 The one thing you want to avoid when you’re running a game outside your own space is to be too heavy. I’ve run games where I took a camping backpack, a rucksack and a map case filled with playing mats. One day, waiting for the bus, trying to move a small South American village’s worth of gear, I thought: There has got to be a better way to do this. What follows isn’t necessarily smart, but it is something that I’ve done and I found works for me. Use it at your own peril!
1) Clipboard Do not underestimate the power of the clipboard to keep your notes/sheets away from the players and simultaneously collated in the same place. Amazon has some really cheap ones, and if you’re feeling a bit wilder, you can always get one of those that have a clipboard on top of a box, maximizing the number of papers you can have on you. The biggest one I have can easily accommodate a corebook. 2) Laptop More and more, I’m using my Mac for games. I can have my text files, Youtube and Apps (see below) ready to go at all times. My only issue with it is that, at some tables, it simply eats away too much space. So plan ahead if you’re using it. You don’t want to have to stop half way in because the corebook is under the laptop, and then you need to move the minis to put the laptop on the other side, and now where has that goblin model gone….? (You see what I mean.) 3) Plastic Boxes I LOVE plastic boxes. For props, for models, for pencils, for paper, for everything. I am very disorganised AND methodical in my chaos, so to be able to box stuff makes my life a whole lot easier. You might need to pad some with kitchen paper/foam if your transporting fragile stuff, but it’s still better than any other option I’ve come across. 3) Youtube Obviously this requires a laptop or tablet. Youtube has thousands of videos useful for providing ambiance. Some actually say ‘RPG dungeon/cave/castle/spaceship/ocean vessel’. I’ve used them in the past for my Faith game. When the players entered the abandoned space wreck, I played ‘Abandoned space station’. That changed the mood completely. Now it was ON. 4) Syrinscape This app is designed for RPG’s, and there are two variants, Sci Fi and Fantasy. Although the app itself is free, each sound stream needs to be paid for (typically a couple of dollars). That said, each stream has about 8 different components that can be adjusted to taste. Believe me, ‘Futuristic Market’ replicated the feel of Blade Runner to the nearest decimal place. You could even add/remove the sounds of rain, hovercars, footsteps, even mecha walking past! (I make no money from Syrinscape, I’ve just used it in the past and really liked it.) 5) PDF’s PDF’s are a two-edged sword. Although you can easily have a 500-page corebook on a tablet, I still find it awkward to scroll through for a minute or two to find the right page, and Cthulhu help you if you need to cross reference anything. I really like how easy it makes transport, but I really dislike the difficulties when a players asks for a particular stat or creature, and that’s pretty much your next 10 minutes. This is usually the point when the action just slowly grinds to a standstill. 6) Sticky Notes Ah the humble, small, yellow, glue-stripped piece of paper. Where would the modern GM be without them? I use them primarily to make notes in the corebook, write down names of things/NPC’s that were suggested by the players, or to pass a message to one of the players without the others seeing. I have tried to plan whole games on them, and then gluing them to a bigger sheet, but the probability that one or more will just drop off is quite high, and you KNOW that it would have something essential on it. 7) Tablet A possible compromise between the size of the laptop and its awkwardness around a busy gaming table. Possibly the ideal venue for PDF’s (see above) and having all the advantages and disadvantages of both. I like it for soundtracks (see above), but use sparingly when it comes to PDF’s. So these are some resources that have helped me in the past. What have you tried that has made you GM life easier? Rui is a Portuguese scientist that, after ten years doing strange things in labs, decided to become a teacher. Then, three 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. Picture Reference: https://makezine.com/2015/12/08/how-to-build-a-high-end-gaming-table-for-as-little-as-150/  Everybody’s been seeing the foreword about Patreon on here these days, and it’s easy to scroll by and pay it no credence. As someone who regularly produces content for this site and helps do some of the back-end stuff, I can vouch for the fact that Patreon support has a beyond huge impact on this site. We put out a good chunk of content on the weekly, and some special stuff for our Patrons too. Know that you never have to support us, that coming to the site to read and interact is definitely humbling, but also know that you’re making dreams come true through our Patreon. High Level Games is a community that helps gamers’ creativity flourish.
-Sean, the Heavy Metal GM \m/ Clothing, letters, strange objects, puzzle boxes; props at the game table have a lot to offer. Sometimes you buy ‘em, most of the time you make ‘em, but what doesn’t change is the fact that they’re really awesome! So today, for your viewing pleasure, I bring you some points about props. Points, though? What the hell does that mean? Well, it means that we’re going to look at two pros and two cons of making props for your games. 1) Immersion A good roleplay exchange can really suck a person into whatever game you’re playing. The power of words, of human interaction, stands paramount among methods of immersion. With that in mind, it still can’t even hold a match to the feeling of pure joy when you see someone’s face light up as you hand them an object. For me, the most recent iteration of this was when I handed a player the letter that’s pictured at the top of this post. Everybody at the table was instantly engrossed in the exchange that had just taken place, waiting eagerly for the player to read the message aloud. She chose to keep the contents to herself, giving the group a short summary, but it was still amazing to see everybody focus within a millisecond. Regardless of how fleeting that moment of pure focus is, your prop will do its job of drawing attention. 2) Memory So we established that using props weakens the veil between our world and the world we create. If we think about it like the Conjunction of Spheres from the universe of The Witcher, it paints a good picture of the shockwave it can send. Considering that the conjunction happened long before we hear of Geralt, I think it’s safe to call it a more than memorable event, as we see remnants of it constantly. See where I’m goin’ with this? That increased immersion makes the moment your prop comes out ridiculously memorable. Especially if it’s a cool bauble or magic item that’s important to the story; maybe something that the party is protecting. Not only is the item crucial to the team’s success at that point, but the players, being swept up in their immersion, feel that anxiety too since it’s literally sitting on the table staring them in the face. If you genuinely felt like you were being hunted by a lich because you have its squirrel skull (its phylactery), I’d say that would be a pretty memorable feeling! Creating those moments that people talk about for years is what we chase in gaming, and props are almost like a cheat code to do that. 3) Time This is less of a problem if you buy your prop. Going on Amazon to buy some little plastic brain in a jar is likely not that time consuming. When you take the time to actually create a prop, regardless of what it is, you’re investing time. As we know, it’s the most important resource we have, something to be cherished. Making something like a letter doesn’t take too much of it, but the more complex and interesting your prop is, the more time it takes to make. Sadly, there’s a direct correlation of how kooky/elaborate your item is and how interested people are in it. Of course, that generalization has exceptions, but we can assume it to be true most of the time. Especially since when it’s not true, it only benefits us. If you’re someone who’s used to playing war games, I don’t think this point will be much of an issue. For the rest of us? Well, I think I’ll be sticking to easy props like letters. 4) Money Unfortunately, whenever you talk about time, money finds its way into the conversation too. Unless you’re crafting your prop out of junk you have lying around the house, you’ll probably have to buy something. Again, a reason why I think letters are fun enough. This point is especially true if you are using something most people can’t make, like a scrap of cloth or puzzle box, as your prop. Most of the time, I would imagine a lot of us shoot low with these just to save both commodities I just mentioned. Play it smart, and this point is far less of a deal breaker than it would be otherwise. Props are great, no question. Personally, and this could be because of my age, time and money are two things that are more important to me now than they’ll probably be later. Hopefully, you’re someone in a better position that can really go all in on these things to make the best gaming experience for both you and your players. Though, I must say, if props are really your thing, maybe your group should just do LARP! Not my thing, but there’s plenty of people in the HLG community that could point you in the right direction, should the concept be new to you. Cheers and Stay Metal \m/ Sean is the Heavy Metal GM, a freelance writer and blogger that loves the roleplaying games more than life itself. As a person who’s 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 Source: A prop made by yours truly!  Denial, anger, depression, bargaining, and acceptance: the stages of grief. These also happen to be the stages that you will go through if you try to design your own roleplaying game!
Anyone who has enjoyed roleplaying as a hobby for long enough has had some variation of the following thought: there’s got to be a better way to... But before you embark on a journey to rewrite the rules of the roleplaying universe, prepare yourself by packing for these stages. Bring a healthy sense of humour, a pouch of resiliency, a whole bunch of paper and writing implements, a sackful of humility, and a helluvan aptitude for self-reflection. With all this, you still won’t ever stand eye-to-eye with Wizards of the Coast in terms of fan base, but you just might have the right set of ideas for a great Kickstarter! (In this article, I borrow some of the questions in Whitson John Kirk III’s 2005 draft article, “Design Patterns of Successful Roleplaying Games”). 1) Denial. “I love Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition, but I don’t want to use 20-sided dice…” “We could change that! How hard could it be?” Description: This stage could equally be called ‘naiveté.’ We’ve all been there. Your group is playing a great game, but there’s just this one set of mechanics that seems clunky or out of place in the setting, so you want to change it. Or maybe you’re imagining the same game, but in a completely different setting of your own creation. Perhaps you could make a house rule or two that fixes the problem… or maybe you could just make your own game? You have some pretty good ideas, after all. Common Symptoms: Delusions of grandeur, fantastic ideas, fascination with rules systems Typical Ideation: “I’m sure I can fix this game!” “I want to make a game that does everything and is super simple to play.” “What if we put this system and this other system together?” Don’t be fooled! Roleplaying game design is a complicated task, usually involving teams of people working together to solve complex logistical problems. Setting, mechanics, artwork, playtesting, publishing… don’t expect to do everything yourself. Check out resources like the RPG Design Panelcast to get ideas about what goes into making your own game. Ask yourself: What are you trying to accomplish in making this game? 2) Anger “What do you MEAN you don’t understand my recoil/damage/distance matrix?!? I JUST explained it to you!!” Description: If you have put any amount of time and/or effort into designing or re-shaping a game, then tested it on a group of friends (or even if you’ve just been the Game Master for a group), you have experienced this stage. The best laid plans and the best game design will inevitably fall apart once it comes into contact with a group of players. Common Symptoms: High blood pressure, an obsession with charts, possible table flipping Typical Ideation: “I am NOT going to change this. I’ve worked too hard on it.” “If I tried this with a better group, it would work.” Designing a game takes a lot of time and effort, then when you playtest it, it falls apart. Accepting and preparing for this fact can help you design a game that is easy for real players to understand, and robust enough to handle the highjinx that ensue when you put a group of nerds around the dining room table. Ask yourself: What mood are you trying to evoke? What do the characters do? More importantly, what do the players do? 3) Depression “Okay, I’ve solved how to balance a fireball spell in a combat situation. Only two… hundred… thirty… six… more… spells…….” Description: Once you have a basic mechanic scrawled on a few sheets of paper, it’s time to tackle that list of ‘to do’ items. Maybe you want a comprehensive equipment list. Maybe you want to flesh out a magic system. Maybe it’s time to expand the history of the game world’s thirty main locations. Whatever the list is made of, though, it’s daunting. It’s long. It will be hard to do. And now you’re not sure that you want to. Common Symptoms: Lethargy, disinterest in the hobby, procrastination Typical Ideation: “It’s impossible. I give up!” Popular games like Dungeons & Dragons or other big franchise games have been around a long time. They have had many years to gather variations, exceptions, and expansions to the basic rules systems they originated with. Focus on the basic game: What kind of activities do you want to reward and what kinds of rewards do you want to provide? Do you envision a game that can be easily extended with numerous supplements or are you more interested in creating a single, self-contained book of simple rules? 4) Bargaining “This other game already does almost what I wanted to do, but different….” Description: This is often the stage where our game design hero has an epiphany: Standing above the ruins of game after game, the charred remains of half-fulfilled ideas and failed attempts, staring at the desolation around her, she looks back to where she came from… and sees hope! With a fresh appreciation for the difficulty of designing a game, she approaches those old, familiar games with new understanding. Does she then return, happy to expand the library of work supporting other systems with her own creative contributions? Or does she press on, insisting that there is yet hope of a better design over the horizon? If she does, she recognizes that a workable system will usually sacrifice some good elements in order to prioritize others. Common Symptoms: Glassy-eyed perspicacity, iron resolve, or capitulation Typical Ideation: “I could make a module for another game…” “Why would I reinvent the wheel?” “I’ll have to give up a bit of realism to keep the story flowing.” Whatever the flavour you are trying to achieve in your game, there are likely already many variations on similar themes. If you want to make something new, the greatest novelty will likely be in emphasis or perspective, not in the basic elements of a roleplaying game. If you decide to stick with making your own game, good for you! But remember that in roleplaying game design, trade-offs are inevitable. Also, it’s okay to play other games and enjoy them for what they are! 5) Acceptance “Yes. This is what I wanted.” Description: Having delved deeply into the world of game design, the roleplaying game design hero surfaces. Whether it is in designing for another game, in creating a subtle shift of what behaviours are rewarded by a roleplaying system, or by creating a genre-and-world-specific game, he has emerged with a creative outlet that meets the goals he set out with at the beginning. Common Symptoms: Relief, renewed interest in gaming, evangelistic zeal Typical Ideation: “This game is amazing, and everyone should play it!” “I am so happy.” “Hmm… This other game prioritizes combat mechanics over story mechanics. It’s not what I prefer, but it’ll be good for a one-shot.” With the advent of Kickstarter campaigns and sites like DriveThruRPG, more than ever it has become possible to find and sell games to a niche market. While you might never get Chapters to stock your book, you could use crowd-funding and -sourcing to find all the people in a given area who share your interest in, say, rules-light character-driven games about alien politics… or whatever your interest is! Roleplaying game markets now favour genre- and game-specific mechanics like these. Ask yourself: What literary genre corresponds to your concept? What age group does your game target? We may not all be Gary Gygax, but I’m certain there’s a little bit of Jason Morningstar and Steve Jackson in all of us! Game design is hard work, but it is worth it. At best, it means you could be publishing the only game for a community that didn’t even exist until you came along. At the very least, delving into the details of game design will give you an appreciation for the hard work and precision that goes into making a roleplaying work of art. Regardless, take the plunge, and see how the experience helps you bring your games to the next level! Landrew is a full-time educator, part-time art enthusiast. He applies his background in literature and fine arts to his favourite hobby (roleplaying games) because the market for a background in the Fine Arts is very limited. He writes this blog on company time under a pseudonym. Long live the Corporation! Picture Reference: http://www.greenheartgames.com/app/game-dev-tycoon/  Anima: Beyond Fantasy
Editor’s Note: The Anima RPG is no longer available for purchase (in English) from the publisher, so the link above is for the forums that remain. If you’d like information on purchasing a copy, visit its Amazon page or other resellers. Almost a thousand years before the end date in the timeline of Gaia’s history, there was a religious movement that united all of humanity under one banner, give or take a few nations. It was this movement that provoked a response from almost all of the human and non-human peoples of the world, including the Sylvain (Light Elves), Jayan (Giants with horns and a third eye), D’anjayni (a species devoted to hiding their true nature at all costs), Ebudan (the Angelic knockoffs of the world), Daimah (a species loosely related to the animal kingdom), Duk’zarist (Dark Elves), and every other sapient and sentient species… a response that would have lasting repercussions all throughout the world. In the following list of five points, I will cover what the actual history of the movement was like, with what should be enough information to understand everything. 1) ‘Christianity’ Is A Fake Religion To emphasize the point, I would like to introduce the organization known as Imperium, one of three Powers in the Shadows that tend to manipulate history for their own gain. The organization has a council called the Inner Circle as the second highest power in the organization, the highest power being a man named Barnabas. Together, they give the orders that translate to modifying history to their advantage. One of their initial plans was to give humanity, which they represented among the Powers in the Shadows, knowledge to let them get ahead of the other species. That… didn’t turn out so well. Then they tried to keep the human race ignorant of the truth of the world by giving them a religion to unite them. Three guesses as to which they modeled it after (the first two don’t count). This is implied by the events surrounding Point number 4, where the in-setting Christ figure’s crucifixion is stated to be an “allegory which only Imperium understood.” 2) ‘Christianity’ Is A Violent Religion Abel, the in-setting Christ figure as manufactured by Imperium, had a lot of followers gathered to his banner. During one of his sermons about Heaven, which he claimed was where his father lived, a mage from an organization called the Order of Yehuda interrupted the gathering and used magic to kill some of the gathered. In a sorrowful rage, Abel picked up a sword for what seemed to be the first time and made it clear to his followers that his ‘father’ was not an entirely forgiving one, especially to those who used magic and other forms of the occult in the world. 3) ‘Christianity’ Had A Mind Control Agent During the creation of their plan to take over the development of the human race, Imperium made a mind control system called the Auspice, one that would make the people closed-minded and homogenous. It was with the use of this system that people would begin to grow as a united front for Imperium’s plans, on top of being made blind sheep being led to the slaughter, so to speak. It would have lasted for a long time, too, had it not been for a woman named Eljared giving the people an immunity to it over 900 years after the death of Abel… but that is an article for another time. 4) ‘Christianity’ Had A Stupid Ending The religion should have ended when Abel died. Abel, for lack of a better expression, was the ultimate blind sheep being led to the slaughter. His capture and execution by the citizens of Solomon were akin to the death of Jesus, except, by all rights, his death didn’t have anything fancy, like natural disasters or other scenes of nature making things dramatic. He just died. 5) ‘Christianity’ Had A Better Judas Iscariot The whole betrayal of Abel by the equivalent of Judas Iscariot, whose given name in Anima was Iscariot, was orchestrated by Imperium to go exactly as the Biblical accounts told it. However, due to circumstances outside of their control, Iscariot received 30 pieces of magitech supercomputers that Imperium had given the city of Solomon, failing to retrieve them when the leader of the city at the time had successfully hidden them from the organization. Iscariot was able to access the power of the supercomputers and learned about the manipulation of history, thus seeing to it that he would exact revenge on the Powers in the Shadows through his family line… however, like with point three, that is an article for another time. Over the years, real world religions have been used as models for game setting religions, much like this one, yet the extent of what was modified about this particular ‘religion’ is baffling. I only say this because I like to read and study what has happened in the real world, as history has always been a fascinating subject for me, even when I was young. The ‘christianity’ as presented in Anima does not bear much resemblance to the modern day real world religion of the same name, and its merits are few and far between. Still, this is just my understanding of the game lore. If only the licensors managed to publish more expansions for the game beyond what they did in the English Language… Picture Refernce: https://wen-m.deviantart.com/art/wallpaper-The-Holy-Church-112605975 Samuel Kenneth Kauffman is, full disclosure, a real world Christian that follows the doctrines of the Free Methodist branch of the Protestant denominations (vastly different from the game setting version), an amateur Game Master, a gamer of both tabletop RPGs and videogames, a “professional” writer of fanfic, and is somewhat aware that he needs to improve his writing ability for more professional work in the industry. He is a fan of Anima: Beyond Fantasy, Dungeons and Dragons, Pathfinder, Starfinder (although that one is somewhat up for debate), 13th Age, the Wizards of the Coast Star Wars Saga Edition RPG, Fantasy Flight Games’ rendition of the Star Wars RPG, and, more recently, the Genesys RPG. Be sure to look out for his upcoming blog about roleplaying, gaming in general, and the writer’s life.  Buy Our Newest ST Vault Product Here
Right around twenty years ago I heard about an RPG that immediately caught my attention. This game was Aberrant. Produced by the original team at White Wolf Publishing, Aberrant was the Supers game I didn’t even know I wanted. It was a new genre for the deep, gritty storytelling I’d fallen in love with and it reflected both the broken optimism of the ‘90s and the Iron Age of comics I loved. This was the first Trinity Universe game for me, but it wasn’t the first game in that continuity. No, that game was Trinity (Aeon) and my friends that were into space opera, cyberpunk, transhumanist sci-fi, and space horror were big fans. It took me a few years to give it a shot, but when I started reading the books I saw the nuance, the layers, the texture of a game that offered something unlike other games I was playing. Now Onyx Path Publishing is releasing a second edition using their storypath system. They are currently running a Kickstarter to bring a deluxe version to market, and I was one of the first 50 backers. Here are the reasons I think you need to get on this train. 1) The Continuum In early releases that backers have access to we’ve learned more about what the new continuity, called The Trinity Continuum. Our universe is influenced by parallel universes causing Flux. Some people have the ability to tap into this Flux, which allows them to effect the world around them in subtle and un-subtle ways. In this Kickstarter we are being provided two time-frame settings for the Continuum, Aeon and Core. The Core setting is a modern day action adventure setting. If you imagine shows like Leverage, Agents of Shield, and Arrow you’ve got a general idea of the type of power levels most characters will display. They are super smart, maybe a tad more powerful than normal people, but they are still generally human. Aeon is set in 2123, decades after the Aberrant War and the Nova era have ended. Those elements will be fleshed out in the upcoming new version of Aberrant, and I’m already salivating. Aeon is the space opera setting for the Continuum. Humanity has begun colonizing the solar system, and is just starting to edge outside of the solar system to investigate other worlds and rediscovering colonies where the Aberrants left and abandoned humanity during the Nova age. Players will take on the roles of Psions, individuals that have been awakened to powers through the Prometheus Chambers. In previous editions, Psions differed from Novas by manipulating sub-quantum particles, versus the quantum forces the Novas abused and destroyed their bodies by harnessing. I haven’t been able to dig into how the new system approaches all of these elements, but the previews backers have seen seem super exciting and well crafted. Future releases will include Aberrant, Adventure!, and possibly other setting options along the Continuum. Adventure! only had one book in the original run, and it deserves to have a lot more word count spent on it. I’m excited to see what the Continuum will bring us! 2) Storypath System The underlying system behind most White Wolf Games was the Storyteller’s System, which used d10 dice pools based on Attribute+Ability. In the older version of Aberrant the most effective way to show superhuman powers was through a Mega-Attribute system. You had Dexterity and Mega-Dexterity for example. This often created large dice-pools which wasn’t impossibly unwieldy, but it wasn’t perfect either. The new system is a lot more streamlined, and honestly it is clearly better designed for Scion and Trinity gameplay (both games that are using the system). You can check out the Storypath System Preview for free. The core of the system is still dice pools, but these dice pools will likely not become quite so overwhelming with the new design. There is also information on player editing story elements, which is a feature of newer game design concepts and I think it works well for this type of setting. 3) Access To 1st Edition One of the reasons I’m encouraging people to back the Kickstarter is that there is an option to get all of the 1st edition books if we hit enough stretch goals. You can purchase these books through DriveThruRPG right now, but it is helpful to get them for a huge discount. Some of these books look like they may not be as perfectly in sync with the new canon, but with the concept of parallel worlds being important to the setting… well… you can alter, adjust, and mess with the Continuum as you see fit. So, backing the Kickstarter will open more of these early books and open the creation of new books to supplement the new setting. This is a selfish reason to want you to back the Kickstarter. I have all of the Aberrant books already, I want to get all the Trinity Aeon ones cheaper… is that wrong? Alright folks, those are the three major reasons that I think you should check out the Trinity Aeon Kickstarter. If and when you do so, take a look at the previews Onyx Path has released and let me know what you think. When you are ready to step into the future, shout. Josh is the intrepid Chief Operations Officer of High Level Games. With 20 years of playing rpgs, Josh started with Mind's Eye Theater LARPs and loves the World of Darkness. He runs, www.keepontheheathlands.com to support his gaming projects. Josh is the administrator of the Inclusive Gaming Network on Facebook. He’s running a Changing Breeds game. 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. You can also find Josh’s other published adventures here and here. Picture Reference: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/200664283/trinity-continuum-aeon-rpg/description  Editor’s note: There are always wheels turning here at High Level Games. I have been involved in a small handful of the many little projects we are undertaking. I have been creating new player character races for 5th edition, and have also released a small document on Time Demons. There are also one page adventures, and much much more coming to high level games. Help us grow by supporting our patreon, and get access to cool stuff! It’s a win win.
If you were to ask Matt Mercer if he was at the peak of his DM skill, he would most likely tell you that he’s always striving to improve each and every session, so that he can become, and remain, the best Dungeon Master that he can be. Now imagine yourself, whether you consider yourself a new, or experienced dungeon master. Are you at your true potential? Is there anything you could be doing to improve your game even further and expand and enhance your skill set? In earlier editions of the Dungeon Master’s Guide, there was an Appendix N, which contained other tools, works, and materials that can inspire DM’s to improve their story, writing, and other skills. In the 5th edition this is Appendix D instead, but many still refer to it as Appendix N by force of habit. Matt Colville has also talked about his own Appendix N that he uses. The context of your Appendix N doesn’t have to be a rulebook, novel, or website. It could be a video, a stream, a podcast, or something different entirely. Anything that helps you become a better dungeon master can be put in your Appendix N. Let's go through some things that I recommend all dungeon masters add to their Toolkit, in their Appendix N. 1) Matt Colville Matt Colville is by far my favourite Youtuber to watch for DM advice. His “Running The Game” series is immensely helpful, as are his campaign diaries, where he tells you about his own campaign, decisions (and mistakes, which all DM's make!). From my standpoint, he's a down-to-earth DM who, while experienced, wants to make DMs aware that it's easy and fun to DM, and that you don't have to be some kind of divine being to do it well. Here are a couple of his videos on Bad Guys, Losing, and Alignment. 2) Reddit Reddit has a large selection of Dungeon and Dragon and other RPG communities. There are over 400,000 subscribers to the r/dnd thread, and that’s just the generic Dungeons and Dragons thread. There are great subreddits for DMs at r/dmacademy and r/dndbehindthescreen on a regular basis. You can talk to the DMs there and get more tools on your belt. a platform for general DM questions, story advice, and any other questions that DMs may have. Behind the screen however, is a subreddit filled with lore, worlds, information, and other ideas for you to tweak and utilise for your own D&D games. It is a growing archive of hundreds of years of D&D experience, with contributors pouring thousands upon thousands of words from their own worlds and creations. I'd also recommend to check out r/d100 and r/behindthetables for some extra random inspiration for cool things to throw into your sessions. These can be used as generators, or just to provide yourselves with some new ideas - for example I recently constructed stats for some CR30 enemies using demon lords from the r/d100 subreddit. 3) Angry GM The Angry GM is probably my favourite DM tips blog, it's quite easy to read, and he presents things in a frank, rambling manner that can really shed some life on some things to try and adopt in your own game. Check out the below blog entries that are among my favourites of his: Building Encounters Skill Challenges Size and Scope 4) Critical Role A lot of people have heard of critical role. A fair amount of people have not. And I’m not going to come out saying that it’s the greatest D&D group ever. I’m not going to say that Matt Mercer is the best D&D in the world, though he is a good storyteller. I find watching D&D is a good resource in your downtime. Myself, I find that Critical Role makes for a great painting soundtrack. The fact that the whole group are voice actors means that you can witness some very cool interactions, and potentially be inspired by some of the events that occur during the show. Matt Mercer is an excellent storyteller, and good at putting on distinctive accents for his NPCs. Sure, they’re a little rules-light. Don’t look to this group as “the way to play D&D”. Instead, take it as a fun, enthusiastic group playing D&D and making a cool narrative. Link to season 1, episode 1 Link to season 2 character introductions 5) The Monsters Know There are more ways for a DM to play monsters harder than to simply buff their stats. The Monsters Know is a website/blog which gives advice to DMs on how to play monsters harder, better, faster, and stronger. They also include tips on making some slight modifications to them to help make them that little bit more difficult or unique. Check out some of my favourite advice blogs by them, below. Mind Flayer Tactics Lich Tactics Orc Tactics 6) Tucker’s Kobolds I follow a lot of RPG subreddits, and I follow a large D&D facebook page. Every couple of days I see a post about low-level monsters being “boring” or “not even a challenge”. And in almost every thread, I see at least one person make a reference to Tucker’s Kobolds. This infamous DM is renowned for one thing - his terrifying kobolds, which were just plain regular kobolds, who utilised equipment and tactics which made them a dangerous threat for even a 10th level party. If you have yet to read the small post on Tucker’s Kobolds, I highly recommend you to take a chance and read it now! What’s in your DM Toolbox? What’s in your appendix N? Let me know in the comments! With any luck you will find at least one of these tools useful in the improvement of your own DM skillset! 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. Picture Reference: http://www.syfy.com/syfywire/stuff-we-love-dungeons-dragons-critical-role  HLG Review: Beckett’s Jyhad Diary
System: Vampire the Masquerade 20th Anniversary Edition Publisher: Onyx Path Publishing Editor’s Note: Enjoy reading articles about your favorite hobby and engaging with fellow gamers? We do too, but hosting and producing our site isn’t free. Please consider visiting our Patreon page and supporting us at any amount. We put every dollar back into the site and its production, and your help has allowed us to have certain paid article months for our contributors. Thank you for your continued readership and your support! -David Horwitz, Blog Manager The summary on the back boasts “Beckett’s Jyhad Diary is as fascinating to read as to use in your game Chronicles.” This is absolutely not an exaggeration. BJD reads like a novel. In fact, being a collection of notes, audio recordings and journal entries, it’s remarkably similar to Bram Stoker’s Dracula, which I can only assume was deliberate. I started reading the same night I got my hands on it. Before I knew it, it was four in the morning and I was 200 pages in. It routinely stole at least 100 pages of my time per night as I was working on this review, and I don’t regret a single moment. I can’t honestly say if I was so captivated because it was a world I was already deeply invested in, or if it was a compelling story in its own right, but either way I’ve never had that experience with a sourcebook before, and my library is not small. First and foremost, this is a book for Storytellers, the name for the Game Master in World of Darkness games. Beckett’s Jyhad Diary offers little for players in terms of character options: A Merit that allows your character to tap into flashes of insight, the 16th Generation Flaw (gain extra points at character creation at the cost of starting considerably weaker), and the Dhampir, a new character type that severely weakens the character’s Disciplines (vampire powers) in favor of immunity to many of the vampire’s traditional weaknesses. While these additions are awesome and have the potential to make for some truly memorable player characters, these tiny islands of crunch buried nearly 150 pages into the tome only serve to highlight the glaring omission of certain other mechanics, such as those for The Drowned Legacies, a new range of vampire Bloodlines with unique powers and weaknesses. BJD spends an entire chapter chronicling their exploits in South America, but it doesn’t include any of the crunch required to actually make one. Certainly, the brief descriptions given for each one provide enough information for an enterprising Storyteller to infer their various abilities, if they don’t mind building a few of their own Disciplines, but in twenty pages we’re given nothing concrete. At first I thought that might be to keep them out of the hands of players. A vocal minority of the Vampire community objects to players having access to Bloodlines, (rare mutations in the various vampire genomes) as they feel it neuters something meant to add mystery and uncertainty to the world, quantifying their abilities for all to see. That thought went straight out the window when I saw the plot hook at the end of the chapter intended for players of Drowned Legacies characters. I considered it might be a way to allow the Drowned Legacies to retain their mystery, their powers differing entirely from game to game and Storyteller to Storyteller, an approach I would actually applaud. I gladly would have, if they didn’t use the same approach with the Laibon, the vampires of Africa. This is what shoved me straight over the edge from “mysterious with many valid interpretations” to “annoyingly vague and frustratingly incomplete.” The Laibon have already been quantified for nearly 20 years at this point, since the release of the Revised Edition sourcebook Kindred of the Ebony Kingdom. All they would have needed would be an update to the 20th Anniversary Edition, and Vampire is not a game of great gulfs of difference in its various rule sets. Instead, BJD points to the Laibon’s precursor clans in Vampire 20th Anniversary Edition: The Dark Ages. Well, that’s great except their powers don’t match, their weaknesses don’t match, and we’re given little to nothing to infer what they actually do. When the legacy referred to as “The Shadows” don’t have access to the shadow Discipline, while a Shadows legacy NPC presented in the book is supposed to, I’m of a mind to believe that something has gone amiss. Also, counting the Followers of Set from the core book, that’s only six of the thirteen legacies BJD itself says are rumored to exist, and the nine showcased in Ebony Kingdom. Mind you, the Laibon are mentioned in two separate chapters. That’s two settings they expect us to use them in. Curiously, BJD never once refers the reader to KotEK as another source. Maybe there was an internal mandate saying the book wasn’t allowed to refer to sources outside the 20th Anniversary edition, or maybe they thought the handful of differences between Revised and V20 would cause too much confusion. As much as I truly love Onyx Path, however, I’d be lying through my teeth if I didn’t admit to the sneaking suspicion it might be because Onyx Path doesn’t see a cut of Revised Edition sales. These issues could have been easily remedied with a few extra pages of Appendix. Assuming constraints prevented the book from being larger than it already is, weighing in at a hefty 559 pages, it’s not as if Onyx Path couldn’t have made room for it. I would have greatly preferred, by several orders of magnitude, a few extra pages of resources for my game than a two page spread of a pointless Freudian extrapolation, or an extremely awkward scene where an ancient vampire bites Beckett’s fingernails off. “A Brief History of Beckett” didn’t need to be its own chapter, as not only does it not provide any appreciable history of the character, (by “brief” they mean Post It Note) the salient bits of information would be better served in other areas. The information about the character Marie would have fit neatly in the chapter where she actually appears, and the plot hooks about hunting for rare books could have gone almost anywhere else, as Beckett spends the vast majority of the narrative searching for a rare book. As loathe as I am to admit it, since it’s my favorite setting in Vampire, the Chicago chapter is almost entirely superfluous. With the exception of a few minor nudges, most of which have already been covered in other V20 books, (namely V20 Companion and Lore of the Clans) Vampire’s Chicago is virtually unchanged from what it was in Chicago by Night 2nd Edition. The book is organized into 31 chapters, most of which chronicle Beckett’s journeys through various vampire domains across the world. The narrative bits set up NPCs and settings for Storytellers to use in their Vampire games, each one culminating in a list of plot hooks and chronicle ideas. This is where the true value of the book lies. Most groups will require years to exhaust the material provided herein, and it’s exceptionally likely it will be used for years since the king’s ransom of story ideas will prove just as useful long after Vampire 5th Edition launches. Several of the plot hooks deliberately contradict each other, or offer the Storyteller another possibility of “what really happened.” The World of Darkness is a place of nuance, mystery, and unreliable narrators. Allowing disparate groups to establish their own canons, all of them being equally valid, is an approach I applaud and would love to see other games attempt. I can’t help but wonder though, how this sweeping array of individualized canonicity will hold up in the future. Presumably White Wolf will have to at least figure out Saulot/Tremere at some point, let alone the innumerable other intrigues the book highlights. Then again, maybe they won’t. Martin Elricsson of White Wolf has stated before that he wishes to turn control of the metaplot over to the players. Perhaps the dangling plot threads truly won’t be resolved until we pick up our dice to do it ourselves. At this point, only time will tell. The changing delivery methods help greatly to keep reading from becoming monotonous. The book attempts to differentiate between several in-universe contributors by having each one use different fonts, paper, ink colors, etc. Unfortunately, it’s not always perfect, as some of the fonts can look extremely similar and all rules go out the window when the characters start switching paper. Onyx Path used the opportunity to showcase a cast of Vampire’s iconic characters. Considering the Clan Novel series was published nearly 20 years ago, this was a great opportunity to introduce these characters to a new generation of fans. Unfortunately, I’m not entirely certain they did… The book will liberally introduce side characters who crop up in each domain, but after a mountain of margin notes, Lucita de Aragon (a character important enough to literally have her own action figure) doesn’t receive anything approaching an introduction before appearing as a major character for several chapters. Also, really, we’re not going to mention who Sascha Vykos is outside of a sideways mention of genital throwing? Fortunately, the narrative is far from impenetrable without prior knowledge of these characters. Indeed, perhaps the goal was to make readers want to find out more, in which case, well played. I just fear for readers with less patience being turned off at the prospect of yet another major character being mentioned without context. Purists may dislike the way Onyx Path shook up certain sacred cows of the metaplot, such as an extant branch of the previously extinct Cappadocian line, however I appreciate the fact that they have. Beckett’s Jyhad Diary paints the picture of a World of Darkness that is changing, evolving, and one that challenges previous assumptions. Stagnation is a death sentence, and this newfound forward momentum can only lead to good things for the game. The Appendix is a collection of advice for Storytellers on how to use the metaplot in their chronicles. Most experienced Storytellers will have already decided whether or not to use the game’s canon in their chronicles, and how they’re going to do so. This was the camp that I fell into, and as such I personally didn’t find anything particularly illuminating in this section, though I’m sure someone will. I did, however, greatly enjoy the overview of themes present in Vampire’s previous iterations. V20 attempts to merge the themes of the previous three versions, though it can be easy for them to become muddled when none are brought to the fore. This section allowed me to reflect on the themes I wish to bring forth in my own games, and while not strictly necessary, it was appreciated. The art in this book is some of the best Onyx Path has ever produced. The half page illustrations are absolutely jaw-dropping, though unfortunately the portraits of the sample NPCs tend to run the gamut a bit more. Some of them, like Victoria Ash, Khurshid, and Christof Romuald (every time you mention it, someone will say “they made two VtM games?”) look great, with a certain Vampire: The Eternal Struggle vibe that sets my nerd heart alight with glee. Conversely, Smiling Jack is as cockeyed as a chameleon and looks like they colored him with crayons. There’s more amazing artwork than not, but when something is bad, it really sticks out. I used to advise new Vampire Storytellers that after the core rules, their first purchase should be one of the city setting books, as it would keep them from having to spontaneously generate an entire community and provide an example of how vampire society interacts. Now, my recommendation lies firmly with Beckett’s Jyhad Diary. It offers a multitude of settings, years worth of plot hooks, a litany of sample vampires and a look at the societies of several different factions on multiple continents. BJD is not what I’d call perfect by any stretch, but it offers so much value that its few faults are easy enough to overlook. Unless you’re a collector or you frequently get your books signed at conventions, I’m not certain I’d recommend springing for the full hardcover treatment, as this is not the kind of book you’ll be carting to every session, let alone passing around the table. However, the PDF is a welcome addition to any Storyteller’s arsenal, and worth every penny. Chaz Lebel is a fiction author and member of Caffeinated Conquests, a YouTube channel dedicated to nerd comedy and tabletop gaming. He and his team once produced some promotional videos for High Level Games that they probably wish they could forget. Chaz can be found on Twitter @CafConIsOn Picture Reference: http://whitewolf.wikia.com/wiki/File:Beckett_for_V20_Beckett%E2%80%99s_Jyhad_Diary.jpg  Editor’s Note: Enjoy reading articles about your favorite hobby and engaging with fellow gamers? We do too, but hosting and producing our site isn’t free. Please consider visiting our Patreon page and supporting us at any amount. We put every dollar back into the site and its production, and your help has allowed us to have certain paid article months for our contributors. Thank you for your continued readership and your support!
-David Horwitz, Blog Manager We live in a golden age of gaming. Roleplayers these days are spoiled for choice, and an RPG, especially a fantasy RPG, must be something truly unique and innovative to avoid being trampled by a veritable orcish horde of competition. It’s no surprise then that the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game by Goodman Games is building a horde of its own with a die-hard cult following all over the world. Modern gamers may at first crinkle their noses at what DCC has to offer. “Only seven classes? Three of them are races too? Where are the pages of Feats?” However, between the covers of DCC’s deceptively meaty tome is one of the most finely crafted fantasy roleplaying games on the market today. Goodman Games lovingly poured nearly 20 years of experience into their creation, and it shows, presenting a fresh and innovative look at time honored conventions such as spell casting, Game Mastery, even gaining XP. This game will change the way you look at roleplaying games. 1) You Probably Already Know How To Play Dungeon Crawl Classics runs on a streamlined, rules-light version of the classic d20 System. So if you’re already familiar with systems such as Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition or Pathfinder, most of the game will already be old hat, plus or minus a few tweaks. DCC’s biggest change is the Dice Chain. Rather than bombard players with a pedantic slough of plus and minus modifiers, DCC simply lets you move up or down the Dice Chain, rolling a larger or smaller die for your action. To facilitate this, DCC adds in d5’s, d7’s, all the way up to a d30. However, while rolling a d30 is immensely satisfying, you don’t actually have to own any of the weird dice to play. You can simulate them perfectly with the standard 7 polyhedrals you already own. For instance, a d30 is easily aped with a d10 and a d6. If the d6 comes up three or four, add ten to the result of the d10, five or six add 20. 2) A User-Friendly XP System I spend my free time adding numbers to dice for fun, and I can still say with a reasonable degree of certainty that nobody likes math. DCC takes much of the heavy lifting out of tracking advancement. Every player gains 0 to 4 XP based on how difficult an encounter was to overcome, whether they completely steamrolled it, barely crawled away alive, or anything in between. No forcing the Judge to fiddle with wacky multipliers or pore over endless CR charts, and the players don’t have to bust out calculators every time they want to see how much closer they’ve crawled to the next level. For Judges that don’t want to see the campaign degenerate into a series of monster closets, characters also gain XP for activities related to their class. Warriors gain XP from training with weapons, Wizards gain XP from researching spells, etc. 3) The Character Funnel Is A Game Unto Itself While characters in DCC can be created in a traditional manner (4d6 drop the lowest, 3d6 down the line, etc.) the rulebook suggests a brand new method called “The Funnel.” Rolling on some tables, the players create two to four Level 0 characters; simple village folks with little more than 1d4 Hit Points, an improvised weapon and an occupation, such as Farmer, Locksmith, or Gongfarmer (the guy that cleans out the outhouse). The players march their plucky peasant mob through a dungeon of horrible monsters, lethal traps, and the twisted, mangled bodies of their fallen comrades to prove themselves worthy of being first level adventurers. The idea is to randomize character creation, thus making it harder to “power game” while also allowing the players some level of agency over the character they end up with, as the player will be more inclined to take risks with the characters they don’t want. I admit, I was originally skeptical of this when I first read it. However, speaking from experience, the funnel is an absolute blast. The most fun I had at GenCon last year was marching my own band of intrepid amateurs through a buzzsaw. Even if you decide to use traditional character creation for your own campaigns, Funnels make perfect fodder for one-shots or convention games, and are by themselves icing on an already delicious cake. 4) Spells Are Dynamic Spells in most games are rote. Mark of a spell slot, look up the effect, it will do the same exact thing every time, plus or minus a saving throw, and then it’s gone for the day. In DCC, magic is the building blocks of the multiverse, the tools of gods and demons and far beyond the ken of mortal men. It’s dangerous, it’s unpredictable, and its awesome. When a Wizard casts a spell, they make a spell check. Depending on the roll, a spell can manifest in more powerful or completely different ways. This is what lends the rulebook its ample girth; every spell has its own table. Fireball might scorch a patch of ground, or it might erupt into a barrage of flaming orbs, leap across multiple targets, or even call down a burning meteor from the heavens. Levitate might raise a single person into the air, or it might conjure a 20 x 20 invisible floating platform, make everything in a 10 ft. square float, or life an entire castle into the air for a month. It’s also worth noting that unless a player rolls particularly poorly, spells are not lost upon casting and can be used multiple times. This facet alone carries several benefits, not the least of which is alleviating the “five-minute workday” problem other RPG’s have tried to address with cantrips. Clerics no longer have to miserly hoard spell slots for healing, and anyone who has played a healer before can tell you how liberating that is. I’ve also seen players who refused to play spellcasters in other games leap to Wizards and Clerics here, as they still feel useful instead of drained dry by a few rounds of combat. However, there’s a price to be paid for such power. Spells can just as easily backfire, and for Wizards, being mutated into a hideous monstrosity by the coruscating waves of magic is about the best one could hope for. Truly unfortunate sorcerers may find themselves aged 100 years, warped to another plane, or on the wrong end of a demon lord’s eternal enmity. The Spell Duel system (DCC’s take on the traditional counterspell) cranks this up to 11. All manner of havoc can ensue when the energies of the cosmos are bashed together like billiard balls. Clerics accrue the disapproval of their deity, and being on a god’s bad side starts to suck real fast. Sinning, or just plain failing their spell checks, widens an ever increasing Disapproval range. When a spell check falls within their Disapproval range, the deity calls the Cleric to atone for his sins, and they don’t exactly ask nicely. The rulebook comes complete with a table chock full of creative punishments for a Cleric who takes his divine powers for granted. 5) Mighty Deeds Of Arms Martial Maneuvers are a popular idea in modern d20 games, but most of them are still gated behind character archetypes or a litany of Feats. This means that most players will never get use them, and the few who do will have to deliberately build their characters to perform a handful of situational techniques at the expense of something else. Dungeon Crawl Classics resolves this with a mechanic called Mighty Deeds of Arms. Warriors get a bonus die called a Deed Die, which serves as their attack and damage bonus, and increases in size as they gain levels. When making an attack, they can declare a Mighty Deed. If the Deed Die rolls high enough and the attack hits, they can accomplish anything the player can think of with their weapon, (subject to Judge approval of course) from simply disarming an opponent to sending them flying through a door, stapling them to the spot with an arrow, or any number of bombastic stunts. This system makes Warriors true weapon masters, giving them limitless flexibility in combat beyond “I run up and hit ‘em.” 6) The Rules They Didn’t Write Are Just As Important There are some things DCC deliberately left out. You won’t find a Raise Dead spell in the rulebook. However, that doesn’t mean that you can’t raise dead. At a certain level in most roleplaying games, death is just a gold tax. Fork over 500 gold to the local temple of Who Cares and suddenly getting beheaded is a minor inconvenience. DCC says “quest for it.” Travel to Hell and steal the soul back, trek to the Haunted Fen to beseech a lich lord for passage into Death’s realm, search for an ancient coin minted by a lost kingdom to bribe Charon for passage across the river Styx. Want to increase your stats? Quest for it. Want a magic weapon? Quest for it. Want a dragon to ride on? Go on an adventure, you know, like an adventurer. The Judge’s section of the rulebook implores you to make monsters unique, and create your own, but rather than besiege a Judge with charts and rules that take 30 minutes to pore over, DCC simply presents you with a few pages of example monsters and tells you to go for it. On paper this might seem unbalanced and exploitable, but in practice it keeps monster creation from being a laborious process, meaning that most Judges will actually do it. This is its own benefit as it keeps players from being able to metagame an encounter, as they’ll constantly encounter and endless array of new monsters with abilities they’ve never seen before. The rules-light aspect of DCC also makes it incredibly easy to house rule. The rules for most RPGs are balanced precariously upon an intricate mathematical lattice, which means that often changing a rule can have unforeseen consequences in another area. DCC actually encourages you to house rule and homebrew whatever you like to make the game your own, and since there aren’t many rules, there’s not much to break. Want some more classes? Go ahead and write ‘em up. Racial classes aren’t your style? Give humans a stat boost and add the demihuman racial traits to the human classes. Is the game a bit too lethal for your liking? You can crank up the number of failed luck roles needed to buy the farm. This also helps it translate easily to other settings and genres beyond fantasy. The third party sourcebook Transylvanian Adventures takes DCC into Gothic Horror territory, the free Gongfarmer’s Almanac 2017 presented the WWII-themed Trench Crawl Classics, the module Rock God Death Fugue turns the party into a rock band on tour, and the upcoming Mutant Crawl Classics brings players into the devastated ruins of a primitive post-apocalyptic future. Creative judges will have no shortage of epic adventure on their hands. Dungeon Crawl Classics puts story and adventure first and players and GM’s a very close second. It will ignite your creativity, it will make you rethink the way you play fantasy RPGs, but most of all, it will remind you that gaming isn’t about pouring over endless sourcebooks and an unending litany of rules. It’s about having adventures, it’s about telling stories with your friends, and it’s about a damn good time. More and more gamers are remembering every day, and if you truly wish to see what’s fantasy gaming could be, you owe it to yourself to check out Dungeon Crawl Classics. Chaz Lebel is a fiction author and member of Caffeinated Conquests, a YouTube channel dedicated to nerd comedy and tabletop gaming. He and his team once produced some promotional videos for High Level Games that they probably wish they could forget. Chaz can be found on Twitter @CafConIsOn Picture Reference: http://www.belloflostsouls.net/2017/01/tabletop-spotlight-dungeon-crawl-classics-rpg.html  The Ravenloft game offers some ways to live with lycanthropy, but some players don’t need much encouragement. It gives them better combat ability, which is the reason they are an adventurer anyway, right? Sometimes players need a reminder that something that tries to kill everyone you love is a bad thing. If your infected PC is trying to talk the others out of a cure, here's how to write them a reality check.
1) No More Murder Hobo Because lycanthropy keeps the “victim” alive while threatening people they care about, the severity of the curse is a reflection of how much they have to lose. Those who are most tempted by lycanthropy tend to be rootless, living only for the next adventure. Give them roots: the bartender who gives them leads, the kids who admire them, the cleric who patches them up. Consider a big adventure that gives them a cool base of operations, complete with a couple of loyal staff. Once they have something to lose, the curse takes its proper perspective. 2) Dangle Mistletoe One special type of community tie bears special mention. Have an NPC show interest in the PC by sending little gifts or calling in favors to make a job easier. If the player takes the bait and the relationship starts heating up, remind them that the beast will target their love interest. Make sure the NPC is playing hard enough to get that there’s lots promised and nothing delivered… yet. Even the most juvenile player should be moved to get rid of this barrier to romantic entanglements off-screen. 3) Share The Pain Make sure the other party members are on the front lines when it comes to every kind of collateral damage. A party that is sick of mending the furniture is your best ally for dealing with a lycanthrope-happy player. Remind players that infected characters may have a harder time gaining XP, and infected paladins, clerics, druids and rangers could lose much more. In the rare situation that everyone still lines up for infection, make it clear that their beastly selves will destroy the group, either by going separate ways or just killing each other. 4) Wake-Up Calls If you think a hangover is bad, how about waking up a murderer? Make a small table of random places the PC might wake up after a night as the beast. In a jail cell. Naked in the woods. In an animal cage. On a lab table. Lost in a subterranean cave. Even just waking up a few days north of the rest of the party could ruin a lot of adventuring plans. It's OK to let them see the table so they know what might happen, even let them make suggestions, but don't let them see you roll, and don’t just announce what the results are. Some things are best found out the hard way. 5) Fools Rush In Lycanthropes target people that their host feels strongly about, and there are plenty of other strong feelings beyond love or friendship. If the infected PC feels strong hatred against the villain of the story line, have the beast go for a direct attack, rushing in with all of the rage felt by the host, but without the reasoning to actually do the job. It might do a lot of damage and take out several lackeys, but infected survivors could pose a greater threat to the party. After the PC wakes up as a prisoner in the villain's lair, offer a temporary replacement character. By the time the original has been rescued, the player will hopefully have learned the lesson, and will be first in line for a cure. Other media may be full of heroic werewolves, but the specifics of each mythology have to be taken into account, and Ravenloft lycanthropes are not those of Hollywood. Unless you’ve agreed to loosen the rules for them, lycanthropy should not be an enhancement to the character. It should be a disaster waiting to happen that they will work hard to be rid of, and count themselves blessed when finally free. Leyshon Campbell has been playing and writing for Ravenloft for over twenty years, from the Kargatane's Book of S series, playtesting D&D 3E in a Ravenloft campaign, to the ill-fated Masque of the Jade Horror. 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. Picture Reference: http://otherworldmystery.com/werewolves-arent-real  St. Valentine’s Day makes thoughts turn to love. In an RPG setting, love can be complicated to handle. Several attempts over the years have addressed it from the “lust” perspective, but there have been many mostly “indie” games that try to address it in a much more nuanced manner. If your genre includes romance at its core, an approach has been worked out to avoid the pitfalls and I recommend that you investigate one of those games.
I think there are ways to address it in a more typical campaign (fantasy, horror, pulp, western, sci fi) that neither stray into uncomfortable areas nor ruin the feel of the campaign. Many television shows handle this very well by arranging for the more intimate moments to occur during a commercial break (or fade to black if you’re streaming). I’m going to look at this from the view of romantic love between two people and leave the many other kinds of love off the table until another blog. Let’s examine some ways that love can provide dramatic opportunities for your characters and campaign world. 1) Love As Distraction This is the typical case that comes up. Two characters see each other from across the crowded court, run into each other at a tavern, or find one another in a moment of drama as she breaks open the cell to rescue the Prince in Distress. There is electricity in the air either by proactive choice of the PC or the seductiveness of the other person. Whether this is handled purely through roleplaying or by some social mechanics, let’s assume there is a potent connection established. This connection will have a tangible impact on the character’s decision-making. Whether you are a courtier, hero, henchman, or noble, new love can be a serious distraction. Your thoughts turn constantly to the person you love and everything else seems much less important. Your quest, your oath, or your plots and designs can be easily derailed if you aren’t giving them your attention and energy. Others tend to notice and some are surely not happy about the situation. For characters that are pledged or devoted to a god, a king, or a cause, this provides a real challenge for the commitment. Generally those commitments don’t tolerate someone failing to live up to their word. Forgetting your duty to the king can get you imprisoned or even sentenced to death. Forgetting your duty to your god could imperil your soul and have you face difficult trials to earn your place again. Fellow devotees of a cause might find your wavering to be a threat to their success or even a sign of treason. Putting the character in a situation of having to choose between their new love and a commitment is critical to make these choices real and trigger the interesting consequences. 2) Love As Devotion On a more positive note, a character might plot the course of their life by a great devotion to their love. They will make choices that keep them in a position, role, or profession to stay near their love unless that proximity would endanger them in some way. Great devotions are sometimes lived through distance in that case. A character might have chosen a profession to honor or serve their great love. This works well if the love is high born and the character is a commoner. They might become a castle guard to do what they can to protect their love. Or become a caravaneer if their love travels often, hoping to follow them around the known world. Such love can survive even death. If ones true love has died but left the character charged with accomplishing something, it would be proof of their devotion to strive for that quest the rest of their life if necessary. 3) Love As Obsession If distraction is chaotic and devotion is good, obsession is the darkest form love can take, if love it can even be called. The object of the obsession may have refused their overtures or might not even be aware the character lusts for them. In a truly twisted version, the loved person might be fully aware and manipulate the obsessed person for their own purposes. The obsession can grow over time, starting with an infatuation but quickly escalating, exposing the obsessor’s underlying madness or evil intent. They would take ever increasing risks and make ever more grand gestures to prove to the loved person their devotion. Each time they are ignored or rebuffed only makes things worse. This is most appropriate for an anti-hero or an NPC. It would make an excellent basis for a villain, willing to cross all sorts of lines in their madness. Their obsession might be taken to epic proportions if they gain a position of power. The Trojan War began over obsession with the most beautiful woman in the world. The obsessed might seek to impoverish the object of obsession in order to drive them into their arms out of desperation. These techniques can be applied with player characters but also add a layer of reality and drama to NPC-NPC relationships as well. Consider the prince who has fallen for the wrong princess, upsetting the political plans of the king as just one example. I recommended bringing some love to your campaign this St. Valentine's Day. Jim Davenport founded Dragonlaird Gaming Studios in 2005 as a channel for his original tabletop RPG work. He’s an accomplished freelance writer with Knights of the Dinner Table Magazine (as a columnist) from Kenzerco, Margaret Weis Productions (Serenity, Battlestar Galactica, Cortex), and many others. He published Savage Characters Volume 1 a couple years ago and has plans to release a series of Savage Adventures soon. You can find his website at www.dragonlairdgaming.com. Picture Reference: http://flick-chicks.blogspot.com/2016/02/valentines-day-my-favourite-tv-romances.html  Greetings, travelers!
Spring approaches and love is in the air. It seems like every civilization I hear of, from the dour Mordentish to the most bizarre of outlander cultures, celebrates a holiday around this time of year focused around romance, whether of the noble and sophisticated type or of the more…fleshly variety. While sharing a candlelit dinner with the Lady Drakeson, it occurred to me that we often consider love to be the sole province of goodness, the ultimate indicator of a soul’s purity. Tragically, this isn’t the case. The blackest of hearts can occasionally find another that beats in unison with their own, and woe to any that cross their path. Such villainous paramours feed on one another, becoming in tandem a far greater threat than the sum of their individual iniquity. Should you desire to investigate any of these forbidden romances, I would tread with extreme caution. Creatures who have only one bright light in a life filled with darkness are given to protecting it, and monsters such as these are not known for their restraint. There are a few such affairs that I’m familiar with throughout the world; most of them come to my attention as the likely cause of the death of a correspondent such as yourself! 1) The Doomed Lovers Travelers along the road to Valachan occasionally encounter the specter of a woman some distance off the road, vaguely discernible and in great distress. Those kind-hearted and foolish enough to investigate rarely return. I believe this apparition to be the departed soul of Lizibet Moore, who fled her home to wed a rakish Dementlieuse actor. Conventional wisdom claims he either abandoned her in the moor, or killed her himself. Moved by this story, I attempted to lay her to rest myself in my youth, a mistake which nearly cost me my life. You see, Romero, her paramour, did not abandon her: he simply could not navigate the treacherous Mordentish swamps, and drowned in the bog. His love, upon finding his remains, killed herself in sorrow. Shunned by their own families, their love denied by the very ground beneath their feet, the two found in death the union they were denied in life: Lizibet now roams the moor in ghostly fashion, luring victims to her lover. His own form preserved by the bog, Romero projects upon his victims the terror he felt as the black mud filled his lungs, damning even those who escape him a slow, lingering demise from his cursed touch. The two lash out at any living being that comes within their domain. Those who do not freeze in terror at the sight of Romero find themselves split further, as Lizibet attempts to possess those most capable of harming her lover. They’ve amassed a small fortune in stolen treasures by now, which they believe will finance the bright future that they don’t seem to realize they can no longer attain. Lizibet is a 5th level rogue as well as a ghost with the Malevolence and Corrupting Touch abilities. Romero uses the statistics for a mummy. 2) The Singers Speaking of dangers to travelers, should you find yourself along the coast of Dementlieu, for the love of Ezra, plug your ears! The first strains of singing you hear may likely be your last. A tiny, lush island off the coast of Dementlieu, too small to even have a name, is the home for a woman who lures travelers to their deaths, although stories vary as to her identity. Some give her wings and clawed feet, and call her Cymone, citing the rocky island as her nest. Others claim she dwells in the tidal pools and drinks the blood of travelers, and name her Cold Brigitte. Aslaug de la Plage, the keeper of the lighthouse, dismisses these stories as superstitious nonsense. In reality, there is not one monster, but three: Cymone is a harpy, Cold Brigitte is a watery fae known as a glaistig, and even the lighthouse keeper who protects their secret, Aslaug, is herself a sirine. The three are not merely compatriots, but lovers, but those who think to join them are in for a rude surprise, as the lovers feast on their prey: Aslaug devours their minds, Cold Brigitte drains their lifeblood, and Cymone gorges on their bodies. The overlapping effect of not one but three songs of enchantment is usually enough to incapacitate entire groups of heroes. Should that fail to work, Cymone can always take to the air while Aslaug and Brigitte retreat to the safety of deeper waters (potentially luring an enchanted captive or two to their own drownings as well). It would take a dedicated group of adventurers indeed to dispatch this wicked love triangle! Sirine statistics can be found in the Monster Manual II. Glaistig statistics can be found in the Monster Manual III. 3) The Artists In the past decade or so, the works of a singular artist have begun to spread across the eastern core. A sculptor who works in marble, this mysterious artist is like none before him: rendering in stone the tiniest details, so fine as to be unbelievable, his figures so lifelike that one could swear they could spring to life. A small brass plate bearing a serpentine insignia, usually on the breast or the center of the back, marks each statue as his. This dark work is the result of a medusa named Mukondi, who claims to hail from a land she only calls ‘the Shaar.’ She was an isolated threat, living alone on the plains near the border of Darkon and Nova Vaasa, before a chance encounter with a shipwreck survivor named Phidian, a maedar. If you’re unfamiliar, a maedar is the extremely rare male form of the medusa. Immune to the gaze attacks of their female peers, maedars instead have the ability to restore petrification victims (which they rarely do). The pair now practice an extortion scheme, kidnapping the loved ones of the wealthy and powerful, then demanding exorbitant ransoms to return them. Should any of their victims fail to pay, then there is soon a new statue on the market. (Phidian drills out the hearts of these statues, which he replaces with the brass plug that is their signature, thus preventing anyone from returning Mukondi’s victims to life.) I believe Azalin is aware of their presence, but since they confine their depredations to Nova Vaasans (or those that are not his citizens), the lich’s forces do not confront them. Statistics for maedar can be found in Dragon Magazine #355. 4) The Outcasts Dazin Cade was an accomplished illusionist, and a renowned adventurer. Like many heroes before him, he chose to brave Castle Ravenloft. The bones of his companions lie moldering in Strahd’s flooded dungeons, but Cade himself was given the curse of vampiric immortality, and was put to work in his new lord’s service. In some forgotten volume of arcane lore, Dazin stumbled across a mention of the Cult of the Nightfoe, and was immediately entranced. The defunct religion venerated a nameless destructor figure of ethereal beauty and incredible danger. Although his research indicated that Strahd’s forces had destroyed them all centuries ago, he became fixated on the cult, determined to locate its remnants. In a hidden shrine in the Balinoks, north of the Luna River, he found what he was looking for. None of the priestly sacraments remained, but the dark visions he received as he slumbered told him he had found what he was looking for. He fashioned a new image of his deity: an icon forged from an obsidian-black metal, so cold as to sap the life from any foolish enough to touch it. So great was his devotion that the Nightfoe has given life, or a cruel semblance of it, to this statue. Dazin Cade and the statue he has named Nightbane dwell now as both lovers and co-conspirators. They have even begun abducting those who wander too far into the mountains and cursing them with undeath, raising a new cult of vampiric spawn to worship at the Nightfoe’s feet. Even without their underlings, Cade and the Nightbane are a terrifying combination. Dazin specializes in spells of light and shadow, which seem to energize his lover in an arcane way. The Nightbane may never speak, but it can certainly act, and it does so by emulating the god whose image it was created in, in his role as a destructor. He can even send out cascades of necromantic energy that peel the spirits away from the living to reinvigorate his vampiric partner. Should the two grow much larger in power or influence, they may be forced to relocate, or else deal with the forces of Barovia’s monarch, who is unlikely to view the presence of a rival with good humor. Dazin Cade is a human vampire, and a 9th level illusionist. Nightbane uses the statistics of a shadesteel golem (Monster Manual III), but with an Intelligence of 18. 5) The Duet Many travelers have seen Zidora and Seoci. Although the two range all over the Core, they usually stay near Kartakass, where their abilities are most appreciated. They actually have a reputation as folk heroes, although this is far from the case. In reality, the pair are brigands and murderers, who spin elaborate tales of their victims’ monstrosity after the fact. They use the guise of a pair of adventurers as a cover to rob the defenseless and evade the law. Zidora is half-Vistani, an image she sometimes accentuates to add to her exoticism, if she thinks that would be to her advantage. She is a skilled at dancing, singing, and several instruments. Her lover, the Tepestani Seoci, is a tall, powerful man with long hair and a perpetual shifty grin. His skill is far more specialized, limited to the violin and a vast store of ribald songs and off-color jokes. Seoci possesses a magical violin that makes him particularly dangerous. It entrances its victims, and makes them more susceptible to musical attacks. Conveniently, Zidora is a gifted sorceress, specialized in just such attacks. Eventually, these two will run afoul of the wrong prey, but until then they live fast and carefree, lost in their own self-destructive romance. Zidora is a 9th level sorceress specializing in sonic attacks. Seoci is a 9th level bard with a violin that functions identically to Pipes of Pain. Conclusion Love may not be the soul province of the goodly, but it is undeniably good. The presence of such bonds of true love within the most wicked of beings points to their core of humanity; it offers the hope that even the most sinful among us might be saved, or at least be offered a taste of salvation among our own self-inflicted damnation. Take care, should you engage any of these beings. I have considered hunting some of them, but then I think of the lengths I might go to in order to protect Gwen, or she to protect me, and I inevitably decide that such dangerous hunts might be better left to the younger and more vigorous. As always, safe travels and happy hunting, Frankie ‘Farshot’ Drakeson, Lord Mayor of Carinford-Halldon 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, or listen to Don, Jon, & Dragons, his podcast. Picture Reference: http://skyrimphotos.blogspot.com/2012/08/ghost-lovers.html  So you love writing RPG material, building worlds, and designing adventures for you and your players to explore. You may have even considered taking up the daunting task of writing at a professional level. This can seem very overwhelming to the uninitiated. It’s hard to know where to start and what resources to depend on.
When I began my journey as an independent game designer, I searched high and low for books that would help improve my writing and broaden my design philosophies. I was surprised at the kind of books that were readily available, as I greedily dove in head first. There is a lot of material to be covered, but the following list contains books that I have found useful, and should help get any beginning designer’s feet wet. 1) Design Patterns of Successful Roleplaying Games A great way to design your own setting/game is to study others and see what makes them tick, and what makes them successful. Author Whitson John Kirk III takes this concept and runs with it, for 272 awesome pages. This ebook provides an in-depth analysis of what makes popular RPGs so great. Whitson is incredibly technical with his analysis, offering a lot of good information to those considering game design. The best part about this book is that it is free, and in the creative commons so it may freely be distributed. 2) The Complete Kobold Guide to Game Design The folks at Kobold Press are constantly churning out useful guides for GMs and designers alike. Their game design guide covers a variety of topics, from core rules design to writing adventures. These essays are written by RPG veterans like Monte Cook, Wolfgang Baur, Ed Greenwood, and many others. Because this book has articles from so many authors, there is a wide variety of opinions and insight, giving the reader an array of perspectives. 3) The Kobold Guide to World Building Now I know what you’re thinking, I have a book from the same company on this list. In my defense there’s a reason for that: both books are just that good. This guide contains essays that cover important concepts of setting design, such as what the players will be doing in the world, and what historical facts are necessary to flesh the setting out. This book is chock full of important concepts for world building, particularly if you want to sell that world to others for use. 4) Writing With Style: An Editor's Advice for RPG Writers While you may be spending your time trying to figure out how to build a game, it’s also important to make sure you’re communicating with your readers properly. Ray Vallese has been editing RPG material for quite some time and was kind enough to put this experience to use for others. This book has tips on how to write for RPGs while making your writing style stand out. It also knows its readership well, it’s not simply writing style tips for just anyone. Mr. Vallese has been in the business long enough to see writing pitfalls common to RPG designers and how to avoid them. Nathan Carmen is the founder and head writer of the Indie RPG company Tricky Troll Games. Nathan loves building worlds and improving his craft when he’s not busy parenting. Reach Nathan at [email protected] or check out the TTG website at https://nathanccarmen.wixsite.com/trickytrollgames Image Source: Cover for Complete Kobold Guide to Game Design  Author’s Note: If you like what you read here and want to help support our efforts to create a strong, inclusive community of gamers, please consider supporting us on Patreon. Every dollar helps!
Throughout every conceivable medium, zombies exist to the point of oversaturation. Society’s love affair with the undead has gradually reduced in intensity in recent years, though some enterprising creators have managed to produce variants of the trope that still delight and satisfy. One such creator is Caleb Stokes, writer and designer of the Red Markets roleplaying game. I recently had the opportunity to GM a session of the game, and found four aspects that help differentiate Caleb’s product from the myriad other zombie titles available. 1) The Market Many tabletop RPGs create a new title for the gamesmaster, and Red Markets follows this trend. Here, however, the application of the alternative title is apt in that the Market functions somewhat differently than a traditional GM. Much of any given session is determined by random rolls, including encounters. Indeed, nearly all of the encounters in the game are expected to be randomized. What’s more, the difficulty of each action is effectively randomized by the dice system. Players roll a black d10 and add it to their skill plus any bonuses they gain from using equipment, while simultaneously rolling a red d10 to determine the number you have to beat. The only tools the Market has to increase the difficulty are to prevent equipment use to enhance rolls or require they get a critical success (obtained by rolling even doubles). Luckily, the system plays out surprisingly well. The Market has far less influence over events, and therefore everyone shares in the surprise and mirth caused by the random encounters and rolls. Further into this article, I’ll also explore how even the prices of commodities is randomized, even as the commodities are introduced on the fly. 2) Escalating Tensions When player characters encounter Casualties (this setting’s name for zombies), they have to make a choice: do they fight and risk infection, or run and miss out on any of the goodies they may be inadvertently guarding? Shambling Casualties are the most common, and typically wander around in herds. They are incredibly silent and react to any sound as if it is a source of delicious living flesh. Therefore, when player characters utilize unsuppressed firearms in their attempts to thin out a herd, more Casualties tend to come to replace them. The fight can become hopeless quickly. This simple fact requires that players be more creative in their approach to the living dead instead of just popping heads at random. Lead the herd one way so one of your buddies can get into a grocery store and grab as many goodies as possible before they start shambling back. Furthermore, PCs may discover other types of undead, such as Vectors (supremely quick zombies, a la 28 days later) or Aberrants (unusual undead of striking variety). There are also human enemies to contend with. Things get messy very quickly, so it behooves the PCs to use stealth and speed in their endeavors. 3) Money Is Everything The world after the apocalypse is a grim one, primarily due to the shortage of supplies in most areas of the world. The lucky places are referred to as the Recession and are still governed by a centralized leadership. All other locations are collectively known as the Loss and operate as a loose coalition (if that) of enclaves, each struggling to get by every day. Because the remaining government of the United States wishes to figure out what goods they are entitled to after the loss of so much life, they established an economy centered around the recovery of dead people’s identification information, usually in the form of IDs. Player Characters assume the roll of Takers, mercenary entrepreneurs who take contracts in the Loss or strike out on their own to recover valuable goods or a bunch of IDs from the dead. Takers often create their own small businesses to better take advantage of the ravaged economic state of the Loss. This creates endless opportunities for PCs, much of which is determined by random rolls. Valuables are divided into units called hauls, and the price of each haul is determined by rolling a d10 for supply and a d10 for demand and adding the two. The system outlines a way for Takers to drive up the price of their wares, as well as bid for contracts and negotiate the prices. The negotiation minigame proves particularly fun, as it allows for the PCs who aren’t negotiating to pull scams that manipulate the market. If all goes well, you could have your client pay for your group’s expenses as well as adding hazard pay for each leg of your journey. What a deal! 4) Tabletop Hybrid Other such systems turn Red Markets into a pseudo board game of sorts. The Market has remarkably little impact on the outcomes of events in the game. Even in smaller vignettes featuring Takers’ dependents (NPCs who the PCs support financially and who, in turn, provide stress relief) the other PCs are encouraged to take on the NPC roles. The Market simply designs the contracts and certain NPCs, then manages the random events that occur throughout the journey. As a longtime GM, I found this initially stifling, but ultimately exciting. I got to be on the same level as my players as we uncovered random encounters. There are 100 such encounters in the core book, each one unique and dangerous with multiple possible outcomes. The Market can even randomize clients with some handy tables in the back of the book. It proves a unique and surprisingly refreshing GMing experience. For any MBA gamer or a GM looking for an alternative way to play with the zombie trope, Red Markets proves to be a fun experience. There’s plenty of variety to be found despite the regimented systems I described. Let me know what you think of the game, and whether what you’ve read has reignited your interest in the ever-growing zombie genre. 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 . Picture Reference: http://www.drivethrurpg.com/images/5698/226794.jpg?affiliate_id=657321  A tabletop roleplaying game is a communal and oral narrative experience shared by members of society. Though we have evolved out of the group hunts and dinnertime by the campfire, we still have that urge to tell and hear stories. Part of that evolution includes the implementation of group storytelling, enriched by different viewpoints brought to the same narrative. Tabletop roleplaying games are one such example, composed of narratives that stem from various sources, from the game’s conception to players’ real-time decisions.
1) The Players First and foremost, the players’ in-game decisions affect the world on the diegetic level with an immediate effect. Once the player’s turn arrives, the action is declared, and the dice are cast, the story moves to that reality instead of any other possibility. Every action and the result of said action affect the story directly. The Japanese replays, books that detail the events of a game like a script, show their importance and relatability. The players can also affect the story out-of-game as well. The players, more often than not, would suggest to other players what to do; they will joke around the table and claim that they want to achieve something for its added narrative value. This can be to make the situation more epic, dramatic, humorous or anything else. 2) The Game Master The Game Master, the Dungeon Master, the Master of Ceremonies, the Host, whatever the name or the scope of responsibilities of the person in charge of the story, the Game Master has more responsibilities than other players. In-game, he or she takes charge of all the non-player characters on top of introducing and concluding the scenes. With the description provided and character behavior displayed, the players can decide on their actions in response to the non-player characters and the situations in hand. The Game Master can steer the situation knowing his or her players. On top of setting up the narrative, the sandbox or the railway, the Game Master clarifies rules, mediates, and delegates logistical necessities. Every table creates a unified set of house rules alongside the game’s that are malleable and adaptable. The Game Master indirectly affects the story by defining and limiting what can and cannot be. The Game Master can also outright limit and redefine things that occur. 3) Outside Influences The game designers define the basic set of rules, backstory, and how the former is expressed by the latter. This affects every narrative created in the game since they are limited to the actants, the things that can appear in the chronotope. This focus creates a singular unique game world, with themes and styles of stories that can be told on top of the various actions that can be taken. If the Game Master has decided to run a module or to draw inspiration from one, he or she can focus on running and adapting the story to the players rather than creating a story of their own. This limits his or her influence and increases the designers’, but it makes it easier to run the game. All of these things are affected by the social presuppositions to various themes and tropes. No narrative exists in a void. Tabletop games draw from tropes in literature, pop culture, gaming, and even personal jokes or throwbacks to other games. Whether it is fulfilling the expected trope or going against it, no game is truly in a bubble. The experience of a tabletop game is an inclusive one, in terms of who can tell the story. Players and Game Masters can contribute in-game or out-of-game. The game designers and module writers frame their experience, which in turn is framed by our collective consciousness and familiarity with our own intrinsic culture. Asaph Wagner is a writer, editor and game designer currently residing in Israel. He also has the largest pro-wrestling and pop-culture lapel pin collection in the universe. https://twitter.com/asaphwagner . Picture Reference: https://geekandsundry.com/five-famous-tabletop-rpg-tales-too-epic-to-believe/  High Level Games’ articles are created by gamers, for gamers. Gamers know that gaming isn’t exactly the cheapest hobby; and hosting a site isn’t either. For those who want to support HLG, an avenue one could take is supporting us, at any level, on our Patreon page. The funds raised go back into the site and helps to keep our content coming. Thanks for the support!
-Sean The Heavy Metal GM It’s daunting to run a roleplaying session for the first time. Building a unique world requires the design of compelling NPCs, interesting plot twists, and engaging encounters. Even picking up an Adventure Path requires a surprising amount of upkeep and work to make an enjoyable session for players. Even then, sometimes players just take the DM’s plans, throw caution to the wind, and leave all the carefully planned notes on the cutting room floor. Here are five tips for a first time DM to hopefully make the first few sessions a little more organized. 1) Plan Everything “Everything,” actually means, “almost everything.” It isn’t required to plan out what the random silk salesman is shouting out at the side of the road, but it does mean that everywhere the players are expected to go (and even the places they aren’t), a plan is required. The plan doesn’t need to be detailed, but having bullet points about each location, and any interactions at that location, can be very helpful. If a DM plans their encounters, they can be ready for when the players enter the area. Planning ahead allows a DM to stay focused on the gameplay as opposed to trying to remember what was supposed to happen in a given encounter. It takes away stress and reduces some of the reliance on improvisation. Of course, this doesn’t mean that adaptation on the fly is forbidden; planning “everything” merely creates a framework to follow, allowing for the possibility of organic surprises to form as the game plays. 2) Make Cheat Sheets There is a lot of information that DMs are required to remember at the drop of a hat. In Pathfinder, players can be affected by a vast array of similar sounding conditions like Frightened or Panicked. They’ll players will rightfully ask, “What does that do to my character?” and the DM will have to answer. Rather than looking everything up in the sourcebook or online in the moment, making a cheat sheet is a surefire way to keep the game focused and reduce stress on a first time DM. Conditions are a good example of the lesson: taking time before a session to familiarize oneself with rules leads to a smoother session. Writing a brief description of what each condition does to a character not only allows the DM to become familiar with them, but makes that information quickly accessible during a game. Conditions are overwhelming. Taking time before a session to familiarize oneself with rules leads to smoother gameplay. Writing a brief description of what each condition does to a character not only allows the DM to become familiar with them, but makes that information quickly accessible during a game. Doing the same for other complicated mechanics such as spells and monsters will also be beneficial for starting DMs. 3) Be Prepared To Improvise Even you think you’ve planned for it all, players will be players, and will find a way to put themselves into unimaginable situations. A DM can look at a situation and design a handful of reasonable routes to take. Yet, players can concoct a plan that goes against the very idea of reasonable and, somehow, it works. It’s the job of the DM to steer the ship back to the original plan as seamlessly as they can and make it look as if it was all meant to happen. This tip is essential because a DM may fall in love with the plans that they designed only for the players to never follow them. A good DM won’t railroad the players (force them on a specific path), but will instead adapt to what unfolds while considering their original plans. It’s a tricky balance, especially for the first few games, but it’s a skill to be practiced. Eventually, it will become quite comfortable. 4) Keep The First Few Sessions Really Simple There’s nothing wrong with a DM’s first session being a simple dungeon crawl. It’s a great place to learn how to make the game flow while also learning the play style of your players. Custom designed dungeons allow your personality find its way into a session, though they take a lot of work. In the first few games, it’s easy to forget something as essential as roleplaying. When a DM is just beginning, the rules should be the main focus and roleplaying will naturally begin to burgeon after some time. A dungeon is the perfect place to start, if you’re dead set on designing your own adventure. Focusing on building a small handful of rooms with their own unique encounters can help flex the creative muscles. The linear form most dungeons take also provides help in ensuring that the adventure follows a fixed path. Although, don’t be shocked if your players still surprise you! Dungeons can also provide their own semi-closed narrative, with the players starting in a specific room and being forced to find their way out. This allows players to have agency but there isn’t a larger, open ended plot. If a DM is looking for a premade adventure there are a variety of options online. Pathfinder and Dungeons and Dragons have a good variety of modules to play. High Level Games has released a great one page adventure that makes for a good starting point. It provides some encounters in a city/town, followed by a small dungeon. It can be run in a few hours and after completing it, the players can perhaps continue their characters into a new campaign, should it inspire you. Find The Cat’s Meow for 5th edition here. 5) Don’t Expect The First Time To Be Perfect Running a session is very challenging. Even an experienced DM can face situations that they don’t run well, or encounters that end up being boring. When, starting out your goal should be learning what works for you and your group. Mistakes are what help someone understand what’s effective, so welcome any missteps that are made with open arms. This is not saying that you should just try everything and see what sticks. A DM will take what they find interesting, wanting to push those ideas onto their players. That can be a good idea; but if the players seem to pull in a different direction, then for the next session, try adding a little of what they want to see. Finally, there’s nothing wrong with anyone simply saying, “Give me a second to look that up.” The players won’t lose anything if the DM needs to take a few moments to pull up a monster block, or ensure they are doing something correctly. There’s a lot of information in these games, and it’s against all reason and sense to memorize everything. My first session as a DM was in 2016. I’ve learned a lot from running a full scale campaign that was way out of my comfort zone. In retrospect, I wish that I had started smaller. I wish I knew the tips above. Instead, I learned the hard way. It has been a fun and amazing experience, one I think anyone holding interest should try at least once. Even if it scares them. 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 source: Neuronphaser’s Books to Help You Become a Better Game Master  Editor’s Note: Enjoy reading articles about your favorite hobby and engaging with fellow gamers? We do too, but hosting and producing our site isn’t free. Please consider visiting our Patreon page and supporting us at any amount. We put every dollar back into the site and its production, and your help has allowed us to have certain paid article months for our contributors (such as this month). Thank you for your continued readership and your support!
Let’s face the facts; weapons are a key (if not THE key) component to every RPG, whether it's a video game or tabletop. Of course, we’ve all had the swords, the axes, the bows, the staves and all of the other classic weapons. These have all existed, and honestly, at this point, feel a little mundane. “God,” I hear you saying through time and space. “Things that exist are so boorrrrring.” Well, hypothetical speaker, I think that you will find quite the opposite to be true. You seem to forget all the hilarious, fascinating, and borderline impossible things that happen here in our little piece of existence, as well as some of the absolutely incredible weaponry that the mind of man has whipped up over the years. But seeing as you’ve (probably) never heard of the ones I’m about to describe, it would be very difficult for you to remember them, let alone forget them. However, seeing as I’ve already heard you complaining about existence while writing this, I suppose time and space is already a little hazy. 1) The Kpinga (The Hunga Munga) Originating in an awkward place between present-day Sudan and Egypt, the Azande tribe whipped up a most interesting concoction. The Kpinga (pictured above) is a throwing knife with a rather… unique shape. At around 22 inches in length, it almost would feel like it shouldn’t be thrown, especially considering the fact that it had three blades. One near the handle in the shape of a… I’m not allowed to use that word? We’re kid friendly? But that’s actually how it's supposed to look… lets just say it's in the shape of a different sword that specifically male warriors would use. Further down, near the end weapon, the second blade protrudes from the opposite side of the first. This blade appears to be for hacking primarily, as it tapers out towards its end. The final blade is rather difficult to describe and appears at the very end of the weapon, where the point of a sword would be. It’s almost as if someone removed the head of an axe and placed it at the end. Now, one may take one look at this thing and think that it was not only completely useless, but almost hazardous to the user. However a closer inspection reveals that it’s probably one of the most versatile weapons that ever hit the battlefield. The first blade would act as a good crossguard and close range striking weapon. The second would be a very potent hacking weapon, and the same could be said for the last blade, with the addition that it could most likely hook the opponent's weapon. Now, attaching stats to this guy may seem a little monolithic, however just take the first blade and give it 1d4 damage. I would say, when missed with a melee weapon attack, the wielder could use their reaction to make a melee weapon attack (without their bonuses) against the creature that missed. The other two blades would do 1d6 each, and you could include the ability to hook an enemy’s weapon. Of course, that would be up to the DM. Also, seeing as it was thrown, give it a range of 30/60. With all those added properties, this weapon may seem very overpowered, and you’d be right. However, my suggestion to balance this out would be to make it so they have to take the Weapon Master feat, or make it the equivalent of learning two weapons in game time. Also, the crafting for this weapon could be known to only a select group of warriors (personally, I would use the Tabaxi from Volos guide. Probably because in my head I just kinda associate them with African and Amazonian tribes. Maybe because they’re big cats.) and in order to have one made and to receive the training the party must go on a perilous side quest. 2) The Lantern Shield Now at first, the name “Lantern Shield” doesn’t really scream “beware my power.” (Well…) Until you consider the fact that the Lantern Shield was about the size of a buckler and had three ways to kill people. That's right. A shield that has a retractable sword at one end, two spikes where the built in gauntlet protrudes and another spike in center of the shield. Not to mention its namesake: the lantern built in behind the shield, which shines out front due to the hatch up front. This may be a little… unruly to wield, however if it's not flavourful I’ll be damned. A character with this could have a very prominent “sentinel” vibe. Between the lantern and the fact that all of this is attached to a shield, it almost seems like a perfect fit for that kind of character. The design for these shields almost always look a little eccentric, however it's unclear on whether or not that was because of the fact that the earliest renditions of this are dated to the Renaissance or if it was primarily nobility that wielded this weapon. Attaching stats to this is going to be significantly easier than with the Kpinga. The sword (when protruding) could do 1d6 slashing damage, while the the protrusions would do 2d4 (1d4 if only one of them sticks). Obviously there's a lantern attached that would function as a bullseye lantern. Feel free to add a percent chance to have it break when the shield is hit, and have fire damage come into account if it's on. Something like 5% seems fair; maybe less because this is probably super expensive to repair and might need a special artisan to do it. Hell, the simple fact that this is so outlandish makes it even more difficult to find. Perhaps you could make it payment from a bored noble after completing a task for him. 3) Spring Loaded Triple Dagger Despite being a mouthful, the name of this weapon is rather self explanatory. Used by European fencers in the Middle Ages (probably closer to the Renaissance) this dagger was extremely effective at parrying and capturing the opponent's weapon, which anyone who does HEMA or the like will tell you is a rather useful little trick (or anyone with a brain). Obviously, there was a trigger for the two little blades that popped out of the side of the blade, typically a button, so there was a “surprise” moment for anyone the fighter dueled. In case you missed it, this was literally made for people who dueled often enough to warrant such a sneaky tactic. In historical combat, having a second weapon, particularly a dagger, along with your rapier or foil meant that the dagger was primarily for parrying. The Florentine style of fighting raised this to an art form. Now, changing this to a tabletop setting: this dagger would work well with a one-on-one or CQC specialist kind of character. However, for stats, if you already have something for a sai I would use that. Otherwise I’d say that as a reaction to being hit by an attack you could add 1 to your AC and if that caused the attack to miss, and if the opposing weapon had the finesse or light property you could attempt to disarm them. You make a DEX saving throw and the opponent makes a STR saving throw. It doesn't have all the bells and whistles of the last two options. But sometimes just a little flavour is all you need. 4) The Dueling Shield The dueling shield may sound like a small and agile form of protection that is very maneuverable, but a quick Google search shows you that a dueling shield is large, unwieldy and dangerous looking. These shields were still used along with a sword in some cases, as they still functioned as something similar to a tower shield in a lot of ways. But, thanks to the curved shape of the shield itself and the sharp protrusions at the ends, this shield functions perfectly fine by itself, having a long end to end bar as a handle for easy two handed use. Note that there is some speculation on whether or not the dueling shield was ever used outside of judicial duels. So if you’re not going to use this regularly it could make for an interesting trial by ordeal section where none of the party is particularly proficient with it. Now obviously, this is a shield, so it should provide the standard +2 to AC. However, give it the versatile property, where if used two handed it provides another +1 (or 2) to AC and does 1d8 piercing damage. Also, considering the construction of the weapon and the fact that both ends have a point, the Polearm Master feat could also apply to this particular weapon. Another mentioned use of the shield is planting it in the ground and rotating it to face an opponent, always keeping a protected front. There are honestly so many other weapons that have been created throughout history that are just as outlandish as these are. Really, you could have characters based around some of these considering their moxie. History is a baffling and important topic, but probably the most interesting part is finding all this weird stuff. Maybe weird enough for a land with giant fire breathing lizards and demons. 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 Cthulhu whispering to him in the small hours of the night, or just persistent flashbacks to the Far Realm. Picture Reference: https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/deadliestwarrior/images/c/ce/Kpinga.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20100616220547  Editor’s Note: Enjoy reading articles about your favorite hobby and engaging with fellow gamers? We do too, but hosting and producing our site isn’t free. Please consider visiting our Patreon page and supporting us at any amount. We put every dollar back into the site and its production, and your help has allowed us to have certain paid article months for our contributors (such as this month). Thank you for your continued readership and your support!
-David, Blog Manager Lovecraft was an amazing author. His horrifying stories of cosmic indifference have influenced countless authors, game designers, and heavy metal bands. But Lovecraft always had a darker, more disturbing tinge to his stories than unfathomable beings from another dimension, the mere knowledge of which will cause a human to go insane: he was horribly racist, xenophobic, and sexist. This facet of Lovecraft has not discouraged those he hated from enjoying his work, creating new tales within his Mythos, and even working to subvert the tales they love. Enter Harlem Unbound, a source book from Darker Hue Studios for Call of Cthulhu and Trail of Cthulhu, set, unsurprisingly, in Harlem in the 1920’s, with a mission to upend the worst part of an amazing author. Lead Designer Chris Spivey was kind enough to spare some time and tell us a little about the book. 1) What new mechanics are you bringing into Call of Cthulhu and the GUMSHOE variant, Trail of Cthulhu, that brings 1920’s Harlem and the African American experience to life? I created the Racial Tension modifier to provide a mechanical effect to aid in play and establish a baseline both for both player and keeper. This mechanic helps remove some of the out-of-play tension and lets the player know that Keeper is not just being a jerk by providing a benchmark for Keepers. 2) Tell us a little bit about your background with the Lovecraftian Mythos. What got you interested in this particular type of story? I am actually going to pull a big chunk from a blog post I did about this, as it sums up everything… I was part of a group that had to stay in a house for an estate sale. The owner had passed away and had these massive piles of books, and I stumbled onto H.P. Lovecraft. We were given free reign of the house but chose to all stay in one area together. Come on, empty house + young kids + reading horror fiction = ghosts! Reading that Lovecraft collection in the home of a recently dead person, tucked in my sleeping bag, and listening to the sounds of my sleeping friends made it magical. The shadows lurked around the room and every creak caused me to stop reading and stare into the darkness. Chilling! The ideas that were presented resonated with me as an African American male growing up in the deep South. I understand the concepts of cruelty and the uncaring nature of the universe. Yes! I get it! The best man can do is struggle against the insurmountable evil and win for a day or two, and at the very best, delay the maddening doom and protect humanity. 3) What about the Harlem Renaissance makes it so suited to subverting Lovecraft? The very heart of the Harlem Renaissance was about embracing change and celebrating the African American spirit. The movement highlighted African American intellectualism and creativity and sought to make the world a better place through racial and gender equality and more freedom of sexuality. It was everything Lovecraft was against, and dovetails perfectly with the concept of cosmic horror. 4) Part of your work revolves around Prohibition. Is there something that ties together the hidden world of speakeasies and the world of the Great Old Ones? (Author's note: this question is a result of misreading during my research for this interview. Chris gave a great answer anyway.) That is a great hook, but doesn't appear in any of the current scenarios. You never know… 5) The book will contain five scenes for the games (including one with the Harlem Hellfighters!). Do any of the larger than life figures of the Renaissance make an appearance? Harlem Unbound contains four scenarios and there is an additional digital scenario that will be released to Kickstarter backers in 2018. The backers received a few exclusive items as a thank you for their support. A few high profile figures from Harlem do make appearances throughout the scenario, such as Jack Johnson and A’Lelia Walker, and the book provides detailed hooks to bring in many more. It was one of my goals to have players and keeper be able to engage with actual Harlem luminaries at this stage in their lives. 6) What advice would you have for game designers who are cautious about creating more inclusive games for fear of “getting it wrong?” If you are working on something that is not your struggle but care deeply about it, team up with someone for whom that struggle is real. That means hiring them at a good rate, giving them credit and being a team. Their voice needs to be heard. Research is a powerful tool but lived experience is essential and is an important way to stop potential appropriation. Check out physical copies of Harlem Unbound here. Buy digital at DriveThruRPG. Phil Pepin is a history-reading, science-loving, head-banging, river-running nerd, who would like nothing more than to cuddle with his pups and wife. Picture Reference: http://www.darkerhuestudios.com/shop/ |
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