 “I recognize terror as the finest emotion and so I will try to terrorize the reader. But if I find that I cannot terrify, I will try to horrify, and if I find that I cannot horrify, I'll go for the gross-out. I'm not proud.” -Stephen King, On Writing
Horror gaming can be tough to DM. Not all players are created equal. Some can be much harder to put a scare into than others, either through personal experience or through a difficulty in connecting with the game world deeply enough to truly be scared. Fortunately, there are several different types of fear, which increase in their scope and universal effectiveness as they decrease in severity. Once you’re familiar with what the different types are, and know which kind you’re going for with your encounters, you can exert a greater degree of control over your group's emotions. 1) Terror When you successfully terrify a player, you scare them in a way that has a long-term, lasting effect. This is possibly the hardest form of fear to inflict on a player, and may not be possible to do purposely. Terrifying someone depends on a lesser form of fear touching a nerve and creating an association that’s hard to shake. When you successfully terrify a player or character you’ll see a shift in their behavior that will last for months, if not years. After a particularly gruesome encounter with a Kyuss worm nearly a decade ago, I over-react to zombies in D&D, usually refusing to engage them in melee. Especially if the group is underpowered or the cleric is down. The truth is that this is the grand slam of player reactions. The catch? You can’t force it to happen. All you can do is apply the other types of fear correctly and hope for the magical connection to cause the niggling sense of dread that just won’t leave. 2) Horror The little brother of terror, horror is the best form of fear most DMs can achieve purposely. Horror is deep, resonant fear that broadly affects behavior for a short time. It’s caused by your players forming a meaningful connection with the fearful encounter. In the first campaign I ran for my wife, I found myself stymied by the fact that she was very blasé about most in-game threats. Once I started threatening her animal companions and made it clear through one tragic encounter that her magic couldn’t fix all the wrongs, she began responding much more honestly to their peril. That encounter successfully horrified her. The best way to arrange a horrifying encounter is to know how your players think and feel. Once you can know their motives and predict their actions, you can create a much greater amount of emotional resonance with your scenes. Crafting situations which are fearful in a way that connects with your players on a personal level becomes easier. Be careful using actual phobias or mental traumas as leverage against a player, however. Such things are usually best left to close relationships where the other party is comfortable being manipulated in such a manner. 3) Anxiety Anxiety is a fear of what is to come, rather than a fear of what has already happened. Anxiety is next to impossible to create, but there’s a trick: players create anxiety themselves. All you have to do is feed those sparks, and you can turn their reasonable concerns into a nail-biting, ulcer-burning inferno of anticipation. If your players are smuggling illegal items through a kingdom and one player mentions that they don’t want to get caught, you can seize the opportunity to create anxiety. Maybe you can show a few beggars, pleading with their stumps, and then mention that hand removal is the common punishment for smuggling. You could have them pass a merchant being scourged in the town square for avoiding trade duties. Maybe a border guard eyeballs the party suspiciously and starts walking nonchalantly in the same direction that the party is. These add gradual fuel to the fire, increasing the initial fear. It spreads to other players as well, who begin to wonder if the first person was onto something after all… 4) Fright Fright is the jump scare. It’s not a fear of something that has happened or will (even potentially) happen, it’s a fear of something that is a clear and present danger. Frightening players is quite easy, it’s just a matter of presenting a threat of uncertain magnitude. Frightened players don’t know if they can defeat this monster and aren’t sure if they should engage in combat or flee. The razor’s edge between fight and flight is where fright lives. Unfortunately, fright is also usually short lived; it lasts only moments on screen, and no more than a round or two in game. Like a drug, fright also loses its potency with repeated exposure. The more you resort to it, the more players will begin to expect it, and the less uncertain they will be. 5) Paranoia Paranoia is very close to anxiety. At its root, it is the fear that something is not what it appears to be. The good news for the DM is that paranoia is the easiest form of fear to inflict on players, and can have an impressive duration. Even players who are inured to most kinds of fear through experience or lack of immersion can be made to engage in paranoia. Gamers are by nature a perceptive and suspicious lot, which is the basic recipe for paranoid fits. Simple set them up and wait for the avalanche to start. For instance, check your text messages, then ask everyone to give you a written copy of their inventory. After an innocuous conversation with an NPC, ask everyone what their Will saves are. Pass a secret note to a player that says, ‘Read this note without speaking, then look at me, shake your head, and say “Not now.”’ Call a player outside for a separate scene. It takes very little to make players think that the world around them can’t be trusted. It takes a little more work to make them suspect that one of their own can’t be trusted, but this kind of paranoia is the most biting, since it undermines the bedrock of stability their entire little world is formed upon: the sanctity of the party. 6) Revulsion We don’t usually think of being grossed out as a form of fear, but it is. Even if you find yourself with the most jaded of players whose personal experiences have left them numb to the ravages of most forms of spine-tingling scares, you can still hit them with a situation gross enough to make them wrinkle their nose in disgust. NPC allies who are particularly revolting are a good start. Persistent slobbering speech patterns, deep hacking coughs, or harsh growling voices can all cause a player to recoil. Your objects of fear can be more visceral, too; when using these tangible sorts of scares, really hammer the descriptive points to drive the sensations home. The stench of rotten meat from a carcass that the PC just can’t get off of their hand no matter what they do, the slippery entrails that stretch and flop every which way as the character tries to move them, or the tingling itch as scores of insects climb through their hair and clothing can all be enough to make even the most hardened adventurer push away from the table to pull themselves together. Conclusion The types of fear are like tools in a safecracker’s kit; sometimes you can’t use the picks and you’ll need to go to the drill. When the delicate tools don’t work, the broader types of fear are still available as a fallback. Of course, in the same way that veteran safecrackers know that sometimes you just have to resort to the dynamite. Savvy DMs always have a stinking, oozing monster in the wings, just waiting to wrap its clammy fingers around a PC’s throat. Jim Stearns is a deranged hermit from the swamps of Southern Illinois. In addition to writing for the Black Library, he puts pen to paper for High Level Games and Quoth the Raven. His mad scribblings can frequently be found in anthologies like Fitting In or Selfies from the End of the World, by Mad Scientist Journal. Follow him on Twitter @jcstearnswriter. Image link:  Over the last six months or so I’ve been running a 5th Edition D&D game. For me, it was an excuse to run Curse of Strahd. I’d run lots of Ravenloft adventures, but I’d never had a chance to run any form of the original story. Then, I was given the chance to write our 1 page Adventure, A Cat’s Meow, now available for 5th Ed, Pathfinder, and soon to be released for Savage Worlds. That being said, it’s really reawoken a love of the classic fantasy RPG for me. I’ve run a few one-shots, and I’m writing more D&D related content. The bug has bitten me and I wanted to create a few story hooks for people to consider using. Let us know what you think!
1) The Aliens Need Our Help A small countryside village is probably the worst place for something like this to occur. Creatures have dug their way to the surface. At first, the shepherd child was ignored by everyone. He was always a little off anyway. Then someone noticed the lump on his shoulder. It was pulsating. When cornered, he admitted what it was. A refugee from deep below the earth. The creature on his shoulder was an aberration, but it wasn’t out to hurt the boy, or the people of this village. His people need help. They have been trying to escape from the clutches of an Illithid cult that’s conquered their once harmonious collective. Now, the villagers and the aberration are working together to find adventurers willing to help. Will you help? 2) Elected While spending a few nights at a local tavern, something strange occurs. The characters wake to find that one of them has been elected Mayor. Huh, well, that’s weird. Their fellow tavern goers congratulate them wholeheartedly. On the way to the Town Hall to try and figure out what is going on, all of the people they pass cheer for them. How in the heck do they know who the party is? As they enter the Square, they see a well oiled guillotine being set-up. A man is dragged down the steps of the Town Hall, he screams, “Don’t take the job, it’ll be the death of you!” What is going on in this town, do you want to know? 3) Romero and Julian The Orc King, Romero, is marrying his 3rd spouse, Julian, an Elven Prince. Julian’s family are not particularly pleased with the wedding, but they’ve agreed because it offers the chance to reduce hostilities between the two nations. Besides, Julian and Romero are clearly in love, and Romero’s current partners are quite happy to include him in their family. The problem? They need a specific ingredient for a cake they want to have made. It’s a spice only grown in a cave guarded by a Wyvern, behind the Horde of Undead in the Graveyard of Destecatur. At the back of this gave is a small pot, planted by Romero’s Grandfather with the special spice. Romero and Julian hire the characters to retrieve the spice. Their reward will be gold, and a special place at the wedding ceremony of the century. So, there you go. Three plot hooks you can use to generate some game play for your D&D campaign. My goal here was to create something (slightly) different than you might have seen anywhere else. Do you like them? Do you have your own ideas you’d like to share? With 19 years of playing rpgs, Josh started with Mind's Eye Theater LARPs and loves the World of Darkness. He recently launched,www.keepontheheathlands.com to support his gaming projects. Josh is the administrator of the Inclusive Gaming Network on Facebook. He’s a player in Underground Theatre LARPs and is running a Mage game and a D&D 5th Edition campaign. He’s a serious advocate for inclusive gaming spaces, a father, and a graduate from the International Peace and Conflict Resolution graduate program at American University in Washington, D.C. Art from Wizards of the Coast  Azalin wasn’t the only one complaining about the focus on extinct noble bloodlines in the third Gazetteer. Many reviewers were dismayed about the amount of ink spilled on in-game stories with few spent on adventure hooks. What’s the point of having rich deep history if it doesn’t affect the present? What follows is a series of suggested adventure hooks around the lost noble family of de Boistribue. The entire extended family of hunters and woodsmen vanished from their massive manor one December night in 493 BC, the only surviving servant unable to give any explanation. Each can be played as an independent adventure, or they can be strung together into a campaign arc where the PC’s piece together the unspeakable fate of the doomed family.
1) The Fell Omen A PC traveling through the Forest of the Ancients glimpses a huge sprawling manor house in the distance. The sight of the manor house is a terrible omen--all who have seen it disappear within three turnings of the moon. Once word gets out, locals shun the PC as cursed, but a local soothsayer declares the curse may be lifted if the PC goes hunting in the forest overnight wearing the de Boistribue colors. If they dismiss it as overreaction of some superstitious locals, the manor inexplicably shows up again and again on the edge of their vision, even miles away from where they saw it last, bringing bad luck each time until they spend that night in the woods. 2) Winter Chill Not all the servants died in the manor itself. The winter snows were deep that December, and several of them fled the madness only to freeze to death. Their fear, pain and desperation made them into snow wraiths or possibly frost vampires that return with the snowfall. PC’s may be called on to fight the creatures when local logging companies want to extend their season a little more into the winter, only to find their lumberjacks frozen to the bone. The lairs of these creatures surround the manor’s original location; the phantasmal version that stalks through the woods is actually a kind of ghost in itself, but the original holds much bigger secrets. 3) Braving The Manor Forced to take refuge from storm or foe, the party enters the infamous manor itself to find the ghosts of dozens of servants haunting the many hunting trophies, clawed woodworks and bloodstained walls. These ghosts don’t remember much, except how the entire family turned into animals before their eyes and tore them apart. A few benign ghosts protect the PC’s from the more ferocious spirits, and ask the PC’s to remove their half-eaten remains and give them a proper burial. This may prevent the manor from dogging their steps, but PC’s seeking more answers should have no trouble finding it later. 4) The Sole Survivor While visiting Saulbridge Sanitarium, a PC is possessed by the ghost of the only earthly witness to the massacre, who lived out his final days in Saulbridge as a Lost One. He was only a teenage boy locked in an animal pen, who heard the other servants being slaughtered. Finally a monstrous bear came for him, but could not do much damage through the bars. If the party escorts the possessed PC to the manor, the ghost confesses that his incarceration may have prompted a few of the servants to do something terrible to the family, for which all these others suffered the consequences. He doesn’t know what his friends did or how they did it, but he’s terribly sorry. With that, he and several of the more vengeful spirits of the house can finally rest. 5) Return Of The Lost PC’s in the forest on the anniversary of the event discover a spring surrounded by the remaining de Boistribue family, now in the form of talking deer, boars, bears, raccoons and rabbits. Few recall much of what happened that fateful night, but they claim their treacherous servants served a cursed meal that transformed them. They recall their old lives every anniversary by drinking from this spring, but are barely more than ignorant beasts the rest of the year. Strung out over centuries this way, only about a year has passed for them since 493, but their numbers are dwindling, and they demand help. By a solemn promise and a sip from the spring, a PC can establish a bond with one of the animals that will prevent them from fully regressing until they can figure out the solution. This is one interesting way for a PC to gain an animal companion or familiar! 6) The Most Dangerous Game While hunting a werewolf of the Timothy clan, the PC’s find that the clan dates back to early Mordentshire, but they kept a relatively low profile for centuries...as if none of their victims were the kind that went on two legs and could talk. But what kind of werewolf finds sport in hunting dumb beasts? Records of a more arcane sort indicate that the Timothy werewolves are also known for incredible longevity, and that some of them attribute it to rare game in the Forest of the Ancients. If confronted about it, the Timothys claim the de Boistribues hunted their own servants down like beasts for sport, so some of the servants turned the tables and hunted them right back. Records from 489-491 include accounts of Lord de Boistribue hunting captured bandits under the full moon, but nothing about hunting his own servants. Nor is there any record of the surname Timothy among those servants. But the werewolves believe the PC’s are close to a deadly secret, and will stop at nothing to silence them forever. Of course, to string these hooks into an arc with a conclusion, there are many questions left to answer: What offense had that teenage boy committed to be penned up in an animal cage? Who were these friends who did a terrible deed, and why are they not among the ghosts? Did Lord de Boistribue continue hunting human sport after wiping out the bandits? Did he really start hunting his own servants? Whence comes the magic of the spring, and by what force did something change the whole family into immortal animals? Was the werewolf clan somehow related to the servants, or the bandits? Or did they just stumble across the accursed animals and cobble their own myth together about the irony of hunting a family of hunters? There’s room for the lord, a servant or some third party to be a truly monstrous villain, or for a terrible misunderstanding at the heart of it all. And especially you’ll have to decide if breaking the curse means setting the remaining de Boistribue family free into the afterlife, or if they can actually return to the world of mortals and rebuild their legacy. What do you think? Would your PC from this family be a ranger, paladin or barbarian? Matthew Barrett has been playing and writing for Ravenloft for over twenty years, starting with the Kargatane's Book of S series (as Leyshon Campbell). He married his wife on Friday the 13th after proposing to her on Halloween. By tradition, the first story read at birth to each of their three children was The Barker’s Tour, from Ravenloft’s “Carnival” supplement. He is currently working on a Ravenloft-based experiment in crowdsourced fiction using his “Inkubator” system at inkubator.miraheze.org.  We’ve all been there. Someone misses a gaming session, and the GM can’t run her game. All eyes turn to you. You have a week, possibly less, to come up with something. Time is ticking, the grains of sand are falling in the hourglass…. What can be done???
Well, I have a list of generic plots, and if I don’t have time to develop a full bodied plot, I just pick one that seems to fit, dump some NPC’s in, even more monsters, an artifact or two, and allow everything to unfurl. 1) The Exploration The perfect starting adventure, infinitely adaptable. Take a rag tag group of peoples and send them somewhere. Make it boring, just a series of campfires at the end of the day, night after night. Make it a gauntlet, where the players have no way back and have to fight their way through. Give them something good at the end. Maybe one of the party is a traitor? Or a huge boss at the end. Or don't. Defy expectations, always! See Also: Anything from Jules Verne, The Mummy (1999) 2) The Wetworks Ah, killing. Is there anything easier to grasp? Go there, kill the thing. Usually this goes hand in hand with the exploration. Go there, explore your way in, then kill the thing. Now, in games like Shadowrun, you get missions that are just about the killing, and most of the prep would be about actually getting there. So, maybe the hard bit is to get through the security and/or the traps to get to your target (sorry, your Tango). Maybe your target had other ideas, and it is a billion times more powerful than expected. Oh yes, maybe you've been had, my sweet summer child. See Also: Shadowrun, Assassin’s Creed 3) The Recovery Not unlike the previous two, but you'll need to grab something. An artifact? Some sensitive data? There are many choices. Again, the main issues in this plot might simply be that it's horrendously difficult to get to the thing, and the thing itself is just a gimmick. Or maybe the thing is cursed and will actively act against the players. Or the thing will broadcast its location and anyone that can will chase after you mercilessly. You know, a Thursday. See Also: Tomb Raider, Indiana Jones 4) The Heist The Recovery on steroids. You need to go the place and do the thing, but getting in and out is the key aspect. Maybe it needs to be done in total stealth, with zero impact. No killings, just quietly in and out. Maybe the thing is behind enough traps to give pause to Indiana Jones' and Lara Croft's' secret baby. It's stealing from the mafia, stealing from the dragon, stealing from the duke. See Also: The Italian Job, The Hobbit 5) The Escort Someone (or something) needs to get from a to b, preferably in one piece and hopefully alive. Now, for anyone that has ever played an escort mission on a computer RPG knows the hell on Earth this represents. Escorted people are usually idiots. As in, they have the survival instincts of depressed lemmings. So maybe make your escorted an arrogant princess, with tissue thin armour, but a conviction that she can kill red dragons with her own hands. The players will need to balance self-preservation, and making sure she doesn't make the enemy orc splatter her all over the landscape. You can also toss this trope on its ear, and make the escortee completely capable of taking care of herself, and she’s staying with the group so she can use them as expendable resources along the way. See Also: Fallout 4, Any other RPG ever made 6) The Cargo Run A rehashing of the Exploration troupe, with many items from the Escort. Take package or item from point a to point b. Could be run as a chill mission, or as madly as you like. The fact that the NPC that is accepting the delivery will only be known at the end of the adventure, offers new possibilities. Maybe the receiver doesn’t want the item (it might be damaged?), or wants to change the deal, ambushing the players. Maybe there is an animal in package, causing havoc? Maybe the package is cursed? See Also: Firefly 7) The Milk Run This one I borrowed from Shadowrun. It's not a type per se, more of a narrative. Make the mission stupidly easy (a milk run). Convince the players that yes, it'll be THAT easy. Then pull the rug. And watch the fireworks. See also: Any narrative involving a mission. Seriously. So here were my usual adventure types? How many others can you come up with? Rui is a Portuguese scientist that, after ten years doing strange things in labs, decided to become a teacher. Then, two years ago, like he was bit by a radioactive D20, RPG’s came into his life, and he’s now juggling teaching, playing and GMing quite happily. He lives in the UK with his partner Joana, an ungodly number of potted plants, 4 to 5 RPG’s at various stages of completion (and across as many rule systems), and maps, cursed idols, evil necklaces, and any other props he can get his hands on. He’s been writing for HLG for a few months, and is one of the resident vloggers. He can be reached at @Atomic_RPG.  When you’ve been playing role playing games for a long time, it becomes easy to forget how daunting a game is when you first play it. Whenever a new player joins your table, odds are they’re feeling a little lost. Their character sheet is an overwhelming collection of terms, boxes and numbers, their dice are all shaped nicely but they can’t tell which from which, and you, as the GM, are asking them to do something that is essentially a foreign language. Here are six tips for helping new players integrate into your next role playing game.
1) Give Players Spell Cards In games like Pathfinder and Dungeons and Dragons, new players drawn to spellcasters are usually overwhelmed by their spells. They look at the lists of spells and choose a few that sound good, but then when it comes time to use them they forget what they do and don’t look them up. Taking their spells off of their character sheet and instead putting them on cue cards will be beneficial in reminding the players what the spells do. On the card, list information that is relevant to the player: the name, the spell level, the range, duration, and effect. Also listing the ‘style’ of the spell can be helpful to the players. For example; fireball would be a ‘combat’ spell and dimensional door would be a ‘utility’ spell. That of course doesn’t mean those spells are only used in those situations, but it helps remind the player what they could use when. Having a spellcaster feel lost and useless in combat is the fastest way to make them not want to play again. Spell cards grant confidence and comprehension that a character sheet cannot. 2) Give Players Resource Cubes Resource cubes can be used to denote anything that has a limited number of uses. For example; the number of spells per day, per level, that a sorcerer can cast. In the game I’m running, I have colour coded each level of spell for my sorcerer and witch characters and gave them a corresponding number of coloured cubes equal to the amount of each level they can cast each day. This way when they want to cast a spell they have a tactile feeling of handing a cube over to me, literally depleting their resources. Using resource cubes allows players to understand their skills and that they have limited uses. When they rest and earn their spells or abilities back you can give them back their spent cubes. This helps a new player get out of their character sheet. For as helpful and informative as that sheet is, it’s also a maze of confusion. Getting beginners away from it at will increase their quality of play. 3) Do the Hard Math on Your End In Pathfinder there is an immense amount of conditions, traits, and curses that a player can be afflicted by. The list is already big enough that I need to look up the majority of them when they happen. Imagine being a new player being told that you are sickened, and that means you get a -2 penalty to attack rolls, weapon damage rolls, saving throws, yadda, yadda, yadda. At about the time the “yaddas” are coming, the player immediately doesn’t know what the hell is even happening. Whenever a player is afflicted with a condition, give them the flavour but leave out the numbers. Instead of listing the specifics, tell the player that they are sickened and they don’t feel as strong as they normally do. Then, when a player rolls, keep track of the effect on your end. This gives you, the GM, a bit more work, but it takes the complex conditions out of the mind of the player and lets them get a handle on playing the game. 4) Give Players Flavour, Then Function When a giant pit opens up beneath a player you’ll tell them to make a Reflex save. Experienced players know what this means, new players will look at their character sheet and then back at you with their mouths slightly askew in confusion. Instead of asking for the save directly, give them the flavour of what is happening. “You walk into a dungeon, a feeling of dread hangs itself here. You feel something tug on the back of your mind pulling you away from yourself. You try to resist the pull and keep yourself whole. Can you make a Will save?” This allows players to not only understand what is happening, but it gives players the association between what the mind is and how Will save can help. Now, this probably seems quite obvious, but you’d be surprised the amount of games I’ve played where the GM, myself included, would just say “Will save” in the previous situation. What this also does is allow your new players to begin filling in gaps. Soon they’ll learn what means what. When a pit traps opens up they’ll begin asking you in excitement, “Can I move out of the way with a Reflex save?” And you can smile and know that they’re learning and enjoying the game. 5) Sometimes You Need to Spoil Them There are going to be times when a new player comes up with an idea in combat that is either really creative or really helpful. Usually this is accompanied by the new player experiencing a real primal excitement at the game for the first time. If the idea doesn’t make true sense to the rules of the game, that doesn’t mean you should immediately shut down their idea. Instead, spoil them, work with them to figure out how the idea could work. If they want to run up a giant’s back and stab them in the back of the neck, make it work for them within believable context of the game. Likewise, if a new player makes a move in combat that is totally plausible by the rules and could really sway the tide of combat, it’s okay to make that action successful even if their roll wasn’t the best. There’s nothing more demoralizing than having a fantastic idea as a new player and then failing because the dice were against you. As a GM, you can’t do this all the time. When the player is still playing with training wheels, it’s okay to spoil them a bit before they realize the dice hate them. These are just a few methods I’ve incorporated in my current campaign to help my new players. They’ve seen relative success and, at this point, they’ve been comfortable in taking part in both the combat and noncombat encounters. None of these ideas are directly related to teaching the player the game, but rather allow the player to understand the purpose of their character and offer them an easier time getting into that character. Roleplaying games work best when everyone at the table is contributing. No players should be left behind because they don’t feel confident enough to know what they are doing. Justin Cauti is a writer and Twitch streamer. He plays board/roleplaying games on the internet at http://www.playingboardgames.tv. Follow him on Twitter for updates on his boring life and writing projects @LeftSideJustin. Image Credit  Ever wanted to have more items at your fingertips to reward your players, or to kit out your bad guys? Or perhaps you and your players have already scoured the items in the core rulebooks over the last few years, and everyone knows what most of the items do. Well fear not - here are nine magic items to inject into your loot piles or to equip to your villains.
When using any magic item in your game, it can be a great idea to ensure that you have a player in your party that can use it to great effect. This holds true especially for weapons - there's no point throwing awesome weapons into your game for them to be tossed to the side because the players are interested in other weapons or play styles. Also take note of little quirks, like temporary resistance to a certain type of damage, or other niche abilities. If you give players an item with a cool niche ability, but its situation never really has time to shine, it can be disappointing for players. 1) Eternal Chestplate (Cursed) Medium Armour Your armour class becomes 25. This item's effects overrule any other modifications to armour class (For example, Dexterity bonuses, Feats, Cover, etc) When you put on this armour, you feel it lock in place so efficiently that it feels like the armour's steel has melded with your bone structure. Removing this armour would inflict great damage to you, and you will be unable to wear this armour again in the future if you remove it. To attempt to remove the Eternal Chestplate, the wearer must pass a DC:15 Strength test. On a failure, they are unable to remove it, and must wait at least another hour before their next attempt. If they succeed, they take 6d6 piercing damage, and the chestplate is removed, but they can never wear the item again. (Hidden Ability) Whenever you are targeted by an attack (hit or miss), your armour class is reduced by 1. (This can potentially cause your Armour Class to plummet well below standard figures, to a minimum of AC1) DM Notes: The Eternal Chestplate is a great cursed item. It's a case of "too good to be true," and the players will be highly suspicious of the immense power of this piece. Note that it is medium armour, so Wizards, Warlocks, etc, will most likely not be able to cast spells while they wear it. Once the character puts the armour on, they become aware of the removal clause (you can tell them the damage that it will deal, and explain that they won't be able to wear it again). However keep the hidden ability secret until the next combat encounter, and then the fun begins! I'd seriously recommend giving this to players that are at least level 6, as the amount of damage this thing will do when removed is high enough to kill low-level characters. When including it in your campaign, either have an enemy boss wear it (after which they can pry the armour off of his bone structure) or even perhaps find it on a corpse of a creature. 2) Goblinbane Longsword +1 (though, this could be modified to be any Melee weapon) This weapon is a +1 magic item; the wielder has a +1 on to-hit rolls and damage rolls with this weapon. The damage this weapon deals is treated as magical damage for the purpose of overcoming resistances and immunities. In addition, any goblin creatures that are adjacent to the character that wields this weapon have an Armour Class value of 10. This overrides cover, dexterity, and any non-magical armour. It will not affect goblins who have magical armour, or a magic item that protects them from magic (e.g. a talisman). DM Notes: Goblinbane is a cool tweak to a magic item that I threw into a one-shot dungeon which had numerous goblin servants. It's not super game-breaking, as goblins have low armour to begin with, and with their minuscule amount of hit points they usually aren't expected to survive anyway. I'd recommend giving this to players that are at least level 3. Giving a magical weapon with a +1 property to a level 1 or 2 party can cause some imbalances in the challenge ratings for low-levels. I'd also include this if your campaign has a decent amount of goblins (say 1 or 2 goblin fights/dungeons every level or two of the characters). When including it in your campaign, it could perhaps be locked deep in a goblin vault so that it cannot be used, or perhaps a rival gnoll tribe (or other enemy of the PCs and the goblins) has this weapon and uses it against goblins themselves, whereby the PCs can kill the wielder and inherit their weapon. 3) Shard of the Archangel (Cursed) Trinket (A shard of Obsidian that is always warm to touch) While you wield this shard in your hands, your spell save DC is increased by 2. Furthermore, whenever you cast an evocation spell of level 1 or higher, deal 2d6 fire damage to a random creature that is within 10 feet of you. (Note that this can potentially hit allies) (Cursed Effect) The DC for your death saving throws is equal to your spell save DC. DM Notes: While it is technically a cursed item, it definitely has the potential for using the abilities as a bit of a tradeoff. Your players would have to watch their positioning to try and mitigate any friendly fire, but at the end of the day, 2d6 isnt going to kill anyone who’s at a reasonable level. The player would have to be careful if they fall unconscious though, those death saving throws are nasty! 4) Bluespark Talisman (Neck Slot) While wearing the Bluespark Talisman, whenever you deal an instance of Lightning damage, you deal an extra 1d4 Lightning damage. Once per day, you can use your reaction to gain resistance to lightning damage until the start of your next turn. DM Notes: The Bluespark Talisman is a simple magic charm that you could give to a lightning-focused Wizard or Sorcerer, or even a tempest Cleric. It gives them a little buff to a bunch of their damage spells, while also giving them a cool new way to use a reaction. 5) Dawn, Avenger Longsword (Longsword) 1d8 Radiant Damage (Versatile 1d10) Dawn is an avenger weapon, wielded by divine heroes and used to turn God's will into reality. While wielding Dawn, you may cast the light cantrip as a bonus action. Dawn also has a holy charge, which refreshes an hour after the previous holy charge was used. The wielder can use the holy charge to use their Channel Divinity ability, or can use it to cast Smite (2d6 extra radiant damage) or Cure Wounds (Heal 1d8) as level 1 spells. DM Notes: Dawn is a Longsword that deals Radiant damage instead of slashing damage. It can only be mastered by a Cleric or paladin usually, but if a "worthy" person wields it then it may also function for them. 6) Totem of Stability (Totem, hand item) Usable only by Druids, Clerics of the Nature domain, or Wizards of the Transmutation school. While the Totem of Stability is wielded in one hand, the wielder has a +10 bonus on all spell concentration checks. DM Notes: This totem is a great little utility item for spell casting-heavy Druids, or other similar spell builds. Note that Druids cannot use the totem while in wild-shape form. As an alternate build, you could make an orb of stability (for Wizards/Sorcerers) or a staff of stability (Clerics, Wizards, Warlocks) or something else, which has the same effect. This is particularly useful as an item if you have a player who is always frustrated by having his concentration spells disrupted. 7) Grimoire of the Black Mace Spell book Requires Pact of the Tome Warlock This item can replace your tome that you use with your pact ability. In addition to the usual benefits, you also have the ability to cast the following spells once per long rest:
DM Notes: This Grimoire is a powerful magic item, for use by PCs at a level of 5 or higher. It really helps out with one of the Warlock's problems, which is their inability to cast a variety of spells in combat. With only two spell slots until level 11, this Grimoire could really come in handy. Perhaps your warlock would have them have to battle an enemy Warlock who is using this tome in battle to get the item in the first place! 8) Negative Dagger of energy (Dagger, but could also be any sword weapon) When this weapon successfully hits a target, the blade gets a charge. The next time this weapon hits an opponent, it deals an extra 1d8 force damage, and the target must pass a DC 10 Con save, or suffer 1 point of exhaustion (Undead and Constructs are unaffected by this ability). The weapon can only store 1 charge at a time, and charges vanish after 1 minute. DM Notes: The Negative Dagger of Energy is a weapon for an assassin, or perhaps a martial hero like a fighter or ranger. It's probably balanced to be suitable for characters between level 4-8. 9) Shield of Iron Will (Shield) When you have this shield equipped, it cannot be removed while you are alive without your consent. You have a +2 bonus to saving throws against fear effects, and against sleep, charm, or hold spells. You also have a +2 bonus on any saves against effects that push, knock prone, or stun. DM Notes: This is a pretty niche item, but it has a few cool mechanics behind it. A lot of shield bearer PCs have a susceptibility to status effects and mind spells, due to their heavy focus into armour class. This item gives them some added protection against spells and other effects that mere armour class cannot provide. It would definitely help too if there was an enemy type that was really annoying them with sleep, charm or hold effects, or perhaps abilities that push, knock them prone or stun them, but that part is optional. In summary, you want magic items to be invaluable to your players. Make them so cool that the players will shudder at the thought of parting with them, instead of simply cashing them in and selling them at the first chance they get. Don’t be afraid of giving them strong items, but make them work for it, for example, make them pry that new sword out of the grasp of the bandit leader they just killed. And also keep in mind that you may have to adjust the difficulty of encounters as the players get more and more powerful. Finally, don't give your players an item that has a bonus in certain situations if those situations never come up - because that can make the item seem worthless. Now get out there and unleash the power of magic items! Peter is an avid dungeon master, role-player, and story teller. When he's not running homebrew campaigns, he is creating new worlds, or he is reading and writing fantasy stories, forever immersing himself in the gaping black-hole known as the fantasy genre.  At times, even the most creative minds require a jump start or spark to begin formulating their next project. We all seek different forms of inspiration, and in different ways, but I wanted to share some of my favorite sources of inspiration to help those kindred souls who might be struggling to begin creating.
1) Music Even if you’re planning on creating something purely visual, audio influence can help shape or inspire your product. With role-playing, the right music lends emotion to a dry scene or spurs your pen to describe more powerfully an important sequence. I recommend Radiohead’s Videotape (the “Live from the Basement” version if possible) for anything dealing with mortality. For action sequences, works from Two Steps from Hell provide an epic edge not easily found elsewhere. Need to give your game a near future feel, a la Cyberpunk? The soundtrack from Deus Ex: Human Revolution will fuel your mecha-noir fantasies. 2) Film Sticking to the same genre can help you keep the mood right for whatever you’re creating, but I like to mix things up as often as possible. If you’re developing a sci-fi thriller, watch a good Western or Wuxia film. Be prepared to take notes (mental or otherwise) about similarities and differences between them. Flex your creative muscles and ask, “what if this tale had a different theme, or a more interesting adversary?” After you digest the plots and create your fusion, continue to make tweaks to make the new work all your own. Soon, you’ll have something that takes hints from successful predecessors, but otherwise belongs entirely to you. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is a masterpiece that I recommend to anyone wanting to blend action and drama, regardless of the end genre or setting you’re creating. 3) Literature Though many of us find reading to be too time consuming, especially when preparing our own creative works, I believe that it is essential to return to the roots of creation when seeking inspiration. Reading about current events, history, or philosophy can provide you with endless thematic material that will not only inspire you to create, but also impassion you. Classic fiction provides a jumping-off point for any project, and will give you an understanding of similar works that came before. Blend stories together and give them a modern perspective to create something fresh and intriguing. For role-playing games, these sources can provide us with inspiration for settings, characters, and complex themes. 4) Art When creating the setting for a Cyberpunk game that I ran a few years ago, I used the very wonderful artbook from the video game Remember Me. The images of integrated technology, darkened streets, and expertly designed characters. Even single pieces can assist us in creating our works. See something in a Jackson Pollock? Perhaps even Pollock’s unique process can inspire you in your creation. Especially for those working in the horror genre, art can truly inspire. In fact, an entire published campaign of Call of Cthulhu (the Tatters of the King) focuses on artists, and displays their works as representations of their worsening madness. I recommend highly the exploration of modern and classic pieces to anyone, especially the visually oriented among us. Naturally, these are only my suggestions. How do you get inspired, be it for creating role-playing game material or home movies or your next blog entry? Drop me a line and let me know! Perhaps your suggestions will inspire me, too. David Horwitz is a gamer and freelance writer with an obsession for exploring new forms of leisure. If you’re looking for an inquisitive mind and a deft hand, or just want to chat about gaming, contact him out at www.davidhorwitzwrites.com/contact . Image from  “Now wait just a minute,” Mitchifer steps around the bar and holds up a hand. “Do you know where she’s taking you?”
The leather-clad woman fixes the innkeeper with her single good eye, and her smile tightens. “I thought this place had a strict policy of neutrality.” “It is, er, it does, but—“ “This Inn has portals that lead to realms of fire, endless oceans, ice that will freeze a mortal solid within seconds. Do you warn people against going to such places?” She waves her cigarette around languidly in its long holder to punctuate her speech. “No, but—“ “Heavens that shatter sanity, bottomless abysses of immortal rage, hells that flay the soul into an ashen shell—your doorways lead to all of these places, yet you extend a warning against them following me to a rather ordinary city, to perform a rather ordin--. ” “They need to know!” Mitchifer fumes, his wizened white beard twitching with each syllable, until he recalls his professionalism, turns stiffly away from Kazandra, and looks you in the eye. “You need to know…there’s no coming back. To the inn, maybe…if you’re lucky. But follow her through THAT door…and even if you make it back here, all the others may be closed forever. That place doesn’t let people out. It takes countless people in every year, but the ones who get out in a century, I may not need both hands to count.” The Land of Mists is infamous for pulling in hapless adventurers to play with, but sometimes the Mists themselves become too well known. Players familiar with the setting may start to get suspicious any time an ordinary fog rolls in, and if someone actually casts Fog Cloud they might throw dice at the DM. If you feel the Mists are too hackneyed to roll out the fog, consider one of these alternate beginnings to your Weekend in Hell: 1) (Un)Natural Phenomenon If your PC’s are alert for fog, consider other natural phenomenon with an unnatural presence to it. Snowstorms work well in the winter, or in cold regions. A desert might have a sandstorm, heat haze, or a full mirage. But of course, all of these are just different ways to lose their bearings, so don’t rule out the possibility that they might just get lost in the woods. 2) All Aboard! If your natural phenomenon is a storm at sea, you may want more than a little spinning compass action to evoke the Bermuda Triangle. Consider the Ship of Horror,* a cursed Mistway into Ravenloft in the form of a ship. Ships of any kind deserve special mention, though, because crew provide lots of redshirt opportunities, with some left over for more nuanced storylines. Nor is spacefaring immune to strange detours--the Spelljammer supplements specifically said the crystal sphere for the Demiplane of Dread was an unknown color, floating somewhere out in the phlogiston… 3) Stable Portal People forget that the Black Box listed stable portals into the Demiplane, at least one in each of the popular settings of the time. Word might reach the PC’s of a misty doorway that no one has ever returned from, and even the greatest sages and diviners cannot see what is on the other side. If someone or something of exceptional value went through that doorway, the PC’s might be called upon to venture through after it. 4) Reading a Book “Van Richten’s Guide to the Mists”** travels the multiverse outside the demiplane, appearing as a “Van Richten’s Guide” to whatever someone happens to be hunting. It’s just an ordinary book that gives excellent advice, but when someone questions its origins out loud, the reader and anyone within earshot is marked for the Mists. Solving the mystery of its accursed origins within the demiplane might allow someone to return home. 5) The Lonesome Road The Headless Horseman’s endless road domain can extend into other worlds, making for an exciting introduction to Ravenloft when he selects the PC’s to attack. If defeat look imminent, consider allowing the PC’s to escape the Horseman by leaving the road. Normally this is not allowed, but since the goal is to get them into Ravenloft, it makes sense that they might escape the Lonesome Road only to arrive in another domain. 6) The World Serpent Inn*** This planar nexus-turned-saloon lends itself to scavenger hunt adventures throughout the multiverse. Doors throughout this structure lead to all the known prime, inner, and outer planes, and the ever inscrutable, always affable Mitchifer (servant of the even more mysterious Owner of the Inn) somehow maintains a strict neutrality that allows devas and devils to dine in relative peace. Of course, the DM will have to decide how the rules for such easy interplanar travel reconcile with the Dark Powers’ rules about leaving the demiplane. 7) Nightmares and Dreamscapes Under most rules for lucid dreaming, it is possible for any dreamer to visit other dreamscapes, and even wander into the ethereal. Should an outlander dreamer wander into Ravenloft, that character might be condemned to return every night, even though their body remains in their home plane. Such a character might pursue adventures in two worlds until they find a way to reunite. 8) Sucked in With the DL If you have a game villain whose story is drenched in pathos, why not have them become the demiplane’s newest Darklord? The PC’s might get sucked in when they fail to stop an Act of Ultimate Darkness--the atrocity that draws the attention of the Dark Powers and makes him a darklord. This gives them a second chance to stop the bad guy, but also a change of pace as they discover how the laws of magic and nature work differently. If the players enjoy it, they may consider staying in Ravenloft, but if not, defeating their old nemesis for good will win their freedom from the Mists in the tradition of the original Weekend in Hell adventures. *The Ship of Horror was first introduced in the 2E module of the same name. It was updated for use post-Conjunction in the Nocturnal Sea Gazetteer, a netbook hosted by the Fraternity of Shadows. **Van Richten’s Guide to the Mists is detailed in the Book of Secrets, a netbook hosted by the Kargatane. ***The World Serpent Inn was first introduced in 1E Tales of the Outer Planes, and updated in various supplements. A free download is available from Wizards of the Coast. Matthew Barrett has been playing and writing for Ravenloft for over twenty years, starting with the Kargatane's Book of S series (as Leyshon Campbell). He married his wife on Friday the 13th after proposing to her on Halloween. By tradition, the first story read at birth to each of their three children was The Barker’s Tour, from Ravenloft’s “Carnival” supplement. He is currently working on a Ravenloft-based experiment in crowdsourced fiction using his “Inkubator” system at inkubator.miraheze.org. Image from Skyrim, which may or may not be a Dread Realm.  I’m a “Rules Lawyer,” or at least, I’m accused of it enough that I’m willing to entertain the idea that I am one. It’s something of a derogatory term, possessing the connotation that a Rules Lawyer is getting in the way of everybody else’s fun, or arguing the rules so they can “win” the game. I’m not going to deny that these are Rules Lawyer behaviors. (Nor will I deny that I do them, at least not without the caveat that I can justify my Rules Lawyering.)
Rules Lawyer is a subject term, though. It can easily mean different things depending on who you ask about it, so let me establish what I’m referring to when I say it: a Rules Lawyer is somebody who has a particularly strong affinity for knowing and following the rules of a game, sometimes to a fault. I’ve had the term thrown at me numerous times as an insult, but that isn’t to say I don’t have my redeeming qualities. So with all that said, allow me to use myself as a case study for why Rules Lawyer doesn’t have to be an ugly term. 1) Helping New Players This is the most obvious helpful usage of an expansive knowledge of the rules, especially for a game that has relatively complex character creation. A relatively common such situation I’ve found myself in was in games of World of Darkness. One of the trade-offs that the World of Darkness games typically have is that despite simpler dice mechanics, character creation is a little more complicated, since one is afforded a lot more freedom in designing their character. Until some of the gaming groups I’ve been in got the hang of character creation, even when I wasn’t GMing the game, I was often leading everybody in the game through character creation. It wasn’t particularly feasible to have everybody make their characters outside of game, since we only had two copies of the rulebooks available for 7 of us. So, with my book turned to the quick-reference for character creation, I took everybody through it step by step. Which is also kind of a way I was able to... 2) Help New GMs In the example above, I was also helping the GM, who wasn’t quite as familiar with the game as I was. This isn’t to say that interjecting with the corrections of the rules whenever the GM is wrong is helpful, though -- discretion is the better part of valour, as they say. The key here is if the GM seems unfamiliar with the rules of the game. In the above mentioned group, we were playing what was at the time known as “New World of Darkness,” before the God Machine Chronicle Update happened and turned that IP into confusing mess of who owns what and what works with what. One of the players then decided they wanted to run a game of Vampire the Masquerade, when he had previously only ever (and very scarcely) ran games of Dungeons and Dragons. Admittedly, I wasn’t very familiar with the table top version of Masquerade, but I do take to learning rules quickly. I once again did my usual schtick of guiding char-gen for everybody, but during the actual run of the game, I kept quiet about how the rules actually worked until he requested to know something specific. (Notably, combat rolls, since those are a multi-step mess with a lot of variables in the “Old World of Darkness”) After all, one interpretation of Rule 0 is “The GM has the final say.” 3) Keep Record For Experimental Projects Let’s say you’ve got a new sub-system for your favorite game you’re homebrewing, or some other such similar scenario. However, you’re not much for writing and organizing things, and all the ideas you have for this are stored in your head, and not on paper. If you’re genre savvy, you probably already know where I’m going with this: enter the Rules Lawyer. The role of the Rules Lawyer here is that they can keep track of your rules, ideally by writing or typing them down as new ones are introduced. I’m not much for homebrew games, however, I was still involved in a similar situation. A friend of mine got their hands on a copy of a game from Japan called Detatoko Saga, which was released in 2016. Naturally, there’s no English translation of the game available at the time, but said friend did know how to read Japanese. Knowing we’ll inevitably need to refer to these later, everybody involved in the game wrote down the skills they needed. I took things a step further, and wrote down EVERY rule and process the GM mentioned. This actually wound up coming in handy as we played, with the GM (who was translating the game) occasionally referring to my notes. Based on the examples I’ve presented from myself, a reasonable assumption here is that what could make the difference between how a Rules Lawyer is perceived is often the context of when they want to bring up doing things by the rules. After all, regardless of what game you’re playing, knowing how to make a character for it is important; and sometimes, a GM has trouble finding that one rule or subsystem, and a helpful interjection may be necessary. Remember though, just because somebody hurls that name, Rules Lawyer, at you does not mean it’s suddenly a compliment because you know of the good you can do. After all, a passion for the rules of a game, much like any tool or skill, can be used for good or ill. Aaron der Schaedel is a rules lawyer that applies to gaming one of the old maxims of visual artist’s: learn the rules before you go breaking them. Given the amount of games he has learned to GM and still wishes to learn, it is sound gaming advice.  For nearly a year, I have been GMing a playthrough of the Mummy’s Mask adventure path for my Twitch channel PlayingBoardGames. This was my first time as a GM for an adventure that would last more than two or three sessions. It was a daunting challenge but I was very excited to learn in a trial by fire scenario. Overall, the experience has been positive and incredibly fun. I have a lot more to learn, but these are four things I’ve learned running Pathfinder for my Twitch Channel.
1) No Player Treats Battle Maps The Same After a few sessions I noticed a distinct divide in how my players perceived combat. Some of my players needed to know every distinct detail about where they were and where the enemies were. It made sense to me, combat in Pathfinder requires a lot of math and spatial awareness. Knowing the exact distance and how to possibly use the environment to your advantage is crucial in successful combat. However, I had some players who absolutely loathed having to look at a map and measure out their movement. These players were my more ‘cinematic’ players. They were the kind of players who cared less about being exactly 40 feet away from the Orc and cared more about charging up to the Orc, weapons raised with a screeching battlecry. They understood the requirements for proper distance and space between enemies, but they wanted to create the entire situation in their head. Their mind made it more cinematic and, for them, incredibly more fun than a little battle map could. To balance my players I had to come up with a way to suit both parties AND also showcase combat well for Twitch. In the end leaning towards a more cinematic approach works best. Our combat is all verbally based with myself being the only one with the battlemap. Our players who like knowing the exact distances and space still always ask, but now I am able to share that information with them on the fly. 2) The Heart of Pathfinder Lies in Your Players I would not be anywhere without my party. They push me to give them the best story-driven experience I possibly can whenever we get together to stream. I’ve heard a lot of stories and jokes about harsh DMs that enjoy putting their PCs through the death gauntlet, the party coming out with less limbs or lives than before. To me, that negates a lot of what I find to be the most entertaining and fun role-play experiences. Pathfinder, especially with the way we stream it on Twitch, reminds me a lot of people getting around a campfire together to tell a good story. The players act as the heroes (or villains) that hook the audience with their decisions. I’m sitting behind them building props, making costumes, and thinking of interesting roadblocks to throw at them. My job is to keep both the audience and party in suspense while also giving my players a challenge and making sure they’re following the rules. No story is fun when suddenly the main character dies for no reason. Likewise, the story isn’t good when the main characters can suddenly do whatever they want. The push and shove and balance between the PCs and the GM is a beautiful one. We are not enemies. The greatest thing I can do to get my players engaged is to not be a jerk to them, but is instead to provide stakes and plotlines that get their character involved-- to get them role-playing. 3) Let Your PCs Impact the World This sounds like an obvious one, but the importance of it didn’t hit me until I did it on a much smaller scale. This isn’t about your PCs having an impact on the main story, but having them influence and change smaller details. This is best explained by an example: our PCs were called in to help decide something by the city’s generals regarding an undead invasion. Inside the war room all of the uptight officials were standing over a map of the city muttering in silence. One PC proclaims: “This room is missing a man standing with a sword over his head screaming his lungs out.” All the generals met him with disdain, insult, and confusion and the player shrugged it off. The next time the players decided to attend the war planning they barged in the following day. As they entered they found (with a successful Perception Check) that a man standing in the back quickly lowered a sword and stopped screaming when he saw players enter. The PCs all LOVED this. I cannot stress enough about how much of an impact this little joke of a moment had on the players. It makes the world feel malleable on a smaller scale and reminds them that there is more to do than just ‘save the world’. It gives them a reason to interact with every character and circumstance they can, because nothing is absolutely set in stone. Of course the example I gave was on the sillier side, but our stream is quite purposely comedic. This brings me to the last lesson I’ve learned. 4) Pull the Rug Out From Under Your Players On our channel our primary format is comedy. We like laughing and we like making people laugh. Due to this, our Pathfinder sessions have a lot of comedy in them. The NPCs are ridiculous, our PCs tell a lot of jokes, and most things are taken with a lighter twist. However I found that it was very important to put my players into situations where in a blink of an eye they weren’t laughing anymore. The story has been unraveling over our sessions and I’ve been taking characters’ backstories and weaving them in the plot. I found ways to put in little story notes that would push the buttons on these backstories and exploit the emotions of the PCs. When you add in a moment of absolute seriousness after a moment where everything was happy the players can really get sucked into the story and realize that there is an actual stake that they are fighting for. This works the opposite way too. It’s why Shakespeare’s tragedies had comedic scenes or moments within them to lighten the mood. It’s a little breather and change of pace that the audience, or in the case of Pathfinder, your players, really need. Shifts in pacing, storytelling, mood, and tension are incredibly important. Nothing that follows a straight line is interesting. Surprise your players and make them constantly feel like another twist can happen at any moment. This gives them a reason to continue playing and pushes them even further in their characters. And really, to me, this is what Pathfinder is all about: mutual storytelling with rules and dice. When streamed on Twitch roleplaying games take on a unique presentation. It’s less of a game and more of a show. We don’t necessarily play Pathfinder as much as we perform Pathfinder. That doesn’t mean these four points won’t help GMs who play games in the private of their own home. Adding a living and breathing world is the heart of good roleplay, it takes it beyond a game and into a story. Turn your campaign into a story your players will want to share around a campfire. Justin Cauti is a writer and Twitch streamer. He plays board/roleplaying games on the internet at http://www.playingboardgames.tv. Follow him on Twitter for updates on his boring life and writing projects @LeftSideJustin.  Character deaths are (typically) a constant threat in any gaming platform. From table-top to video games death happens. For some of us, this happens more often than others and in the infinite expanse of table-top role-playing games, this can be VERY odd and brutal. However, some people’s tables get more, frisky, than others. Mine happens to be very odd. Most of my characters are at ends with my friend’s characters. Some of it's me, some of it's him. But when a simple magic jest leads to imprisonment and several failed suicide attempts, things could be considered “out of hand.” Well, here are some of the most insane deaths that have happened at my table.
1) Riding a Barbarian into Battle If you know much about me, I have a tendency to play dexterity based characters. Stealth is pretty much a prerequisite. Once upon a time, with one of my first characters, we were dealing with something WAY above our pay grade. Taking down a lich. We were level 7-ish. There were three of us. You can see this was essentially a setup for a TPK, however, careful planning followed by some solid rolls made my character Garrett Snowfeather our only casualty. I was our rogue/archer. We had a barbarian (known as Ethan the Cad(long story) and last, but not least, our gnomish wizard Lindon. You see, our assault on his fortress was fueled not only by our barbarian’s rage but by a Growth and Haste spell. Both placed on our friend, Cad. When my old boy Garrett came along, riding a superfast twelve foot, muscle bound badass with a greataxe seemed like a decent idea, at the time. However, one explosive arrow that didn’t go off and a sudden stop that sent me flying towards my previous target caused a wall to collapse both on me, and the lich. So, I got all the experience from killing the lich, which was squandered by my corpse. (Note to reader: While riding a companion is always a solid attack plan, make sure communication between the mount and the rider is perfect.) 2) Suicide… Kinda? Ah yes, the Deck of Many Things. A dangerous weapon in the hands of an angry murderhobo. An even more dangerous weapon in the hands of a character who is both Chaotic Neutral and has an honor complex at the same time. In short, I was a bard, my friend, a dex based fighter, and we had a monk as well. I playfully antagonized (hold person spell) our fighter while he was killing unconscious pirates. The player swore revenge. The character was just pissy. Later we divvied up the pirate booty and our fighter got pricked with a poison needle that started to kill him. In his last moments before unconsciousness, he drew a card. And got an item. (To this day I still don't know what it was he got.) I saved his life (which would make one assume I was off the hook.) We get to town and we all do our own thing. We make a stop at the magic shop and all do a little bit of this and that. We go to the bar to do a little money making before setting off again. As I perform during the evening, I feel more groggy than usual. It gets worse and worse before I collapse and find myself unable to move. He approaches me to see if I’m ok before he draws a dagger in order to kill me and regain his honor. Fortunately for me I nabbed a cloak of stars (or starlight I can’t remember the item) and slip into the astral plane. The player (now very angry) draws as many cards as he could. Resulting in an alignment shift, another magic item and some experience, a loss of experience, and a keep. However, the sheriff and his men dragged him away. As he left, he drank the rest of the poison he slipped into my drink. Which only paralyzed him ,as it did me. After I could move again, I pressed charges and had him sentenced to death. Not before he killed himself in jail (he failed to do so 7 times before finally succeeding.) The DM was not impressed with our fighters “cooperative skills.” 3) Overpowered Another adventure with Ethan the Cad. Our friendly barbarian was on watch one evening when he heard rustling in the bushes. Of course, being the headstrong manly man he was, he rushed forward without awakening me or Lindon. Being a rather speedy fellow he quickly caught up to one of the culprits. A goblin. He continued to chase and kill them for quite a while. Before finally, the inevitable happened. He walked into a trap. Ten feet in the air. Enough so he can't move or gain any footing. But still low enough for goblins with spears to poke at him. He managed to kill one of them, which was impressive in his state, but in a matter of rounds, he was kind of screwed. An hour later, we follow the goblin corpses to his corpse. Luckily enough at the time, we had a cleric with us who was a high enough level to bring him back. But this was quite the learning experience for Ethan the Cad. 4) I Touch it Again This one didn’t happen to me personally, but it’s far too juicy to omit. This was actually a campaign my father played in. While searching through a lich’s tower (they were more qualified than poor Garrett,) they came across a glowing sword on one of the walls. One of the players (who we will call S because he gets angry about this to this day) touches the sword. Which sends him flying back after an electrical boom hit him for a tenth of his health. One would assume that S would have learned his lesson. But, this was far from over. “I touch it again,” He exclaimed robustly. S seemed to think that the sword had expended all its energy blasting him across the room for it had stopped glowing. So he touched the sword again and received a similar treatment. This time however, he was certain it was all out and in another act of sheer stupidity, touched the sword a third time. This time, his hit points were reduced permanently and the tip of his finger had turned black. As time went on, this blackness spread and not even a greater restoration spell would do much. One morning the party found him missing. As it turned out, the sword turned him into a beast, hairy, strong and out of it's mind. They didn't have much of a choice. 5) The Arrow Now, I’m not saying experimenting with magic items is a good idea. But it kind of isn't a bad one if mass destruction is your goal. This was a bit on “home rules.” We had expanded the explosion radius on bags of holding and when portable holes popped, the created a vortex. Well, one day Peren Ravenclaw, the great arcane archer, decided to craft a weapon so wholly powerful it broke medieval martial law. Inside of a large arrow head, he set things up to shove the portable hole inside the bag of holding and then pierce them both through each other. Shooting this out of a bow seemed like the best way to stay at a safe distance. One day, it was used on a battalion of orcs. Who were swiftly demolished. Not only was it tearing them apart and sending some of them to the astral plane, it was sucking the rest in. Now, you’re probably thinking this is how he dies. But no, I actually escaped the vortex alive. However the aftermath is what killed poor Peren. Eventually the crater that was created filled with water. The area was so “radioactive” with magical energy, I knew the water had to have magical potential. But alas, a small crack in a flask and a small hole in a glove ended up turning his skin hard as stone, making him strong as an ox and tough as nails. But, A: Magic no longer worked on or around him and B:He was ugly as all hell. As such he went to a mage’s guild to see what they could do, and came to the conclusion that nothing short of a wish spell would put him back to how he was. “Turning back to how I used to be permanently,” probably wasn’t the best word choice on my part. Because Peren now technically never existed nor ever will exist in that world again. We’ve all had some pretty crazy moments stemming from stupidity, spite, luck inexperience and the likes. But, really, who can say they kamikazed a litch? I’m itching to hear some of the stuff that’s happened to others though, please put it everywhere. Jarod Lalonde is a young role-player and writer whose passion for both lead him here. He’s often sarcastic and has a +5 to insult. Dungeons and Dragons is his favorite platform. Although he’s not quite sure if it’s Call of Cthulhu whispering to him in the small hours of the night, or just persistent flashbacks to the Far Realm.  Alchemical items are an old standby in most Pathfinder games, but they're quickly left by the wayside once characters gain enough experience to gain iterative attacks, and to get their hands on magical items. However, while we're all familiar with alchemist fire and tanglefoot bags, there are some weirder items on the list: stuff that you never knew you needed, but which you're going to be looking for by the time you reach the last entry.
1) Spider Sac This handy little item, found in the Advanced Race Guide, is useful for all sorts of adventures. When fired at an enemy as a touch attack with a 10-foot reach, a spider sac acts like a lasso. This entangles enemies and makes it impossible for them to get away if they don't break it. It can also be used as a kind of alchemical rope, letting you climb up sheer surfaces... or perhaps swing your way out of a fall if that's more your bag. If you load a spider sac into a spring-loaded wrist sheath, then you've got the start of a Spider-Man character build on your hands. Or at least a nasty surprise for the next boss you face. 2) Troll Styptic Adventurers run into all kinds of pain on their journeys. From spiked pits and goblin raiders, to undead claws and vicious footpads, it seems everyone is out for your blood. If you need a non-magical solution to bind your wounds, especially if it's a life-or-death situation, troll styptic is something you need in your utility belt. This compound, found in Seekers of Secrets, gives a subject “fast healing 2” for 2d4 rounds. It's a painful process, though, which is why the subject has to make a DC 15 Fortitude save to avoid being sickened the whole time the styptic is doing its job. 3) Bachelor Snuff A favorite among characters with high charisma and low standards, bachelor snuff was featured in Adventurer's Armory. A golden powder that smells vaguely of soot, a pinch of it renders a man infertile for a brief period of time. Of course, regular users will stand out due to their gilded teeth and gold-stained nails. Though whether that makes you more or less attractive probably depends on the partner. Technically a drug, this substance can be found in a variety of lists. 4) Clear Ear Another alumni of Adventurer's Armory, Clear Ear can be a thorn in a DM's side if used regularly. Because there are no negative impacts from continually using this item, players will try and abuse it. It's a thick goo you pour into your ear, and two hours after the application it takes effect. For 6 hours, you gain a +2 alchemical bonus on Perception and Knowledge checks, but you take a -2 penalty on all Charisma-based checks. Ideal for a team of safe crackers, dungeon delvers, or just a strike team trying to sneak up on the enemy. 5) Silvertongue Created by yours truly for Bastards of Golarion, silvertongue is a double-edged sword. This sweet, quicksilver elixir grants users a 1d2 alchemical bonus on their Charisma score for 1 hour, and provides a +2 alchemical bonus on saves against mind-affecting effects for 1d4 hours. However, it deals 1d4 Constitution damage, and it comes with a DC 16 Fortitude save against moderate addiction. Just remember, sometimes it's that one hold-out item that gets you out of a jam. Always come prepared for the worst the dungeon can throw at you. For more great gaming insight, check out Neal F. Litherland's gaming blog Improved Initiative! Image Credited  Recurring villains are fun inclusions to any Dungeons and Dragons campaign. Villains represent the anti-hero, the antagonist, the players’ nemesis who are always out to ruin the other's day. They are the Joker to your party of Batmen. They are the Loki to your army of Thors. Are you seeing a trend here? In D&D there are often four or five superheroes, and only one villain.
Can you imagine what would happen if a team of five Batmen took on the Joker? Can you even envisage how quickly five Thors could take down Loki in a combat encounter? Dungeons and Dragons sure has some dangerous and diabolical villains, but they are often horribly outnumbered by the heroic characters. Naturally, it's not uncommon for a villain to be absolutely destroyed in a head-on encounter with the players. Unless you stat-pad them to the moon and back... But where's the fun in that? Let's make villains a challenging threat for the players without only buffing their stats, but first let's start with a quick look at some of the problems that typical recurring villains in RPGs can have: 1) The villains are often easy to overpower in a head-on encounter against the entire party. 2) Often the villains will die in the same encounter where they first meet the party. Sometimes, the villains will survive the first meeting with the party (no combat) but will die in the first combat that they face the party. 3) DMs often have all these hopes and dreams about what the villain will do in the campaign over a long time period; if the players take him out of the fray early, then it throws a huge spanner in the works. 4) Villains who are built to survive that first combat encounter, are often made far too powerful for the players to defeat. More on this later. 5) Villains who spend most the campaign hidden behind curtains and sheltered to avoid interaction and encounters with the characters are often not renown enough to the characters for the players to truly hate them, or even remember them. This isn't a very good setup for having dramatic, recurring villains. We are missing some huge key points that comics, movies, TV shows, games, etc. use to make those recurring villains successful antagonists. As a dungeon master, you should instill in your players the understanding that a mission failure doesn't mean "you lose at D&D." Losing to a villain should be a chip on your shoulder that drives your character to be better next time. However, this isn't really something that can be said just once at the table and have the players understand and follow those values. Most D&D players have played hack-and-slash games or other open world RPG video games like Skyrim, Baldur's Gate, Diablo, and Torchlight. In those kind of games, winning combat is usually the only option. I mean, retreat is sometimes an option in some games but things like surrendering, getting mugged, or getting imprisoned aren't as present in those games. Many players have similar preconceptions about D&D as they do about video games, and that is where this kind of thinking derives from. Anyway, I could write a whole article about "losing a fight doesn't mean you lose the game", but this is the villain article. In summary: If your players are aware that there are other alternatives to "winning" and "death", you will find a lot of the recurring villain plots are able to work much more often and to greater effect. These are some solutions that I have found to make villains more effective at terrorising the world, being hated by your players, and still staying alive long enough to make a difference. Per the theme of these entries, we will not be stat-padding the villains either. 1) Have the Players on the Clock If the players are on a time limit, standing toe-to-toe with the villain is not the primary goal of the encounter. Maybe they have to stop a portal from opening, interrupt a ritual, steal an artifact before the dungeon collapses, or perhaps there are hostages in the next room about to be executed. If the players focus on killing the villain, they may very well fail their main objective. This will hurt their reputation in town, especially if it was townsfolk that were the executed hostages. Mechanically, they’ll also be missing out on mission XP and other boons. Sometimes it's not even the villain themself that must be stopped, but their scheme that’s already in place. The Joker might waltz right up to Batman and tell him that he has 15 minutes to save innocent people or they will die. Usually the Joker does this in a way where the Batman can do it in about 14 minutes, so that it's a tight and exciting finish for the sociopath to enjoy. If Batman simply spent a minute or two beating the Joker to death, he would likely miss out on saving those innocent people. 2) Include Non-Combat Encounters If you haven't used a vignette in your campaign, I’d definitely recommend look at researching what they are and how they can be used effectively in RPGs. I use them a fair bit now, usually once every three to five sessions, and with good success. Other good encounters that are non-combat with a villain might be at a public event like the king's feast or a jousting tournament. This stuff really works well if you're doing a political intrigue kind of campaign as opposed to a door kicking one, but it works either way. Basically you will need ways for your players to interact with the villain knowing who he is without combat being an option. If you can do this, the villain gets more screen time, and the players harbour more hatred! 3) Give the Players a Reason to Keep the Villain Alive This could be something as simple as moral codes/quandaries, to something like a direct order from the mage guild to bring back the rogue wizard alive! What if this wizard was the only person who could stop another BBEG? Perhaps only this villain knows how to stop the apocalypse that's already begun. There are also many of other factors that you can pull into play here too. The moral code, for example: Batman doesn't kill gratuitously as it's against his moral code. This also has the amazing side effect of permanently recurring villains. Sure, they can get thrown in a prison or locked in an asylum, but one day they will come out to play again. Usually the circumstances of this escape are very cool and dramatic too! These unique story moments can really make players enjoy a recurring villain, as they think “Ahhh no, he’s at it again!”. Be sure not to overuse this though; if every villain the party spares from execution escapes, and returns to evil again in the future, the PCs will likely revert to murderhobo mode. Note that in the essence of steps we can take to prolong a villain's lifespan, this is one of the softer ones. It's more something to include as a guideline and always to have as an option for the players. Maybe they'll overlook this in their rage. Don't give the villain plot armour just because he's needed later. Let the players know this, and then have them make their own actions from there. 4) Mix it up with some variety! If all of your villains are recurring, your players will be pulling their hair out, and feeling like they never really accomplish or complete anything. While it's great that the Batman always beats the joker but never rids of him for good, it can get frustrating for your players if they can never actually finish off a villain. It's more about closure as opposed to anything else. I put this in the list because if you have a mix of recurring and non-recurring villains, the recurring ones are more likely to be left alive. My rule of thumb for my villain variety is that I split my villains into roughly 3 even piles. Pile 1 - Recurring Villains: The ones this article focuses on Pile 2 - Big notable villains: Powerful or renowned villains who your players have heard of/known/met but are probably only meant to have one encounter with them. Pile 3 - Episodic Villains: Villains who are introduced and dealt with in the same session, or in the subsequent session. A good example of this guy is the players travel to a new town, which is being manipulated by some sort of gang lead by an episodic villain. This gives the characters a mini break from the end of the world storyline and let's them help out the little folk to get a small task started and finished in one night. Feels good! 5) A Supernatural Means of Recurring Very cliche, but also very effective. However, make sure that you do not overuse this. It's fine to have multiple villains with this trait, but make sure that they don't all coexist in the same story arc, as it's incredibly frustrating for players. Easy versions of this include using undead creatures as villains or using a living villain who turns undead upon his demise. You could even have recurring villains that are all just clones of a single great wizard, or twin wizards who give off the illusion that it's just the same guy who's back again. Make sure that there's a way for the PCs to stop this villain from coming back; even if this path involves going to a dungeon or area they wouldn't otherwise go to (hello, nonlinear plot hook!), and even if this path is half a dozen sessions away. Obvious examples are destroying a lich's phylactery, driving a stake through a vampire in his own coffin, etc. You could even get more creative, for example: Kruul the Eternal is a demon who keeps coming back again and again to torment the party. In order to get rid of him forever, the party must do the following:
Recurring villains are one of the pillars that lay the foundation for a truly memorable campaign. Just follow these tips above, and you can ensure that these villains are etched into your player's memories for a long time to come! Peter is an avid dungeon master, role-player, and story teller. When he's not running homebrew campaigns, he is creating new worlds, or he is reading and writing fantasy stories, forever immersing himself in the gaping black-hole known as the fantasy genre. Image Source  Whether you call them a Dungeon Master, a Game Master, a Storyteller, or a G.O.D. (Game Operations Director), they are the crust that holds together the cheese of players and the toppings of settings and mechanics in the great pizza of the gaming world. (FYI: nat 1’s are the hidden anchovies.)
Welcome to the second portion of my Setting Expectation series. I’ve thrown a lot of words for players out there, but given that numbers do not a character make, neither does a bunch of players a game make. Just as is it perfectly fine and indeed necessary for DM’s to set high but reasonable expectations for their players, the players need to ask questions and set expectations for their potential DMs to make sure everyone gets the flavors they are looking for. No one wants to sit down at the table expecting a feast of rarest jewel-like sushi and ending up being served unrecognizable blobs of mysterious deep-fried “meat” that wouldn’t be out of place at a traveling sideshow. To that end, before I come up with more awkward food-related metaphors, THE LIST! 1) Your style is as inclusive as your group wants/needs Before I continue further, a moment of explanation: in this context, I am not speaking of demographic inclusivity (because you should have that already, n’est pas?) but of content. Do you, as a player, look forward to crunchy gaming? If so, make that expectation clear (and feel free to check out my essay on mathematics-focused gaming, available through our Patreon). Are you looking for original content, or someone to guide you through preprogrammed modules? Know what you are wanting, and ask for it. Not every DM is right for every gaming group - and that is perfectly okay. I have found it better to wait for the right fit of group and DM than try to trim the edges of a square peg to fit a round hole. That being said, if you’re extra thirsty for a game, perhaps you can be a bit more flexible. Your mileage will, of course, vary. 2) You can manage party dynamics and balance Be firm but fair. While a group of five bards might be highly entertaining, or a group of four Dawn Castes capable of flipping the Blessed Isle upside down and shaking it ‘til all the jade falls out, or what have you, that’s not a balanced group. If two players want to play similar concepts, a good DM should have some methods of conflict resolution in their pockets. Be it high dice, rock-paper scissors, pistols at dawn...if the DM can’t manage a simple discussion between players with conflicting desires, perhaps the players should reconsider their suitability. As a corollary to that, if you have a diva/spotlight hog in your group, a capable DM should have some good ways to rein them in and make sure that all players get a chance to shine. 3) Remember, we are giving you our time. Don’t waste it As someone who has literally planned her work schedule around her game nights, this point cannot be stressed highly enough for my liking. If a game group trusts the DM to give them a solid few hours of entertainment, and the majority of players end up sitting around thinking that they could be doing other things (laundry, homework, knitting scarves for pangolins, etc.), that DM needs to indulge in some serious introspection. This is a two-way street- if players aren’t enjoying themselves, they have a duty and a responsibility not only to speak up, but to offer constructive, actionable criticism and suggestions for improvement. This is especially true if you have a group of busy adults who have other commitments they must honor. It often takes active sacrifice to carve out an afternoon or evening to dedicate to gaming, not to mention the occasional financial investment for character sheets, dice, pizza, travel expenses, and things of that ilk. Our time is our gift to you. Use it wisely, and admit that there may come a time that you can’t. Ideally, before burnout sets in, have a succession plan in place. 4) Nudge, thrust, or force - keep the group focused (within reason) First and foremost, most gaming groups are comprised of friends who may only see each other during this weekly/biweekly/monthly session. There is a 100% chance your players will get sidetracked, especially if there is a long and involved role-play that doesn’t include everyone at the table, or at the beginning of the session. A good DM will recognize this and have some tactics in mind to bring the game to order. Inevitably, there will be nights when the game just doesn’t come together, when everyone is hellbent on heading off in different directions and the plot thread has not only been lost, but devoured by rabid ferrets. This is the time for a good DM to show their finesse and creativity in bringing everyone back to the central focus of the game at that moment. Few things are as ominous as the rattle of dice behind the DM screen, followed by “Roll initiative” or “Roll join battle.” These have proven to be highly effective at capturing a group’s attention. (In our group, it’s usually met by a chorus of “oh, hells,” followed by a mad scramble for dice while the DM cackles in sadistic glee.) 5) Are you (potential DM) adaptable? If the aforementioned rabid ferrets have caught the players’ attention, does the DM have a history of being able to roll with the punches, or do they get sulky and angry when their finely wrought tapestry of intrigue and imagery gets tossed aside? Some of the most fun and memorable games I have participated in involved players going entirely off the rails and the DM running with it. In my own DMing experience, I have learned the hard way to not plan game sessions beyond snacks and bullet points (with the occasional sheeted out NPC for flavor). I prefer to lay out a panoply of ideas and see where my players are drawn. Sometimes I get what I want, sometimes my work goes right out the window. The important thing is that my players and I enjoy ourselves. If your DM (or you as a DM) is so set on getting their way at all costs, perhaps they need to take a step back and rediscover the joy in the game. It’s a role-playing game, not people reading from a script. 6) Know when to lose - and how to make it feel real There are days when my dice roll super hot and my players’ dice would be at home in Vladivostok in January. Those are the days of the accidental TPKs, the sort of games that leave a bad taste in people’s mouths because they never had a chance. In LARP, there’s a concept known as “fair escape.” If your party is going up against impossible odds, do you want your DM to give you a warning, or do you want to go in blind? This is something you will need to arrive at a consensus on. I prefer a warning, but others have faith in their dice. There may be times when, through no fault of their own, the players just can’t seem to make any headway. There’s a finesse to creatively manipulating rolls and stat blocks to at least give players a chance to run away - remember, the NPCs and enemies should be just as vulnerable to nat-1s as the players. This can be harder to manage if you are playing without a DM screen, but gaming etiquette says that players shouldn’t be actively watching the DM roll. This is a controversial subject, but I fully believe that a good DM should know both when to lose and how to make it believable. 7) Have a plan for toxicity, and be ready to use it This is a tough one to suss out ahead of time, because toxicity can take so many forms - whether it’s someone who is a congenital time-waster, the perennial diva who won’t take correction, the one person who can bring a scene to a grinding halt by responding “I roll a 14” when the role-play comes around to them. Most players are amenable to coaching or correction, and some groups can learn to work around unfortunate habits such as being late or being unprepared. Many players, given the opportunity, will jump at the chance to help their fellow gamers improve their gaming skills and etiquette - especially if they are friends outside of the game. Personality quirks are hard to balance, but a little understanding and patience usually provides excellent results. No one, and I mean no one, likes to have to have the uncomfortable conversation of asking someone to leave the table. Dislike for personal confrontation aside, asking a player to leave can unbalance the party, or break it altogether. Sometimes this can be fixed by having an NPC take that player’s place, but that increases the DM’s workload exponentially. Be aware of the DM’s own toxicity - sometimes players can spot burnout before the DM will admit that there is a problem. Good players will support their DM as much as the DM supports them. Happy players + happy DM = happy gaming. This list is not intended to be all-inclusive - there will always be other considerations, such as does your perspective DM run the system you like? What is their philosophy on the balance of mathematics and role-play? Is the book the literal facts or a rough guide? - but good starting points to consider when joining or creating a new game. This whole thing boils down to a few questions - is this DM the right one for you and your group, or can they possibly grow into the right one? Are both parties willing to invest time and effort into making the gaming experience an enjoyable one? If the answer is yes, you’ll probably be in for a good time. If not, you’re going to have a tougher situation. I hope for your sake that it’s the kind of pressure that creates diamonds from coal, and not black holes from brilliant stars. As always, comments and commentary are welcome. May the Unconquered Sun shine upon you, Georgia Georgia is a writer, editor, gamer, and mad culinary priestess who masquerades as an ordinary office employee that holds vehement opinions about Oxford commas and extraneous hyphens. She lives in Tacoma, Washington, with her husband and Feline Overlords. She can be reached through Facebook at In Exquisite Detail or on Twitter at @feraldruidftw. Picture Credits: https://www.etsy.com/listing/468734355/im-the-dungeon-master-your-fate-in-in-my?ga_order=most_relevant&ga_search_type=all&ga_view_type=gallery&ga_search_query=dungeon%20master&ref=sr_gallery_25  If you're a fan of Ravenloft, then chances are you're a pretty big horror fan, particularly Victorian, cosmic, or survival horror. Chances are also pretty good that you're cisgendered, heterosexual, white, male, and of Protestant descent (or at least more of those than not).
Now, there's nothing wrong with any of that. Something to consider as a DM, however, is the subjective nature of horror. Any veteran DM for a horror game like Ravenloft, Deadlands, or V:tM knows that what scares one person is just ho-hum to another. Our experiences color our perceptions when it comes to the visceral reactions that horror depends on. It's rare for a DM to be able to affect everyone at the table equally, but we do our best to try and make sure everyone has stories that resonate with them. Sometimes, the stories we write may not just resonate differently with someone, they might mean something different entirely. This is a phenomenon that's common in literature and film, where two opposing interpretations of the exact same artistic offering will emerge, often diametrically opposed. So it's no surprise that a game performance, where people are much more personally involved and affected, can be just as susceptible to this kind of thing. With that in mind, let's take a look at a couple of campaign tools and tropes that you might be using, or considering using, and how they could be seen differently by your audience. 1) Color-Coding The ball is in full swing. The elite rub shoulders and make deals with one another, grateful that the local lord is using his newest marriage as an excuse for such a lavish gathering. As the ancient clock begins to chime the hour, he arrives. From the moment he enters the room, all eyes are upon him, for his is a visage that could never blend in: statuesque features carved from ebony standing resplendent amid the pale faces of his subjects. There is no doubt as to who the lord of this land is. What you do: Make an NPC stand out from the crowd by making them a different color than their peers. Why you do it: A simple, stark, physical difference is the easiest way to make a character distinct. This draws PC attention to them just from their very description. For a villainous NPC, this can be an indicator that they 'don't belong' in the society they're found in, or can be a clue to an origin in a different nation or culture. This can lead the PCs down an avenue of investigation to the villain's hidden past. For an allied NPC, this can mark them out as someone who is different from the crowd (usually because they are helpful when the rest of the populace is not). How other people might see it: POC players might see this differently than you. If all the people of a specific race or color are presented as evil (for example: if the only black man in the kingdom is also the vampire lord that's been plaguing the countryside), it can appear as if you're presenting this specific race or subgroup as the problem. In the case of allied NPCs, it can appear as if you're presenting this particular race or subgroup as nothing more than a mysterious fairy-godmother figure. How to fix it: If you need to make your villain or NPC stand out, particularly if you want to show that they aren't a part of the culture they're found in, give them a distinctive behavior or mannerism instead. A peculiar manner of speech or abnormal behavior pattern can be just as effective a clue, and since it's a touch more subtle, it can have the added benefit of making players feel clever for catching it. If they're an ally, you don't need such an obvious physical distinction to get your PCs to notice them. Their willingness to provide aid will provide all the initial emphasis you need. 2) Queer-Coding The archmage closed his eyes. Though his voice was soft and delicate, he stumbled over not a single line of the incantation. His smooth, manicured hands traced the arcane sigils flawlessly. For ninety-eight nights he had made the same invocation. One more would make the ritual complete. They would pay for what they'd done to him, the burly mocking huntsmen and their simpering ladies: they would pay dearly... What you do: Give an antagonistic NPC characteristics typically associated with the LGBTQ+ community. Why you do it: If your PCs occupy traditional gender roles, you might do this to reinforce the notion that they are heroes, by contrasting them with an enemy that defies social norms (or the social norms that your PCs uphold, at any rate). For male NPCs, you might give them more effeminate traits to show them as more cultured or refined than their peers (or the PCs), maybe hinting at a greater social/mental strength as opposed to a physical danger. For female NPCs, you may be ascribing them masculine traits in order to portray them as tough. How other people might see it: Unfortunately, giving feminine traits to male villains in order to make the male lead more manly by comparison is a time-honored Hollywood tradition. Oftentimes in the fantasy or action-adventure genres we only see these types of behaviors when they're used as traits for a villainous foil in this manner. So it's easy to see how some in the LGBTQ+ community might see this as taking traits typically associated with their community and using them to indicate corruption or malevolence. It's even double-hurtful when these same traits are used to indicate to the audience that the characters are supposed to be the object of ridicule and scorn. (The 'sissy-boy' archetype we see in Disney's Prince John, or the overly combative female co-worker from Boondocks Saints, for example.) Even in instances where these traits are being used to show a strength (by showing a character is more reliant on brains than brawn, for example, like we see with Disney's Jafar or with Timothy Olyphant's character in A Good Day to Die Hard) it can leave an unpleasant reminder of the past, and the nagging sensation that these traits are being used to portray the villain as somehow 'lesser.' How to fix it: If you're trying to emphasize the player character's strength and virtue, you don't need to tie that to traditional gender roles. Non-traditional--or even openly LGBT--characters in positions of respect and authority in your game world (NPCs the PCs are intended to look up to) can do a great deal to show that non-traditional gender traits aren't being used to show weakness, corruption, or displacement, and that they aren't targets for derision. 3) Body-Coding The emir gazed through half-lidded eyes at the adventurers. His bulk could barely be contained by his throne, which groaned as he shifted his weight. His pudgy fingers, festooned with chunky gold rings, steepled beneath his several chins as he scowled in consideration. The dancing girls waving fans gently over their lord dared not look at the captured heroes. They had seen similar mercenaries captured in their lord's keep before, and knew there was only two outcomes: death, or torturous death. What you do: Use a bodily imperfection as an indicator of a character flaw, such as an obese character who is lazy or gluttonous. Why you do it: By taking a trait that society often finds disagreeable and associating it with a negative character trait, you hope to reinforce the negative trait. In other words, you're showing an inner corruption so intense that it manifests outwardly. How other people might see it: It can be very easy for someone who has one of these physical traits (or who has a loved one who does) to see your link between the character trait and the physical trait as general rather than causal (not 'this character is obese because he is greedy and lazy,' but 'people are fat because they are greedy and lazy). How to fix it: In the long-term, highly-involved setting of a tabletop RPG campaign, this kind of shortcut isn't something you really need. You have more than enough time and room to show the depths of a character's corruption without having to use their physicality to make the point. If you do want to have a character whose physical appearance also dovetails with a typically-associated character flaw, then consider adding friendly or allied NPCs with the same appearance. That way you show that you (and the society in your game world) don't consider these physical traits to be indicative of moral or ethical corruption. 4) Sexual Violence Morena pulled her sword from its sheath as the bandits circled around her. The road was little traveled these days, and the thieves in the forest were growing desperate. When she stood and turned, their eyes lit up. One of them licked his lips, and with a nauseating turn Morena realized that she was facing a far worse fate than mere robbery. What you do: Use the concept of sexual violence as an escalating factor, showing the depravity of a villain or the dire stakes of a threatening situation. Why you do it: You're not a complete monster! You recognize that sexual violence is perhaps the ultimate form of violation, so if you have a villain willing to commit such an action, you're indicating the unequivocal evil in their hearts. Although you recognize (of course) that only the most sociopathic, misogynistic gamemaster would actually force a female PC into a situation where she was the victim of sexual violence, you also think that the threat of sexual assault makes a situation more dangerous, or even that the threat is logical in certain circumstances (a lone female cleric being captured by a pirate gang, for example). How other people might see it: The CDC estimates 1 in 5 women (and 1 in 71 men) are victims of rape. The odds are almost certain that you have gamed with (or currently game with) sexual violence survivors. In-game depictions of sexual violence can easily aggravate trauma issues. Even if that isn't the case, portrayals of sexual assault being used in a game to hang a lantern on the morality of a fictional character could very well strike some of your players as trivializing something that is all too real for them. How to fix it: Authors wiser and more eloquent than me have opined that it's bizarre that we're more willing to accept a fantasy world where lizards fly and breathe fire, or where magical fog can transport people through time and space, than we are to accept a world where sexual violence just doesn't occur. There are other ways to show that a character is evil other than to show that they've raped someone. As far as using the threat of sexual violence goes: Probably best avoided in most groups. Your players, hopefully, already know you'd never follow through with having a PC actually being the victim of sexual violence (after all, you're not the kind of depraved, slavering shitheel that would do such a thing, right?) so the threat doesn't hold water. Further, it's unnecessary. If you've got a female PC being threatened by male enemies, you don't need to add the threat of sexual violence; it's almost a certainty that in her mind, that threat's already there. The only thing you do by making it explicit is show that the thought was in your mind too, making you look insensitive at best, or like a creep at worst. If you have a group of close-knit, trusted friends, this might be a topic you can explore more thoroughly. The tabletop RPG campaign can even be a healthy outlet for discussing sexual assault. However, that kind of in-depth exploration of such a sensitive topic is probably not something to spring on new acquaintances or casual friends. 5) Babies The thief crept down the tunnel, the rest of the adventuring party behind him. The lone member of the party with infravision, it was up to him to lead the heroes to ambush the hag. They moved carefully, cautious of the shifting carpet of bones beneath their feet. he druid, feeling the delicate remains beneath her feet, had commented on how many animals had died to satiate the fiend's bloodlust. Only the thief knew the truth: the bones were tiny and delicate, no larger than a bird's, but they were all unmistakably human. What you do: Use violence against children to up the stakes in an adventure, or to signal the ultimate evil. Alternatively, use possessed/fiendish children as the enemy themselves. Why you do it: Virtually no character, no matter how jaded, is willing to allow children to be the victims of a monster's depraved whims. Even many villainous characters will rise to the defense of a kid. If you're using a child as the villain, then you may be trying to spring a surprise on the players, giving them a villain hiding in a guise even veteran adventurers might not suspect.This can lead to a very different kind of encounter, if the child is brainwashed or possessed, where the players can't kill the villain but instead have to find some way to free the child. Alternately, a fiendish villain merely impersonating a child can make PCs have to make very difficult choices if they want to defeat the villain permanently--killing a child, even a demon disguised as one, is no small thing. How other people might see it: It's possible someone might think of this as trivializing violence against children. Many of the friends I spoke to while thinking about this said that after having children, their perception of children (and children in imperiled or victim roles) in media, including RPGs, changed after having children of their own. Stories of lost or endangered children affected them more than it had before. This isn't limited to parents, either; I've seen similar feelings voiced by gamers in professions that require them to bond closely with children (such as preschool teachers). Since it's often difficult for a player to say "Hey, this story makes me uncomfortable, can we do something else?" it can lead to players feeling like they are stuck in a situation that isn't comfortable but that they can't fix. (Good players are loathe to ask a GM to discard all the work they put into an adventure, after all.) I've even seen a player walk away from a game because of this issue. How to fix it: This is a situation where tact is the best medicine. Violence against children (especially if the story requires it from the PCs) is a serious topic, and should probably be best handled in a serious fashion. As long as you don't exceed your players’ comfort levels, you should be good to include children in your game as long as you aren't being cavalier about harm coming to them. Conclusion Chances are, you're a nice person. You became a GM because you want to help tell a good story with your friends. Only you are going to know if something is right for your game. The better you know your players, the better you're going to know what you can do, and what might be misinterpreted. That's not to say that you can never incorporate any of the story aspects we discussed, and it certainly isn't to say the way these topics could be interpreted is how they will be interpreted. It never hurts to try to gain a different perspective, though. People come to gaming from all different walks of life and a variety of backgrounds. Trying to be aware of how a story aspect could be perceived differently is never going to be a bad idea. Even if you examine what you're doing and ultimately make no changes, the extra attention to detail will make itself known in other aspects of your game.Your players will definitely take notice, and anything that enhances their enjoyment is a step in the right direction, right? Jim Stearns is a deranged hermit from the swamps of Southern Illinois. In addition to writing for the Black Library, he puts pen to paper for High Level Games and Keep on the Heathlands. His mad scribblings can frequently be found in Quoth the Raven, as well as anthologies like Fitting In or Selfies from the End of the World, by Mad Scientist Journal. Follow him on Twitter @jcstearnswriter. Image: Dungeon Master by Alexandre Salles (Deviant Art)  The World of Darkness books are filled with great NPC ideas. Sometimes though, you want just the shard of a concept to help build your own. Here is a list of concepts for you to flesh out. Some are serious, some are ridiculous. Run with what works for you.
1) Clinton Perry: Ragabash Red Talon Clinton was born in the National Zoo. He was freed by a pack of Bone Gnawers. His deed name is “Breaks All the Shit.” Clinton wants to travel far away from home. Something is calling to him. 2) Jung-Ho Park: Ventrue 13th Gen Madame Park was embraced during the Korean War by a Ventrue who had attached himself to the US military operation. Park is frustrated by her lack of blood power (generation). 3) Miles Morales: Ananasi Hatar Miles is from Queens. He ate his parents during his change and now struggles with a reduced emotional connection to that act of horror. He pretends to be a superhero to assuage his dwindling conscience. 4) Professor Jazz: Troll Prof. Jazz is a blues man by nature, and a jazz drummer because it pays the bills. He gets his glamour from watching people watching his videos on their phones. 5) Keshia Jackson: Salubri Antitribu Keshia was embraced less than a year ago, but she's made the most out of that time. She is encouraging the Salubri to drop the anti label and declare themselves the 3rd Sabbat pillar Clan. Both the clan, and the Panders are listening. 6) Mary Tandy Moore: Unknown Mary finds themself caught dealing with drug dealers and college professors fighting over a plot of land which holds value to each side. They want nothing to do with it, but they can't stop being in the wrong place at the wrong time. They are looking for help from multiple sources. 7) Joaquin Scheder: Sidhe Joaquin is way out of his element. He doesn't understand why he can see the world the way it is. A dragon is stalking him, and he doesn't know if it is friend or foe. 8) Casper: Haunter Casper was killed as a child. He really wants to play with the other children, but they run when he shows up. He is particularly fond of Little Mike. 9) Lupus: Black Fury Gangrel Abomination She doesn't remember who or what she is. She knows she needs blood, and she cries when she sees the moon. A pack of Sabbat and a pack of Werewolves are stalking her. 10) Charles Maddox: Arcanum Scholar: Maddox is a strange character. He's been a member of the Arcanum for 10 years, and he claims he's onto a major breakthrough related to the Disparate Alliance. Whatever that is… So there you are 10 basic character sketches that can get you started. What would you like to add? With 18 years of playing rpgs, Josh started with Mind's Eye Theater LARPs and loves the World of Darkness. He recently launched,www.keepontheheathlands.com to support his gaming projects. Josh is the administrator of the Inclusive Gaming Network on Facebook. He’s a player in Underground Theatre LARPs and is running a Mage game and a D&D 5th Edition campaign. He’s a serious advocate for inclusive gaming spaces, a father, and a graduate from the International Peace and Conflict Resolution graduate program at American University in Washington, D.C. Image Source: John van Fleet  Since before the first Monster Manual, dragons were designed to be the ubiquitous challenge of D&D. They were in the name, after all. So it was only natural that Ravenloft, a setting where dragons were scarce and the iconic critter was the bloodsucking vampire, introduced vampire subspecies and age categories. Vampires were the new dragons: iconic foes with sufficient variety so that the DM could scale them to be a challenge for a party of any level. Subsequent editions added vampire spawn and templates for the same reason.
But Ravenloft is also about foes with backstory, which doesn't always match up with traditional scaling methods. Suppose you want your 3rd level party to fight a vampire, but Joe Peasant (as a spawn) doesn't fit the bill? What if your PC pick a fight against a known vampire that would normally be too powerful for them? What if a later story demands a reasonable excuse for how they ran afoul of a centuries-old nosferatu and lived to tell the tale? When dealing with an imbalance of power, it pays to know your classics, and this concept has been written about for centuries. "The Art of War" states that when waging war against a more powerful foe, it is critical that you control the time and the place of the fight, and wait for the right moment. Sun Tsu may not have been a gamer, but when it comes to vampires, it turns out he was especially accurate: vampires have special weaknesses when it comes to timing and placement. If your PC's are below the level where they might survive a standard toe-to-toe, consider giving them one of these forms of good luck. 1) Let Sleeping Vamps Lie As Jander Sunstar said to Strahd Von Zarovich, "One peasant with a planting stick is more than a match for you during the day." It's a classic trope of vampire hunts for the PC's to explore the crypt while the sun shines, facing traps and tricks and guardians only to find the creature's resting place as the sun is setting. It's no crime against narrative to allow low-level PC's to face fewer traps and guardians and actually get there in time to stake the monster in the coffin. Or you might reverse the idea, letting them stumble into the creature's path just after midnight when it is active, and let them figure out ways to stall and hide and evade until they run out of options...and are rescued by the rising sun. 2) Burning Daylight Of course, the other think about daylight is, well, the light. Apart from nosferatu, who merely lose their supernatural powers, sunlight destroys vampires more effectively than anything, and they know it. Even a first level party stands a decent chance of surviving if the creature has been forced to take shelter in the shadow of a tall tree or tower at noonday. Forced to forgo sleep to keep moving, only a narrow band of shadow between it and oblivion as the day marches on, it could tear to pieces anyone who comes too close, but a low-level party that avoids eye contact might engage in a prolonged battle of wits that gives new meaning to "burning daylight." 3) Location, Location, Location While some vampires may tolerate the sunlight for a brief time to escape the PC's, hardly any can ignore the restriction on entering residences uninvited. According to Van Richten's Guide to vampires, only those who normally reside in a place can issue a proper invitation. To give a first level group a strategic advantage against a vampire, let them encounter it seeking entrance to a place where they are guests. Not knowing who is a resident, the creature dominates a PC or NPC guest for an invitation, but still cannot enter. The rest of the party figures out there is something unusual going on as the dominated PC tries to secure an invitation from an actual resident, with the vampire pacing on the doorstep in frustration. The party will get a good challenge out of fighting the dominated character (and perhaps some summoned animals) before the creature moves on to easier pickings. 4) Death Takes a Holiday Restricted as they are by their requirements for blood and sleep, vampires are not prone to travel. Those who undertake a long journey must bring their coffins with them, and those without loyal quislings to haul them in a wagon frequently find themselves stowed in the hold of a boat. This is not in itself a violation of the prohibition against crossing running water...but the creature cannot leave the boat except to set foot on land. This is easily compounded by the above restrictions on sleep, sunlight and invitations: passenger staterooms are not separate residences, but crew quarters are. If passengers are few, a vampire might be forced to choose between gaining a new invitation every night so it can shallow feed, or risk arousing suspicion by feeding from the same people twice. Count Dracula himself was forced to depopulate the entire crew of a ship one by one to make the journey to England. If only one of those crew had knowledge of vampires, and could explain to the others how to hold them off, that ocean voyage might have ended much differently. ++++++++++++++++++++ So that’s four ways your low-level PC’s might gain the upper hand against a vampire, but then what? If the creature escapes, it will surely have a long memory of its defeat, and it will never allow itself to be caught in such circumstances again. If the PC’s managed to destroy it for good, it may have had a mate, sire or spawn that would likewise hold a grudge. Allow the PC’s their moment to lick their wounds and pat themselves on the back, but they had better not count on luck next time. Luck is a fickle ally, and you never know when the forces that tipped the scales for you might side with the monsters instead. Matthew Barrett has been playing and writing for Ravenloft for over twenty years, starting with the Kargatane's Book of S series (as Leyshon Campbell). He married his wife on Friday the 13th after proposing to her on Halloween. By tradition, the first story read at birth to each of their three children was The Barker’s Tour, from Ravenloft’s “Carnival” supplement. He is currently working on a Ravenloft-based experiment in crowdsourced fiction using his “Inkubator” system at inkubator.miraheze.org. Image is from Ravenloft 3.5 and is titled Races of Ravenloft  That’s usually the juicy bit of a story, right? Withheld information between characters or from the reader, it’s what makes a story worth reading. Since there’s an innumerable amount of similarities between role-playing games and literature, this concept translates well to the table. The GM’s role is based on revealing withheld information to the players, we surely don’t need to address that. However, I believe that players should have their own secrets too. Not from the GM, because then how are they supposed to incorporate it into the story? Secrets between players can help change inter-character relationships when they’re revealed. Sometimes they can be negative, but that’s the GM’s job to be the judge of what secrets will fly and what ones won’t.
We’re always looking for ways to create drama in our games and secrets are a cheap trick to turn it up to eleven. What makes putting them in a game difficult is that we depend on our players to come up with them. Here are some reasons to encourage your players to do that. 1) Solidifies Character Background Character background is instrumental to games where player agency takes the stage. When your players have well thought out backgrounds for their characters, it helps to bring the setting and its people to life. This creates investment in the game, interest to propel your players ever forward in search of the end of their quest. A player character secret could be a very good window into the character’s life before the formation of the party. A dark secret could create some tension in the party upon its reveal. A story about a fall from nobility could change the way the party views that character. For good or ill, revealing a secret about a character’s past can truly shake things up and change the light in which that character is seen. 2) Could Create an Unforeseen Connection Playing off the background idea, the secret could help create a connection with a GMPC. Creating an GMPC with a role in a character’s shrouded past is a fun way to foreshadow their background in the story. It keeps that specific player engaged in what is happening as well as the others, it’s human nature to be curious, is it not? If the secret pertains more to the present, a GMPC that knows something about it (with or without previous relation) would be forced to deal with the party. Using this stuff as tethers to tie the character together makes revealing the larger story fun and interesting. 3) GM Inspiration The lifelong search to find what the hell to make your campaign about. Having a loose outline is usually the way I go, just to let the characters fill in the rest. This forces me to take a reactionary role in writing the meat of the story. On the flip side, if a player character has a secret, then you content to tie into your original outline. Maybe this secret makes the character a part of something greater, maybe it puts them in imminent danger, or maybe it even is the reason for the whole misadventure that keeps the story moving. It’s easy for a player character secret to become an invaluable resource. So, take out the auger and drill into the head of your players… figuratively, that is. It’d be illegal, immoral, and terrible otherwise. 4) Creates Campaign Length A secret that gives you inspiration is rather directly giving you content to work with. Most GMs can come up with a lengthy campaign on their own without so much as a drop of sweat. Using the things your players develop is a great way to create campaign length with a robust and engaging story. If you milk a player character secret for everything it’s got, you can reveal tiny bits of information as the campaign progresses. Slowly. Very slowly. It’s not always true, but generally, a long campaign is an in-depth campaign. In-depth campaigns get remembered, and memorable games are a sign of a good GM. Unless, of course, the players only remember it because it sucked. In that case, head back to the drawing board and give it another good and honest go. Sometimes it’s easy to forget how relevant player input can be when designing a campaign. Encouraging your players to go crazy with their characters during session zero could help a GM keep the boat afloat and create years and years of wonderful gaming. Foreshadowing, reveal, and wrap-up make our gaming world go ‘round. Properly using player character secrets is a quick and easy way to make this process fun for everyone. Sean is the Heavy Metal GM. He’s an aspiring freelance writer and blogger that loves the hobby more than life itself. Always up for a good discussion, his blog covers general gaming advice as well as specialized advice/homebrew rules for 13th Age RPG. You can find his website at www.heavymetalgm.com, join the conversation. Image link  Dungeons and Dragons is the most iconic RPG, it’s the most often played game according to data published by Roll20, and it’s safe to say that there’s no shortage of people willing to run it.
Though if you dare to stray beyond D&D, you’re likely to find that there’s not many people wanting to run other games, either because being a player seems more entertaining, or they’d prefer to be a player in a game before running it. I’m basically saying that knowing how to run games besides D&D is a fairly valuable skill in the table-top gaming community. So, with that in mind, I have prepared this little list of advice that will make learning how to run a new game much easier. 1) You Don’t Need To Know Everything The bad news when you’re trying to learn a new game is this: most games have rulebooks that are several hundred pages long. The good news, though, is that most likely you don’t need to know everything. Usually, just having a passing familiarity with the setting is all you need to run a new game, since there’s always some manner of mundane characters, creatures, and places for the initial few scenes. Keeping the setting mundane at the start will give you (and the players!) time to adjust while everybody is getting the rules down. Let’s use Exalted 3rd edition as an example. The first few chapters of this book is setting information. While this may be interesting stuff, it’s not entirely necessary to run the game. Knowing the difference between an Abyssal, a Solar, and a Dragon-Blooded might help later on when you’re setting up antagonists. What’s MORE important, though, is knowing how characters mechanically interact with one another. 2) Learn The Basic Conflict Resolution The beauty of modern games is that they usually have one or two specific rules that are the core of everything else in the game. For Dungeons and Dragons, it’s roll of a d20 added to your modifiers. For Exalted, you form your dicepool based on your relevant attributes and abilities, roll all the dice, and count up successes for each that are 7, 8, 9, or 10, with 10 counting as two. This god-send of game design makes everything MUCH easier, since instead of poring over the rulebook in the middle of play to find one particular sub-system for something, you can just make something up for the time being so you can move the game along. Going back once again to Exalted, which has a fairly robust set of social mechanics, let’s say you skipped learning those since you know your players are more interested in combat encounters. However, one of them unexpected gets the idea to try to scare off some bandits harassing the local villagers instead of immediately coming to blows. Well, since we already know the dicepools are formed with an Attribute and an Ability, we can have the player roll for his Charisma + Presence, and improvise something based on how many successes come up. Which brings us to the next important set of information... 3) Learn Character Creation You can’t really do much in an RPG without having a character, and if you’re the GM, it definitely pays to know what all characters can do out of the starting gate. So for that reason, character creation is another vital thing to learn when getting into a new game. Often times, learning character creation is a good springboard into other parts of the game, and gives you hints for what other things you can expect to find through the rest of the book. In Exalted, character creation follows the steps of picking attributes, then abilities, both of which are somewhat self-explanatory. Picking Charms comes next, which based on the name alone doesn’t say much. A quick look at the table of contents, though, reveals an ENTIRE CHAPTER dedicated to this facet of the game! At around 200 or so pages, Charms make up about a third of the book! There’s no way we can memorize all this, so we’ll just have to accept that we’ll be referring to this section quite a bit. Which means you should... 4) Familiarize Yourself With The Book’s Layout I said earlier that you don’t need to know everything. I’d now like to introduce an important caveat to that statement: you don’t need to know everything IMMEDIATELY. To that end, you should at least know how to find it. Know what sort of chapters are in the rulebook, or at least if there’s a table of contents and an index. Indices have helped me find numerous rules I’ve otherwise ignored since most of my players initially never needed to use them. And tables of contents were a great help in .pdfs that I couldn’t as easily flip through. I don’t know what the sub-systems for leading armies and sailing ships are in Exalted, but I know what chapter they’d be in, and I know that particular chapter’s page is listed in the table of contents. And should I refer to it enough times, I’ll likely end up memorizing what page that chapter starts on. 5) Just Do It! It’s good to read and research and generally be prepared, but the most practical way to crystalize something in your memory is to apply that knowledge. Waiting until you feel prepared enough before running a new game usually leads to what I like to refer to as “preparation paralysis.” You want to wait till you’re prepared, but as you prepare, you find more things to need to be prepared for, and thus the cycle continues on. But with the above steps, knowing the layout of the book, knowing what a basic character has, and knowing the basics of the game’s conflict management, you’re plenty prepared. Get a scenario together, and make it happen. You got this. Aaron der Schaedel is a Game Master of many different games that hides out somewhere around The Rocky Top and The Dark and Bloody Ground. He also has a YouTube channel he’s named after himself, where he explains the ins and outs of various different games, just in case you need some more specific advice. PICTURE CREDIT: From the Exalted 3rd edition Core Book, pulled from this site: http://mraaktagon.com/yes-but-you-didnt-the-failed-redesign-of-stunts-in-exalted-3rd-edition  I don’t know about you, Internet, but I view the moments before I sit down to a new game campaign or setting with an equal mix of trepidation, excitement, hopefulness, and dread. Is this going to be like the game where I spent most afternoons wishing I was home doing my laundry, or is this going to be like the game where I spent all week obsessing about what was going to happen next?
I walked into my first game completely blind - I didn’t know anything about it except that I had bought a bag’s worth of shiny new dice and I sort of understood what the words on my character sheet meant. I got *really* lucky - my first DM took it relatively easy on me for the first couple of sessions, just enough to set the hook. I jumped in with both feet and never looked back. Due to logistics, when I first sat down with one of my two current DMs, I had literally no idea of what was going on. I didn’t know the system (except that it was d10 based, a system that had given me problems in the past), I didn’t know the world, and I only knew two of the other players. I was in a strange place, with a strange sheet in front of me, exhausted from an early-morning job. I took it on faith from the two players I did know that “you’ll love this game, it’s all about narrative and description, you’ll be great at it.” I was miserable. The other players had met with the DM previously, and they had sketched out a rough idea of what they wanted to do and how the campaign was going to work, setting- and theme-wise. Because of my chaotic evil schedule at the time, I was showing up blind, again. I hadn’t had a chance to give input on the game design, and when I was asked what I wanted to avoid in the campaign, I was so lost that I just named some pet peeves and let it ride. That game lasted...ten sessions, I think? Maybe more, it was kind of a haze. My character worked beautifully on paper but was a complete dead fish in play, because I had built her for what I thought the campaign was going to be like, and I couldn’t have been more wrong. Sadly, the wrongness didn’t come into evidence until after the three-game-change window, so I tried to tough it out. I shouldn’t have. I come to you now to share the hard-won knowledge that I have acquired over the years. These expectations are a general framework that I expect from my fellow players, to try to enhance the game for all parties concerned. Comments and commentary are, of course, welcome. 1) Engagement With The Plot (at best) Or Polite Attention (at worst): We are all busy adults with full schedules who have carved out time and energy to play this game. I expect you to either be playing or paying attention to the gameplay. Some of the funniest and fun moments I have had around the table were MST3King/Rifftraxing the play going on in front of me. Checking something in the book (when it’s not your turn, please) is okay, or a brief dip into the madness of the Internet is fine, but when you do your trick, then look at the rest of us and say “nudge me when I need to roll dice” is rude at best and disheartening at worst. I invest my time and energy to play with people; I expect the same in return. This is crucial in a game like Exalted, where player input has a marked impact on the game in the form of voting for stunt bonuses and the like. If you aren’t here to play, or at least socialize while playing, why are you here? 2) Commitment to Session Times Life happens. Job schedules are nuts (me), kids happen (DM and fellow player), loved ones fall ill or need more attention because of life events (another player), and sometimes your vehicle decides to commit fiery suicide because it’s just sick of life (another player). We all understand this, and we’re sympathetic. If you mysteriously have a headache every Sunday afternoon, or you “aren’t feeling it today” two hours before game time several weeks in a row, please consider if you actually want to keep playing, and if you don’t, then stop. Stop wasting our time. Stop wasting our goodwill. We will still want to hang out with you, but if you keep screwing up our plans at the last minute, that might change too. Your time is valuable, our time is valuable, our DM’s time is valuable. Respect us enough to say “This isn’t working right now, guys, catch me next time?” Corollary - BE ON TIME, FOR THE LOVE OF SPICE. Gamer Standard Time is a phrase that needs to die in the pits of a thousand hells. If game starts at 1, be there at 1 (or even better, 12:45), not 2:30. If you’re running late, call/text/IM/tweet/Skype, do something to let us know so we’re not all sitting around staring at our dice like sad pandas looking at an empty food bowl. 3) Familiarity with Setting/Rules I can hear you now - “But you said you went in blind to your last game!” Yes, I did say that - and I said it made me miserable. Do I think you can’t sit down and learn a new system or world? Not at all! That said, make sure your fellow players know that you are new to the system and will be asking lots of questions. Most players will be perfectly okay with this, and I guarantee that the neophyte will be overwhelmed with advice and suggestions. Please see my previous article on How Not To Be That Gamer and apply the truths within liberally, as needed. If you are the neophyte in this position, commit to learning the bare bones at that first session, and study up as the days go on. You’ll get it faster than you think. 4) Be A Plot Mover, Not A Plot Dragon If you’re in this hobby to roll dice without context, may I not-so-humbly suggest you learn how to play craps instead? We’re here to roll dice and play roles, not just chuck plastic blobs around to meet arbitrary numbers in a vacuum. Personal plots are fun, but it’s hard on your DM and unfair to other players unless they are involved with them too. The third option is to be a plot donkey - ask your DM (not at the table or immediately pre- or post-game, please) if there’s something she or he wants to get moving, and volunteer to be the one who turns down the path less traveled or asks “hey guys, what IS in that box?” Chase plot, even if turns out to be a flaming bunny. Share the plot goodies you find (psst, this means you can share the blame too!). That’s why we’re here, to play. 5) Establish if Your Group is Cooperative or Antagonistic This is a pre-game thing, ideally when you are in a conceptual stage discussing what you all want out of your communal gaming experience. A group of antagonists won’t work well, but factions within the party can be great fun if you all can manage to keep a clear delineation between IC and OOC. If you have decided to play as a cooperative group, you should strive to maintain that, unless there’s a story-related reason to change it. With the understanding that most plans don’t survive their first brush with trouble, and most groups don’t survive their first divvying-up of that sweet sweet loot-y goodness, do TRY to adhere to what you agreed to at the planning phase. Speaking of… 6) Proper Planning Prevents...well, You Know The Rest I don’t mean that you should be doing comparative cost-benefit analysis of spell lists (oh please, for the love of heaven, don’t waste precious gaming time doing that) but plan out the general shape of your campaign, or at least the first season, with ALL the players present as well as the DM. Want a city-building game, or something more Indiana-Jonesy? Monster of the week or a tightly woven plot? Lay out what you want. Just as importantly, lay out what you don’t want. I mentioned that I built a character that worked beautifully on paper and in concept, but the game was 150% wrong for her, because I didn’t know the group had decided on a city-building concept instead of a go-out-and-explore game. My group, bless their collective hearts, didn’t want to tell me that my concept didn’t flow with the plan for the game, so I struggled through months of boring and frankly infuriating game sessions before that game mercifully died with a whimper. Be honest, but don’t be a dick. Most people are willing to adjust their concepts slightly to fit the group vision. That being said, it is far easier to tweak a concept before dots hit the page. 7) No Prima Donnas, or Variations Thereof I’m looking at you, people who think that because you are gracing the table with your presence, you get plot bennies. I’m also looking at the ladies and gentlemen who try to get what we refer to as the “banging the DM” bonus - I hope that is fairly self-explanatory. It’s unfair and childish at best, and creepy/repulsive at worst. There’s almost nothing worse than seeing one player get shot down for a concept, and the person of the DM’s affection getting the nod for no apparent reason. Disclosure: My husband is currently one of my DMs, and far from getting a banging-the-DM bonus, he is ten times harder on me than the other players because he says he knows what I am capable of and won’t let me get lazy. I both love and hate him for this. You need other people to play the game. Don’t alienate them. Share the spotlight. Point out and appreciate really awesome things your fellow players do. And don’t forget to cheer on your DM for bringing his or her A-game to the table and making the game as amazing as they can. I love the idea of giving props and nods at the end of the game, ending the session on a high note. It keeps people motivated to do more, to be further in character, to take risks to get rewards, knowing that if their characters die, they won’t go gently into that good night. I know what some of you are asking right now - if planning is so important, why did you leave it until the last point in your list? Patience, grasshoppers. Because, believe it or not, it is not the most important part of a successful game. Player mindset and expectations are. All the good planning in the world withers away in front of a bad or dysfunctional group. Get together the right people and even the most slapdash game will be memorable. Stay tuned for the next installment of this piece - setting expectations for DMs - coming soon to an Internet-capable device of your choice. Until then, I remain, Your Most Obedient Servant, Georgia Georgia is a writer, editor, gamer, and mad culinary priestess who masquerades as a corporate employee while her plans for world domination slowly come together. She lives in Tacoma, Washington, with her husband and Feline Overlords. She can be reached through Facebook at In Exquisite Detail or on Twitter at @feraldruidftw.  Fantasy role-playing, or any genre where spirits and deities are involved, gives us an exciting insight into an important element of human culture. Religion as separate from daily life is quite unique to modern times. In days past, certainly there were impious and blasphemous persons. In general though, people would follow the religious customs of their land and culture. In some places, it was genuinely believed that religious observations played a central role in deciding battles and averting natural disasters. The gods’ favor could earn a bountiful harvest and their wrath could mean famine. To play a character who lives in such a world and culture I list below four different ways to approach religion. It doesn’t matter that your character is not a miracle worker or a knight of the church, in a religious society almost everyone will incorporate religion into their life in one way or another. Here are my suggestions.
1) The Pious Layman One does not need to be a member of the clergy to be devoted to one’s deity. Consider taking time to burn offerings to invoke good favor, or maybe offer gold to request peace for the souls of your ancestors? In a polytheistic setting the idea of converting people to your faith is likely totally foreign. But you serve your god well and try to live out the customs of your people as best as you can, with conviction and probably even pride. 2)The Superstitious I love this. Superstition, in a world of quarreling gods, spirits, and arcane powers is storytelling gold. It’s so very natural and human to revert to superstition. Real belief with little understanding is a breeding ground for superstition. And in a world where you don’t have science to answer the why behind the seasons and weather, earthquakes and invaders, and just about anything beyond human control, an easy answer to grasp is “spirits made it happen”. Your people may have superstitions or maybe your character invents their own. Consider interpreting anything strange as an omen. 3)The Lip Server There are many reasons to go through the motion of religion even when your heart's not in it. Maybe to you religion is more about culture and identity. Consider a few basic rituals that connect you with your roots. Something more like a societal pledge then a deeply religious prayer. This character probably has little use for religious contemplation but when it comes to the ceremonies of their people it’s best to go through the motions. 4) The Powermonger In any culture where religion is at the centre of life you will find people looking to become that centre of life. It’s become a Hollywood stereotype that middle ages bishops were greedy, power hungry manipulators. But many were in fact the princes and rulers of vast lands, they were politicians, not just churchmen. But consider as well the druids, shaman, and witch doctors of tribal societies. They demand great respect and held high positions of power in their societies. To play a powermonger one does not need to be evil, but consider what you might demand of those around you; loyalty, obedience,and perhaps a bent knee. The spirits and deities of fantasy realms are powerful and terrifying things, those who wield such power become themselves powerful and terrifying. A great questions to always keep in mind could be something along the lines of: How would I act if I actually believed my character’s religion was real? This, and the expectation that other people in this world also all believe this religion is real. For me the biggest challenge in fantasy role-playing is adopting the polytheistic mindset that many fantasy realm settings have. As our own North American culture has roots in monotheistic Christianity it can be easier for us to draw inspiration from what we already may know, all four of these suggested character types fit well inside this framework. Developing our characters and worlds by taking queues from history and really dwelling on the divine connections our characters strive for can really bring our games to life. Anthony is lifelong dreamer and hobbyist who approaches role-playing as one part storyteller and one part rules lawyer. Role-playing interests include world building, back stories, character accents and voices, and trying to keep his inner simulationist in check.  When we are wronged, do we not seek vengeance? When our loved ones are ill, do we not seek a cure? When the world turns against us, do we not seek justice? These are all motivations that push characters (and likewise, players) forward in their personal quests. Fostering personal motivation is a key part of being an interactive GM, and it can be as simple as dropping in a story beat at the right time. What’s more, motivating PCs keeps your players coming back to your table for more. Here are a few examples of easy and intriguing motivations to keep your story moving and your players’ butts in their seats.
1 - Revenge A little tropey to be sure, vengeance nevertheless proves to be a useful motivator in many good tales. Certainly, the axiom “an eye for an eye” has lost meaning slowly over the centuries, but it still presents a concrete and relatable driving force. What do we do when we fall in battle to a superior foe? Stand up, brush ourselves off, seek a cleric or medbay, and set out to find the one who felled us. When dealing with player-versus-player combat, though, be sure to avoid grudges that leave the table-top and creep into real life. Players should leave the table and get back to being friends (or friendly acquaintances), not continue the cycle of vengeance beyond the lives of the involved characters. 2 - Aid Most player characters in role-playing games are decent enough individuals. When they see suffering, they don’t often stand idly by, especially when given the opportunity and power to help. This is not to say that GMs should dangle helpless, wounded puppies in front of their players’ characters every other session, but the drive to do something good for someone else cannot be ignored either. When the players seem somewhat listless, or when they get too confident, allow an as-yet-unexplained event to harm or imperil someone they care about. If they fail to save them, then see point number one! Just make certain that the danger or harm doesn’t feel random or disconnected from the narrative. 3 - Justice When the world is out of whack, the desire to set things right eventually sinks in. While some characters will act apathetic to the larger concerns of the world, it is unlikely that they will refuse a worthy and worthwhile cause. This type of motivation is best to foster towards the end of your narrative, as it often involves wide, sweeping changes to your setting or forces that threaten the world or a large portion of its denizens. Build up to this one, and seed your narrative with hints that something dastardly is brewing and that the player characters’ influence will be needed. Let them consternate one another and contemplate the ramifications of their involvement. Most groups won’t need more than a small push to rise to the occasion. 4 - Greed When all else fails, appeal to your players’ need for further power or intriguing items. Entire campaigns have been built off the straining back of avarice. Entice players with shimmering items of incomprehensible worth. Whisper tales of nigh unreachable fonts of absolute power. String them along by their noses until they reach the veritable cave of wonders. Then, as would we all, you should bring down the hammer and make them earn their new attainment. There are others, of course, and I encourage you to let me know which you prefer when building your campaigns (or when you hit a slow spot during a session). Whatever your motivation, keep on gaming! David Horwitz is a gamer and freelance writer with an obsession for exploring new forms of leisure. If you’re looking for an inquisitive mind and a deft hand, or just want to chat about gaming, contact him at www.davidhorwitzwrites.com/contact  Hello friend.
Thank you for your timely intervention on behalf of the people of Dowen-upon-Waite. Without your assistance, I doubt that there would have been anyone in the village remaining. None that could be called human, at any rate. I do wonder how such a cancer began. It's a shame that we weren't able to learn more. Amongst many philosophers, the subject of evil is an oft-discussed (or argued) one, but more often than not the kinds of malevolent secrets which you uncovered have their roots in something far more innocuous. Something benevolent, even useful, which carries so small a price as to be nearly negligible. These objects often set the stage for the gradual descent to a point where the once-noble aspirant finds himself waist deep in atrocities he would never have considered before embarking on his path of damnation. Having felt the malignant caress of the Dark Powers myself, I have made a careful study of the things that can lead to such darkness. Since you were inquisitive enough to contact me regarding the genesis of the most recent problem, I thought I would share a few of my own private notes with you in the hopes that you might see how these sorts of tumors begin to grow. 1) Wine of Ages My compatriots and I recovered this particular item from a tomb we cleansed of undead in the mountains of Lamordia. To the eye, it is merely a mundane bottle of green glass, with a name imprinted upon the bottom: Herzhen Yards. There is no such vineyard that we were ever able to uncover, although the tomb appeared to be of Outlander origin, and its plundered contents appeared to come from a range of different cultures. This unassuming little malignance was stolen from me by a Rajian thief, and I have not seen either since. The bottle is empty, save for an ashen grey haze that can be poured forth from the neck as though it were a true liquid. This vapor, which carries the odor of gently rotting loam, is harmless to the living. If poured into the mouth of the deceased, it grants the corpse the ability to converse with the living, albeit in a limited fashion. Please note that although this ability seems mundane, it is an abomination. It encourages a callous disregard for the dead, driving the user to treat corpses as mere investigative tools, and leads its wielder to see nothing wrong with compelling the spirit (or a semblance thereof) back to the realm of the living for mere convenience. The Wine of Ages allows its bearer to converse with a humanoid or monstrous humanoid corpse up to three times per day. Each corpse may be conversed with only once, but the condition of the body is irrelevant--it can still speak even if rot or injury would normally make it incapable. The effect lasts for up to one minute per HD of the dead body. The spirit is much less committed than they were in life (shift alignment one step towards N), but can still make a saving throw (Will DC 17, Wis DC 15) in order to lie freely. Using the Wine of Ages is cause for a 3% Dark Powers check. 2) Oubliette Dust This nasty little alchemical concoction is a creation of the Kargatane, I believe. I was unfortunate enough to discover it while attempting to apprehend several spies that had infiltrated Drifthome. One of the thieves, when confronted, threw a black powder in my face. I was immediately reminded of the last time I had smelt such a powder: when I was the 'guest' of the Kargat, tortured repeatedly for several weeks. So horrific were the memories, I was unable to prevent the thieves from fleeing. As my daughter was good enough to remind me later, after I had recovered, I have never been tortured by the Kargat. The memories induced by the dust are merely lies. Still, their effects linger, and I often find myself waking in the middle from dreams of Darkonian dungeons. Those who sell the Oubliette Dust market it as a 'stunning powder,' and indeed it does exactly that. However, the memories it 'awakens' are so horrific and they stay with the victim for weeks, even months, after the fact. Oubliette Powder can be thrown in a cloud at any victim within 5 feet. If the victim fails their save (Fort DC 17, Con DC 15) they are unable to act for 2d6 rounds. If they are attacked this effect breaks immediately. The terror on the victims' faces is self-evident; using the powder is cause for a 1% Dark Powers check. This rises to 3% if the user knows the full extent of the trauma they are inflicting on their enemy. 3) Granny Lady Bracelet Last year, a cult of witches was uncovered in the Mordentish countryside. Although a great deal of their magical prowess was merely smoke and mirrors, they did possess a number of unnatural abilities that Tasha and I were forced to contend with. Most infuriatingly, their leader seemed to be able to anticipate our arrival, and it was only through the utmost diligence that we were able to confront her. One of her magical talismans was what the Souragne practitioners refer to as a gris-gris. A small, twisted length of sinew and hair, strung with a variety of horrific trophies, including finger bones, teeth, and dried flesh, and is typically worn around the wrist. Tasha wore the talisman for several weeks, and reported that it gave her brief glimpses into the future, but after reading through the granny lady's journal, I became convinced that inheriting the device from her own mentor is what began the corruption of the witch that had plagued us, and I convinced Tasha to put the device aside for her own good. Currently, the foul thing resides in a locked trunk in my safe room. Anyone wearing the Granny Lady Bracelet may roll 2d20 at the beginning of the day. During the course of the day, they may replace any d20 roll (theirs or anyone within line of sight) with one of the Bracelet's rolls. This does not stack with the ability of a Divination specialist, instead they receive one extra d20 for their Portent ability. Using the Granny Lady Bracelet is sufficient cause for a 1% Dark Powers check every week it is owned. 4) Breathstealer Arrow I encountered this device on an assassin from Tepest.The Inquisitor I worked with to apprehend the fiend claimed this weapon was a gift to the killer, in recompense for selling his services to the fae. Although I am normally loathe to heed their dogmatic fanaticism, in this case there may be a seed of truth to it. In truth, the magical component is a stone arrowhead, which can be affixed to any mundane bolt or arrow. Once it hits its target, it breaks loose and begins twisting its way towards the target's lungs, causing the poor soul to choke and gasp as their air is magically expelled from their body. If it isn't cut out swiftly (a supremely difficult task, I can attest, since the infernal thing avoids all attempts at capture) it will eventually kill its victim, even if the original user is dead. Inquisitor Cormec took the cursed thing with him after we apprehended the murderer, although I spared the assassin the cruelty of a Tepestani imprisonment and execution. I sat in judgment over him myself, and I'm sure he found the noose far less painful than whatever Cormec had in store for him. A target hit with a Breathstealer Arrow cannot breathe. (This means they cannot speak, cast spells, or activate command words.) Beginning in the round they are hit, the victim suffers the normal effects of suffocation (treat the victim as if they had already held their breath the maximum length of time). It can be removed with a Heal check (DC 20), causing 1d4 damage for every round it was embedded. Using such an arrow is an act of torture, invoking a 4% Dark Powers check when used against a monster or evil NPC, 7% if used against a stranger or neutral NPC, and an automatic failure if used against a good NPC or friend. The arrowhead can be recovered after the target's death, and can be removed by the firer with no check. 5) Witchbane Codex When several Halan witches in and around my area were found murdered, I at first suspected the presence of a rogue Tepestani inquisitor. Although there was a man involved who used such a title, he was an Outlander. After his capture (or defiant last stand, in truth), this slim volume was discovered on his person. It appears to be written in Tepestani, although it contains far more arcane knowledge than the Inquisition would be comfortable committing to paper. Inside, there is detailed information on common practices, rites, beliefs, and identifying traits of witches and infernal cults. After reading it, I found myself revolted by the unnatural lore contained within. Although Tasha has asked to read it, I have sent the book to my friend Kelly, as he has proven more than capable of resisting the temptations of such arcana. Reading the Witchbane Codex (which takes six hours) immediately costs the reader a point of Wisdom (which can never be recovered) but imbues them with an additional point of Intelligence. While the book is in their possession, they may consult it to gain a +2 on any appropriate skill check (such as Arcana, Religion, Knowledge: Arcana, or Knowledge: Religion). Even lightly reading the book instantly causes the user to make a Sanity check, if those rules are being used, and also causes the loss of Innocence. Completing the book is cause for a 2% Dark Powers check. The user should also be assessed for a 1% Dark Powers check for every month they have the book in their possession. Willingly giving it to another person to read is cause for a 5% Dark Powers check, 10% if they are unaware of the nature of the book, and is an automatic failure if they are an Innocent. In Summation As you can see, the road to Hell can indeed be paved with the most innocuous of cobbles. The wise adventurer would do well to resist such temptations. Too often, what appears to merely offer power or expediency comes at the cost of our very soul. Should you find such a wicked item among your travels, do not hesitate to contact me if you wish assistance in confining or destroying it. Your actions have spoken volumes for your righteousness, and I consider myself Your Friend, Joram Mournesworth, Lord Mayor of Drifthome Jim Stearns is a deranged hermit from the swamps of Southern Illinois. In addition to writing for the Black Library, he puts pen to paper for High Level Games and Keep on the Heathlands. His mad scribblings can frequently be found in Quoth the Raven, as well as anthologies like Fitting In or Selfies from the End of the World, by Mad Scientist Journal. Follow him on Twitter @jcstearnswriter.  A few months back, I reviewed Vampire: The Masquerade 1st Edition for my website, Keep on the Heathlands. One of the most fascinating elements of this original edition of VtM, at least to me, was the concept of The Rebirth. What was this? Why did it exist and moreover, why was it removed in Revised and Vampire 20th Anniversary Edition? Will we see it again in 5th edition when it is released from White Wolf’s crypt? In 1st Edition and 2nd Edition Vampire, The Rebirth was this idea that it was possible to somehow escape the Curse of Caine. Or more succinctly, to become human again. Such an idea is anathema to almost everything I thought I knew about White Wolf’s flagship game, and I’ve never heard of any group using the plotline in their games. The idea of becoming human once more was the bailiwick of high level rare disciplines of the most rare of bloodlines. That being said, I think The Rebirth deserves a place at the Blood Feast.
1) The Rebirth is Human Vampire: The Masquerade is a game about humanity. I don’t mean Humanity, the statistic on your character sheet. I mean people. VtM and vampires in the World of Darkness need humans. They must live among them to feed and survive. Imagine being a person living among pigs. Now, imagine being the type of person who randomly kills, eats, and or tortures pigs when the mood strikes you. You don’t hide it, you do it in front of the other pigs. You think those pigs are going to like you, or trust you? Not likely. Now imagine being a Vampire, you used to be like the humans around you. You are told that being humane is the most important thing, that doing so prevents you from becoming a beast. Yet, you must feed. You hunger. Without the blood of your fellow man you will die; even animal blood only sustains weakly, and not at all for elder Vampires. The Rebirth is a way for you to rejoin those you feed upon. The Rebirth is a hope, ever so infinitesimal, that you can cease being a monster. 2) The Rebirth is Horrific Sit down for this. Or not; whatever, I’m not your father. The Rebirth is personal horror at its best. I’m your Storyteller, you are playing in a small group of recently embraced Kindred. I offer you a story tidbit: you can become human again. You just have to kill your Sire. I don’t tell you how. I drop this information in a small fragment of the Book of Nod. An elder confirms, “Yes, in the old country I heard of such a thing happening. Surely you don’t want that, as such a thing steals from you all the benefits of immortality.” Now you plot, you plan, you create an entire masterpiece detailing how you are going to kill your Sire and be Reborn! Oh, did I forget to mention how you had to do it? Did I forget to mention that you need to do it within a month after being embraced? Did I forget… oh sorry… you failed your Willpower roll. You think diablerized your Sire seems like a fantastic way to ENSURE they are dead. The sun begins to set on your hope to be Reborn. 3) The Rebirth is Hope I know, I know, the WoD is darkness on darkness with no hope or light. I think that is reductive. The darkness is only terrifying when there is light for you to retreat to. Despair is only poignant when hope still exists. Those that lose hope don’t care about Rebirth. They care about Blood, and they care about their unlife continuing for another year, or decade, or 1000 years. To have the hope Rebirth is to have the hope that one can escape the Beast, escape the hunger for blood and feel again. The emotions of humanity are stripped away from a newly embraced Vampire. Love, friendship, and empathy are things that are only memories for the Kindred. The Rebirth offers a small potential to return to true emotions once more. That is hope; that hope is something that should be cherished and cared for. Only then should it be dashed and destroyed on the altar of the Cathedral of Flesh. Use the Rebirth in your games. It is an underused idea in Vampire and it offers all kinds of wonderful plot hooks. Let us Rebirth this torpid story idea and bring it into the new era. What harm can it do? With 18 years of playing rpgs, Josh started with Mind's Eye Theater LARPs and loves the World of Darkness. He launched,www.keepontheheathlands.com to support his gaming projects. Josh is the administrator of the Inclusive Gaming Network on Facebook. He’s a player in Underground Theatre LARPs and is running a Mage game and a D&D 5th Edition campaign. He’s a serious advocate for inclusive gaming spaces, a father, and a graduate from the International Peace and Conflict Resolution graduate program at American University in Washington, D.C.  Total Party Kills (which are literally what the name says, i.e. the death of the entire adventuring party) are a radical move that the GM may perform on a group of adventurers, and as such either finish off a campaign, create a hook for a new one, end the player’s misery, or maybe all of the above combined.
It’s seldom done, at least by me, because of the sentimental implications that it brings about – anybody who’s roleplayed a character for more than a couple sessions already gets attached to them; imagine if not only that character but everybody else who’s helped them become what they are suddenly… ceased to be. Even when it is performed, it can sometimes fall flat, being seen as just a whim of the GM, or the flicking of a switch just because the situation allowed for it. Sometimes it just happens because no matter how much the GM tries to keep the PCs alive, they keep trying to walk over molten lava wearing nothing but “enchanted” bunny slippers they got from the crazed hermit preaching self-preservation. That being said, a TPK can be done in a way that makes sense, and even if it draws the ire of the group, can be explained to them in such a way that it suddenly becomes clear this was the end-all point everything was aiming towards – they were just too busy finding out what happens when you stick a goblin and a rabid monkey inside a Bag of Holding to notice. Without further ado, here are a few ways you can TPK and still have your ass good and covered. At least until the polyhedrons start flying towards it at unimaginable speeds. 1. It’s the Apocalypse as we know it! This one’s clear-cut and easy to pull off in campaigns that either start off as or end up being dark, dreary, hopeless affairs in which the heroes struggle to make ends meet and generally seem to be fighting an uphill battle that never ceases to let off. If every other rumour the PCs hear and every other hermit they come across speaks of nothing but doom, destruction, the reckoning, and they still don’t get that this is a one-way ticket to the next plane of existence… Well, that’s just on them. This is not to say that any Apocalyptic campaign should end with a TPK, hell, not knowing what the fate of the PCs was, hinting at a TPK, and suddenly discovering they’re still alive in a future campaign is even more of a fun feat to pull. Plus, they’ll feel extra bad for pulling all that voodoo on you when you first uttered those much-maligned words. 2. You’ve brought it upon yourselves… Sometimes, just sometimes, players need to be reined in. There comes a moment in a role-player’s life when they realise that they’re playing at make-believe, and that they’re getting out of increasingly difficult situations with little to no effect on the general outlook of things. Now that may be your fault as a GM, maybe you’re too lenient. It could just be lucky dice rolls, I’ve had that happen with intra-party conflicts. It could be that all the stars in all the parallel universes align so that little to no harm can befall a character even when they’ve just accidentally beheaded the King’s favourite daughter. Turns out she was adopted, a sleeper agent, and he had a fetish for chicken. But that’s another story for another setting. One that I’m now keen on exploring… When everything else fails, you’ve still got the players’ former deeds to go by. Lies, deceit, theft, murder, impersonating a dog… All of these separately can be, and have been dealt with. But maybe as their fame travels far and wide, their heroic actions are accompanied by disgruntled voices that blame them, despise them, and are even actively seeking revenge on them for various reasons. If you’re running an evil campaign, that’s just the norm, really. Sit back and enjoy the looks on their faces when that one peasant they stole a horse from to hunt down some bandits has formed a posse, taught himself how to handle a bow, started actively hunting them, and went from village to village, town to town, dungeon to dungeon, in the wake of their exploits, gaining more support until finally being backed by a neighbouring kingdom in serving their heads up on a platter. 3. With great power come great screw ups. A further twist on the previous entry can also be done at a late point in the characters’ careers as ass-kickers, bubblegum-chewers, and name-takers. This works especially well with high-power magic-hokey-wielding dudes and dudettes, but may be applied to most cases provided the right creative lever is pulled. The heroes may go beyond just pissing people off. Think along the lines of getting a ritual wrong, using a relic for extended periods of time without regard for the consequences, traveling to different dimensions and changing stuff around willy-nilly. Especially nilly. All of these seemingly contained and dealt with items can also ramp up over time, and if the ramping up is done right – by the GM – the heroes may go from the 4 Paragons of Justice to the 4 Horsemen of the Apocalypse in the span of just a few sessions. You can twist this even further by giving the players a choice of either offing themselves for the good of the land at large, or standing by their choices and taking on the combined might of the 175 Realms they’ve managed to upend with their “simple food conjuring spells” that they repeatedly rolled poorly on, and as such turned into “essence of blight charms” without even realising. Or you know, whatever floats your maniacal-laugh-inducing barge. In closing So there you have it, a short primer on how TPKs can be brought about organically, make sense, and have the players learn something other than “you’re not supposed to bet on being able to take that dragon on with just a kendo stick, and a pack of razors while blindfolded after having drunk a dozen bottles of vodka, no matter how much of an actual troll you are.” Plenty more variants, twists, and turns on the above can be done, but the main thing to garner from this is that no matter how bad the urge to just knock those characters’ teeth in via giant-rock-falling-from-sky-ness, there’s always a more sinister, devious, harsh, yet entirely fact-backed way to pull it off. Which is exactly what I’m doing in my current campaign. Just don’t tell ‘em I said so. Writer, gamer, and - provided he's got the time for it - loving husband, Costin does not rule out sacrifices to the Great Old Ones in order to get into the gaming industry. He's been role-playing for the better part of 6 years, but has been a joker, gamer and storyteller for as long as he can remember. His greatest pride is once improvising a 4-way argument between a grave digger, a dyslexic man, an adopted child and a sheep, all by himself. That moment is also the closest he's ever come to giving himself a role-playing aneurysm... thus far. He's been dabbling in plenty of writing ventures lately, and you can find him hanging his words around the OhBe Wandering hangout page on Facebook - https://goo.gl/4be3Bj |
I am become death, destroyer of worlds. 
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