things I had overlooked, then implemented the plan. Rather than scramble to pull something new out of my butt that would foil those plans ("Oh look, here comes a squad of flying vampiric wolverines that the frost giants had summoned...um...yesterday. Yeah, that's it!"). Nope, they made a good plan, they executed it, they ran rougshod over my encounter, and I sat back and let it happen. Sometimes, you just have to tip your cap and acknowledge that you've been beaten.

Actor: You, as the DM, are in charge of playing all of the NPCs a party encounters. So, in rapid succession, you may play an innkeeper, then a slutty tavern wench, a drunken street person, a rabid dog, an insane gnome, the God of Vengeance, an easily bribable city guard, a screaming toddler, a hyperactive alchemist, a dreadful warlock, a badger, a snake, or an ambulatory mushroom. And you had best portray them with enough differences that you establish that one is not to be confused for another. Throw yourself into the role. If the adventure calls for you to be a rabid badger, then be the best rabid badger you can! Foam at the mouth! Make weird faces! Make strange noises! Get into it! And if the adventure calls for you to assume the role of a Vampire Hooker of Loviatar, then....good luck (and send me the inevitable Youtube link!).

Writer: Unless you're running strictly modules, you're going to have to write. Fortunately for the size of this blog entry, that's already been covered elsewhere.

Storyteller: Different from a writer.....a writer creates the story. The storyteller gives it to the players, acting as their senses. You have to try and be compelling enough, detailed enough, that the players forget they're in the world of today, and have been transported elsewhere (and elsewhen).

Complete and Utter S.O.B.: I saved the most fun one for last. Famous cantankerous controversial grouchy writer Harlan Ellison has a term for some of his work....it's a compound word: the first word is "Mind"...the second word rhymes with "duck", and describes the act of mating. A great DM subjects his players to a "mind-duck" often. Because hey, let's face it: adventure means drama, drama means confrontation with the opposition, and confrontation with opposition is something the DM brings to the table. Yes, the DM is the players' friend, and the players' impartial judge....but he/she is also the players' enemy and rival. And therefore, you need to mess with them. You need to throw curveballs when they expect a straight fastball right down the middle. Keep them off-balance, throw red herrings at them, have some NPCs who lie (and reasons for why; lying just for the sake of being a jerk isn't cool). Mess with their heads. This is one of my favorite tactics:

DM: OK, so there's two paths: left or right. Which one do you take?
PLAYER: Ummm...right.
DM: OK. You sure about that?
PLAYER: Um. Yes?
DM: Hey, I'm just checking; wanting to make sure and all that. Now....you DID say "Right", right?
PLAYER: (getting worried) Ah...yeah.....right....
DM: (smiles) Cool....ok...so....your character goes right, right? Heading down the right path now? Right? Sure about that?
PLAYER: ARRGHHGHH! No! NO! Left! Left!!! Something's up! I go left!
DM: (rolls dice) Awwww....too bad. The right path was indeed the right path. But you went left, and stumbled upon a support group meeting for especially homicidal beholders with anger management issues. ZAPZAPZAPZAPZAP!!! Congratulations, your PC has been reduced to a pile of talcum powder.
PLAYER: AAAAAH! You suck!
DM: Thank you!

And so, there you have it.....a small look at what makes a really good DM (at least in my own humble opinion). Some of you may think that being all of those people at once is akin to having a multiple personality disorder, and you'd be correct in thinking that; for it's also my considered opinion that, in order to be a truly effective DM, you need to be at least a little bit insane.

Tags: DM DungeonMaster

As promised in my previous blog entry, this one deals with how I approach a campaign, design an adventure, and what my characteristic quirks are. We had our first session of our newest campaign this past Saturday (Recap to come later), so since I have campagin design fresh in my mind, let's jump in!

When I start planning a campaign (and we're talking D&D here), I usually ask myself three questions:
"What have I already done?"
"What do my players like?"
"How can I take the answers to the first two questions and mesh them into something original and fun?"

So, when I started planning the new campaign, I ticked off in my head all of the plots I'd done before. Quests to find an artifact, quests to destroy an artifact, quests to hunt someone down, quests to remove a curse, etc. Eventually I found one that I hadn't done in a long time, so people have had a chance to start missing that sort of adventure again, if you know what I mean. In this case, the new campaign is a rescue mission.

Secondly, what do my players like? Now granted, you can't tailor your campaign to fit every single players' needs 100% of the time. In fact, this is YOUR sandbox. YOU make the rules. YOU determine what kind of sand's in the sandbox, how much sand there is, and even how big the sandbox is. But that being said, it makes things more fun if you incorporate elements that the vast majority of your players like. In other words, play to your audience, and give 'em what they like...just do it in YOUR unique style. In my campaigns, my gamers especially like good vs. evil campaigns, the chance to be heroic. OK, so a heroic rescue....something or someone evil has captured something or someone good. Rescue him/her/it.

The final question is how to take all of that and add your unique spin to it. This is where the characteristic quirks mentioned earlier come in. For instance, here are my quirks:

1. Things are not always as they seem; there's either a twist, or more than meets the eye, or something like that.
2. There WILL be a nearby settlement for the purposes of resting up, resupplying, healing, and gaining XP. Of course, it may be a chore to find it, but it's around.
3. That settlement will also have some interesting NPCs to interact with, thus fulfilling players' desires to so some role-playing, not just hit things.
4. No matter how grim, how dire the adventure, there's one NPC who will provide comic relief of a sort. Hey, even Macbeth had a humorous scene with a drunken doorman of the castle (NOTE: I am NOT comparing some silly D&D campaign with a classic piece of literature). And the comic relief more often than not also serves a useful purpose.
5. My campaigns are like well-written software programs: there's a back door if you can find it.
6. No matter how dire the circumstances, there are NO unbeatable scenarios. There's always a way out.
7. There's no such thing as "just" a +1 longsword, or a +2 short sword, or a +3 bastard sword; each sword (and to a lesser extent other weapons) is unique, with its own name, history, and powers. The name is usually a clue as to what powers it has.
8. There is a prophecy somewhere in the game; in our first session of the new campaign, the mysterious figure confronting the party said "As your path has begun in fire, so shall it end in fire." ooooo, ominous!!!!
9. There's a tight self-referencing continuity. I incorporate/mention elements, events, PCs, of previous campaigns. This not only gives a "real world" sense to things, players are gratified when their previous PCs are referenced; it makes them feel, and rightly so, that in their own way, they helped create the current adventuring world.
10. There has to be a cat in there somewhere.
11. I plan weather, including lunar phases, wind, temperature, precipitation, for the entire gaming month in advance. That way, if the party's stuck on an overland trip and a snow storm  comes crashing in, the players can't go "Oh you're just throwing that at us to make things tougher." That's when you smile and show them the date entry, shrug and say "I can't help it if you decided to spend two extra days in town, buying figs". Now, all of a sudden, the weather is the foe to be overcome!
12. Graphic sex and violence are down-played or soft-pedaled.
13. I don't dwell on kids' deaths.....sure, some orcs may slaughter an entire human village, which implies kids and infants, but that doesn't mean I'm going to include color text that mentions dead babies scattered everywhere. Surely there's a more creative way of expressing the total devastation of a town without resorting to a lurid, cheap, nasty shock like that; especially since dead kids is one of my hot buttons that is better left unpressed.
14. Ultimately, heroism and virtue are rewarded, and are things people aspire to. That doesn't mean that people all need to be milk-drinking lawful good types; in fact there's plenty of room for some greedy scoundrels with a highly developed sense of self-interest. It's just that, when the final tally is rung up, and you decide if you're on the side of Light or Darkness, it's Light that wins out.
15. Knowing when you're outmatched and consequently withdrawing, is a good idea.
16. Going along with that, I have no compunctions in scattering a few lairs around the adventuring area, lairs which have monsters that are clearly more than the PCs can handle. But they're there in order for the PCs to have something to look forward to hitting when they become more experienced. On the other hand, if they want their 2nd level characters to follow the obvious trail of troll tracks to the lair, well, then they'll get what's coming to them.
17. The campaign area has at least one small to medium-sized "dungeon" area that's level-appropriate, to help the PCs get a few levels before they tangle with the major plot elements, and help them gel as a fighting group.

OK that's a lot of elements, but I've been doing this for decades, so they've accumulated.

Then comes the actual putting together of the adventure. The planning for that is almost like a running monologue in my head.

"OK, where do we set this up?"
"Let's avoid any place in the Realms that we've done something recently, as in the last few years of real time."
"That eliminates Silver Marches, Dragon Coast, the Vast, the Dales, the Moonsea, Cormyr, Sembia...."
"Western Heartlands. That works. But not near any major cities."
"How about here, in the middle of nowhere, south of the High Moor, near the Trollbark Forest and the Fields of the Dead? Desolate enough?"
"Perfect. But if that's the case, how does everyone meet?"
"Well, there'd have to be inns set up as rest stops along the Trade Way road. How about that?"
"Inn? Gee, that's original. OK, if that's what it has to be, than that's what it has to be. But can we at least make it something original and/or interesting?"
"How about if the spirits of the dead customers rise from a grave pit and slaughter the owner and everyone else?"
"Why would they do that?"
"The inn owner is a psychopath who sometimes would kill his customers in their sleep, strip their bodies of valuables, and dump the corpses in a pit."
"And why would the spirits kill other customers?"
"Because all of the other customers, aside from the PCs of course, are in league with the inn owner! They're all part of the same mercenary company, and they're all rotten, so the restless dead wipe EVERYONE out!"
"Why would this entire mercenary group just so happen to be at the inn at the same time? Sounds lame!"
"It's like a military unit having a reunion at a hotel. This mercenary company has taken up most of the inn, invited by their former comrade, the psycho inn keeper!"
"So why would the vengeful spirits preserve the PCs then?"
"The PCs need to finish the mission that the last victim, a heroic knight, was on, before he met his untimely throat-cut death at the hands of the psychotic ex-mercenary innkeeper. Since they're not evil, they're chosen."
"Aha! And that mission would be the...."
"...rescue mission! Yes! Precisely! Good guy knight sets off to rescue innocent from evil clutches, gets cut down before he can even undertake the task!"
"Brilliant! Have a beer!"
"Thank you!"

Once the start point has been decided, populating the area with abovementioned lairs is needed, which usually means a humanoid race to tackle ("Let's see...we've gone with orcs, kobolds, goblins....let's do gnolls this time!"). Then, the "base town" needs to be developed (along with temples, inns, equipment places, interesting NPCs, and sub-plots). Then come the custom-designed weapons and treasure to lair allocations. After that, a chart of available stories, rumors, and bardic knowledge roll results. Then comes the Weather chart.

Voila. First Act is done. You have the start of the campaign, some adventure areas, NPCs, and a direction for the PCs to go in. But that's only the first act; although you don't have to design them right away, it's good to establish where else the PCs will need to travel (picture the world map in the Indy movies, with the red line moving to the new destination), and start lining up the opposition, locales, treasure, further plot twists, and of course the climax.

My players in the new campaign have started off in the Western Heartlands. Naturally, I can't say where they're heading, and where they'll eventually end up, as a bunch of them are on this site.  

So there you are! The start of my new campaign, entitled simply "Fire".

Next time: Why Dungeon Masters need to be complete and utter b@st@rds!

Tags: DM Campaign ForgottenRealms D&D 3.5

With the summer down to its last third, it's time for our gaming group to reset. Having sort-of finished the Masks of Nyarlathotep campaign super-module, it's time to get back to our regular favorite, D&D (3.5 of course), in our favorite setting, Forgotten Realms.

(speaking of Forgotten Realms, even though I already knew a bunch of stuff about what was happening with the Realms in 4.0, I decided "what the hell" and thumbed through a copy of the 4.0 Realms hardcover yesterday when I bought my weekly DC comics. My conclusion? The new Realms book reminds me of some women I've known in the past- nice to look at, but hideously foul to be around and not worth my time or attention).

Ahem..so where was I? Oh yes. New campaign.

We do this a lot. We usually start an FR campaign, play it until PCs get to about 15th level or so, then start up a new one in a different area of the Realms. The old campaigns become part of our continuity, and references are made to NPCs and events of those past games. The last one we had was a bit of a failure, so we stopped early, some people dropped out indefinitely, and the rest of us took up Call of Cthulhu.

Now, in mid-August, we start our new D&D campaign this weekend. And I've been planning this one ever since the other one collapsed. Even the people who buggered off in the last campaign are back, and everyone's eager to start the new game off.

The first question, of course, is where to start/center it? In recent campaigns, we've started off in the Silver Marches, the Moonsea (several times), the Dales, Cormyr-Sembian border, the Pirate Isles, and the Dragon Coast. I try to throw in some variety, and I do believe I know where to start this one (actually, no "believe" about it, I definitely know). Unfortunately, a few of my gamers are on RPGBomb, and since I don't give anyone, including my family members, any advance warning as to where it's going to be located, I can't disclose it now. Shouldn't be too hard, though, by process of elimination.

I don't tell people where it's starting so that no one tries to get an extra edge (e.g. "Why yes, I have Local Knowledge (Waterdeep), what a coincidence!" or "My family lives close by; surely I have some resources/contacts we can turn to?"). If it turns out, by random chance, that someone comes from that region, well hey, that's great!

Secondly, as a rule, I don't tell people who's playing what. That way, people play what they want to, and no one feels obligated to put together a certain character. Of course, I usually release a Public Service Announcement, where I give people a heads-up on what the party's light on. I find that helps those who are as yet undecided.

Our current makeup thus far, if everyone goes with what they told me, looks like two Druids, two Paladins, a Dragon Shaman, two Rangers, two BattleMages, two Fighters, and two Rogues. At one point, we had THREE people playing Paladins, but one changed.

So, things are falling into place. I'm seriously considering posting our game recaps here on RPGBomb, if people would be interested.

Next blog entry: How I approach a campaign, design an adventure, and what my characteristic quirks are (all hopefully without tipping off my players here on RPGBomb about too much of what to expect in the ensuing weeks).

Tags: DM Campaign ForgottenRealms D&D 3.5

Captain Khel's recent blog post asking for suggestions on a dwarf-oriented campaign got me to thinking about my own campaigns, specifically in how they begin.

Let's face it....many campaigns seem to start in or around an inn. Why is that? Well, inns are natural gathering places for crowds, and crowds produce adventure hooks. It's really as simple as that. In a fantasy setting, an inn is like a combination restaurant, bar, social club, and community center. So why wouldn't an inn be a natural starting-off point?

But come on, having yet another "You're all sitting around this inn when this old man comes up to you" gets dull, dull, dull if used too much. Break out the deep sighs, the eye-rolling, the "cliche alert" neon signs. This is why for the last ten years or so I've been damned determined to come up with new, creative spins on the ol' "Inn-launched campaign".

This becomes apparent when you consider that I'm about to launch a new D&D 3.5 campaign that starts off in, you guessed it, an inn.

So, for your edification and possibly cheap entertainment, I present to you my favorite "Inn-stigations". Wanna use any of them? Be my guest!

The Frame-Up
Campaign: Ex Libris
The group gathers at an inn on the southern coast of the Moonsea, guests of a wizard who at one time or another had a connection with each character, and now needed their help. As everyone sits down, the wizard pitches forward and dies. Screams erupt from NPCs, and people point at the PCs as the strangers who've killed their town's benefactor and protector. Right out of the gate, the PCs have been set up as villains to be arrested and punished. Can the PCs clear their names?
TWIST/SITUATION: A rival wizard was lurking outside the window near where the party was sitting, and managed to get a sighting of the wizard and assassinated him. Both wizards are looking for the same arcane book.

I See Dead People
Campaign: The Chosen
None of the PCs know each other; they're all simply at the same inn at the same time. The door opens and a group of people walk in, with a richly dressed nobleman in the middle of the pack. The man singles out each PC, asks them to meet him in the inn's private dining room, and in fact tells the PCs to make arrangements with the innkeeper to hire the room, and he'll pay them back. The group does this, and the man walks into the room as one of the PCs holds the door open for him. The man gives the PCs a "mission" to accomplish, and also tells them that he has buried a small strongbox nearby, with enough funds for a good-faith down payment, as well as recompense for them hiring out the private room.
TWIST/SITUATION: The nobleman is actually a ghost, and no one in the inn except for the chosen ones can see him...hence why the man walked in with a group of people, walked into the private room with someone holding the door for him, and had the group rent the room instead of him doing it.

SMASH!
Campaign: Some AD&D 2nd Ed campaign of mine whose title I've forgotten
Not so much IN the inn but in its vicinity. The party's walking through town and they pass an inn with a big picture window. Suddenly, the window shatters and two people come flying out, wrestling and punching each other furiously, one of them say "You take that back!" They land in front of the shocked PCs, wrestling and swearing.
TWIST/SITUATION: The NPC yelling "You take that back!" has a relative who's been unjustly accused of a crime. He hasn't the means or opportunity to go get the proof of his kinsman's innocence. Perhaps the PCs will do it??

Search Party
Campaign: The Legacy
The party, again a bunch of people who don't know each other, are all resting at an inn called the Sleeping Cat, in the Dalelands village called Whisperdale Crossing. Suddenly, the captain of the village watch bursts in, announcing that two of the village's children have wandered off. Frantically, he begins breaking up the inn's common room crowd into search parties. One such party turns out to be the PCs.

And here's my favorite....I have yet to duplicate the "WOW!" factor that this one produced in my group. It's still talked about.

Fire Sale- Everything Must Go!
Campaign: The Belgaroth Campaign (AD&D 2nd Ed)
"It all begins at this charming inn, the Sleeping Boar. All of you are strangers to each other, scattered around the common room, enjoying some refreshment and taking a load off for a little while before heading off on your respective journeys. It's your typical roadside inn, filled with travelers, pilgrims, laborers, merchants, mercenaries and the like. The place is hopping, the innkeeper busy, the tavern wenches and table-boys racing about here and there.

"The door opens, and in walks a noble-looking gentleman in splendid armor and a rich cloak. He is clearly a man of power and breeding. Flanking him are a pair of swordsmen who are of marked less social stature, in fact they seem to vacillate between looking intimidating to the crowd, and acting sycophantic towards the nobleman.

"The nobleman and his two retainers look around, then the fashionable man steps forward and clears his throat. 'Excuse me? Excuse me, good people...a moment of your time?' The murmuring of the crowd subsides as everyone looks at the well-dressed stranger. 'Excellent, thank you. My associates and I are looking for a friend of ours. Human, brown hair, early 30's, wears armor, has a nasty wound on his right thigh, answers to the name of Colin. The man answers to Colin that is, not his right thigh!' The man laughs at his own joke. The two sycophants giggle. Everyone else in the place just stares blankly at him.

"Seeing that the joke didn't work, he goes on. 'Right. Well then. This friend of ours, Colin, is badly hurt, and we have reason to believe he came by here. In fact, he may have hired a room here to recover?' He looks over at the innkeeper who shakes his head and goes back to work. Slowly, the rest of the crowd takes his cue, and starts going back to their food, drink, and talk.

"The man looks exasperated. 'None of you then? No? Is everyone sure?' The crowd is now ignoring the gentleman. One of the two grubbier warriors steps forward, and it's obvious he's trying to impress his leige-lord. 'Is everyone positive they ain't seen Colin?' the man growls. 'It's not like we're going to do anything to him!' 'That's right!' the other one adds eagerly. 'We just wanna....talk to him, like. No intentions of hurtin ol' Colin, nossir! We just need to get some information outta him!'

"Some of the people in the inn begin looking rather suspiciously at the nobleman and his two warriors. The nobleman rolls his eyes, hands on his hips, a look of exasperation on his face. 'Oh splendid! Just splendid! You had to go and open your mouth, you oaf!' he sighs. 'Now everyone here knows too much!' The man walks back to the front door and makes to leave. 'Kill them,' he says with a bored, dismissive wave. 'Kill them all.'

"The nobleman walks out as the two sycophantic warriors leer, drawing their swords. Before anyone can get up, they cut down two customers. A window breaks and a flaming torch sails through. Then another window breaks, and another. One customer runs for the open front door and dashes out. You hear a 'thunk! thunk! thunk!' and the man staggers back, screaming, clutching at two arrows in his stomach and one in his face. It's clear that there's more men out there.

"The two warriors inside start hacking through the crowd, cutting down surprised patrons, tavern boys, and wenches alike. Flaming arrows sail through the front door, setting the alcohol behind the bar ablaze. A burning arrow takes down the innkeeper. People are screaming, panicing, trying to mount a defense, but the assault is swift and relentless. Now, to recap, you have a pair of psychotic and clearly very experienced fighters hacking their way through people, more fighters outside armed with flaming arrows and watching the front door and windows, and the place is now ablaze. Smoke fills the room and the floor is slick with blood of the innocent bystanders.

"So. What do you people do now?"

Anyways, those are the ones that leap to mind. As for my newest one, well, I can't say anything about that one, as a few of the members here are also in my campaign.

Tags: DM Inns Adventure Hooks Campaign

OK, the recent talk of Chick tracts has brought my own experiences bubbling to the surface like some....big bubbling thing. Have a seat. This one's a long one.

Let's start with one fundamenal (pun intended) truth about me. I am a Christian. I believe in God, Christ as the Messiah, the Holy Spirit, the Bible being the Word of God, Satan, angels, and demons. I am currently not attending a church, for reasons that'll become clear once this blog is done. But I do pray, read my Bible, and do my level best to live as Christ mandated; sometimes I succeed, sometimes I don't. So, that should establish where this is all coming from.

Back when in 1974 when I was in High School, I was invited to attend this High School age Christian fellowship hosted by a very well known, mainstream, conservative Christian church in Boston. The group was a revelation (pun intended) for me, and it was while attending that group that I made a conscious decision to be a Christian, rather than just going along with what my Baptist dad had been constantly talking about. Call it being "born again", if you will, but I shy away from that phrase because of the combination of baggage it carries these days, and the fact that it's become a cliche.

Now, fast-forward to 1985. My wife at the time and I were attending that very same church, and I was at a point where I decided it'd be good to give something back to the church that had given me so much, in particular, the High School fellowship. Since they badly needed volunteers for staff, I volunteered to become a staff member. Basically, I'd help plan meetings, help run the group, co-ordinate Bible studies, be a good example, be a friend and mentor to the kids, stuff like that.

I took to it nicely, and the kids liked me a lot as well. False modesty aside, I was one of the "cool" staffers, and became friends with a lot of the kids. As time went on, I did what friends usually do with each other, namely share interests and hobbies. Role-playing games was my hobby, so I tried to start some gaming with the kids. Knowing that D&D was kind of controversial among some conservative Christians (and when it's all said and done, I was definitely a conservative Christian), I tap-danced around AD&D and instead launched campaigns of FASA's Star Trek: The RPG, TSR's Top Secret/SI, and Mayfair's DC Heroes. So far so good. No problems, no concerns.

At this time in my life, I actually worked at home as a full-time writer, churning out stuff for TSR, West End Games, FASA, etc. I did the Mr.Mom thing and wrote gaming stuff, and supported half our household with my gaming writing. Some of the parents of the High Schoolers held a sort of "get to know you" mixer at one of their houses. One conversation proved my undoing. The following is a pretty good recreation of it, though certainly not verbatim.

Nosy Parent: John, what do you do for a living?
Me: I'm a stay at home dad and a freelance writer.
Nosy Parent: A writer! That's wonderful! What do you write?
Me: Well, do you know that game Dungeons and Dragons? I write for them and other games like that.
Nosy Parent (pauses, gives that look usually reserved for people who say "Hi I eat babies for fun and profit"): Oh. I.....see. Well then. That's....nice.
(cue the Imperial March from Star Wars Episode IV)

A few weeks later, the Youth Pastor told me that a group of parents had "concerns" about me. While they had no doubts about my faith and sincerity thereof, they were "concerned" about my occupation, seeing how D&D had this bad reputation. The situation quickly escalated. Of the 40 families involved in some way with the High School fellowship, a quarter of them thought I was the greatest thing to happen to Youth Ministry since sliced bread, a quarter of them thought I was (knowingly or unwittingly) leading their kids down the Highway to Hell, and the remaining half had no opinions either way or just plain didn't care.

The negative parents asked if I'd at least be willing to listen to a man who gave lectures about the evils of D&D. Trying at this point to pacify these people, I went along with it. The guy was this earnest fellow who apparently went on tour around the country, preaching the evils of D&D, rock music, and other bad things. I was shown the Chick tracts (oh hey, it's comic relief!). I was shown the pamphlets and yes, even entire books, about the evils of D&D. This man not only told me that D&D was Satanic, so were Christmas trees, Christmas wreaths, and Disney (ok, in light of recent Disney practices over the last decade or so, he may have had something there! BWAH!), among other things. Everything had hidden symbolism and "meant something", and that something was your buddy and mine, Say-tun.

I looked at the pamphlets and saw stuff about fantasy gaming and dealing with stuff like demon summoning, human sacrifice, and sexually-oriented violence. "Hey!", I said. "This isn't even Dungeons and Dragons! It's the Arduin Grimoire!" "It's like Dungeons and Dragons!" was the reply. "No it isn't!," I insisted. "It's a different game, and besides, this pamphlet's actually saying it IS D&D, and that could be considered slander!"

Problem with arguing with a fanatic, is that you just can't win. So, that meeting was a bust. I remained unconvinced that I was damning myself and scores of innocent teenagers. But at least it seemed that we'd reached a stalemate.  We agreed to disagree. I attended their ridiculous meeting, and that was that.

WRONG!

First, I had a meeting with the Senior Pastor of the whole darned church, because these parents weren't dropping the matter. We talked for an hour. Afterwards, he told a group of parents and other staff that he was convinced that I was a "devoted, faithful young man of God who is clearly not being misled or anything of the sort." Clean bill of health, off the hook, right?

WRONG!

See, this church is Congregationalist. Congregationalism is a flavor of Protestantism whose main tenet is "a small organized group of hateful nutjobs can derail things and push through their own agendas, even if 90% of the church and staff disagree with them". OK, so I'm being facetious, but that's pretty close to the mark.

There was a large meeting held about li'l ol' me. Parents and staff were invited. I wasn't invited because, as the Youth Pastor explained, it would probably prove to be embarrassing for me. My response was that I couldn't possibly get more embarrassed about this than I already was! Nevertheless, I wasn't in attendance, and from what I heard, it was basically a shouting match. When the dust settled, neither side budged. The parents who were dissenting said they intended to keep making this an issue until I stepped down. The kids were getting caught in the middle of this, and it was tearing the Youth Fellowship apart. So, since I was so evil and possessed and such, I "did the right thing" and stepped down.

The only thing I didn't yield on was when there was some item written up about my departure, I made them change "resigned the group" to "was forced to quit the group". Hey, when you're not getting any victories, you relish even the tiniest one!

The kids were livid. The kids whose parents were causing this trouble were embarrassed and resentful of them. Ironically, this group of over-protective parents may have done more to drive their kids away than anything else. In an attempt to keep their kids under their thumbs, they accomplished the opposite.

We stayed at the same church for a little while longer, then eventually decided to attend a church closer to home.

The whole affair pretty much shattered my Fundamentalist tendencies. I had been above reproach, done everything by The Book (pun intended, yeah why not), and all it took was ten parents to point their fingers at me and shout "Unclean!", and I was gone. I had been taught for years that the Church was my family and my refuge, and that "the world" was out to get me, and yet the biggest knife in my back came from the very church that was ostensibly here to help me!

It took a few years for me to not only get over this, but to sort out my exact feelings on the matter. I decided that the matter didn't shake my faith in God, but it sure made me suspicious of His people. I still believe, and do consider Christianity to be an excellent way of life, when it's not being contaminated by personal agendas. My flip assessment of the matter has usually been: "Jesus is cool, it's His people that suck!" Yeah, a blanket statement, I know. There ARE decent churches out there, I know this. I don't dismiss the notion of organized religion, and in fact find it to still be a useful tool for worship; a means to an end, not an end in itself. But let's just say I'm wary now. God didn't let me down; some of His people did.

So yeah, I'm between churches, and have seen first-hand how ignorance can ruin lives and cause unnecessary pain and problems. As for Chick, I hope there's a very special place in Hell reserved for people who knowingly lead others astray (hint: D&D isn't the only thing he's slandered).

Tags: Religion Anti-D&D Nutcase Christianity

With OGC over and everyone engaging in reminiscing, feedback, and such, I thought I'd add a little somethiing to my already posted opinions of the con. This time, I'm posting what can best be described as Designer's Notes....giving those who are interested a peek behind the curtain and show how I came up with the three adventures I did for OGC and why I did what I did.

The three adventures were, "Isn't It Romantic?" for Paranoia, "Everybody Dies" for Call of Cthulhu, and "The Pursuit of Justice" for D&D 3.5. I'll take them in that order.

Isn't it Romantic
Well, obviously, everyone was a member of the Romantics, but the further twist was that everyone was actually a spy for a different Secret Society. And hey, why not? Afer all, everyone already has a Mutant Power and is a member of a Secret Society, and naively believes that they are the only one (or at least one of a very small, very elite percentage of the population), so why not add another secret that each Troubleshooter is convinced that he/she is the only one? So yeah, everyone's a spy for elsewhere.

Since The Romantics worship the Old Reckoning culture (as in, our culture today), then it only makes sense that the society has splintered into different factions. DC fans, Marvel fans, Trekkies, X-File enthusiasts, etc. Since the theme of the con was "superheroes", that part of the backstory practically wrote itself. This was going to have to involve superheroes. And since I'm a DC fanboy, guess which one got more coverage? And guess who the eventual enemies were in the Big Battle?

Which brings me to the gear. Research and Development ALWAYS has new technology for the Troubleshooters to field-test. So, I grabbed some of the more logical/popular DC gear or tech that duplicated powers and put it into the game. Some close runners-up that were discarded at the last moment were: the Atom's size/weight control belt, Hawkman's anti-gravity belt and hawk wings, and, God help us, a suit that enabled someone to duplicate the powers of Aquaman! The twist for this equipment was that, the stuff actually WORKED (with a few grotesque exceptions). Granted, some of it worked TOO well (Green Lantern's ring-mounted green laser kept going through its target and punched holes in stuff behind the victim), but it worked. And of course, Green Arrow's trick arrows had to include a thermonuclear warhead arrow; it's NOT Paranoia if there isn't some access to nuclear weapons. One group used it, so that's a job well done!

The Planet of the Apes/Escape from NY cosplay scenario was the last locale I put in, since I needed some more encounters to flesh things out, and figured that another Romantics sub-group with be the Cosplayers.

As for using Sesame Street,well, the show's supposedly an educational tool. So, to the people of Alpha Complex, this is some ancient center of learning. I also really hate Elmo, so I enjoyed placing him in the module as an eventual target.

Everybody Dies
I approached this one asking myself "What would happen if a group of Investigators already STARTED out the adventure insane, but the insanity was subtle?" And so, that was the premise I used....a group of seasoned Investigators are already nuts, as a result of a pyrrhic victory against an Elder God. The insanity? Multiple Personality Disorder. Each Investigator's brain overloaded and created a new persona based on the Investigator's hobbies/interests, in order to cope with the madness. So, the meek accountant who loved reading adventure stories became an Indy Jones-like character. The mundane housewife who loved going to movies became a movie star, etc.

The next thing was the setting. Part of the horror of Lovecraft's stories is the isolation featured in many of them. Gee, how about an island off the coast of Maine with no boat handy? Isolated enough? Ok, check. Graveyards and asylums are prime Cthulhu fodder, so how about an asylum on an island? What else do islands have? A dock and maybe a lighthouse. OK, done.

Next came the antagonist. There's no creature that possesses victims in the way I wanted it to, so I made up my own. It's a minion, a herald of...who? Hmmm...Hastur seems to be big on the whole "stars are right" thing, so let's make it a Herald Of Hastur, who is trying to bring his lord to Earth.

And here's the adventure's deep dirty secret: there was NO timeline to speak of! Sunset would happen around 6pm. The possessed professor who summoned the adventurers needed to sacrifice them around 2 am (which is why I tried to keep a poker face when people suggested "Let's just spend the night here in the asylum's cellar and explore tomorrow when it's light"). That's it. Otherwise, the adventure was completely open-ended. Want to check the lighthouse first? Sure, be my guest. Explore the asylum? Yeah, go for it. Check out the old graveyard? Whoops, that's where the professor is. Do it during the remaining daylight of that first day, and he'll be more or less rational. At night, he's completely possessed by the Herald, and ready to use Mythos spells to summon armies of Byakhee or turn Investigators into beef jerky.

The adventure delivered on its promise, "Everybody Dies", because everyone's fake persona wound up "dying" when an anti-psychotic drug was administered.

The Pursuit of Justice
The con's theme was superheroes, and what D&D class personifies the hero who fights for Truth, Justice, and the Faerunian Way than a Paladin? Paladins are my favorite class, and I feel they end up misunderstood by many players. And that's scarecely surprising, considering how many times I've seen Paladins played as these dour, humorless, milk-drinking, naive, armored tanks that run around screaming "Repent!" while swinging their sword at anything that remotely resembles evil. Unfair, I tell you....unfair!

So, let's do seven paladins (yeah, a nod to "The Magnificent Seven", and "The Seven Samurai"), and make them from as disparate a group of gods as possible. First of all, no Tyr or Torm...those two are done to death, and are more the stereotypical Paladin gods anyway. Desi, the gnome Paladin of Garl, is based on an NPC in my Forgotten Realms campaign. Dark Agnes, the tiefling who follows Siamorphe, goddess of nobility, is based upon the same character in my campaign and is run by my wife Carol. Matthias, the follower of Ilmater is based in part on a similar cleric recently run by my son John. The paladin of Lathander was thrown in to be more of the stereotypical paladin, the Hoar-worshipper was patterned after Wild West bounty hunters, and the paladin of Kelemvor was based on Hugh Jackman's VanHelsing, only without the ludicrousness of the movie. As for the paladin of Sune, I threw her in to be a) an annoyance, b) a possible romance partner with the paladin of Lathander, c) a counter-balance to the grim and gritty paladins, and d) all of the above.

As for the encounters, although there were ample chances for butt-kicking, many of the encounters were tailored for a non-violent, creative resolution. There was no "right" way of doing it. Also, each encounter was meant to highlight one of the Seven Deadly Sins.

And again, like the Cthulhu adventure, the title described things to a T, since the Paladins were pursuing a crazed/possessed cleric of Helm who called himself Justice.

So, in a nutshell, that's how/why I came up with the things that I did.  Which leads us into...

What To Expect Next Year
I've heard that the theme for next year is "Evil Wins". If that's the case, then I'm looking at my D&D 3.5 offering to be a party tentatively consisting of an anti-paladin, an assassin, a cleric of Talona (goddess of disease and poison), a Red Wizard of Thay, a particularly sadistic barbarian, and a sleazy amoral roguish swashbuckler type. Again, that's tentative.

I already know what I'm doing for Paranoia, but sorry, Citizen, you are not cleared for that level of information!

And the less you know about what to expect from a particular Cthulhu adventure, the more fun it is!

Tags: OGC D&D Cthulhu Paranoia DM GM Writing Adventure

OK, con's over. Back to reality. Voice is almost back to 100%.

 

Before I write a single word about the con, I think I need to bring people up to speed on my whole con mindset, as to make it clear as to where I'm coming from. I used to hit a lot of gaming cons, including of course, GenCon. I faithfully attended local cons, and contributed tournaments to many of them. As time went by, GenCon got too damned expensive (then eventually left Milwaukee), some local cons died, and some of the ones that remained seemed to decline in quality, at least as far as I was concerned. Disillusioned, I quit the con circuit. My time and money could be better spent elsewhere.

 

OGC has marked my return to con-going, although it's the only one I attend. Frankly, I enjoy gaming with my own group way too much to devote precious weekends to cons. So, if I'm going to do it, it better be a.) seldom, and b.) a damned good con.

 

OGC is a damned good con, and this year, they outdid themselves. I'd have to go back pretty bloody far back in my con experiences to find one that compares with the enjoyment, the pleasantness, and the organization of OGC 2008. This was one of the great ones in my book.

 

The OGC staff, that hardworking talented bunch, deserves heaps and heaps of praise for putting together such a wonderful con experience. Because I'll tell ya, when a con's been around for a few years, they sometimes experience a drop in quality and (and this one's inexplicable) a drop in organization. You'd think after doing it a few years in a row, a con staff would now know what to do. But no, with many cons, they seem to suddenly forget all the neat stuff they did years before, and suddenly, it's a huge mess. Weird.

But not so with this year's OGC. Everything, at least from where I was sitting, looked like it ran smoothly. I don't know attendance figures, but there seemed to be a good-sized crowd (esp on Saturday), and you'd think that a lot of people would result in more mix-ups and problems. But again, sure didn't look like it from where I was sitting.

Here's a measure of how good this con was. My wife Carol's been taking a break from gaming for an indefinite period....trying to avoid burnout, that sort of thing. She didn't even run her usual Cthuluh Gaslight at OGC. In fact, she was only planning on swinging by the con for about an hour on Saturday, then head off. She ended up staying for the balance of Saturday, and came back again on Sunday! She said "I only started realizing how much I missed this when I actually got here, sat down, and started interacting with people."

Here, in no particular order, are my highlights:

Frank Mentzer. As a rule, I tend to downplay not only the zillions of things I've written for the gaming industry, but also who in the industry that I not only know, but am also friends/associates/co-workers with. I tend to not blow my own horn, although others have repeatedly told me that I apparently have justification to do so if I wanted. Frank's one of my fellow TSR conspirators, and it was an absolute pleasure to see him again! In fact, he found me at the con before I maanged to find him! It was fantastic catching up with him on things, talking a bit about the old days, the new days, and everything in between. Capping it all off was hearing him publicly praising my writing, and I tell ya, that felt GOOD!  Hope to see him at future OGCs!

Fourth Edition Hatred. I was pleased and gratified to hear people villify 4th Edition throughout the weekend. It made me feel all warm and gooey inside! If RPGBomb ever has a position open for Official Fourth Edition Hater, I wish to toss my wizard's hat in the ring.

"My" Players: Without exception, every table I ran at OGC was a fun, rewarding experience. I was impressed not only by the number of people at the con, but the quality of gamers in attendance. People were sharp, on the ball, on time, ready to rock and roll, and played some damned good sessions. If you were at my table, I salute you!

Meeting Bombers: I'm great at remembering faces, lousy at names. That's my deep dark secret. Finally placing faces to RPGBomb names, realizing that some of the people on RPGBomb are people I already KNEW (how embarrassing!), etc., was an extra-special treat. It was great meeting some folks for the first time (Andre and CCG leap to mind immediately).

Bizarre Crap: Anytime I get the opportunity to put a sock puppet on my hand and scream at people is a good time indeed!

Random Moments: Here's some random moments that definitely made my con.
- Peeing on a wall to wash away a Mythos spell design
- Colliding in mid-air with Big Bird, causing explosive eggs in his BACK-SIDE to detonate
- A 20-20-15 Instant Kill (3.5 rules) to destroy Cyric's avatar during the dramatic Final Battle of the adventure.
- Forcing mimes to make noise, so that the Mime Enforcement Bot lasered them to death
- NPC Marriage counseling, courtesy of a Sunite paladin
- A barrage of dynamite, grenades, kerosene, and exploding ether cans
- Shooting Howdy Doody in the chest
- Talking hill giants into abandoning their post, instead of simply attacking them
- FLUFFY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
- Mister Scooples
- Pyrokinesis accidentally touching off an ammo dump of cone rifle shells, including some napalm ones, taking out half of Sesame Street
- Vun! Vun dead Troubleshooter! AH! AH! AH! (insert sound of rumbling thunder here)
- Thermonuclear warhead arrow, right down the elevator shaft

I could go on and on, but for everyone's sake, I'll stop.

In closing, once again, bravo to the OGC staff! And all you players, give yourselves a hand, too!

Can't wait for next year. Already got my ideas together. And Carol's gone on record as promising to run two Cthulhu scenarios!

Tags: OGC

AAAAAAAAA!!AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!! OGC's less than a week away, and my 3 adventures aren't even done yet!!!!

AAAAAAAAA!!

AAAAAAAAA!!!!!

Where's my books? Where are those #$%^ing maps!!?! How many feats does a non-human Paladin have, anyway!?? How many Secret Societies are allied with the Romantics? What's the SAN loss for this interdimensional thingamabomb!?!?!?!  #$%^#ed if I know! AAAAA! AAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!

And why the %$%^$ am I posting a blog when I could be writing??

#$%^#ed if I know!!! Don't ask such stupid questions!!!

AAAAAAA!!! I'm doomed! Doomed, I tell you!!! AAAAAAAA!!! AAAAAAAAA!!!!!!


Hey, see everyone this Friday!!!!  

Tags: OGC Panic AAAAAH

Gather round, people, and listen to one of Aesop's classic fables. This one's called The Miller, The Son, and the Donkey, embellished a little by yours truly.

Once upon a time there was an elderly miller and his son. The son was a strong, healthy young man who often helped his old father at working the mill. One day, the miller and his son decided to take a donkey that they had raised, and sell it in town. So, the two men walked down the road, the donkey following behind.

They passed a group of people who looked at the trio, and shook their heads. "What a waste of a donkey!," they sneered. "One of you could at least ride it!"

So the old miller offered his son the chance to ride the donkey, and he did. After a bit more travel, they encountered another group of people. "Shame on you! A big strong lad like yourself, riding a donkey while your tired old father has to walk! Shame!" they shouted.

So, ashamed, the son dismounted, and put his father on the donkey instead. They continued on. They met more people. "What kind of father are you, making your child walk?", they snapped. So, ashamed, the father decided to let the son get on as well. They continued on, both of them now riding the donkey.

They met a group of protesters from PETA, who stopped their harrassing of a helpless milkmaid to turn their wrath on the miller and his son. "You men are abusing that animal!" they shrieked. "Animals have feelings too! And are those shoes...leather!?!?!".

So guilt-stricken were the two men (for lo, they were at heart, a pair of suckers), that they decided to carry the donkey themselves, bearing it on their shoulders! Yes, the donkey was now in effect riding the two men.

A group of gamers who were waiting in line for convention registration saw this spectacle and, since they were bored out of their skulls from waiting, were therefore easily amused. When they saw the donkey riding the men, they howled with laughter. Unfortunately, the noise spooked the donkey, who twitched, flailed, and slipped out of the men's grips.

Guess they picked the wrong time to be crossing a bridge over a raging river.

The donkey drowned, and that was that.

The moral is: Those who seek to please everybody end up pleasing nobody.

So...what's the point of this fable? Is this a blog entry about how to handle jackasses? No, it's because the miller's situation is the sort of thing that can happen if you have a gaming group composed of people with varying tastes, and they all want their suggestions implemented. Some gamers want high-fantasy, where the noble epic heroes explore the magical forest of Zinfandel in search of the Golden Codpiece of Protection, before facing the Dread Lord Sorehead and his plans to overrun the peaceful kingdom of Freedonia. Others want low fantasy, aiding Boss Scumbag and his All-Whore Assassins in breaking into the treasure vaults of the Duke of Earl. Some want no role-playing, just a constant beat-down of an endless series of enemies, while others want to know what their motivation is for buying a head of lettuce from a local merchant, and insist on role-playing every little detail.

And those are just the meta-topics. Go into details, and it gets worse:

"No elves! They're too fruity!"
"Put in elves! They're magical and other-worldly!"
"Halflings are supposed to be roly-poly, and with hairy feet!"
"No! Halflings are half-sized people with lots of attitude, and their women are total babes, as seen on covers of the Dragon during the days of 3.5!"
"I want lots o'treasure! We need rewards for our risks!"
"Don't put in too much treasure! It starts to become ho-hum."
"Dragons rule! You can never have too many of them! That's why the game's called Dungeons and DRAGONS!"
"Dragons? They're cliche! Put in something else as the main baddie, like a possessed flumph!"
"Take a shower! You smell!"
"Don't shower so much. Your soapy smell makes me feel inadequate!"

Now, any DM worth is or her salt will try to incorporate people's likes and dislikes, but eventually you have to draw the line somewhere. The problem is, you can't incorporate everyone's ideas. And the problem with THAT is, if you don't, some people may get ticked off. Especially those people who say "Now, this is just my opinion", but in fact really mean "This is my opinion, and I expect you to go along with it." When you don't, well, that's when trouble starts.

That's why I eventually adopted this philosophy: "This is my campaign, and this is the way I run things. While I don't mind being corrected if I'm doing something wrong, I will not be changing my running style just to suit individual tastes, because everyone's tastes are different. So rather than incorporating everyone's suggestions, I'll incorporate none of them."

Harsh, perhaps, but it ends arguments. That way, you're not favoring anyone. The following is an actual exchange I had, not quite verbatim but pretty close, as it made quite an impression on me. One gamer of mine had come up with a list of things she thought I should change. We're not talking here about rulings and such, we're talking tone, content, DM style, etc. One she presented the list, my reaction went like this:

 

ME: Well, this is the way I do things. It's always worked for me, and it's what I'm familiar with. People come to my games because this is what they expect from me, and so it all works out. I will not change what I'm doing and/or how I do it. If this doesn't sit well with you, then perhaps my game and way of doing things simply isn't for you, and maybe you'd be happier in someone else's game.

HER: (Shocked) Are you actually saying "It's my way or the highway!"?????

ME: Well, I wouldn't put it so harshly but if you're backing me into a corner, then yes, that's pretty much the gist of it.

HER: (Wide-eyed shocked intake of breath, followed by just plain outraged look)

And personally, I think every DM should do this. Each DM has his or her own style. It's incumbent upon the players to adapt to the DM's style, not vice versa.

That doesn't mean that my campaigns are Experiments In Fascism. There's many times when I ask for suggestions, like "Hey guys, what kind of adventure/goal haven't we done in a while, that you'd like to see featured in our next campaign?". Stuff like that. I think DMs should ask for ideas and suggestions of things to do....and maybe even ask stuff like "What things have you enjoyed more, and what things do you find yourself wishing to see less of?"

 

So, like so much of the rest of life, DMing (and I daresay, GOOD DMing) involves a balancing act. You have to stay true to your style, but try and do stuff that your players will enjoy. That way, there's plenty of enjoyment to go around on both sides of the screen.

Tags: DM Fascist Donkey Aesop Fable

When we last left my tale of the Early Days, I hinted that the good stories coming out of my group lured a large wave of new people into my game. As I mentioned before, my campaign consisted of myself as the DM, plus four women (Allison, Elise, Christine, Robyn), and was then supplemented by two later additions (Kim, and our first guy, Eric).

Now, what needs to be borne in mind is that  all my players came from the same source: the college-age Christian fellowship of which I was part of, and attended on Sundays along with the regular church service. The fellowship, called Seekers (after Matthew 5:33), was composed of students from a large number of colleges in the greater Boston area (particularly MIT, Wellsley, Harvard, Northeastern, and BU).

This all needs to be said in order for people to understand why the next stage of my campaign's history was called "The BU Invasion". Now, before the BU Invasion hit, we gained one more member; and that was Tim, boyfriend of Robyn, who in turn was one of the founding four. She asked if he could join. I agreed, and he brought in a cleric named....Tim. Yes. Tim the Cleric. Considering that Monty Python and the Holy Grail fever was still raging at the time, the name sort of squeaked by.

I also need to pause and point out the following irony....back in those dim dark years of 1978-1979, few women role-played, and certainly born-again Christians weren't supposed to. So naturally, the group consisted overwhelmingly of female players, and all of us were born-again, evangelical Christians. Man, do I love swimming against the tide!

SO anyway...the BU Invasion.  (p)Rick, the player that I've referenced before in terms of his role in the unfair slaughter of my first paladin (see the appropriate Curmudgeonly Rambling), was nominally affiliated with the BU contingent at Seekers. And he told everyone about it. They were fascinated.

Suddenly, I received this massive influx of B.U. students, eager to play the game, and I was still suffering from that bizarre disease that prevented me from using the word "no". Our active roster, as in, people who we could count on attending every weekly game, soared to SIXTEEN. Now, it needs to be said that of my original six players, all but Allison left the group. So, in essence, I gained fifteen new players, and among them were the guy who I've called Batman in previous entries, the guy named Donzo who played stupid useless characters, and a host of others.

And people were so eager to start, that, rather than roll up characters for their first session, they'd look through the "dead pile" that I kept (for ego purposes....sort of having a trophy of every kill!), renamed the character, changed the alignment, and off they went (a lot of these dead pile characters never made it past 1st level, so it was an easy process). And fortunately, (