 In my time as a GM, I often use classic storytelling tropes. The 3 act structure is heavily referenced in many tips on running a good game. So can similar guides help create a good character? So I wanted to look at the first several key points of the hero’s journey in order to see what points should be included in our characters. I’ll be asking and answering whether the first steps should be included and if so what they add to a character. For reference, there are a couple of different versions of the Monomyth/Hero’s Journey; I’ll be using the one from The Hero with a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell. 1) The Call To Adventure The call to an adventurer's life is a pretty basic tenant of character creation. What called a character to the life they currently live? GMs talk about a call to adventure in their game that will cause the characters to come together, but most Lv 0 characters in RPG’s don’t resemble the very beginnings of that character’s arc. All of our characters come with the beginnings of their skills or the inclination towards them. So what caused our characters to become the adventurers they are today? In character creation, it is important to create a major goal for the character - a lifelong quest that the GM can interact with. However, it’s important that the goal pervades the overall arc but is still involved in smaller complete adventures. Thus the call to adventure implemented into character creation can have powerful story impact, perhaps even too powerful if not thought through. 2) Refusal Of The Call Should our characters refuse the call to adventure? Refusing the call to adventure is where the danger of accepting their new task comes into focus. For some of our characters that risk is death by unknown monsters and for some it’s public shame; there are prices to our characters failings. A character also in this case usually establishes what fears and weaknesses might hold them back on the upcoming journey of the campaign. So this very well could be a good time in your backstory to establish important disadvantages your character starts the campaign with and maybe mention why they have them. Ultimately, refusing the call to adventure humanizes the character. So, if you constantly find yourself in the murder hobo camp and want to get out, including the refusal into your backstory could be an effective way to fight that. Give your character weakness and let it make them weak. So should your character refuse the call? Not necessarily. But, I think it is important that you give them a reason to and include that into the game. 3) Meeting The Mentor Each of our characters has an extraordinary set of skills and the way they acquire those skills is a big point of how they form as adventurers. The hero’s journey assumes that it is some kind of wise old man teaching the hero the way. Campbell claims that the mentor, in addition to acting as instructor, represents “the benign, protecting power of destiny.” The meeting of the mentor represents the assurance of the validity of a character’s personal quest and the ultimate success of it. This mentor can be a very powerful tool when your GM is crafting a story with your characters. So I would suggest taking time to consider how a mentor’s specific influence makes your character’s skill set and quest different from others with the same training. 4) Crossing The Threshold Here the hero leaves the world he is comfortable with. This crossing allows the character to leave their life and become part of the campaign. Whether a physical or metaphorical barrier there does need to be a finality to the change in our character’s life. At this point, it is important that the character has both the reason to leave their comfort zones and something forcing them to do so. This is the point where the character’s backstory becomes just that: a backstory, motivations derived from the past. This should be a defining moment for the character that frees them of the immediacy of past obligations and allows them to take up the life they lead in our campaigns. Think of Frodo or Luke Skywalker. Frodo leaves with ties to the shire but no true obligations. He carries friends with him and a mission with him but none of his life from the shire is key to any of it. In the case of Skywalker the person literally asking him to stay for his home responsibilities, his uncle, literally passes away. Making our own characters in a wider story is always a challenge for tabletop roleplaying games. It’s important to make sure that our character gives more opportunities for unique character moments. For this, I think models like the Hero’s Journey give a good way to ensure our character’s story is rich enough to be worth interacting with however integrating it into a larger story with other characters and NPC’s is the challenge of the players over an author. My best advice is to make sure that your character has a rich past that is in the past. Adventurers should be ready to start their life over and experience change. Of course, this varies by system, player, and playgroup. As a GM I typically use the 3 act structure but realize that I may need to abandon some planned things to give the players the best experience. So as a player I think we should follow a structure like the Hero’s Journey but realize rarely does that kind of planning actually fully make it to the table. Bo Quel is a Legend of the Five Rings Fanatic From Virginia. He plays and GMs several systems where he focuses on telling enriching stories and making characters that are memorable. He also is the GM/Host of Secondhand Strife, an L5R RPG actual Play Podcast. Image Credit: What makes a hero? - Matthew Winkler Ted talk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hhk4N9A0oCA   Anybody who knows me knows that I love playing RPGs for the game aspect. Before you go rolling your eyes and muttering under your breath about how I must be a terrible roleplayer and that I spell it with two Ls, allow me to state two things: 1) It’s not a dichotomy, 2) The evidence can speak for itself. I earnestly believe one of the hallmarks of a good roleplayer is that they can make even a ridiculous concept make sense in setting, or adequately justify otherwise nonsensical character choices. With all that said, let’s take a look at some ridiculous such characters one can create using just the core rules of Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition! 1) Explosive Backstabber I’m suggesting this one because one thing I like about Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition is that they (mostly) eliminated alignment and other restrictions when picking classes; which allows for some ridiculous concepts and combinations, such as what we’ll be discussing now: what happens when you mix a Rogue’s backstab with a Paladin’s smite. The things you need: Backstab from Rogue, Divine Smite from Paladin. How it fits together: The requirements for both Backstab and Divine Smite are easily met by wielding a rapier, the strongest, finesse, melee weapon available to both Rogues and Paladins. The end result is that by level 3, a character can roll 3d8+1d6+Damage Modifier in one attack. If somebody wanted to maximize this effect, they’d want to keep favor leveling up Rogue and take the Arcane Trickster subclass, since Smite becomes more powerful with higher spell slot usage, while Backstab becomes stronger with Rogue levels. Conceptually? This setup will have naysayers, since traditionally Paladins and Rogues are anathema to each other. Though with the defanging of original thief-class by renaming it Rogue, and the addition of different kinds of Paladins such as those with the Oath of Vengeance, it’s entirely possible to justify that this is what Batman would be. 2) Literal Spell Sniper Spell Sniper is a useful early game feat; it literally doubles the range of attack spells, and even lets you ignore cover. Great if you’re using a battle mat and plan to hide away from the action. Not so great if you have a GM that eschews the battle mat and uses the “eh, everybody is within range of each other at all times” method. Even in that latter situation, there’s sure to be some utility from pumping range up to ridiculous levels, right? Like the previous setup, this one require multiclassing. You need two levels of Warlock and two levels of Sorcerer. Your sub classes for these don’t matter. You’ll also need to have the Spell Sniper feat. The things you need: the Eldritch Blast cantrip from Warlock, the Eldritch Spear invocation from Warlock, and the Extended Spell metamagic from Sorcerer, along with the Spell Sniper Feat. How it fits together: Eldritch Blast, when used with Eldritch Spear, extends the range of Eldritch Blast to 300ft. Spell Sniper doubles the range of a spell, making it 600ft. Extended Spell, doubles the range again for a total of 1,200ft. That’s enough to cover 240 squares on a standard 5ft square grid map. I’m not sure when somebody would ever need to hit something from that far away, nor if the human eye can actually see at that range. Though if you’re crazy enough to try this, I’m sure these sorts of questions aren’t a major concern; you’ll either find a reason to make use of this range, or find some way around the sight problem. 3) The Invincible Iron Barbarian When people discuss classes what class in D&D that’s meant to take hits like a champ (a tank, if you will), often Paladin is the one that floats to the top of the discussion, or sometimes fighter. Occasionally, though, Barbarian gets a mention with their d12 hit dice. Well, in D&D 5th Edition, the idea isn’t so far fetched for Barbarians to be the ones that take damage like it’s nothing. Because for them? It probably IS nothing. The things you need: Hill Dwarf Race, Barbarian class, Totem Warrior Subclass, Bear Totem Spirit, Tough Feat. How it fits together: If we’ve learned anything the previous entry, it’s that if anything is worth doing, it’s worth doing to a stupidly absurd degree. Hill Dwarf gets a bonus 1 HP per level, and dwarves in general have a bonus to Constitution. Barbarian, when unarmored, gains an AC bonus based on their Constitution. This is on top of the normal bonus to HP one gets for Constitution. Tough grants a further 2HP per level, retroactively. The end result of all the above, assuming an 18 Constitution, is that our Dwarf at level 4 has a MINIMUM of 43 HP. (12 from 1st level, 16 from +4 con bonus for four levels, 4 from Hill Dwarf Toughness, 8 from Tough Feat, 3 minimum from hit dice gained for levels 2-4) The capstone to all this is Bear Totem Spirit from Totem Warrior, which grants resistance to all damage types but psychic. Bears are terrifying. 4) The Rogue That Stole The Bard’s Role Not all the ideas I propose today are going to be about how to break the rules of D&D combat over your knee like a twig. After all, despite the rulebook predominantly consisting of rules for how to kill things and solve problems with violence, Dungeons and Dragons is all about story! So let’s make something that tells a story about a plucky Rogue that stole the show from the Bard! What you need: Rogue Class, Skilled Feat. Half-Elf Race, Entertainer Background. How it fits together: The Bard is described as Music and Magic, as well as a jack-of-all trades. In fact, that’s the name of one of one of their class features that grants them half their proficiency bonus to any roll they wouldn’t have proficiency in. The idea with this setup is to cover as many skills as possible, and just for the sake of it, be better at music and charisma based skills than the Bard. Half-Elf grants 2 skill proficiencies, and the Skilled feat grants an additional 3 later on. Entertainer covers us for being able to make music, and comes with a reputation for doing so, to boot! The two kickers, though, are the Rogue Class Features Expertise and Reliable Talent. Expertise, by level 6, gives a Rogue four skills they have proficiency in DOUBLE their proficiency bonus, and Reliable Talent treats any roll they make with a skill or tool they’re proficient in count as a 10. (Which, as a Half-Elf with Skilled, you’ll have many of.) To take this a step further, you could also pick Arcane Trickster as your archetype. This, combined with numerous feats that grant additional spells, leaves the Rogue in a good position to fashion themselves as “like a Bard, but better.” 5) Your Dice Are Ruining My Story If Dungeons and Dragons is all about story, though, why do I have to obey the whims of these dice? What if they don’t give me the result I want to tell the story that I want? Surely there’s something I can do! (Besides just write a book, that is.) Well, hypothetical, whiny voice that exists less to prove a point and more to segue into my next entry, I’ve got you covered! What you need: Halfling Race, Wizard Class, Diviner Subclass, Lucky Feat How it fits together: This setup is all about abilities that play around with the dice in ways that are often considered straight up broken. First, starting with the Halfling’s Lucky ability; quite simply? It lets you re-roll any d20 roll that comes up 1. The Lucky feat grants luck points that can essentially be used for rerolls, either on your rolls, or rolls made against you. And to top it all off, Diviner gives you the Portent Class Feature, which lets you roll two dice that you can use to replace any other die roll later on. Dice tricks like that, combined with much of the Diviner’s spells about sussing out information, means that you can prepare for any unpleasant surprises, to the possible annoyance of your GM and fellow players! These are probably nothing, at least compared to some of the unusual things you can find and mix in with other splatbooks such as Xanathar’s Guide to Everything. After all, there’s a reason class bloat is often a common complaint in RPGs: as a game allows for more options, more absurd things can happen. Plus, only so many more options can be added until everything just seems the same. Dungeons and Dragons is Aaron der Schaedel’s favorite fantasy RPG published by WIzards of the Coast. He talks about the myriad other games out there on his YouTube Channel, and would greatly appreciate it if you would subscribe. Picture Reference: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/364158319865556047/  There are many things which can drive a story, usually a character. Characters drive stories forward by pursuing a goal: their motivation. I am going to discuss in this article what the main types of motivation are, some sub genres of such motivations and how they can be implemented in an RPG setting. 1) Love Love is just any strong positive emotional tie to any thing or person, even if it is displayed negatively or in the wrong way, and as such can drive stories onward with very few other reasons. Love can be more than romance, however every good novel has some degree of this at one point or another. Love could be lust; many nasty deeds are perpetrated under the guise of what is thought to be love. Love is also respect: the king can ask a faithful band of PCs to dispatch a band of rebels camping outside the city limits. Jealousy is a very strong motivator in stories: A wicked witch, madly in love with an NPC or PC, has stolen away the love interest of and the team must go and rescue her. You could begin a campaign with love as the main driving force: the PCs are on a journey north to find the long lost love of their leader, s/he was reported missing one year ago and the PC has been waiting ever since for word if they are alive or dead, well waiting is over s/he has got together a group of friends and has headed out to find out once and for all.Your party could even liberate an object someone has attached feelings to: The old crone who has grown attached to the haunted urn of her dead husband, the child playing with his father’s magic sword. This motivation can get a little overwhelming if you add too many people or things to the inspiration pool, a love triangle is interesting, a love square can have twists but a love dodecahedron is maybe a little too much. 2) Money Money is economy, it is wealth, it is fame, it is everywhere. Money has been the driving force of a few of my starting games, I am adventuring to make money, but then seeded in love motives and power motives. Money could be someone with wealth maintaining it, the lord of these lands has a small workforce and high production needs so works them to death, literally just to make as much profit as he can. It could even be used as a way to show how good someone is, the monk walked the streets handing out what little coin he had to the peasants that littered the town’s dark alleys. It could also buy false loyalty: The Lord pays for the court’s discretion so his son can go about his nefarious doings without hindrance. Money is a good way to get started, have an NPC offer the party fame or wealth in return for an errand, but should evolve into more personal motives unless you are the lord in the example then just get your PCs to burn down his farm and free the workers. 3) Power Power. Those who have it want to keep it, those who don’t, want to take it. Power struggles can make excellent background stories or plot hooks. The king has requested you infiltrate the enemy's fortress and sabotage their weapon supplies. The president has his finger on the big red button ready to start the next galactic war, unless your team can subdue the opposing threat which is forcing his hand. Power can come in a variety of forms from influence in a political setting, power struggles between council members who each have their own agenda, to WMDs in a modern setting, or even a great source of magic in a fantasy game, the crystal banana is a great relic which bestows the holder with the ultimate power of the cosmos, send your party out to obtain or destroy artifacts of significance and let the story unfold. Whatever the combination of motives you use to spur your players onward remember that there is always another waiting round the corner for them to get hooked on, like Borimir in LOTR, he wished the ring of power for himself to protect the home he loved. Two motives in plain sight and a great example of how one leads to the other, his love for Gondor led him to the motivation to obtain the power of the ring. Use motivations as long term or short term goals to keep players eager to play and to keep them coming back for more. Ross Reid is a Scottish roleplayer who is a fan of many a game and system, he has run a game group for the town in which he lives and is currently working on a fantasy novel which has already taken too long. Picture Reference: https://blog.reedsy.com/character-motivation/  Depending on how you play the game, creating a backstory for your character is either the easiest or the hardest part of character creation. Or at least that’s what I’ve noticed in the tabletop community for the last few years. Especially with the relatively recent influx of player thanks to the many mainstream representations of it such as Critical Role. In both seasons of that game, all of the players have had rather complex backstories that intermingle with both the world and the other players. Which can be intimidating. However, it isn’t terribly difficult if you have an outline. The first tip to give to any player, new or old, is to talk to your DM about backstory. They are the ones that will be able to help the most with integration into the world, because they are the ones who control the world. With that out of the way, I give you some story arcs. 1) The Redemption Arc I mean, with Red Dead Redemption still being so hot, of course I would mention the redemption arc so I could name drop something that’s popular and increase the likelihood that someone stumbles onto this article while looking for something different. This is a very popular arc in both D&D and other forms of media because of how easy it is to build off of. If you used to be a criminal, then you likely have some contacts in the underbelly of society. If you betrayed them, then you likely have made a powerful enemy out of a thieves guild. You fled the country to avoid persecution? No contacts in the new one. You met a kind priest along the way who brought you to a church and began to make you pietus and bam you have your cleric with more than their fair share of skeletons in the closet. While this is very easy to write and work with, it can also be very interesting to play. The thought of working hard to fend off your more malevolent habits such as torture or violence can make for a very interesting dynamic, especially with good aligned characters, however make sure you don’t slip into murder hobo mode. Because no one wants to see the cleric stabbing a shop keep for a discount. I mean... I kinda want to see that. It’d be funny: “The power of Ao compels you… to give me a thirty percent discount.” Then the shopkeep is like, “I’m an atheist” and the cleric just starts chanting “by the power of Ao…” But all that aside, at its core the redemption arc allows for a lot of contrast within a character's personality, the residual gruffness from being a killer for hire contrasted by your new Paladin-esque oath, for example. 2) The Runaway Arc At first you think “oh geez, is this guy just going to tell me to do what X-Men does with all its characters to trick the audience into caring about them?” And the answer to that question is yes… kind of. While the idea of a character running away from home because some sort of uncomfortable physical trait or power making people scared of them is novel in theory, in practice it only really works for certain groups of characters, in a tabletop setting. But here is the runaway explained better: for whatever reason, your original home is no longer an option to stay at and you flee to avoid death or further abuse. That’s it. The creativity comes from the reason. One of my players made a character who, as part of her backstory, was married away to an abusive noble to forge a peace treaty between her race and the humans that were beginning to settle in the area. Later, the noble violated the treaty and started a genocide of the race, while keeping the player character captive and treating her as something closer to a pet or trophy. She was abused both mentally and physically and she ended up running away from the place that she had lived her whole life. Not only did that set up a greater villain in her plot, but it also left her with a reason to adventure and travel. It even left the door open for random encounters during travel, as agents of the noble could track her down. In short, this backstory can wrap everything up in a nice little bow and even open a few doors for DMs. The Runaway arc has a few endings which can really go in a number of directions. One is they return home after whatever force that opposes them is dealt with. Another would be that said force is destroyed, but so is their home in the process, forcing them back into the role of wanderer or having them decide to make a new home for themself and the people they used to live with. There is always the option that the force that opposes them never is defeated, and they simply change everything about themself and move on. All of this can be an appropriately dramatic way to flex your roleplaying muscles. Of course, if you’re just developing the character by the seat of your pants, then do whatever feels right in the moment. That is how most people play after all. 3) The Lost Soul Arc We all know “that guy” who went backpacking through Europe and he like “totally found himself” and thought it was a “really spiritual experience” and that you should “totally do it sometime if you have the time to really connect with yourself.” While people like that, who will remain nameless (Keith), are typically obnoxious and won’t shut up about it, the need to find oneself is actually very common in the world. An old soldier who has seen too much death and wants to see what else the world has the offer other than blood, screams, and loss. A confused young wizard who has no idea what he’s going to do with all his academic knowledge, but knows he wants to see more. Even a lanky blonde douchebag whose dad paid for his two years off in Europe and wanted an excuse to eat foreign food and meet people whose grasp of english was poor enough to think he’s clever. The Lost Soul Arc has a rather obvious conclusion; the finding of their purpose. It doesn’t have to be some great cosmic truth, perhaps the fact of the matter is, that young wizard was never happier than when he was with his wife and kid, so he hangs up the robe and wand to be the family man he’s happy being. Perhaps that grizzled veteran finds out that he has a passion for painting, and that's how he spends the rest of his days after his adventures. Of course at the same time, that young wizard could discover his spark for magic far surprasses almost all others and becomes the arcane protector of the entire kingdom, or as the veteran passes on into the next life a god approaches him and tells him of the fact that he was meant to be an instrument of war from birth, and that his stories will inspire hundred more young men and women to march headlong into danger for their loved ones. (He could take that a few ways depending on weather or not his perception on war has changed, but that's an article for another day.) 4) The Fallen Arc Lucifer, Anakin Skywalker, Gwyn Lord of Sunlight, and Michael Jackson all have something in common. They were all once much greater than they are considered now. This is definitely the most difficult one to work out with both your DM and yourself. It's a tricky process, turning dark. Bad eggs are rarely always bad, and a fall from grace is much easier to fit into a backstory, which would lead into a redemption arc, however if you want to develop your character in this direction it’ll 100% be something you need to work out with your DM and tell them about from the start. They would need to leave open opportunities for you to start exploring the darker side of your character. You’ll need to decide if your character plans to abandon, betray or simply continue to have conflict with the party. At least in most cases you’ll end up having some sort of conflict with the party as you begin this arc. Of course the next thing to consider is that the most work often comes with the biggest payout. Your character could become the next BBEG of your DM’s next campaign. Your sudden but inevitable betrayal will certainly coax out the curses of your party, and as such maybe you’ll become the next villain of this campaign. Depending on how well liked your character was before their fall, it could cause major waves within your group, with both the players and the characters. 5) The Joe Schmo Arc “It ain’t much, but it’s honest work,” isn’t just something said by loveable farmers. You can say it too, in sharp ironic contrast with the imagery of you suplexing an orc into the dirt and snapping his neck instantaneously. This arc is seen time and time again. Good examples include Frodo and Bilbo from Lord of the Rings, Harry from Harry Potter, and Kayley from the Quest for Camelot. A very good start for level one characters is just having them be a normal person who was swept away by circumstance. Perhaps you were just in the right place at the right time and everyone put you on a pedestal. For example, perhaps a giant monster was terrorizing your village and happened to fall off a cliff to his death, and you looked as if you were the one that rushed in and pushed him, when you were actually cowering. From there on you were heralded as a hero and slayer of monsters, despite only being a farmer for most of your life. The circumstances are wide open, and that is, once again, the best part. The development of these characters is always very unique, as a simple farm boy turns into an arch mage of near godly power, but still stops by home every other weekend to have dinner with mom and help milk the cows. The change of view is what changes the character and the literal gain of experience. Often times this is the best way to get a character that is shaped, almost entirely by the events that happen in game. Whether or not you consider that a good or bad thing, is up to you. Really, this is the arc with the most built in comedy. It’s a big world out there, and having a view of the world where the best a person can get is a simple life with a family of 18 before dying at the ripe old age of 35 is typically very different from the reality of magic rich game universes. It’s very easy to forget the little guy when you’re out stopping wars, delving dungeons and slaying dragons. Being one of the little guys is very grounding for many parties out there (and in some cases can stop murderhobo-ing). All of these are very general suggestions for characters and how they COULD develop. However, the simple fact of the matter is, more often than not you’re just better off building your character in response to the things that occur in game. You don’t have to have every little thing planned out from the beginning. The most important part of the game is the fun, and as long as everyone is having it, you’re playing it right. Jarod Lalonde is a young roleplayer 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://www.buzzfeed.com/ishabassi/zuko-avatar-the-last-airbender-best-character  As I’ve discussed before in my halloween special and fantastical micro-setting posts, I believe that what sets tabletop RPGs apart from other mediums is the absolute freedom to create. Some find this a burden and choose to stick by the book or by well established cliches, and others even look down upon those who would deign to use their imagination. Admittedly nobody likes the “snowflake / edgelord” half-angel / half-demon prince whose very existence places them at the center of the world. But let’s not throw out the baby with the bathwater! There are plenty of ways to take the cliches and give them a twist, or take the “chosen one” character concepts and turn them on their head. Here are five ways to make interesting characters.
1) Add One Unique Feature Everyone has one idea in them! So, you’re an elf wizard, but you have a distinctive nervous habit; you tap your fingertips to your nose like the performer Sting or Dr. Cox from Scrubs. You’re the tough half-orc fighter but in your free time you develop con-langs. You’re the halfling bard who ends every verse with “can you dig it!?”. Nervous habits, catch phrases, hobbies, predilections, family heirlooms, or odd trinkets worth little in gold but containing sentimental value are all little things you can do to bring some depth to your character. Just one unique feature can lead to an explosion of character developments! 2) Play Against Type People think they know what a fighter, wizard, paladin, etc., are supposed to be, but what if they were different? In fact, what if they were opposite? Why can’t a fighter be intelligent and introspective? In many games, this is discouraged, because a fighter would need to put points into their “dump stat,” typically intelligence, in order to perform well on skills which benefit from the intelligence attribute. However, even in such a system, there are outside-the-box ways to make an intelligent fighter that isn’t poorly optimized. This intelligent fighter comes from a small, under-educated village, but his mom was once a scholar in a major kingdom. Although the rest of his village discouraged his learning and even bullied and taunted him, he is nonetheless well-read, introspective, and eloquent. However, he has anxiety and general emotional issues around his education, and when taken to task, his anxiety often gets the better of him (see tip 4). In this way, while on his character sheet he has low intelligence and this will still affect his rolls, in terms of his character, he can be roleplayed as an intelligent and introspective person. Going back to our Sting-like elf wizard, as opposed to the bookish dork, this wizard is a charming magician / rock-star, although he’s also callous and tends to turn people off who get to know him (justifying his low charisma). And what about the lawful stupid paladin? How about our paladin sees the corruption in his church. He believes in the general morals but not the exact letter and idiosyncrasies of the law. He’s the rogue cop of paladins. 3) Play Against Genre Conventions (the exception that proves the rule) So this one is a bit trickier, and may require that the GM and the rest of the party approve of it in order for it to work. In a typical fantasy setting, often times people resort to the “fellowship” story: A group of strangers or loosely associated individuals with varying backgrounds who come together to go on some quest. Whether this is your campaign or not, there are ways to inject different kinds of genre archetypes into the fold. Perhaps your character wears a masked costume and fashions themselves as a vigilante or superhero, as much Batman or Zorro as Robin Hood. Or maybe your character is an agent of the kingdom, a pulp superspy, or instead is a gritty hardboiled noir detective wrapped up in a plot beyond their imagining. Maybe your eldritch knight gets their strength and magical powers from an alien or extraplanar symbiote, fantasy Venom-style. Again, it’s important to make sure that this concept will work within the world and story that the GM is trying to tell, but this can be a fun way to utilize pre-existing archetypes while also seeming fresh and unique, and can potentially spice up the whole setting. 4) Give yourself a Hindrance (and be true to it) So I want to be very careful with this one. Hindrances should not be treated as an oddity, or a joke, or used flippantly. Do a little research, learn the logistics of the hindrance, and think about how it can add to the character without being the character. Especially if portraying mental illness, which is often stigmatized, please be respectful. This can be a fighter with a missing hand, a wizard with dyslexia, a bard with performance anxiety, etc. Unlike systems where disadvantages can be gamed to get more abilities and then ignored, in this case, the point is that the hindrance does affect the character and must be addressed. That’s not to say it needs to affect their character sheet. Perhaps the one-handed fighter has trained his whole life this way and is as capable as anyone else, but there is a story around how he lost the hand, or it’s a sensitive topic that enemies or other NPCs can use to provoke him. 5) Turn an unpopular concept on its head I know I railed on the half-angel / half-demon “edgelord / snowflake” character above, but actually I’m as much railing against the people whose only concept of a unique character is something like this, than the concept itself. I don’t think there’s anything fundamentally wrong with this half-breed, but let’s make it actually interesting! Maybe the end result of our half-angel / half-demon is something in the middle, something purely mundane. Everyone is out there looking for some exotic messianic figure, when in fact she’s really more of a Joan Smith the human-iest human. Maybe, rather than being some beautiful angel/succubus-like creature, she’s actually an awkward, twisted, Lovecraftian creature, like a cross between the Chaos God Nurgle of Warhammer 40K and the chimeric cherubs from Kabbalah or the Book of Ezekiel. Perhaps you’re chaotic evil in a party of good, but rather than being a third-tier Joker, you have some incentive to work with the party, and maybe their goodness rubs off on you after a while. Rather than being the petty, rogue rogue (pun intended) who pickpockets the party and stabs everyone, you mastermind heists, leveraging the abilities of the full party like Ocean’s 11 or Leverage (see tip 3). Whether you stick closely to the traditional fantasy archetypes, or want to play the “exotic” half-angel / half-demon, there are all sorts of ways to put a little spice or twist into it, to make the character, the world, or the campaign more interesting. Regardless of what system you’re playing or what’s on the character sheet, there is usually wiggle room, little nooks and crannies where you can get creative. Even just one unique feature can breathe life into a character. Good luck with your new character concepts, I look forward to hearing your stories! Max Cantor is a graduate student and data analyst, whose love of all things science fiction, fantasy, and weird has inspired him to build worlds. He writes a blog called Weird & Wonderful Worlds and hopes people will use or be inspired by his ideas! Picture Reference: https://cdn.pixabay.com/photo/2016/10/19/19/08/medieval-1753740_960_720.jpg  This is the third of a series of articles where I share some of the detailed characters, places, and things created during a recent campaign. The campaign used Evil Hat’s Fate system, and took place in Edward Turner’s “The Aether Sea” world. We decided as a group to use Fate Core rather than Fate Accelerated Edition, so the subjects presented here will work better with Fate Core.
For easy playing, “The Aether Sea” has an adventure included, complete with detailed characters and backstory. Following that, it sketches out some possible adventures, but really only gives you the bones; it’s up to the group to make the suggestions into full adventures. Here is the ‘meat’ that our group put on the bones suggested by Ed Turner; the game items presented here were spun out of an adventure prompt at the end of the Aether Sea book, which I’ll quote later. First, let’s describe the setting of the adventure, then give a description of how prompt might play out. The descriptions and characters are our group’s take on the adventures suggested in the book. That being said, Fate lends itself very easily to creating your own characters and details. Take what I write here and play them as full-on adventures - or simply take some inspiration from them and build your own adventures! 1) Julian’s Bluff A moderate distance from Tun, Julian’s Bluff is on the border between Hegemony-controlled space and the rest of the aether. It is aptly named. The habiformed part of the planet is made of rocky red sandstone bluffs, cliffs, gorges, and mountains. Glaciers in the mountains feed high misty waterfalls and roaring blue and white rivers. Tamarack and pine trees cover every level surface, their green boughs contrasting with the red colour of the native landscape. Sector Aspect: Currently in civil war. Planetary Aspect: Guerrilla colonials vs underfunded Hegemony 2) Refugee ShipAs the player characters approach the sector, they will come across a ship travelling in the opposite direction. Its sails are torn, and there is a dwarf-sized hole in the starboard bow. A Good (+3) Overcome will allow characters to know that this ship is dangerous to fly in the Aether. There is no one visible on deck; a Good (+3) Notice will allow a character to see movement through the hole in the hull. It is, or was, a Royal Navy vessel. The ship will avoid them, not interacting unless physically stopped. If it is stopped, characters will discover it is an overcrowded ship of refugees that will give detailed information about the sector, creating an advantage with a free invocation on the sector aspect for the players. The townsfolk are average nameless non-player characters. High Concept: Damaged Navy Ship If the characters ignore the ship, set a Great (+4) Overcome for them to figure out something about what is going on. 3) Civil War… Here is the text of the adventure, taken from The Aether Sea. We changed the contact to Katin Field; but it could be anyone giving the characters a job. Verdanteye is the moon colony from the adventure included in the sourcebook. Contact: Grun’s Third Arkus Darkblade. (The Aether Sea, page 44.) Cargo: A box full of plants and other alchemical material grown down on Verdanteye. Destination: Julian’s Bluff, a human world a moderate distance away. The customer is the Royal Alchemical Society. Complication: Julian’s Bluff is currently in the midst of a civil war, and the Royal Alchemical Society is in the midst of a battlefield. As the crew approaches the coordinates, a blanket of white clouds covers the ground, another sign of well-established habiforming. As they approach the site, they dip below the clouds and see the landscape below is being pelted with a drenching rain. They fly over a collection of siege engines being wheeled up a muddy track to the top of one of the bluffs. The light is dim, but occasional flashes of lightning reveal a forested gully full of torch light, hundreds of people, and over the sound of the rain can be heard the clash of weapons and the cries of the wounded. In the distance, a Royal Navy ship is firing a hail of arrows down on the forces below. Some of the lightning flashes are coming from a lightning gun aboard the ship. 4) The Dominion A voice from your magic mirror crackles throughout the cabin. “This is Captain ____ of the Dominion. Surrender your vessel or be destroyed.” His image winks out immediately, and you hear a bass twang. A ballista bolt sails into view, a rope unwinding quickly behind it. High Concept: New Battlecruiser Prototype Trouble: Still working out the bugs. Aspects: I’ll get you!!! Building a deadly reputation. +8 Fight, +7 Shoot, +5 Athletics, Sail +4 Stealth, Craft, +3 Notice, Provoke, Resources Stunts: Landing Gear Cannon 1 Cannon 2 Grappling Station 5) It’s a trap!! If the characters escape or avoid the Dominion, the coordinates the player characters were given lead to a deserted outpost just slightly behind the rebels’ line. Rebel forces attempt to capture the ship & crew. Any attempts at magical communication will lead them into a trap at this location: Fair (+2) Deceive. Lieutenant Precious Graves Lieutenant in the rebel forces: handsome, strong, and dumb as a bag of hammers. Precious is a diplomatic concession - the general in charge of the rebel forces lets him stay around to keep his powerful family ties happy. He leads the ambush. High Concept: Just a Soldier Trouble: Easy Mark Aspects: Can't wait to be with Annabel again Serendipity Competitive Athlete +5 Athletics, +4 Shoot, +3 Fight, +2 Rapport, +1 Physique 3 Physical Stress, 2 Mental Stress, Consequence slots as normal Stunt: Honest Abe: Charming and innocent - use Rapport to inflict mental stress on people trying to harm him in social situations. Rebel squad 5 groups of 5 Average Soldiers under Lieutenant Graves’ command. High Concept: Impoverished Guerilla Soldier. +2 Fight OR Shoot Stunt: Grappling Ground Ballista: +2 to create Grappled advantage on Aether vessels, using Shoot vs Athletics. To remove the advantage requires a Good (+3) Overcome action. If the player characters are defeated, they are captured. If victorious (i.e. they take out 10 or more soldiers), Lieutenant. Graves seeks to parley with them, unsure of what to do. He will ask them to come see General Miller, the leader of the rebel forces. This was the first instalment of our session at Julian’s Bluff; I hope that you can have fun with it, too. If you decide to make use of these resources, please leave a comment to let me know how it goes! Landrew is a full-time educator, part-time art enthusiast. He applies his background in literature and fine arts to his favourite hobby (role-playing 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.acrosstheboardgames.net/luke/sailing-the-vast-aether-sea/  A few eons ago I wrote an article speculating about D&D Beyond. And very recently (yesterday depending on when this article gets posted) Curse and Wizards of the Coast (WOTC) revealed their release date and pricing for everything. I mean, prices are everyone's least favourite part of anything. But I digress; with all of this happening all so suddenly, there’s a lot to talk about. Talk about those prices, talk about that microtrans-- I mean versatility of content model, talk about the community and how it will develop throughout these changing times. D&D Beyond will either go down in the history books as “nailing it” or as an abysmal failure.
1) The Site Itself God is this site ever sexy. It's got that sleek “5e” feel that I know I’ve fallen in love with along with a lot of the community. Everything from the fonts to the color to the mood just feels… right. Like it was meant to be this way. Not to mention since the last article, most of the lagging issues have been cleaned right up (it is still technically in beta after all) as a matter of fact most of all the issues have been removed. The community is quick to stomp that out and let the dev’s know. It looks great and it manages to be user friendly too. The site’s community is not only friendly but it’s useful. Any questions you have regarding intricacies, obscure rules and even ideas can be reaped with a smile. People are out creating art maps etc. and it's all out in the open. As with everything else on the site, it's quick, it's concise, and most importantly you can change font for your comments and posts. Just a personal thing about that: I absolutely love being able to change my font for posts and comments; it creates the illusion of personality. 2) Home Of Homebrew Since the community is so big (and because this was something the devs wanted in the whole time) you could expect that people are creating stuff like nobody's business. Spells, monsters, magic items, you name it. Most of them are even good. Clever, even. And unlike other things (which are limited in their use until you subscribe or pay too much for but that's for later) you can make an unlimited number of homebrew things and publish them to the site, or keep them private. You can even draft and get feedback on the ones that you publish to the site. Honestly, it’s super diverse and it’s still growing very quickly. There's something like 53 pages in the magic item area alone. It’s all super interesting stuff you can add to your loot, enemies, etc. to spice up that campaign nice and quickly. The best bit is that it’s all well balanced for the most part. There's really not more to say on this matter. 3) Character Creator Now, while they have limited classes to having just one subclass, it is important to note that they do have the races from elemental evil such as the Gensai, Aarakocra and Goliaths. For the most part this is everything you could ask for in a character creator. The first time, it walks you through very slowly with a long tutorial. As you move from subject to subject, it brings up a very verbose page explaining everything, which would be helpful to first timers and the otherwise “green,” however it’s relatively useless to someone who's played the average video game, and it becomes bothersome quickly because I’ve made three characters and the site insisted on giving me the tutorial all three times. There’s probably a way to get rid of it, but I’m just a fool in a man's body so that probably won’t be going away in my foreseeable future. The creator is comprehensible and as said before very attractive visually. It’s even got a couple of prompts on things I hadn’t thought about keeping tabs on before, such as allies, enemies, organizations and the likes. It’s even got a nice little area to write down your backstory so it’s nice and visible. Oh, and that “limited” thing I took a shot at last article turned out to be “Limited Use” abilities. So they’ve got a thing keeping tabs on that too. However like most digital goods, this product has its flaws. 1) Limited Use You’ve got six “character slots.” Have fun. Planning on keeping a character around for “myths and legends?” Wrong. You need the space. I know I typically only have three or four campaigns going at any given moment and I’m just on the high end to my understanding. However that’s not the only thing on this site that’s limited. As mentioned before every class only has one subclass attached to it at the moment, and it’s unlikely that will change considering the respective model that they’re planning on implementing. However to play a little devil's advocate in the “bad” section, the site appears to be mostly open to the beta testers in the meantime. Although one thing I have noticed is that despite the site showing D&D Beyond being present as an app on phones and tablets, there hasn’t been an app version released even as a test. We’ll have to simply wait until the full release to see how well their app version works. 2) Pricing The primary concern of most players and DMs will be whether or not the price is right for this particular toolset. Luckily, the character creator and most of the database will be available to all without the need for a subscription, so long as you don’t mind looking at ads (or have taken other “steps” to circumvent this issue). If you want full access to the toolset, including homebrew monsters and an ad-free experience, you will need to select one of two tiers. The first is touted as being for players and costs 2.99 USD per month. This tier gives you access to shared homebrew content and unlimited character creation slots. The next is advertised as a DM tier. This 5.99/month subscription, along with the benefits of the previous tier, provides the DM with the ability to share their unlocked digital content with their player groups so that not all need to go through the costly process of unlocking (read: purchasing) every splatbook. While gone are the days, it seems, of simply passing a book back and forth between friends at a table, at least there exists an option that allows for a digital book pass, so long as that pass is purchased each month. I can’t say I’m jazzed about this practice, but at least the functionality exists. Finally, the site will allow you to purchase digital versions of each book available, and at a marginal discount over the physical copies, much like one would expect at sites like DriveThruRPG. What’s truly unfortunate, in my mind, is that there does not appear to be any loyalty rewards for continued membership. At the very least, you should be able to earn points each month that you hold a subscription to help pay for books that you wouldn’t otherwise purchase. Let’s face it: our hobby can get expensive if we want to support those that keep putting good work into making it better. A few loyalty discounts here or there would not only help those who want the digital books and the subscription afford both, but in the end, incentivise those of us who wouldn’t otherwise shell out for either product. When all's said and done, this site is really something special. We criticise it only because we love our hobby and want every product to be the best it can be. Having a site that allows you to create and store monsters, spells, characters, and campaigns in a user-friendly fashion is a real boon to players in our digital age, and the fact that it is (mostly) free to use is also pretty awesome. We tried coming up with a third negative point to make about the site for symmetry’s sake, but just weren’t able to do so. It’s that cool. Whether the bells and whistles that come extra are worth it will be a choice each DM and player will make, of course. Nevertheless, D&D Beyond proves to be a bold step into the digital sphere of online roleplaying. We’ll be waiting with bated breath for the launch date (August 15th) and will report again when that time comes. ‘Til then, check out the Beta and let us know what you think: https://www.dndbeyond.com/ Jarod Lalonde is a young role-player and writer whose passion for both lead him here. He’s often sarcastic and has a +5 to insult. Dungeons and Dragons is his favorite platform. Although he’s not quite sure if it’s Call of Cthulhu whispering to him in the small hours of the night, or just persistent flashbacks to the Far Realm. 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 . Jarod wrote the majority of this article, David stepped in to help finish it and edit it.  Recurring villains are fun inclusions to any Dungeons and Dragons campaign. Villains represent the anti-hero, the antagonist, the players’ nemesis who are always out to ruin the other's day. They are the Joker to your party of Batmen. They are the Loki to your army of Thors. Are you seeing a trend here? In D&D there are often four or five superheroes, and only one villain.
Can you imagine what would happen if a team of five Batmen took on the Joker? Can you even envisage how quickly five Thors could take down Loki in a combat encounter? Dungeons and Dragons sure has some dangerous and diabolical villains, but they are often horribly outnumbered by the heroic characters. Naturally, it's not uncommon for a villain to be absolutely destroyed in a head-on encounter with the players. Unless you stat-pad them to the moon and back... But where's the fun in that? Let's make villains a challenging threat for the players without only buffing their stats, but first let's start with a quick look at some of the problems that typical recurring villains in RPGs can have: 1) The villains are often easy to overpower in a head-on encounter against the entire party. 2) Often the villains will die in the same encounter where they first meet the party. Sometimes, the villains will survive the first meeting with the party (no combat) but will die in the first combat that they face the party. 3) DMs often have all these hopes and dreams about what the villain will do in the campaign over a long time period; if the players take him out of the fray early, then it throws a huge spanner in the works. 4) Villains who are built to survive that first combat encounter, are often made far too powerful for the players to defeat. More on this later. 5) Villains who spend most the campaign hidden behind curtains and sheltered to avoid interaction and encounters with the characters are often not renown enough to the characters for the players to truly hate them, or even remember them. This isn't a very good setup for having dramatic, recurring villains. We are missing some huge key points that comics, movies, TV shows, games, etc. use to make those recurring villains successful antagonists. As a dungeon master, you should instill in your players the understanding that a mission failure doesn't mean "you lose at D&D." Losing to a villain should be a chip on your shoulder that drives your character to be better next time. However, this isn't really something that can be said just once at the table and have the players understand and follow those values. Most D&D players have played hack-and-slash games or other open world RPG video games like Skyrim, Baldur's Gate, Diablo, and Torchlight. In those kind of games, winning combat is usually the only option. I mean, retreat is sometimes an option in some games but things like surrendering, getting mugged, or getting imprisoned aren't as present in those games. Many players have similar preconceptions about D&D as they do about video games, and that is where this kind of thinking derives from. Anyway, I could write a whole article about "losing a fight doesn't mean you lose the game", but this is the villain article. In summary: If your players are aware that there are other alternatives to "winning" and "death", you will find a lot of the recurring villain plots are able to work much more often and to greater effect. These are some solutions that I have found to make villains more effective at terrorising the world, being hated by your players, and still staying alive long enough to make a difference. Per the theme of these entries, we will not be stat-padding the villains either. 1) Have the Players on the Clock If the players are on a time limit, standing toe-to-toe with the villain is not the primary goal of the encounter. Maybe they have to stop a portal from opening, interrupt a ritual, steal an artifact before the dungeon collapses, or perhaps there are hostages in the next room about to be executed. If the players focus on killing the villain, they may very well fail their main objective. This will hurt their reputation in town, especially if it was townsfolk that were the executed hostages. Mechanically, they’ll also be missing out on mission XP and other boons. Sometimes it's not even the villain themself that must be stopped, but their scheme that’s already in place. The Joker might waltz right up to Batman and tell him that he has 15 minutes to save innocent people or they will die. Usually the Joker does this in a way where the Batman can do it in about 14 minutes, so that it's a tight and exciting finish for the sociopath to enjoy. If Batman simply spent a minute or two beating the Joker to death, he would likely miss out on saving those innocent people. 2) Include Non-Combat Encounters If you haven't used a vignette in your campaign, I’d definitely recommend look at researching what they are and how they can be used effectively in RPGs. I use them a fair bit now, usually once every three to five sessions, and with good success. Other good encounters that are non-combat with a villain might be at a public event like the king's feast or a jousting tournament. This stuff really works well if you're doing a political intrigue kind of campaign as opposed to a door kicking one, but it works either way. Basically you will need ways for your players to interact with the villain knowing who he is without combat being an option. If you can do this, the villain gets more screen time, and the players harbour more hatred! 3) Give the Players a Reason to Keep the Villain Alive This could be something as simple as moral codes/quandaries, to something like a direct order from the mage guild to bring back the rogue wizard alive! What if this wizard was the only person who could stop another BBEG? Perhaps only this villain knows how to stop the apocalypse that's already begun. There are also many of other factors that you can pull into play here too. The moral code, for example: Batman doesn't kill gratuitously as it's against his moral code. This also has the amazing side effect of permanently recurring villains. Sure, they can get thrown in a prison or locked in an asylum, but one day they will come out to play again. Usually the circumstances of this escape are very cool and dramatic too! These unique story moments can really make players enjoy a recurring villain, as they think “Ahhh no, he’s at it again!”. Be sure not to overuse this though; if every villain the party spares from execution escapes, and returns to evil again in the future, the PCs will likely revert to murderhobo mode. Note that in the essence of steps we can take to prolong a villain's lifespan, this is one of the softer ones. It's more something to include as a guideline and always to have as an option for the players. Maybe they'll overlook this in their rage. Don't give the villain plot armour just because he's needed later. Let the players know this, and then have them make their own actions from there. 4) Mix it up with some variety! If all of your villains are recurring, your players will be pulling their hair out, and feeling like they never really accomplish or complete anything. While it's great that the Batman always beats the joker but never rids of him for good, it can get frustrating for your players if they can never actually finish off a villain. It's more about closure as opposed to anything else. I put this in the list because if you have a mix of recurring and non-recurring villains, the recurring ones are more likely to be left alive. My rule of thumb for my villain variety is that I split my villains into roughly 3 even piles. Pile 1 - Recurring Villains: The ones this article focuses on Pile 2 - Big notable villains: Powerful or renowned villains who your players have heard of/known/met but are probably only meant to have one encounter with them. Pile 3 - Episodic Villains: Villains who are introduced and dealt with in the same session, or in the subsequent session. A good example of this guy is the players travel to a new town, which is being manipulated by some sort of gang lead by an episodic villain. This gives the characters a mini break from the end of the world storyline and let's them help out the little folk to get a small task started and finished in one night. Feels good! 5) A Supernatural Means of Recurring Very cliche, but also very effective. However, make sure that you do not overuse this. It's fine to have multiple villains with this trait, but make sure that they don't all coexist in the same story arc, as it's incredibly frustrating for players. Easy versions of this include using undead creatures as villains or using a living villain who turns undead upon his demise. You could even have recurring villains that are all just clones of a single great wizard, or twin wizards who give off the illusion that it's just the same guy who's back again. Make sure that there's a way for the PCs to stop this villain from coming back; even if this path involves going to a dungeon or area they wouldn't otherwise go to (hello, nonlinear plot hook!), and even if this path is half a dozen sessions away. Obvious examples are destroying a lich's phylactery, driving a stake through a vampire in his own coffin, etc. You could even get more creative, for example: Kruul the Eternal is a demon who keeps coming back again and again to torment the party. In order to get rid of him forever, the party must do the following:
Recurring villains are one of the pillars that lay the foundation for a truly memorable campaign. Just follow these tips above, and you can ensure that these villains are etched into your player's memories for a long time to come! Peter is an avid dungeon master, role-player, and story teller. When he's not running homebrew campaigns, he is creating new worlds, or he is reading and writing fantasy stories, forever immersing himself in the gaping black-hole known as the fantasy genre. Image Source  At this point, I’m certain most of you have heard at least something about D&D Beyond. For those of you who don’t know, Wizards of the Coast, has teamed up with Curse Inc to make an official D&D companion app. Yes yes, you no longer have to sift through dozens of bug-ridden, shoddily made, festering crap mounds that call themselves “buddies” to your adventures. (Note: I too program! I know the struggles, don’t rag on me. I couldn’t do any better) Although, there are a few diamonds in the rough; one I’d like to point out is Squire 5e on the Google Play Store. The creator, who will remain nameless because he’s not a personal friend, has done a great job on making a free and easy to use character manager. Sorry to all you Apple patrons though, because all my hunting there has lead to mostly dead ends. Back on topic; people have been using apps and such to help with gaming for a long time now. It’s taken a long time for WotC to respond to this too. Hopefully, with all this prep-time they have something to show for it. (View the article they wrote and watch the promo here) 1) A Community This is one of the things that was a little more obscure in not only the promo, but even the release. Forums and private messages are a thing, you can interact with other users. From my experience it’s really difficult to find a community for us table-top gamers. I mean there's Amino… but… Amino. If you’ve delved into Amino you know what I’m talking about and if you haven’t, don’t. Roll 20 has something going for them, but it’s not really prominent. Actually now that I think about it, the way the community works is very similar to Roll 20’s, however, Beyond kind of advertises theirs more. As per the usual, there’s all the variety you’d expect from all the gaming community in one place. You’ve got art, strategies, ideas and all other kinds of things that really punctuate the expansiveness of our beautiful band of nerds. There’s grognards and a few people who are a little green, as it were. After going through those forums, it was almost eye opening as to how expansive our community is. 2) Payments Money! It's a crime, among other things. During my exploration of this topic, I noticed the word “cost” popping up more and more. Adam Bradford, the product lead for Curse, said a few things in a Reddit post (that I can’t link because I have the mental capacity of a cat (no offense to the Tabaxi)) that I’d like to quote here: “At launch, players will be able to access SRD content and build and view a small number of characters with a free D&D Beyond account. We don’t have exact pricing nailed down, but you will also be able to buy official digital D&D content… with flexible purchase options.” So translation: Get ready to pay for digital forms of the books and stuff you probably already have. If that has deterred you, then you’re probably going to slam your head against a wall when I say that they also plan to have a monthly subscription. Whew! I heard that slam through both space and time, and boy, was it loud. I assume most the readers are in unanimous agreement that this is a bad idea. Bad is an understatement, it’s an abysmal idea. To my understanding this was the main reason the last app crashed and burned worse than my last date. *Warning rant ahead. Jarod’s nonexistent pay has yet again been reduced.* Come on, WotC, does anyone there have even a lick of sense? This is already one of the most expensive hobbies to have and now you’re just tossing on costs to have access to basic content for an app that should’ve been made years ago. They’re breaking this up into “class specific” purchases. From the same Reddit post, “If you only play fighters for example, you’ll be able to just pick up the stuff you need to track swinging that giant two-handed sword.” Then he went on to say it wasn’t a microtransaction model. Really? Certainly feels like a microtransaction model. Certainly looks like a microtransaction model. I’m sure my wallet will agree once I have to punch in my debit or credit info as I willingly watch them rob me. Willingly. Watch. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe it’s for easy and flexible content. Bradford even said it was for flexibility. However, we’ve been burned before, and this has the potential to not just burn us but to completely incinerate us. Why not just include some sort of product code in the book that you buy? That would make things easy. One purchase for both mediums. Don’t even get me started on that absurd subscription. 3) Character Sheets To make things a little lighter, let’s talk about something they’ve made abundantly clear: Character sheets. They haven’t released phase 2 of the beta at the time of me writing this, but if I have the misfortune of having this posted on the day that’s released please A). Forgive me and B). Cast my corpse into the Abyss because that would drive me insane. Keeping track of characters is often not only a hassle but a danger. Many of my characters have died to a cool glass of coke as I am both clumsy and careless. Maybe that’s just me, but I know characters who have died to wind, cats, coffee, cigarettes and even in one case to a rather upset wife with a paper shredder. Obviously, computers, laptops, and other electronic devices aren’t fit to fit in a paper shredder. Even if they were, the cloud would come to the rescue. All I can pray for is smooth, comfortable and stylish interface. I don’t really have to justify my bare minimum expectations for some aesthetics do I? Practicality would be nice too, but seeing their pricing model pretty much shows they didn’t have practicality in mind here. *sigh* I’ll reign in the anger. From looking at the teaser a bit closer, we can see that there will be several tabs for each respective character. Abilities,Skills, Attacks, Spells and one more that only said “Limited.” Perhaps for limited use items such as potions or scrolls. Maybe there will be limited edition content you have to freaking pay for. Deep breaths, in… and out... 4) Smooth, Sexy, Sleek, And Sweet DMing If there’s one thing that Beyond nails, it’s what it was meant to nail; being an effective, quick tool for DMing. The quick access to and use of the SRD info is beautiful, swift and useful. Not to mention, it has that 5e feel that I’ve personally come to know and love. Really, everything on there is just instant, at the fingertips. Little to no paging through the books and forcing yourself to memorize page numbers. No more accidentally ripping your page in the $50 book and then wanting to join a cult to Orcus and start sacrificing the innocent to gather the necessary unholy power to make it good as new. Honestly, D&D Beyond has so much potential it’s astonishing. The open beta is simple but elegant. However, this other knowledge taints that wonderful world where I don’t need to dump more money into this *Censored* hobby. But, I’m not going to yell at WotC anymore;I’m simply going to beg them to not repeat the same mistakes over and over again for all eternity. Image Source Jarod Lalonde is a young role-player and writer whose passion for both lead him here. He’s often sarcastic and has a +5 to insult. Dungeons and Dragons is his favorite platform. Although he’s not quite sure if it’s Call of Cthulhu whispering to him in the small hours of the night, or just persistent flashbacks to the Far Realm.  I don’t know about you, Internet, but I view the moments before I sit down to a new game campaign or setting with an equal mix of trepidation, excitement, hopefulness, and dread. Is this going to be like the game where I spent most afternoons wishing I was home doing my laundry, or is this going to be like the game where I spent all week obsessing about what was going to happen next?
I walked into my first game completely blind - I didn’t know anything about it except that I had bought a bag’s worth of shiny new dice and I sort of understood what the words on my character sheet meant. I got *really* lucky - my first DM took it relatively easy on me for the first couple of sessions, just enough to set the hook. I jumped in with both feet and never looked back. Due to logistics, when I first sat down with one of my two current DMs, I had literally no idea of what was going on. I didn’t know the system (except that it was d10 based, a system that had given me problems in the past), I didn’t know the world, and I only knew two of the other players. I was in a strange place, with a strange sheet in front of me, exhausted from an early-morning job. I took it on faith from the two players I did know that “you’ll love this game, it’s all about narrative and description, you’ll be great at it.” I was miserable. The other players had met with the DM previously, and they had sketched out a rough idea of what they wanted to do and how the campaign was going to work, setting- and theme-wise. Because of my chaotic evil schedule at the time, I was showing up blind, again. I hadn’t had a chance to give input on the game design, and when I was asked what I wanted to avoid in the campaign, I was so lost that I just named some pet peeves and let it ride. That game lasted...ten sessions, I think? Maybe more, it was kind of a haze. My character worked beautifully on paper but was a complete dead fish in play, because I had built her for what I thought the campaign was going to be like, and I couldn’t have been more wrong. Sadly, the wrongness didn’t come into evidence until after the three-game-change window, so I tried to tough it out. I shouldn’t have. I come to you now to share the hard-won knowledge that I have acquired over the years. These expectations are a general framework that I expect from my fellow players, to try to enhance the game for all parties concerned. Comments and commentary are, of course, welcome. 1) Engagement With The Plot (at best) Or Polite Attention (at worst): We are all busy adults with full schedules who have carved out time and energy to play this game. I expect you to either be playing or paying attention to the gameplay. Some of the funniest and fun moments I have had around the table were MST3King/Rifftraxing the play going on in front of me. Checking something in the book (when it’s not your turn, please) is okay, or a brief dip into the madness of the Internet is fine, but when you do your trick, then look at the rest of us and say “nudge me when I need to roll dice” is rude at best and disheartening at worst. I invest my time and energy to play with people; I expect the same in return. This is crucial in a game like Exalted, where player input has a marked impact on the game in the form of voting for stunt bonuses and the like. If you aren’t here to play, or at least socialize while playing, why are you here? 2) Commitment to Session Times Life happens. Job schedules are nuts (me), kids happen (DM and fellow player), loved ones fall ill or need more attention because of life events (another player), and sometimes your vehicle decides to commit fiery suicide because it’s just sick of life (another player). We all understand this, and we’re sympathetic. If you mysteriously have a headache every Sunday afternoon, or you “aren’t feeling it today” two hours before game time several weeks in a row, please consider if you actually want to keep playing, and if you don’t, then stop. Stop wasting our time. Stop wasting our goodwill. We will still want to hang out with you, but if you keep screwing up our plans at the last minute, that might change too. Your time is valuable, our time is valuable, our DM’s time is valuable. Respect us enough to say “This isn’t working right now, guys, catch me next time?” Corollary - BE ON TIME, FOR THE LOVE OF SPICE. Gamer Standard Time is a phrase that needs to die in the pits of a thousand hells. If game starts at 1, be there at 1 (or even better, 12:45), not 2:30. If you’re running late, call/text/IM/tweet/Skype, do something to let us know so we’re not all sitting around staring at our dice like sad pandas looking at an empty food bowl. 3) Familiarity with Setting/Rules I can hear you now - “But you said you went in blind to your last game!” Yes, I did say that - and I said it made me miserable. Do I think you can’t sit down and learn a new system or world? Not at all! That said, make sure your fellow players know that you are new to the system and will be asking lots of questions. Most players will be perfectly okay with this, and I guarantee that the neophyte will be overwhelmed with advice and suggestions. Please see my previous article on How Not To Be That Gamer and apply the truths within liberally, as needed. If you are the neophyte in this position, commit to learning the bare bones at that first session, and study up as the days go on. You’ll get it faster than you think. 4) Be A Plot Mover, Not A Plot Dragon If you’re in this hobby to roll dice without context, may I not-so-humbly suggest you learn how to play craps instead? We’re here to roll dice and play roles, not just chuck plastic blobs around to meet arbitrary numbers in a vacuum. Personal plots are fun, but it’s hard on your DM and unfair to other players unless they are involved with them too. The third option is to be a plot donkey - ask your DM (not at the table or immediately pre- or post-game, please) if there’s something she or he wants to get moving, and volunteer to be the one who turns down the path less traveled or asks “hey guys, what IS in that box?” Chase plot, even if turns out to be a flaming bunny. Share the plot goodies you find (psst, this means you can share the blame too!). That’s why we’re here, to play. 5) Establish if Your Group is Cooperative or Antagonistic This is a pre-game thing, ideally when you are in a conceptual stage discussing what you all want out of your communal gaming experience. A group of antagonists won’t work well, but factions within the party can be great fun if you all can manage to keep a clear delineation between IC and OOC. If you have decided to play as a cooperative group, you should strive to maintain that, unless there’s a story-related reason to change it. With the understanding that most plans don’t survive their first brush with trouble, and most groups don’t survive their first divvying-up of that sweet sweet loot-y goodness, do TRY to adhere to what you agreed to at the planning phase. Speaking of… 6) Proper Planning Prevents...well, You Know The Rest I don’t mean that you should be doing comparative cost-benefit analysis of spell lists (oh please, for the love of heaven, don’t waste precious gaming time doing that) but plan out the general shape of your campaign, or at least the first season, with ALL the players present as well as the DM. Want a city-building game, or something more Indiana-Jonesy? Monster of the week or a tightly woven plot? Lay out what you want. Just as importantly, lay out what you don’t want. I mentioned that I built a character that worked beautifully on paper and in concept, but the game was 150% wrong for her, because I didn’t know the group had decided on a city-building concept instead of a go-out-and-explore game. My group, bless their collective hearts, didn’t want to tell me that my concept didn’t flow with the plan for the game, so I struggled through months of boring and frankly infuriating game sessions before that game mercifully died with a whimper. Be honest, but don’t be a dick. Most people are willing to adjust their concepts slightly to fit the group vision. That being said, it is far easier to tweak a concept before dots hit the page. 7) No Prima Donnas, or Variations Thereof I’m looking at you, people who think that because you are gracing the table with your presence, you get plot bennies. I’m also looking at the ladies and gentlemen who try to get what we refer to as the “banging the DM” bonus - I hope that is fairly self-explanatory. It’s unfair and childish at best, and creepy/repulsive at worst. There’s almost nothing worse than seeing one player get shot down for a concept, and the person of the DM’s affection getting the nod for no apparent reason. Disclosure: My husband is currently one of my DMs, and far from getting a banging-the-DM bonus, he is ten times harder on me than the other players because he says he knows what I am capable of and won’t let me get lazy. I both love and hate him for this. You need other people to play the game. Don’t alienate them. Share the spotlight. Point out and appreciate really awesome things your fellow players do. And don’t forget to cheer on your DM for bringing his or her A-game to the table and making the game as amazing as they can. I love the idea of giving props and nods at the end of the game, ending the session on a high note. It keeps people motivated to do more, to be further in character, to take risks to get rewards, knowing that if their characters die, they won’t go gently into that good night. I know what some of you are asking right now - if planning is so important, why did you leave it until the last point in your list? Patience, grasshoppers. Because, believe it or not, it is not the most important part of a successful game. Player mindset and expectations are. All the good planning in the world withers away in front of a bad or dysfunctional group. Get together the right people and even the most slapdash game will be memorable. Stay tuned for the next installment of this piece - setting expectations for DMs - coming soon to an Internet-capable device of your choice. Until then, I remain, Your Most Obedient Servant, Georgia Georgia is a writer, editor, gamer, and mad culinary priestess who masquerades as a corporate employee while her plans for world domination slowly come together. She lives in Tacoma, Washington, with her husband and Feline Overlords. She can be reached through Facebook at In Exquisite Detail or on Twitter at @feraldruidftw.  Hello friend.
Thank you for your timely intervention on behalf of the people of Dowen-upon-Waite. Without your assistance, I doubt that there would have been anyone in the village remaining. None that could be called human, at any rate. I do wonder how such a cancer began. It's a shame that we weren't able to learn more. Amongst many philosophers, the subject of evil is an oft-discussed (or argued) one, but more often than not the kinds of malevolent secrets which you uncovered have their roots in something far more innocuous. Something benevolent, even useful, which carries so small a price as to be nearly negligible. These objects often set the stage for the gradual descent to a point where the once-noble aspirant finds himself waist deep in atrocities he would never have considered before embarking on his path of damnation. Having felt the malignant caress of the Dark Powers myself, I have made a careful study of the things that can lead to such darkness. Since you were inquisitive enough to contact me regarding the genesis of the most recent problem, I thought I would share a few of my own private notes with you in the hopes that you might see how these sorts of tumors begin to grow. 1) Wine of Ages My compatriots and I recovered this particular item from a tomb we cleansed of undead in the mountains of Lamordia. To the eye, it is merely a mundane bottle of green glass, with a name imprinted upon the bottom: Herzhen Yards. There is no such vineyard that we were ever able to uncover, although the tomb appeared to be of Outlander origin, and its plundered contents appeared to come from a range of different cultures. This unassuming little malignance was stolen from me by a Rajian thief, and I have not seen either since. The bottle is empty, save for an ashen grey haze that can be poured forth from the neck as though it were a true liquid. This vapor, which carries the odor of gently rotting loam, is harmless to the living. If poured into the mouth of the deceased, it grants the corpse the ability to converse with the living, albeit in a limited fashion. Please note that although this ability seems mundane, it is an abomination. It encourages a callous disregard for the dead, driving the user to treat corpses as mere investigative tools, and leads its wielder to see nothing wrong with compelling the spirit (or a semblance thereof) back to the realm of the living for mere convenience. The Wine of Ages allows its bearer to converse with a humanoid or monstrous humanoid corpse up to three times per day. Each corpse may be conversed with only once, but the condition of the body is irrelevant--it can still speak even if rot or injury would normally make it incapable. The effect lasts for up to one minute per HD of the dead body. The spirit is much less committed than they were in life (shift alignment one step towards N), but can still make a saving throw (Will DC 17, Wis DC 15) in order to lie freely. Using the Wine of Ages is cause for a 3% Dark Powers check. 2) Oubliette Dust This nasty little alchemical concoction is a creation of the Kargatane, I believe. I was unfortunate enough to discover it while attempting to apprehend several spies that had infiltrated Drifthome. One of the thieves, when confronted, threw a black powder in my face. I was immediately reminded of the last time I had smelt such a powder: when I was the 'guest' of the Kargat, tortured repeatedly for several weeks. So horrific were the memories, I was unable to prevent the thieves from fleeing. As my daughter was good enough to remind me later, after I had recovered, I have never been tortured by the Kargat. The memories induced by the dust are merely lies. Still, their effects linger, and I often find myself waking in the middle from dreams of Darkonian dungeons. Those who sell the Oubliette Dust market it as a 'stunning powder,' and indeed it does exactly that. However, the memories it 'awakens' are so horrific and they stay with the victim for weeks, even months, after the fact. Oubliette Powder can be thrown in a cloud at any victim within 5 feet. If the victim fails their save (Fort DC 17, Con DC 15) they are unable to act for 2d6 rounds. If they are attacked this effect breaks immediately. The terror on the victims' faces is self-evident; using the powder is cause for a 1% Dark Powers check. This rises to 3% if the user knows the full extent of the trauma they are inflicting on their enemy. 3) Granny Lady Bracelet Last year, a cult of witches was uncovered in the Mordentish countryside. Although a great deal of their magical prowess was merely smoke and mirrors, they did possess a number of unnatural abilities that Tasha and I were forced to contend with. Most infuriatingly, their leader seemed to be able to anticipate our arrival, and it was only through the utmost diligence that we were able to confront her. One of her magical talismans was what the Souragne practitioners refer to as a gris-gris. A small, twisted length of sinew and hair, strung with a variety of horrific trophies, including finger bones, teeth, and dried flesh, and is typically worn around the wrist. Tasha wore the talisman for several weeks, and reported that it gave her brief glimpses into the future, but after reading through the granny lady's journal, I became convinced that inheriting the device from her own mentor is what began the corruption of the witch that had plagued us, and I convinced Tasha to put the device aside for her own good. Currently, the foul thing resides in a locked trunk in my safe room. Anyone wearing the Granny Lady Bracelet may roll 2d20 at the beginning of the day. During the course of the day, they may replace any d20 roll (theirs or anyone within line of sight) with one of the Bracelet's rolls. This does not stack with the ability of a Divination specialist, instead they receive one extra d20 for their Portent ability. Using the Granny Lady Bracelet is sufficient cause for a 1% Dark Powers check every week it is owned. 4) Breathstealer Arrow I encountered this device on an assassin from Tepest.The Inquisitor I worked with to apprehend the fiend claimed this weapon was a gift to the killer, in recompense for selling his services to the fae. Although I am normally loathe to heed their dogmatic fanaticism, in this case there may be a seed of truth to it. In truth, the magical component is a stone arrowhead, which can be affixed to any mundane bolt or arrow. Once it hits its target, it breaks loose and begins twisting its way towards the target's lungs, causing the poor soul to choke and gasp as their air is magically expelled from their body. If it isn't cut out swiftly (a supremely difficult task, I can attest, since the infernal thing avoids all attempts at capture) it will eventually kill its victim, even if the original user is dead. Inquisitor Cormec took the cursed thing with him after we apprehended the murderer, although I spared the assassin the cruelty of a Tepestani imprisonment and execution. I sat in judgment over him myself, and I'm sure he found the noose far less painful than whatever Cormec had in store for him. A target hit with a Breathstealer Arrow cannot breathe. (This means they cannot speak, cast spells, or activate command words.) Beginning in the round they are hit, the victim suffers the normal effects of suffocation (treat the victim as if they had already held their breath the maximum length of time). It can be removed with a Heal check (DC 20), causing 1d4 damage for every round it was embedded. Using such an arrow is an act of torture, invoking a 4% Dark Powers check when used against a monster or evil NPC, 7% if used against a stranger or neutral NPC, and an automatic failure if used against a good NPC or friend. The arrowhead can be recovered after the target's death, and can be removed by the firer with no check. 5) Witchbane Codex When several Halan witches in and around my area were found murdered, I at first suspected the presence of a rogue Tepestani inquisitor. Although there was a man involved who used such a title, he was an Outlander. After his capture (or defiant last stand, in truth), this slim volume was discovered on his person. It appears to be written in Tepestani, although it contains far more arcane knowledge than the Inquisition would be comfortable committing to paper. Inside, there is detailed information on common practices, rites, beliefs, and identifying traits of witches and infernal cults. After reading it, I found myself revolted by the unnatural lore contained within. Although Tasha has asked to read it, I have sent the book to my friend Kelly, as he has proven more than capable of resisting the temptations of such arcana. Reading the Witchbane Codex (which takes six hours) immediately costs the reader a point of Wisdom (which can never be recovered) but imbues them with an additional point of Intelligence. While the book is in their possession, they may consult it to gain a +2 on any appropriate skill check (such as Arcana, Religion, Knowledge: Arcana, or Knowledge: Religion). Even lightly reading the book instantly causes the user to make a Sanity check, if those rules are being used, and also causes the loss of Innocence. Completing the book is cause for a 2% Dark Powers check. The user should also be assessed for a 1% Dark Powers check for every month they have the book in their possession. Willingly giving it to another person to read is cause for a 5% Dark Powers check, 10% if they are unaware of the nature of the book, and is an automatic failure if they are an Innocent. In Summation As you can see, the road to Hell can indeed be paved with the most innocuous of cobbles. The wise adventurer would do well to resist such temptations. Too often, what appears to merely offer power or expediency comes at the cost of our very soul. Should you find such a wicked item among your travels, do not hesitate to contact me if you wish assistance in confining or destroying it. Your actions have spoken volumes for your righteousness, and I consider myself Your Friend, Joram Mournesworth, Lord Mayor of Drifthome Jim Stearns is a deranged hermit from the swamps of Southern Illinois. In addition to writing for the Black Library, he puts pen to paper for High Level Games and Keep on the Heathlands. His mad scribblings can frequently be found in Quoth the Raven, as well as anthologies like Fitting In or Selfies from the End of the World, by Mad Scientist Journal. Follow him on Twitter @jcstearnswriter.  A few months back, I reviewed Vampire: The Masquerade 1st Edition for my website, Keep on the Heathlands. One of the most fascinating elements of this original edition of VtM, at least to me, was the concept of The Rebirth. What was this? Why did it exist and moreover, why was it removed in Revised and Vampire 20th Anniversary Edition? Will we see it again in 5th edition when it is released from White Wolf’s crypt? In 1st Edition and 2nd Edition Vampire, The Rebirth was this idea that it was possible to somehow escape the Curse of Caine. Or more succinctly, to become human again. Such an idea is anathema to almost everything I thought I knew about White Wolf’s flagship game, and I’ve never heard of any group using the plotline in their games. The idea of becoming human once more was the bailiwick of high level rare disciplines of the most rare of bloodlines. That being said, I think The Rebirth deserves a place at the Blood Feast.
1) The Rebirth is Human Vampire: The Masquerade is a game about humanity. I don’t mean Humanity, the statistic on your character sheet. I mean people. VtM and vampires in the World of Darkness need humans. They must live among them to feed and survive. Imagine being a person living among pigs. Now, imagine being the type of person who randomly kills, eats, and or tortures pigs when the mood strikes you. You don’t hide it, you do it in front of the other pigs. You think those pigs are going to like you, or trust you? Not likely. Now imagine being a Vampire, you used to be like the humans around you. You are told that being humane is the most important thing, that doing so prevents you from becoming a beast. Yet, you must feed. You hunger. Without the blood of your fellow man you will die; even animal blood only sustains weakly, and not at all for elder Vampires. The Rebirth is a way for you to rejoin those you feed upon. The Rebirth is a hope, ever so infinitesimal, that you can cease being a monster. 2) The Rebirth is Horrific Sit down for this. Or not; whatever, I’m not your father. The Rebirth is personal horror at its best. I’m your Storyteller, you are playing in a small group of recently embraced Kindred. I offer you a story tidbit: you can become human again. You just have to kill your Sire. I don’t tell you how. I drop this information in a small fragment of the Book of Nod. An elder confirms, “Yes, in the old country I heard of such a thing happening. Surely you don’t want that, as such a thing steals from you all the benefits of immortality.” Now you plot, you plan, you create an entire masterpiece detailing how you are going to kill your Sire and be Reborn! Oh, did I forget to mention how you had to do it? Did I forget to mention that you need to do it within a month after being embraced? Did I forget… oh sorry… you failed your Willpower roll. You think diablerized your Sire seems like a fantastic way to ENSURE they are dead. The sun begins to set on your hope to be Reborn. 3) The Rebirth is Hope I know, I know, the WoD is darkness on darkness with no hope or light. I think that is reductive. The darkness is only terrifying when there is light for you to retreat to. Despair is only poignant when hope still exists. Those that lose hope don’t care about Rebirth. They care about Blood, and they care about their unlife continuing for another year, or decade, or 1000 years. To have the hope Rebirth is to have the hope that one can escape the Beast, escape the hunger for blood and feel again. The emotions of humanity are stripped away from a newly embraced Vampire. Love, friendship, and empathy are things that are only memories for the Kindred. The Rebirth offers a small potential to return to true emotions once more. That is hope; that hope is something that should be cherished and cared for. Only then should it be dashed and destroyed on the altar of the Cathedral of Flesh. Use the Rebirth in your games. It is an underused idea in Vampire and it offers all kinds of wonderful plot hooks. Let us Rebirth this torpid story idea and bring it into the new era. What harm can it do? With 18 years of playing rpgs, Josh started with Mind's Eye Theater LARPs and loves the World of Darkness. He launched,www.keepontheheathlands.com to support his gaming projects. Josh is the administrator of the Inclusive Gaming Network on Facebook. He’s a player in Underground Theatre LARPs and is running a Mage game and a D&D 5th Edition campaign. He’s a serious advocate for inclusive gaming spaces, a father, and a graduate from the International Peace and Conflict Resolution graduate program at American University in Washington, D.C.  To say I love cyberpunk would be somewhat of an understatement. I mean, how could you not? I absolutely LOVE Star Trek, but there’s something that is too clean, too utopic in Rodenberry’s vision. Then in comes cyberpunk, stating that the future will be as good and as bad as today is, it’ll just have more rain, more neon and some of the cars will have the ability to fly.
A while back, I ran a cyberpunk setting, under the Savage Worlds rule system, in the dirty, spiraling metropolis that is New Hades (www.welcometonewhades.blogspot.com) and this is where I came across the Interface Zero (IZ) setting. Published by Gun Metal Games, it has now been adapted to the Fate rule system, and this is where we pick up our story….. 1 – The Setting Almost 40% of the book is setting. This might seem overkill, but it doesn’t feel like it. Divided both chronologically and geographically, the book does an excellent job at introducing us to the IZ world. At the start of the book, a couple of pages are dedicated to a timeline, showing what happened to our planet in the years between the present and 2090. If one then wishes a more in depth study, the latter part of the book has the mentioned huge world history/atlas section, detailing the main countries/areas/players on the world stage. Is it too much? Perhaps, but by Cthulhu, it reads like a novel, and gives you the ability to base your players anywhere in the worlds, without it feeling same-y and boring. I won’t spoil it, but environmental catastrophes, diseases killing a not-insignificant part of humanity, cybernetics, robotics, space colonies, etc, etc. 2 – Gameplay As mentioned, it follows the Fate rule system, with everything that comes attached to it (flexibility, adaptability, etc.). It feels, however, that IZ has made a lot of effort to ‘pin things down.’ Whereas the Fate system itself is happy with letting the characters be as fantastic as you can make them, IZ seems to try to make them more centered, more focused. The Fate rules and fudge dice rolls are still there, but one gets a feeling that IZ characters are real, with real armor and real pistols and swords and real cyberware. 3 – The Characters This is where I feel this system shines. It doesn’t allow a free for all of character identities and creation, but it gives the players a huge number of possibilities of races and backgrounds, so varied, in fact, that I’m sure the possible permutations are in the hundreds. Just on race, you can chose Android (robot), Bioroid (synthetic human, think Ash from Alien), Cyborg, Human, Human 2.0 (biologically enhanced), Hybrid (human spliced with animal DNA) and Simulacrum (synthetic human). Each will of course have their advantages and disadvantages: a Hybrid with bat DNA might see in the dark, but might be denied access to polite society. Add to these races occupations as varied as bartender or bounty hunter and you have a huge scope to play around with. Furthermore, although it is mentioned they’re just guidelines, major and minor aspects are suggested, depending on your choices. This, I find, is the Fate system’s greatest strength but, especially for players unfamiliar with the rules, it can be a weakness. Allow me to explain. In Fate, your character has a number of short sentences that describe him/her/it, called Aspects. You call upon these aspects during gameplay for bonuses. My character is a thief, so I invoke my aspect ‘Best thief is my neighborhood’ for a bonus to lockpicking. Now this works amazingly, but for new players it can be tough. How do you pin down a character when your scope is infinite? IZ does a great job pinning this down. It might rob a tiny bit of flexibility, but it makes character creation faster and easier. 4 – Archetypes An inspired idea was the addition of archetypes: pre-made, almost ready to go characters, that can be copied off the page and used in a game almost immediately. I really enjoyed this, as it seemed to bridge the two types of Fate players, the ones that are happy with creating almost everything ‘bout their player from scratch, and the more casual players that only want the flexibility of the dice rolling and Aspects, and would prefer their characters to be more grounded. 5 – Rules The Fate rules are used almost to the letter, with minor alterations. A few pages are spent describing the system in detail, so you really only need this book to start playing immediately. Conclusion I really really like it. The setting is fantastic, the rules are straightforward and straight from the Fate Core, and the characters feel real and interesting. It looks like a system that is parallel to... say, Shadowrun, as in it has the same sort of dark futuristic setting, but attempts to be smoother, faster, yet equally engaging. If you like cyberpunk and want a fast, exciting system, look no further! Rui is a Portuguese scientist that, after ten years doing strange things in labs, decided to become a teacher. Then, two years ago, like he was bit by a radioactive D20, RPG’s came into his life, and he’s now juggling teaching, playing and GMing quite happily. He lives in the UK with his partner Joana, an ungodly number of potted plants, 4 to 5 RPG’s at various stages of completion (and across as many rule systems), and maps, cursed idols, evil necklaces, and any other props he can get his hands on. He’s been writing for HLG for a few months, and is one of the resident vloggers. He can be reached at @Atomic_RPG.  Rangers are one of the iconic fantasy archetypes, and they have been ever since we first noticed Strider sitting in the corner of the pub smoking his pipe. Though rangers get a variety of abilities, the one we always think of is favored enemy. And why wouldn't we? While the rest of the group is struggling against the undead minions of a necromancer, or the heavily armed orc warriors conducting local raids, the ranger is cutting through them like a scythe through chaff. And why not? A favored enemy bonus can often be what makes the difference between a challenging fight, and one that gets put down so hard it leaves a crater.
One thing we do too often, though, is turn our rangers into vengeance-driven murder machines. Because, while it's true that killing off a character's family simplifies their back story, provides motivation, and explains why they're so good at fighting a certain type of creature, not every ranger needs to be guided by revenge. Instead you might find your favored enemy bonuses come from... #1: Experience Experience changes everything. Whenever you started doing a job, even if you were fully trained and qualified, there was a learning curve you had to deal with. Of course, if you survived, chances are you got really good at it. So, if your job has been, “fighting undead” for the last few years, it makes sense that you know how best to take them on. You know the tools to use, what signs to look for, and what sorts of strategies they use. You don't need any particular malice toward these creatures... they're just the opponents you cut your teeth on. #2: Training Not every ranger has gone toe-to-toe with his favored enemy in pitched battles for years on end. In fact, some rangers may rarely, if ever, actually see their favored enemies. They know what to do because they've researched, they've trained, and they've studied. A dragon hunter may never have fought a great wyrm, but he knows the signs to look for when that day comes. The environments they live in, the colors of their scales, and where to put an arrow or a spear to have the most devastating effect. #3: Talent Sometimes a character is just naturally good at something. Maybe he knows just the right ingredients to put together for a salad, or he can always sniff out the best location to make camp. For some rangers, fighting a favored enemy might just be in their blood. An ability to see a creature, watch it move, and to intuit the best way to counter its strengths might just come naturally to you. Time and experience will only put an edge on these abilities. #4: Insider Knowledge No one knows how to fight a certain creature type like other members of that creature type. Human rangers whose primary prey has been other humans, for example, know what they're up against. The same is true for half-orcs who've had to best their orc brethren, or elves who've had to pit themselves against other elves. There is no strangeness in a prey you know as intimately as yourself, and when the ability to surprise is taken away, it becomes a battle of skill and preparation. #5: Admiration Some rangers are experts on the best methods to fight certain types of creatures not because they hate them, but because they admire them. The power of magical beasts, the grace of a construct, or the sheer, alien beauty of aberrations can breed an obsession in someone intrigued by these things. While fear is something a ranger might experience in the moment, there's also respect, and a strange kind of intimacy between them and their favored enemies. Though these creatures might need to be fought and killed, there's a kind of nobility in the struggle for someone who has devoted their life to understanding these adversaries. For more great gaming articles, check out Neal F. Litherland's blog Improved Initiative!  Greetings again, traveller!
It's been too long since we've had occasion to meet face-to-face. Mordent has become very tense of late--I have the feeling that Lord Godefroy is plotting something particularly savage. You'll recall Lord Godefroy: the premier restless dead within the realm, a master manipulator of events both near and far, and a particularly vile combination of elitist and sadist. If you weren't aware, Godefroy appears to be the principal resident, or 'Darklord' if you prefer, within Mordent. It is his history and character which shape the realm, a realm which answers to him in almost every way, while at the same time defying his ultimate ends. Godefroy is, at the end of the day, a bitter old man incapable of finding anyone worthy of taking on his legacy. Now the country is filled with commoners and peasantfolk, the noble families long passed away. No peasant, no matter how wise or judicious, will ever be good enough for Godefroy, of course. While the surviving Weathermays would be the natural choice, they are all avid monster hunters, and would give Godefroy the fight of his unlife if they became aware of his machinations. It would seem at first blush that he has little option beyond them. However, not all of the noble families are as extinct as it might appear. A few survivors escaped either the destruction of their kin, or the realm. As Jules Weathermay grows increasingly older, and Godefroy's options diminish, there must eventually come a time when rulership of Mordent passes to someone. Godefroy will undoubtedly choose the least repugnant option from his limited selection and endeavor to manipulate them into governance. To that end, I thought it might be beneficial to discuss what options have presented themselves so far. 1- Aubrecker It is strange that Vilhelm von Aubrecker never considered looking for illegitimate children issued by his son, Rudolph. The boy's carousing was legendary before his disappearance, and where one finds a lust-driven noble boy, one usually finds bastard children just around the corner. Fortunately, it only took a small amount of digging to unearth Stefan Clairemont: the son of a merchant noblewoman from Dementlieu (known for a rather egregious wild streak in her youth, and known to have attended several social events with the younger von Aubrecker during their teens). His parentage is not something which is often brought up, but which is painfully obvious: if he were ever to meet the boy, Vilhelm would recognize him as his grandson at once. It might come to pass that the best option for Godefroy is to infuse his realm with noble blood from another land. Although many nearby realms have 'noble' families scarcely worthy of the name, the von Aubreckers are distinguished enough that Godefroy can respect them, and an expatriate scion is even better, since he is certainly free of any familial influence. Stefan Clairemont is nice enough to converse with, if a bit dull and unimaginative, with no great ambitions beyond marrying well, investing his family fortunes with the help of sound financial counsel, and enjoying local art. He would make a wonderful tool for Godefroy to manipulate. Dread Possibility: Clairemont has only recently come under the sway of his older brother Rudolph. Although Godefroy is aware of Dominic's struggle with another mental manipulator, the old specter isn't as familiar with the Brain's handiwork, and wouldn't recognize the signs of it in Clairemont. This might give the Brain an alternate outlet to attempt to manipulate, and either a new place to call home, or a source of additional reinforcements for his battles with d'Honaire. 2- Halloway Aimee Mainrouge is a wealthy aristocrat from Dementlieu. She comes from money, and has never wanted for anything save for entertainment. Fortunately gifted with an athletic physique and a natural grace, Aimee has found great success at fencing. She frequently chooses to fight duels on behalf of other young women in Dementlieuse society, with her striking good looks belying her skill with a blade. Unfortunately, Aimee has no true altruism behind her actions, she merely enjoys the violence as well as the praise that comes with being a 'hero.' Recently, when her father passed away, Aimee discovered a trunk amidst his possessions containing a number of family heirlooms. Among them are several artifacts, including a signet ring and a docket of lineage showing that her ancestry can be traced to the Halloways of Mordent. She has been considering a return to 'her homeland.' If her family history were discovered by Godefroy, she would make an interesting candidate. Her gender is not what he would prefer, but any noble is better than no noble as far as the old man is concerned. Dread Possibility: Aimee Mainrouge is a victim of a long-forgotten con. She is not a Halloway at all, just the great-great-great-great-great-great-great-granddaughter of an enterprising fence with a surplus of stolen art and a gift for forgery. His claim to distant nobility enabled him to establish himself as a wealthy merchant, and he maintained the tools of his deception should he ever need them. Sometime within the past 200 years, the truth was lost to the family. Although Aimee is the only living member of the Mainrouge line, Godefroy may very well decide that a counterfeit Halloway is an acceptable temporary substitute for a real noble to rule Mordent. 3- Mournesworth Just north along the coast from Mordentshire sits the small coastal town of Drifthome. The mayor of this village is an outlander by the name of Joram Fallstar, a retired adventurer who has only recently discovered the truth about his ancestry. After many battles with the evils of the Mists, Joram came to wed a witch. Along with his adopted child, they retired to the village which he had come to call home. During his last adventure, he discovered with the aid of an artifact known as the Tome of the Compact that his parents had fled the Mists centuries before through means unknown, changing their name from Mournesworth to Fallstar to escape persecution in a strange land. Joram believes strongly in law and order, and would accept rulership of Mordent if forced, but would prefer not to. He knows full well the extent of Godefroy's power, and wishes nothing to do with the ancient spirit. Dread Possibility: Godefroy knows the truth about Joram's wife: she is not entirely human, but is instead a merwoman whom exchanged a portion of her soul to stay on land with her love. Joram himself might be acceptable to Godefroy, but accepting the Mournesworth would mean giving legitimacy to his children, one of whom would eventually inherit the regency of the land. Since Joram's eldest child is an adopted Falkovnian, while his younger, natural born child is equally repulsive in Godefroy's eyes: the boy isn't even fully human, his mother's foul sea-creature blood tainting him beyond Godefroy's ability to stomach. 4- Blackburn-Bruce Of all the families, the Blackburn-Bruces are the one family that absolutely survived their 'destruction.' Numerous heirs have cropped up over the years, only to be usually connected with some diabolic sorcery. While I scarcely would have believed such a thing, I was with Joram when he discovered the Tome of the Compact, a book which appears as gibberish to anyone not descended from one of the noble families of Mordent. To my amazement, I could read it as well! My father-in-law, a historian of rural folklore and a font of lost information, believes strongly that my sister and I descended from one of the scions of the Blackburn-Bruce. Although this information has been whispered about since then, I've been fortunate that the citizens of Carrinford-Halldon continue to accept me as mayor, my family's dark legacy not sufficient to sway them against me. I've no interest in becoming Godefroy's catspaw, of course! Both myself and Gwendolyn are ever-vigilant against incursions from the restless dead, lest the old man come for me or one of my children. Dread Possibility: Before she was Lady Drakeson, Gwendolyn was known as Gwendolyn Timothy, a surname whose significance is not lost on Godefroy. The old man has no interest in allowing Nathan Timothy's daughter or extended family a foothold within his realm. Even if he were able to look past the lycanthropy that runs in the family--and which Gwen has infected her husband with--he cannot overlook the family's loyalty to their patriarch, and especially cannot overlook Frankie Drakeson's coarse and vulgar nature, closer in demeanor to the citizens of Verbrek than the the men of power in Mordent. Conclusion Whatever Wilfred's got up his ectoplasmic sleeve, it's going to be unpleasant for someone. Whichever one of these unlucky sods he targets is going to be in for the fight of their lives. Once Godefroy sets his sights on something, it's almost impossible to shake him off. Even if you want nothing to do with the coming fight, I would be remiss if I didn't insist on hosting you here in Carinford-Halldon again. If you can stay a few weeks or even days, that would be delightful, but even if you can only spare us a single night, we'd love to have you for dinner. Safe travels and happy hunting, Frankie 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 Keep on the Heathlands. His mad scribblings can frequently be found in Quoth the Raven, as well as anthologies like Fitting In or Selfies from the End of the World, by Mad Scientist Journal. Follow him on Twitter @jcstearnswriter.  There’s a certain charm to the newest edition. It’s almost intangible. Although I find all of it very enjoyable, in a couple instances, it could be considered… lacking. Don’t get me wrong, it's just as easy to pour your heart and soul into a character as it’s always been. I just feel like there a few holes to fill. This is probably just my way of coping with the fact I can't take exotic weapon proficiencies and make everything strange for the party. Here are a few things I feel could be spiced up a bit.
1- Shields Who doesn’t like having an extra layer of steel between you and the creatures trying to kill you? No one. That's who. No one and that jerk at the table whose chaotic neutral to be genuinely evil without the official label. D&D 5e seems to be a little lacking in the shield department, this time around. Especially considering how useful they were in historical combat, and the plethora of styles and materials that have been used throughout history. Things like bucklers and tower shields would be great to see implemented. For example: bucklers could increase AC by a lower amount, say +1, but could have some sort of striking feature where you could make an attack with it for minimal damage. Tower shields could give +3 to AC but have a disadvantage if you’re carrying it without a certain strength, as well as the ability to plant it in the ground for cover. Hell, even them being made of wood or other metals could have an effect on the player. Sure this is something you could work out with your DM, but isn’t it nice to have the source material give actual stats and features for these types of things? 2- Maneuvers I’m not saying maneuvers are boring (although more of them would be beautiful). Quite the opposite. I think MORE classes should have maneuvers as an option. For those of you who are unsure of what maneuvers are, they are located on page 74 of the PHB, as part of the battlemaster subclass for fighters. Other than that, they never show up! They add a dynamic to the game that’s so intriguing and interesting. It just feels a little underdeveloped. I know there's a feat for extra maneuvers, but not everyone does feats and it's a rather miniscule amount of maneuvers instead of having a subclass built around them. Combat based rogues would benefit greatly from maneuvers. Sadly, there’s no subclass for the resident sneaky badass who fights as good as he steals. The monk falls victim to this too! The monk's martial arts feel like they could have been explored more. Maneuvers could have made the monk feel more, uh… “Whachaaaa,” if you catch my meaning. Long story short, maneuvers are glorious, why can’t they be everywhere? Paint the walls with maneuvers, even if it would make combat longer. 3- Subclasses (In certain instances) Yes yes, take my silly concerns and shove them up my (Upper management has reduced Jarod’s non-existent pay due to subject matter complaints in this sentence) because unearthed arcana already offers a billion and a half extra subclasses. If you ask me a few classes could use a little more variety in the base books. Such as sorcerers. They only have two subclasses and one might argue only one of those subclasses is worth playing, but that’s a subject for another day. This seems like a comparably low amount to the Cleric and Wizard’s cornucopia of subclasses. Other classes that suffer from this include the Ranger, Barbarian and Druid (the woodland people are getting the short end of the stick here) along with a few other classes. My major point here was supposed to be how race specific subclasses could come into play if you are using a class that compliments the race nicely. High Elf wizard subclass that lets you memorize extra spells or get extra spell slots. Mountain Dwarf fighters that can enter a battle frenzy-like thing where they get an extra attack per round for 5 rounds. Lightfoot Halfling rogues that get massive bonuses to their stealth rolls but have to sacrifice something… what? I can’t be charming and creative constantly. 4- Feats I don't mean to deFEAT (Editor's note: We take no responsibility for injuries due to extreme eye-rolling. -VP Quinn) the purpose of the unearthed arcana pages but I feel like it should’ve been released in the core books. Just more. I want more, damnit. Sorry. Reigning it back in, a few extra feats would bring a joyous tear to my eye. Something to give more unarmed attack bonuses like the Tavern Brawler feat. Maybe play around with the martial arts feature with the monks. Make tool proficiencies more interesting by playing around with that tinker ability for the Rock Gnome. In reality, it might be a little overwhelming to drop so many feats into the core books, so it's understandable. We all have limits and deadlines. I’m not harping on this too badly I hope. I mean, compared to the other points in this article, even I feel like this is a little ham-fisted. Which could actually be an awesome name for another feat dealing with unarmed attacks. 5- Weapons As stated earlier, I miss exotic weapons. Sure, they’re a little unrealistic but someone out there is probably flying around on a carpet with a magic blade you named “Kitten-slasher.” So you can get off my back about me missing a massive double-ended axe. From what I’ve seen in the community, I’m not the only one who misses having the massive array of weapons and gizmos attached to them in their armories. They were the backbone of some of my more interesting characters. You will be missed Rhagar. RIP. Exotic weapon proficiencies aren't the only way to spice up this category. Direct your attention to something actual blacksmiths always have to consider: Material. It may make things a little more tedious in shopping scenarios but the differences between an iron, steel or mithril blade were astounding. Although, mithril is not a real metal. If it were, it would probably break science. I like to think that Wizards of the Coast encourages us to play with the materials of our weapons. Things like adamantine and silver are things you can make weapons and armour out of, after all. Wouldn’t you like to take a little extra time to draw up a sword? With a special crossguard, a niftier handle and a certain blade shape? I feel like it would make the whole roleplaying experience just a little better. I happen to feel passionately about this point in particular because it’s freaking awesome to pounce on someone with a double-ended sword-spear. 6- Alignments “How dare you question how the gods have had mortal man exist since the dawn of time,” I hear you typing in the comment section, “Curse your blasphemy! Curse your children! Curse your dice” Now that everyone’s done being mad at me (for now), you should hear me out. The alignment system D&D has been used since the very first system (with the odd awkward stage I like to call D&D’s puberty period where everyone tried a new name on and joined Tumblr) but perhaps, after it being so long since things have started, we could try to mix things up? I know it’s hard to find fault in Gygax’s masterful creation that is the alignment system we know and love. Perhaps we shouldn’t look for faults as much as we should imperfections. True Neutral back in the day went all Isaac Newton on your ass. Essentially for every good action you have to commit an evil one, or at least you tried to live in an exact balance between good and evil as well as law and chaos. For a casual player, or even an experienced player, this sounds like a fresh hell in either definition. An example straight up given in the books, from what I can remember, was that a druid saving a village from gnolls might switch sides halfway through the fight to prevent the gnolls from being completely wiped out. Something like that could get you killed by your party if they don’t want to put up with that crap. If you consider that druids in AD&D were required to be neutral, you could see where restrictions and requirements could be a pain to any party. While it may be pointless to look back and say, “Things were bad,” especially in an article where I’m talking about 5e not older editions, I felt it was important to include to make the point for 5e. I feel like there’s no “selfish” alignment. I know, I know; chaotic neutral or neutral is the way to go, or even dip into the evils. However, with each “chaotic” or “lawful,” you place yourself into a more limited spectrum. You restrict your choices. You can’t kill the man who killed your father because as lawful good, you’re supposed to think deep down there's hope. You can’t save your own mother because there's nothing in it for you, you chaotic evil bastard. I know these are extreme and unlikely with an average DM but if there's even a chance that your alignment would prevent you from doing what is human (or elven or dwarven or…) for you then maybe we should consider expanding our options a little.. What comes naturally to the person you have carefully crafted and developed is what should be considered. Not some super-strict ancient system. Isn’t it worth considering that alignments could be changed? I just feel like describing who you’d want to be would be quicker. Chaotic Evil doesn’t always mean “Jerkish Dipwad.” Lawful Good doesn’t always mean “Stick Firmly Planted in Butt.” Maybe I’m just rambling crazily. After all I haven’t seen the sun in 72 hours after locking myself in the basement again. But things are as they are. I mean 5e is still really good. The extra material Wizards of the Coast has released has been good, great even, which, after 4e, is refreshing. Just remember, the Shardmind will always be there. Watching. Waiting for someone to open that book and say “I should adapt this.” Then, each and every individual circle of hell will unravel to make way for Psionics once again in this once-safe world. Jarod Lalonde is a young role-player and writer whose passion for both lead him here. He’s often sarcastic and has a +5 to insult. Dungeons and Dragons is his favorite platform. Although he’s not quite sure if it’s Call of Cthulhu whispering to him in the small hours of the night, or just persistent flashbacks to the Far Realm.  Like any non-renewable resource, gaming time is precious - time-consuming table-top RPG sessions even more so. My own Rifts group can barely afford 2-3 games a month, always on a weeknight and usually lasting only 4 hours or so. It can really cramp a well-planned adventure’s style. But don’t worry - these tips will help to prune away the time-wastery and get your all-too-brief games working on minimal schedules for maximum fun!
1. Write A Half-Assed Screenplay A real screenplay would be ridiculous, since you’re writing it for what amounts to a game of directed improvisation. However, this shouldn’t stop you from formulating what screenwriters call beat sheets - the major events that need to happen to progress the plot, regardless of what happens in between. Screenwriters have the luxury of knowing precisely what’s going to happen on every page, but you don’t. BEAT SHEET - GHOSTBUSTERS - ENCOUNTER: Library Ghost Discovery! - Go Into Business For Ourselves - ENCOUNTER: Trap Slimer! - EPA Investigation - That’s A Big Twinkie - Ghosts Busted (Out) - All Hell Breaks Loose - ENCOUNTER: Final Battle with Gozer! Doesn’t look like a full-length movie, right? In a game, the Ghostbusters could leave the university on their own terms instead of being thrown out (although to be fair, being thrown out is a classic adventurer move), Tully could be hit by a car fleeing the Terror Dog across Central Park West if he’d rolled a 1, and Venkman doesn’t necessarily have to date Dana (especially with a pocketful of tranquilizers, dude). It wouldn’t be as incredible as the actual plot of Ghostbusters, of course. But none of those extra events need to be there to affect the beginning, middle, and end. It’s a good rule of thumb for any open-ended adventuring. 2. Turn Sidetracking Into Fast Tracking Dilly-dallying (very technical terminology here, try to keep up) and other in-game sidetracking can be neatly twisted into furthering the plot, as long as you can think on your feet. Maybe that brawl Hrothgar the barbarian starts in the royal antechambers before the group even meets with the queen results in getting thrown out (it’s a classic for a reason) - but not before a courtier slips a note into Hank the wizard’s pocket to meet at a nearby inn. Perhaps the mission has simply become clandestine, or maybe the party is now answering to a would-be usurper of the throne instead of the queen? You can use these unexpected developments to get you to the next beat. 3. Know When To Quit Deadlines put a real pressure on efficiency and pacing, which can turn a well-crafted story into a headlong rush to finish the game by the time limits imposed by kids, spouses, or early shifts the next day. Two-parters or multi-session campaigns are another option. But with any discrepancies in your player turnout, it can get disjointed - and besides, no one enjoys being left out. By establishing your beats, you can cut whatever you need to in order to get to the end, but be prepared that sometimes it’s still going to result in fudging the boss battle just to finish on time. Do yourself and your players a favor, and embrace the two-parter when you have to. A cliffhanger is always better than a lame ending. If you decide in advance it’ll be a two-parter, you’re better able to end the night on a high note. 4. Accept Your Fate Sometimes a planned story just doesn’t work out at all. But that doesn’t have to be a bad thing! Some of the best games I’ve run have been completely off the rails. I once had a group of Rifts characters go to a post-apocalyptic city-state to prevent an assassination due to take place at a public ceremony. The players decided that the best way to do this was to prevent the ceremony from taking place at all, and spent the entire session pitting rival street gangs against each other, reasoning that an all-out turf war would put a halt to the event and thus fulfill their objective. It was loads of fun, even if we never got to a single beat that I had planned! Improv is the name of the game for a GM, and it’s important to recognize that and run with it. Hopefully you can take these tips and put them to work for you. If you don’t need to worry about time, then by all means go ahead and enjoy your bizarre un-cramped lifestyle. Also, please let me know the name of the self-sufficient paradise island you live on. For the rest of us, we do the best we can with what we have. Keep rolling those dice and most importantly, have fun! Brett Caron is a freelance writer and author. He’s a regular contributor to Palladium Books, writes for the Huffington Post on occasion, and has released 2 eBooks with Trese Brothers Games (on sale now). You can follow Brett on Twitter and Instagram at @brettcaron.  There is a reason people love playing role-playing games - we get to be the heroes in the story! The woman who saves the kingdom, the man who finds the answers he is looking for, the dragon who eats that nasty little Duke that has been polluting the river and killing the fish - these people make a difference in the game world the way most of us are incapable of in the real world.
That being said, infallible heroes are not good characters *coughSupermancough*. In the writing world, there’s a nasty term for them: Mary Sue’s/Marty Stu’s. In addition, characters that are mere accretions of statistics are not memorable characters either - usually quite the opposite. “Hey, remember that human paladin with like +5 to his STR and -2 to his WIS?” doesn’t sound as appealing as “Remember that meathead priest-in-a-can who tried to solve a sphinx’s riddle by punching it in the snoot?” In a similar vein to my previous article about good villains, I now present a short list of characteristics crucial to well-built and memorable heroic characters. Coherent of and to Concept - Is This Feasible? I don’t mean can he/she/it speak, I mean that the concept itself needs to stick together, and it needs to function well in the setting - or it needs to be so clean and so slick that it can fit into a not-quite-right setting fairly seamlessly. In a “modern” setting, you can certainly allow for magic users, but an undead lich who literally looks like an animated rotting corpse isn’t really coherent to the concept of a game in a modern setting. An undead lich who can rock some Armani, though... that’s doable. Just like a mad chemist concept (like Walter White) can easily be turned into a mad alchemist in a fantasy setting. Protip: oil of vitriol is the ancient name for sulfuric acid. Don’t try to put a Jedi on Arrakis - it doesn’t end well. A Sith in Vegas, though? That could be a lot of fun. Capability - Can You Pull It Off? This point is something that a GM/DM needs to consider when approving a concept: can the character requesting the concept pull it off, or is she going to fall back to reciting blank numbers when put in a position that challenges her character? When a player is designing a tough character, they need to keep their own capabilities in mind. The worlds of Exalted and Iron Kingdoms RPGs specifically encourage “stunting,” or being very descriptive when describing a character’s actions, and I don’t know a single DM worth their caffeine who doesn’t enjoy enthusiastic players. A good “stunt” can add extra dice to a tough roll and increases the incentive for players to think more about their characters rather than just statistics on a page. Nothing hamstrings a game more than someone leading up to something truly epic, and them saying “I rolled a 19” without explaining what in the nine hells they actually did - and I don’t mean that they rolled their subterfuge plus “use the force” stats. It is the responsibility of everyone at the table, both players and the DM, to encourage reticent players to try to level up their roleplay experience by contributing to the tapestry of descriptive narrative. People will surprise you, given the opportunity, and those surprises are what memories are made of. Compelling - Do You Live, Or Do You Exist? Do you care about your character? Why should I care about your character? Make me want to know what they are doing. Maybe your character saves my character’s life, or buys her a meal, or otherwise interacts in a way that brings them to life - and this doesn’t always have to be in a positive light! I once played in a Star Wars game where another character was such a uniformly unpleasant creature that the entire group banded together to deal with him. It took a bunch of scruffy mercs and united us in our hatred for one nasty little furball that didn’t respect physics or privacy. It made the character compelling. We showed up every week wondering how he was going to mess with our plans. This is the little snot. Kushibah Sith Alchemist. We LOVED to hate him. I don’t remember his actual name, but we called him Darth Foamy. Ask me about the hamster ball sometime. Caring - The Ultimate Motive Force Does your character care about anything? Does she lose her mind when animals are mistreated? Does he fly off the handle if he sees injustice? Can she stand seeing people impugn her deity of choice? What is his reaction to seeing party members in peril? If your character doesn’t care about anything, they are incomplete. Why did they join the party if all they are going to do is sit around and say “nah, pass” to everything? Even if their motive behind joining is to “get out of this podunk town before my brain leaks out of my ears,” that’s still caring about something. It is okay, and even encouraged, for what they care about to evolve over the course of the story. Maybe our teenage rogue who was dying of boredom decides that that dwarven blacksmith is a pretty chill chick, and he’d like to get to know her better because she can drink anyone under the table and still split a bullseye with her axes. Or the paladin realizes that the druid might be a heretic under her order’s rules, but damn it, he’s *her* heretic and she will protect him, because he’s proven to her that not all heretics are immediately and inherently damned. Caring about something...anything...is the most important facet of a character, and determines what they can bring to a campaign. That caring can be the nexus of so much growth - it is impossible to overstate the importance of your character giving a damn about something. And now for the tough part: the P. Plausible - Does Your Character Make Sense? I know, I know, I’m the one forever beating the drum of story-over-mechanics, but follow with me here. Say someone chooses a race for a Star Wars Saga Edition game (for the sake of example: a Wookiee), and that race has a large and deep body of details and lore about the cultures of those beings. Now let’s say that a player decides they want to play a Wookiee, but they want to play a Force-sensitive one. Leaving edition and canon wars out of this, there’s nowhere in Saga Edition that says there cannot be Force-sensitive Wookiees, but in the canon of the universe there is no record of them being Sith or Jedi. That’s okay, there’s Force Adepts in the book, and it’s made for situations like this. DM approves the Force-sensitive Wookiee, and there’s little to no fuss. But then the Force-sensitive Wookiee decides that he also wants to wear power armor (something completely against the Wookiee lore) and takes levels in Soldier to be able to wear it. There’s nothing in the book that says they can’t do this - because game designers, out of an abundance of enthusiasm, are loath to say “no” to something unless there’s a damn good reason - but it really doesn’t make sense. So now our power-armor-wearing Force Adept Wookiee decides that he wants to take a further departure from reason, and adds a lightsaber to his arsenal including a special type of lightsaber crystal that is only mentioned in one place that adds splash damage, and has the lightsaber mastercrafted to where it can be used two-handed as a great weapon. Again, all technically possible, but entirely not plausible. The DM approves this because the player invokes the logical argument that “there’s nowhere that says I can’t do this.” This kind of build skews the entire game, as the other players scramble to maintain the power curve; narrative and story get lost in the internal arms race. On the other extreme, let’s say someone is playing a human soldier. He has absolutely average stats, absolutely average skills, and absolutely average pretty much everything, even after several game sessions and XP expenditures. This is approaching implausible from the other end of the spectrum, although again, entirely within the realm of possibility. Everyone has something that they are good at, even if only marginally better than average. A completely out-of-whack character like the Wookiee is bad for the game, but an entirely average character is bad for the player, because they have no direction to progress. I recommend that each time a player comes up with a “wouldn’t it be cool if…” idea, they run it past their DM and the other players. A DM shouldn’t be pressured to approve something that is technically possible if it doesn’t fit with their story - but they should always be open to ideas. You can always ask the Universe anything. Sometimes the answer is no. Everyone has something that they are good at, and you don’t get to have ALL the things just for the asking. Come to think of it, that’s a solid lesson that all of us - gamers and not - could stand to remember from time to time. Georgia is a writer, editor, gamer, and mad culinary priestess who masquerades as a courier and personal cook while her plans for world domination slowly come together. She lives in Tacoma, Washington, with her husband and Feline Overlords. She can be reached through Facebook at In Exquisite Detail or on Twitter at @feraldruidftw.  With the rise of geek-chic comes a new responsibility for us hipster role players; you know, those of us who were slaying dragons before slaying dragons was cool. That responsibility is to introduce people who have never tried gaming to a new and fantastic hobby. Over the years I’ve found that finding interested parties has become more and more easy, as long as you're willing to talk openly about it, but as any fisherman knows, you can reel as many fish in as you want, if they don’t stay in the boat, they don’t count. If you want to keep a gamer initiate coming back for more, their first exposure to a game session is pivotal and done right can turn them into a lifetime gamer who will inevitably recruit even more players. So here are a few lessons I have learned the hard way to help you set up a memorable and engaging first session. 1 Set Expectations Make sure that they know exactly what they are getting into. Particularly, if they’re thinking about joining your regular group. Most first sessions are about testing the water but it can be frustrating for someone to test the water, find out they like to swim, and then learn that the pool is only open on days when they have other obligations. I like to set the tone by being upfront with the following items: timing and length of sessions, regularity, punctuality, estimated effort between games (leveling characters, etc.), snacks and meals, things to bring (pencils and such), group dynamics, and the learning curve. 2 Find out what interests them I find it useful to take some time before a game starts to get to know the initiate. What I’m looking for is what interests them in a role-playing game. The problem here is that they usually don’t know, having never played before. I often find myself asking them questions like:
By using their answers to mould your first session, you will not only play to their interests, but also to their strengths. Someone who's read and re-read the LoTR books has a level of comfort talking about orcs and elves and the traditional fantasy story arc. By putting them in a familiar setting with a familiar pace and story line, they will be more engaged and entertained. 3 Set a Comfortable Atmosphere So, I had just moved to a new city and was having trouble finding gamers. I took the bold step of posting on Meetup, searching for 5e D&D players looking for a DM. It didn’t take long before I had three interested people and was arranging for us all to meet IRL. What I failed to consider was the concept of a “safe space”. It wasn’t until the 3rd session that the only woman in the group admitted to me that during the first session she had asked her boyfriend to wait outside until she texted him, and that’s when I realized how uncomfortable it must have been for some strange man to lead her down into his basement with two other strange men. Don’t do what I did; consider that the atmosphere is just as important, if not more, than the contents of the first session. If you're comfortable with it, you could even consider hosting your first session in a neutral/public space; many game stores offer space. 4 Use a small Group It can be intimidating to be introduced to a group of grognards; joining any new group of strangers is scary and you want to minimize the pressure and stress. If the initiate knows other members of your gaming group, great, use them. If not, then handpick a small group, one or two of your regulars for a short introductory session. When you make your selection you're looking for those who are the most team oriented, patient, and welcoming. Skill in the game and the ability to rules lawyer shouldn’t even be on the radar. In fact, choosing your most inexperienced players can be helpful, as long as one of them can act as peer-coach, because their inexperience will even the playing field and set the initiate at ease. Further, newer players often have an infectious excitement about the game. 5 Go Slow and be Flexible Plan out your one-shot quest to have a slow pace. The new player is bound to have lots of questions and role-playing games are already packed with ambiguity. I like to start with something pretty linear with easy options for role-playing. The trick for this is to remain flexible. I don’t write out first sessions, but keep a rough sketch in my head and prepare a number of NPCs, skill challenges, traps, and monsters while giving lots of opportunity for the players to go where they want and do what they want. Most of the time an initiate will follow the predictable course, but a few will surprise you and instead of storming the keep to rescue the princess, they will recruit a band of mercenaries to do it for them. One other quick note, most new players can be pretty nervous about “conversational” role-playing, they don’t know what they can and should say so be sure to avoid uncomfortable silences with all eyes on the initiate and allow them an “out” (i.e., skill checks). 6 Rule Book Schmool Book. I have never given a Player’s Handbook to a new player and told them to read it. In fact, I have never made it a requirement to read a rule book in any of my campaigns. I find that, except for a very small demographic, the rulebooks scare most people and for those people experiential learning is much easier and more exciting. If they ask, I will certainly lend them my copy; but I will never put a player in a position where they are forced to buy a book. Gaming needs to be accessible to everyone. Bryan lives off the land in the frozen tundra of Edmonton, AB Canada; by “frozen tundra” I mean he works in a comfortable office and plays D&D in his living room on weekends. By “lives off the land” I mean he shops at Superstore and occasionally at the local Dutch Deli in between trips to his favorite Pho restaurant.  Be honest, role-playing used to be this thing that “other people” did. It was okay for “those people,” but you wouldn’t be caught wasting time on nerdy make-believe games. Then a friend asked you, “Hey what are you doing Saturday?” Now you’re trying to juggle your career and family while desperately hunting for your next chance to wield a greataxe, stick-n-shock pistol, or grimoire to face whatever the gamemaster throws at you.
What happened to you, man? The rewards built into role-playing games are (for many) what make role-playing fun. They give a sense of accomplishment or closure, and make games more satisfying. It’s worth it to consider how to provide rewards, because correctly managing them is the key to making your role-playing sessions enjoyable. There’s a wealth of great articles about role-playing games which discuss different role-playing personalities. Many of them are based on Robin's Laws of Good Game Mastering, by Robin D. Laws, and others (including these one, two, and three from the HLG archives) play around with applying psychological theories to gaming. While these articles talk about motivations behind these personalities, little time is spent talking about the rewards role-playing games actually give players to keep them coming back like Candy Crush junkies. Here are five things that I’ve noticed people want from role-playing games. This is not an exhaustive list, and if you can think of any other rewards built into game mechanics, please mention them in the comments! 1. Levelling Up/Character Advancement I can’t wait to get to level 12!! With another feat and the ability score increase I’ll be shooting so many arrows into so many knees that they’ll start offering arrow-to-the-knee insurance along with accidental death and dismemberment. Some games have specific rules governing how a particular character class advances, while others leave the assignment of character points to the individual player. However it’s done, this classic feature of role-playing games has something for everyone. The power-gamer gets to do more damage. The specialist gets a cool new trick or ability. A new spell learned can either mean more damage, a new trick, or both. In class-based systems, there usually an aspect of world-building, where characters can uncover different aspects of a race/species, or class as they gain experience. Any game worth its salt must have a means for character advancement if they want to foster a sense of accomplishment. 2. Gear and Money Aanoor spread the coins on the table. The merchant’s eyes bulged. “I want the sword. Please,” Aanoor asked quietly. The merchant hesitated, about to ask something, but closed his mouth. He turned and reached for the masterfully-wrought sword and scabbard mounted behind the counter. “This sword has been waiting a long time for the right person,” the merchant said, “I’m glad it finally found you.” Gear lists are often criticized as rules-heavy or interfering with role-playing. However, for many players, the thrill of locating and obtaining gear makes the game. For some, locating an artifact or ancient tome can be an important part of worldbuilding. Big guns and axes are fun for everyone, not just the power gamer. Gadgets and tools can enhance a character’s capabilities, and new spells (yes, I mentioned them already) are often things that need to be tracked down and learned. Don’t underestimate the attraction of equipment lists for your strategists and gear-heads. 3. Exploration Graft stood, his head bowed, for what seemed like an eternity. The dragon finally spoke in his mind. <You have done well.> “Thank you, Ghostwalker.” <I grant you part of the history of what you seek. Sit on the divan.> Graft sat. The dragon paused, then looked directly into Graft’s soul. <Tell me,> he asked. <What do you know about Dunkelzahn's Will?> For some players, especially storytellers and actors, nothing is better than the thrill of piecing together the fabric of the larger world that serves as a background to the characters’ story. This can mean unravelling the plot behind international intrigue or influencing world-shattering events. It can mean co-creating new realms that have not yet been defined. It can also be as simple as discovering what force is behind certain strange happenings. Regardless, developing a sense of mystery about the fictional world builds another reward that characters are able to uncover and enjoy. 4. Problem Solving Everything worked like a charm. The explosives detonated just as the column was fully in the ravine. Surgical strikes from the commandos eliminated the officers, while the infantry concentrated fire on the gun turret of the tank, immobilizing, if not completely destroying, it. Lazlo and his team secured the armoured van and the area around it, while the rest of the group accepted the surrender of the remaining hopelessly disorganized troops. Mission accomplished. It all took about six seconds. Another overlooked hook for gamers is the emergence of problems to be solved. Good tacticians can make short work of combat encounters far beyond the group’s skill level. Social intrigue and mysteries provide opportunities for a character’s non-combat skills to shine. Finally, good old-fashioned puzzles and riddles provide challenge and foster a sense of fairy-tale fantasy. A game of Munchkin-like door-kicking and monster-slaying is fun for a while, but if there aren’t any non-linear problems to solve, the players will likely get bored. 5. Resolving Story Arcs “Where you gonna go, Doc?” Silas clicked his suitcase shut. “Out east. I’ll see if Sherry will take me back. I’m getting out of this life, for sure. I think I’ve redeemed myself.” He thought of the prisoners they’d released, and the PR mess they’d made for Biomart by leaking information to the media. It felt good. Silas turned, said goodbye to his old friend, then left without looking back. Story is kind of a big deal. As I mentioned in a previous article, there are some role-playing and storytelling pitfalls to avoid - but in the end, role-playing games are really about telling a story with a group of friends. Most games approach this differently, from leaving story entirely in the player's’ hands, to creating defined story arcs through published modules and campaigns. What is most important (and most satisfying), though, is when the characters have the opportunity to resolve player defined plot points. The feeling of closure when your Inigo Montoya finally kills the six-fingered man is something that can’t be traded for gold. Landrew is a full-time educator, part-time art enthusiast. He applies his background in literature and fine arts to his favourite hobby (role-playing 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! Links to other articles, in the order they appear in the text (just in case they don’t transfer to the blog). http://www.darkshire.net/jhkim/rpg/theory/models/robinslaws.html http://www.highlevelgames.ca/blog/the-16-myers-briggs-personality-types-in-role-playing http://www.highlevelgames.ca/blog/6-reasons-why-im-studying-female-table-top-gamers http://www.highlevelgames.ca/blog/december-21st-2016 http://www.highlevelgames.ca/blog/5-ways-rpgs-are-ruining-your-characters-story  The DM. Yes, he goes by many names in the table-top community and she may also have the most feared position at the table. Many a character has died by his hand. Many a player has wept at her feet. “Methinks the DM doth have too much power,” to paraphrase that part in Hamlet. While we may have limited tools to defend ourselves against this tyrant, we have the books, magic, and our intuition.
Well, let your spite take over and use these brutal ways to break 5e (Which is typically really difficult to do which is why there's only 3 ways I could work up.) Please note I am using the optional feat rule and Volo’s Guide to Monsters, as well the optional multi-classing rule for some of these. 1- The Speedster “Well I’ve got a 50 ft speed,” Said the Barbarian to the party, “I can outrun all of you.” Imagine his surprise when you almost make a sonic boom and move from one side to the battlefield in less than a turn. While this build will require most likely require a merciful DM (ironic considering my rant, I know,) and some pretty solid rolls on loot, it is more than worth it in the long… run (One). In order to make this scary fast character you’re going to need to take the monk class, the Tabaxi race (Volos guide), the mobile feat, boots of speed, a haste spell and the dash action. When you put all of this together you come to a grand total of 1,120 feet in a turn. Allow me to break down the implications of this. If we look through the PHB they say a turn is roughly 6 seconds. If we do all of our calculations, you make a top speed of 205 KPH (127 MPH). Note: If this monk is made he is most certainly addicted to a very dangerous drug-speed. ( I’m not funny, also, two.) Maybe you don’t have boots of speed or the haste spell. Maybe you don’t even have the option to use feats. In that case, we still have the Tabaxi’s ability to double their speed for a turn, the dash action, and a max speed (at level 20) of 60 feet. Which means that at our worst we’re working with 240 feet maximum, which works out to 44 KPH (27 MPH). This speed is actually the fastest speed ever recorded by a human in real life, making it a bit better for a more realistic campaign. That really makes me want to BOLT (three) to the character sheets to whip up our fast feline. 2- See all, Know all If you’re like me and didn’t realize passive perception was a thing for the first while of playing 5e, then you were probably kicking yourself constantly asking your players to roll perception for everything under the sun, or asking to roll for perception constantly. Might as well try to redeem yourself with this build. (Please note I actually stumbled upon this build and was inspired to write this article through Nerdarchy, find their youtube channel here find their webpage here.) For this character you’re going to need the Observant feat, multiclassing as a ranger/rogue, putting your expertise (from the rogue class) into perception and investigation, high wisdom and intelligence, the Alert feat, and a robe of eyes. Allow me to show you the full power of this build; As you should know the highest DC in game 30, at level 10 (5 ranger/ 5 rogue) your total passive perception score is 28 (with a 20 WIS). At level 20, (again half and half) your total passive perception would be 32. Capped at 30 obviously. With the robe, you gain an advantage, darkvision (if you don't already have it), the ability to see invisibility (with 30 passive perception you’re pretty much already doing that) and the ability to see into the ethereal plane. Essentially you’re not going to miss much. EYE(four) think this is a pretty impressive build.(P.S. Might as well throw in a ring of x-ray vision because why not?) 3-Thick-Skinned Fish Swim speeds sure are handy. They may not be something you utilize constantly, but in a campaign where you’re always on the high seas or consistently around water, it becomes almost a necessity. With Volo’s guide, we received a few new races playing around with the many speeds in D&D. To me the Lizardfolk have a certain charm in comparison to the other three races that offer new speed types and even though the Tabaxi can SCALE(five) things with relative ease, the Lizardfolk have a bonus to AC that has lead me to find a most interesting combination. To perform this little trick the Lizardfolk race needs to be selected, as well as the barbarian class,a damn good CON and DEX, a ring of protection, a cloak of protection, and might as well grab a shield +3 (Note: During the rest of this article I tried to limit the amount of magical items to two when whipping up a game break, but without the maxed out shield, it couldn’t really be considered “game breaking,” also I assumed the Lizardfolk’s 13 base would apply to the unarmoured defence.) So, let's go this route; Lets operate under the assumption that you’re a level 20, and that your CON is 24 and your DEX is a respectable 18. At this point I’m really sick of math so I’m just going to blatantly say that your AC would be 31. Which as you know is completely insane. If we go to the absolute extreme with the rest of this and say that you have also read the Manual of Bodily Health and the Manual of Quickness of Action (Put the DEX at a cool 22 max and the CON a mighty 26 max) your total AC would be a grand total of 34. Which puts you in a CLASS(six) of your own, as the Tarrasque(highest AC in 5e) has an AC of 25. Long story short any game you try to break will break. However that does kind of suck the fun out of it doesn’t it? Although, every now and then everyone wants to sit back and relax in “god mode” for a while. No back BREAKING(a forced seventh) carry weight can stop you, no dirty CON(I’m really hating myself at eight) on a corner can fool you and no blade can SLICE(wait that’s not a pun) your thick skin. When it comes to basic characters, try to optimise, but keep in mind, there is a thing as “too” powerful, especially in games where balance is such a key aspect, and a part of the multiplayer aspect of D&D. If you want something where you’re good at everything and have powers of a god, go play an Elder Scrolls game. Jarod Lalonde is a young role-player and writer whose passion for both lead him here. He’s often sarcastic and has a +5 to insult. Dungeons and Dragons is his favorite platform. Although he’s not quite sure if it’s Call of Cthulhu whispering to him in the small hours of the night, or just persistent flashbacks to the Far Realm.  One of the unique ways of mechanically fleshing out a character in Pathfinder is background traits. These mini feats, as they've sometimes been called, allow you to gain small bonuses based on your character's history. You can pick two, and they represent your experience in combat, society, religion, faith, and half a dozen other areas. While there are a lot of common traits you find on characters time and time again (like Reactionary, which gives you a +2 trait bonus on Initiative checks, or Magical Knack, which increases your caster level by 2 up to your character level), there are some traits you rarely see.
Sometimes it's because those traits don't offer a big enough bonus compared to others. Sometimes it's because they're in books your table doesn't use. And, rarely, it's because a trait is considered the wrong genre, and is banned for being too sci-fi. If you've been looking for some fun traits to make your new character a little different, here are 5 you should check out. Trait #1: Blood Steed I discovered this trait while writing my character conversion for Khal Drogo from A Song of Ice and Fire. A character with Blood Steed comes from a nomadic culture, and begins play with a combat-trained light warhorse. You can ride this horse bareback as if it had a saddle, and this horse can fend for itself in all but the harshest conditions. Even cooler, when you step out of a settlement and whistle, your horse arrives in 1d6 minutes. Perhaps the coolest feature of this trait, though, if your horse dies you can return to your people, and hold a rite for the horse's spirit. This costs 100 gold in herbs and materials, and when it is over you receive a new horse. This is a great trait if you're a character who depends on their mount, and you want some extra insurance that your DM won’t just drop a rock on your pony. Trait #2: Awakened From Stasis This one gets the side-eye from DMs on two levels; it's sci-fi and offers a ridiculous benefit. This trait states that you recently awoke in a cavern with no memory of how you got there. There were dozens of other creatures, all asleep in glass eggs. Huge, construct crabs attended to you, and all the others. As a result of your time in stasis, you receive the benefits of 8 hours of rest after sleeping for only 2 hours. Most people need a magic item, or at least a class feature, to mimic that. If your DM lets you take traits from People of The Stars, this is a solid choice. Trait #3: Possessed Put simply, you were, or are, possessed by something. Sometimes, if you're lucky, you can peek into the information it normally keeps to itself. This trait lets you make a single Knowledge check once per day, even if you are untrained in that particular skill. If you could normally make an untrained check in this skill, you get a +2 trait bonus on the check. This is a story-rich trait for any class, but given the sheer number of characters who have some truck with outsiders it has even more potential. A summoner, medium, or spiritualist would be the obvious choices for this trait, but conjurers, witches, and oracles may also find it helps boost their story. This trait would also be a natural lead-in for characters who acquire the possessed corruption, or for characters who will acquire the Possessed Hand feat tree. Trait #4: Student of Philosophy Bruising Intellect is a fairly common trait among Intelligence-based characters because it lets you use your Intelligence modifier in place of your Charisma modifier when making Intimidate checks. Student of Philosophy is similar, in that it allows you to apply your Intelligence modifier to Diplomacy checks to persuade people, and Bluff checks to convince someone that a lie is true. Since we're all here for escapism, there are surely players out there whose fantasy is to be able to persuade other people through logic and reasoning... right? Trait #5: Mutant Eye As unsettling as it is useful, you have a third eye growing out of your forehead. If it is uncovered and open, you gain a better sense of the world, and emotions, of the people around you. This grants you a +2 bonus on Sense Motive checks, and that bonus becomes +4 on checks to determine whether or not someone is currently under a mind-affecting effect. It is off-putting looking at someone with a third eye, though, and as long as it's exposed and open, you take a -1 penalty on Bluff and Diplomacy checks against humanoids who can see it. A good thing to have if you are the party's lie detector... even if it is a little blood curdling. For more great gaming insights, check out Neal F. Litherland's blog Improved Initiative!  This week’s topic will be on creating a backstory for your character.
If you’re like many people in the role-playing world, your character’s backstory is an afterthought. Its something to be done in a fraction of the time you spend creating the rest of your character’s stats, equipment spells etc. The danger of doing this is that the focus becomes centered on the “playing” aspect of the game, at the expense of the “role”. We’re all there to play the game, and what makes our hobby unique, is the creativity and imagination we can express in our roles. Think of it like a pizza. Those stats, equipment and spells are the cheese, crust and sauce- all essential ingredients. But having a motivation behind your actions makes that cheese pizza, into a 4-cheese, Sicilian sausage with tomatoes, anchovies and extra onions masterpiece. It’s the options that make both the pizza and the character unique and flavorful. Better ingredients, better pizza. {Insert Peyton Manning & Papa John’s ad here} So, my discerning reader, here’s what I consider to be the 3 must-do’s for creating a backstory for your character. 1 Raison d'être- “To be a raisin” This is something you absolutely must know before the dice hit the table. Your character exists (usually) as someone special, different and more powerful than the average person in the world. How did this come to be? More important for the party: why are you out on the road adventuring instead of something more relaxing? You could be curled up warm by a fire at home with a good book or telling the same old stories in taverns for free drinks! You must know the purpose your character has, otherwise you’re the Jean-Claude Van Damme of the group: too much action and too little plot. [Quiz time: Name a Van Damme movie other than Bloodsport] 2- Muse Clues Having a muse brings something real to your character. A real voice, a real walking gait, real idiosyncrasies that you sometimes can’t think up on your own. A muse gives your imagination a skeleton and wraps your ideas in silky smooth skin. They translate your character from an image search on a search engine to a person in a story. It can be a favorite actor, or a cool comic book character you read about, a funny co-worker, or someone from an obscure dramatic piece your significant other wanted to watch. Find the way you learn (visual or auditory only – kinesthetic not so much, unfortunately) and then find your Tom Cruise…I mean Tom Muse! I mean… What I’m trying to say is just like toilet paper, muses have multiple uses, and they can get stuck on your shoe, which is super embarrassing when going into a business meeting. Muses can teach you a new accent, execute sweet ninja flips that you can describe, or help you with turns of phrase in with the criminal underworld. Get creative, you say? I say: Why reinvent the wheel? [Tom Cruise does not endorse this blog] 3- Cova the Dubya’s School is in session, take out your coiled notebooks and come up with answers for the 6 question words of role-playing: Who, What, Where, When, Why and sometimes WTF. Who This influences how your character interacts with other people. Who do they like / hate/ find hot? What This influences what your character does during “down time”. What did your character do before deciding to take up the life of a wandering adventurer? What were their dreams? What’s something that they know loads of useless information about? Where This influences things like accents, background knowledge, and skills. Where did your character grow up? Travel to? Want to go? When This influences your character’s interests and point of view of events. When did your character hit milestones in their life: born, married, bar mitzvah, baptism, death of loved ones? Why Why did your character become an adventurer? (See raison d'être above) And sometimes, WTF What is something your character does that will be justifiable to nobody but you. No matter how hard they try to convince you otherwise, you find a way to let this quirk shine in the story. This is the part of character creation that I like to call “dipping your character in ink”. For better or worse, long after the campaign is ended, people generally remember these things about your character. Hey, the only thing worse than being talked about, is not being talked about, right? Well that’s all the time we have… I hear footsteps coming down the hall. Gotta get back to work! Dustinopolis Chief Assistant to the Evening Custodian I am Dustinopolis, Devourer of Cheese. I am an 11th level dreamer who has been rolling dice and playing roles off and on for over ten years. In High-level Games , my current position is as Assistant to the Night Janitor. I write my columns fully clothed. Usually. |
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