A few days ago a guy at work was asking me what I was doing this weekend, to which I responded, “I’m playing D&D.” He started asking me questions about D&D; how it’s played, how long the game lasts, what you actually do. This is not the first time this has happened to me; in fact, it happens all the time.

I’m fortunate when it comes to the people I work with. While none of them play RPGs, they are all genuinely curious about what I actually do. They may not grok all of what I’m saying when I explain it but they’re willing to listen and ask questions.

I love it. I love explaining this stuff to people. I love it when people are curious about my hobby and when they’re impressed that I get published within that hobby. I like to think of myself as an advocate for gaming so, when people ask me about the games I play, I see it as my responsibility to spread the word. There are a couple of things to keep in mind when you’re doing this.

You’re not educating or converting them
Many of the people you explain your hobby to will not fully understand what you’ve told them, and most will not have any interest in actually playing one of those games. That’s totally fine. It doesn’t mean you’ve failed in your attempt to be an advocate because the knowledge imparted and their desire to play are secondary to what you’re actually doing.

What are you actually doing? You’re sharing your enthusiasm. You’re showing them that this isn’t some creepy activity that only socially inept high school students participate in. You’re showing them that regular people like you play these games and love them to death. You’re showing them that, to you, it’s a fun passtime like any other, like watching football or going antiquing is to them.

Being an advocate for gaming isn’t about converting or educating: it’s talking about what you love and why you love it. That’s something people can understand, even if they don’t understand what you’re talking about.

Be patient with them
Many people won’t understand what you’re talking about; this doesn’t make them stupid or ignorant. Most people, when confronted with what an RPG actually is, don’t have a frame of reference for that kind of activity. When a lot of people think ‘games’, they think of Monopoly and Scrabble. They don’t think of this weird hybrid between dice gaming and improv theater.

If it’s important to you that they understand what you’re saying, couch it in terms that are easy to understand. Give them a touchstone.

When I was explaining D&D the other day, the guy I was explaining it to was shocked that we’d play the same game for a year or more, telling the same story. It wasn’t until after the conversation had ended that I thought to myself that I should have compared it to a long-running TV show, with each session an episode and the campaign as a whole being the entire series. That sort of shorthand can be invaluable.

Have fun with it
You’re talking about games. Games are fun. Talking about games should be fun. Explaining your favorite hobby should not be a chore or something you deign to do so that you can lift the slobbering masses up upon a pedestal of enlightenment. If you’re not having fun explaining your hobby, then don’t explain your hobby.

Remember that you’re sharing enthusiasm. If you’re not enthusiastic while talking about your favorite RPG, the person you’re talking to is unlikely to be enthusiastic about listening. And while converting shouldn’t be your goal, it’s much more likely to happen if you talk about the game with some energy and a smile on your face.

One big takeaway that I got from playing The Dresden Files RPG: aspects are awesome.

Some of you may not know what an aspect is, so I’ll give you a brief rundown. An aspect is a brief, descriptive word or phrase that says something about your character. It might be a personality trait, or a physical weakness, or a favorite catchphrase, or even a particularly important object. Players can invoke aspects, spending a fate point to gain a mechanical bonus or make a declaration (basically, make something up about the world). But the reason I like them so much, the reason why they’re great for GMs, is that they can be compelled.

At its most basic level, compelling an aspect means that you offer a player a fate point in exchange for that player role-playing to the aspect you designate. This is generally meant to complicate the character’s life in some way, and make things more interesting and fun at the table.

This happened quite a bit in the DFRPG game, and it was great. My role, as the GM, was mostly to be an instigator. The players were having a great time riffing off of each other’s actions, and any time there was a lull, I’d compel an aspect to make things more interesting. I did, of course, introduce plot elements and adjudicate skill rolls and other actions, but my main role was as an instigator.

What’s even better about compelling aspects, though, is that, when your players are really on a roll, they’ll do it for you. See, when a player is really role-playing to the hilt, and making things more fun for everyone as a result, that’s a de facto compel, and should be rewarded as such. Because of this, aspect compels become a way for me to reward good play without creating a disparity in power levels, as you do when you reward specific people bonus XP in D&D.

I’ve tried in the past, with less than stellar results, to introduce aspects into D&D. It failed, for two reasons I think. First was that I really had no more than a purely theoretical knowledge of aspects, so I didn’t really know how they were used in play. Second, D&D isn’t really designed to take advantage of aspects, and it felt kind of tacked-on.

But when you’re playing a game that’s built from the ground up to use them, they are an invaluable tool. So I guess my advice is: if you’re playing with FATE, be an instigator. It’s hella fun, and makes your job easier.

A little while back, I ran a city-building session for my upcoming Dresden Files game. It was great fun, and the creative content that came out of it amazed me. We started with the barest seed of an idea—a DF game set in Philadelphia—and ended the session with a fully realized setting primed for all kinds of adventure and full of a robust cast of colorful characters. It got me to thinking: if this method works so well in Dresden Files, couldn’t it be used to great effect in other games, too?

The answer, I think, is “yes”. Since this blog is mostly about D&D, I’m going to go over the basics of how to use a collaborative world-building approach, similar to that in Dresden Files, to build your D&D world. This has a number of benefits. First of all, it takes a lot of the workload off of the DM, and spreads it out over the whole group. Second, because your players are helping to create the world, they’ll have a lot more of the basic knowledge of the world, and will be more invested in that knowledge and in the world, itself. No need for a big info dump at the beginning. Third, because character creation is a step of world creation, the characters that your players make are likely to be much more tightly integrated into the setting, and will probably have more hooks that you can pull on to get them into the story.

Step One: Themes
You’re going to want to come up with some themes for your campaign; at least one, possibly more. A theme is something that is happening in the background, something that people are used to and take for granted to some extent. It can be negative or positive. If it’s a negative theme, something that makes the world a little bit worse for everyone, it’s entirely possible that it can be resolved over the course of the campaign, though it’s likely that it will take the entirety of the campaign to do so.

Possible Themes:

• A tyrannical monarch rules over the kingdom with an iron fist
• Religious tension is everywhere, the result of two faiths at odds with each other
• The boundaries between the planes are thin at various places throughout the world, making extraplanar visitors common

Step Two: Threats
Threats are like themes, but more immediate and short-term. They’re almost always things that negatively impact the world in some way. A threat is likely to be resolved as the result of a portion of the campaign, rather than its entirety; a single threat can represent one story arc within the campaign. It’s good to start with at least one strong threat, though it’s also good to come up with a few and see which ones your players are most interested in. You can always use the other threats later on, once the initial threat has been resolved.

Possible Threats:

• Orcs have recently been spilling out of the mountains and raiding nearby towns
• Undead have been spotted recently in large numbers, and there are whispers of a necromancer on the rise
• A dragon has recently settled into a nearby cave, and is demanding tribute from the locals

Step Three: Faces
At this point, you’re going to want to come up with NPCs attached to each theme and threat you’ve come up with. These will be the way that the PCs primarily interact with that theme or threat. Note that, in the case of the evil monarch theme or the necromancer threat, the NPC does not have to be the monarch or the necromancer, him/herself (though it can be). It could be the head of a rebel organization who wants to take down the monarch, or it could be a tortured undead victim of the necromancer who only wants to be free to die.

Step Four: Locations and People
Now it’s time to flesh out the world a bit. Come up with some important locations (nine or ten should suffice to start). Major cities, famous dungeons and ruins, castles, haunted forests, other planes; any of these can be a location. The only prerequisite is that it should be something important to the campaign. You’ll also want to attach a theme or threat to the location (an existing one or a brand new one that affects only that location), as well as come up with a face for it.

You’re also going to want to come up with the major players in the world. These can be individuals, but this is also the time when you’ll want to flesh out the common races, and even the races that are uncommon but important. Factions and organizations fall into this step, too. Again, a theme or threat for each one is a good idea, as well as a face.

Step Five: Character Creation
Now that you’ve got the basics of your world fleshed out, it’s time to make characters. These characters should be tied to the world in some way. To that end, I’d suggest the following requirements:

• Your character must be affected by at least one theme or threat directly
• Your character must be tied to at least one location and at least one group of people
• Your character must be tied to at least one other player character

And there you have it. Have fun creating a world together!

The Great Seamus comes back to us, with a fantastic article about how to build your own crazy-awesome looking terrain for D&D. Pictures included.

Make your own D&D Terrain, Made of WIN.

In my ongoing attempts to be everybody’s favorite DM, I found myself looking at the paper 2D maps used for D&D Encounters and feeling woefully inadequate. Things like cover and line of sight don’t mean as much to players or even to the DM in a lot of intense combat situations. For a while I was getting around this by incorporating some of the specialized terrain used in our FNGS Warhammer games. This left me at the mercy of what was available – surprisingly, no rocks, and only a handful of different buildings (most of which are 40K and don’t really fit in to the D&D universe). One of my “rival” DMs began printing his own 2D maps on cardstock with removable magnetic houses and stairs – cool. I felt a twinge of jealousy, since my printer doesn’t even print documents and his prints magnets . . . I WILL NOT BE ONE UPPED. THE BLOOD OF TIGERS RUNS THROUGH MY VEINS.

I set off to make my own terrain (on the cheap, we are in a recession after all). The first thing I needed was a base. Warhammer uses poly-styrene boards as a base, so I was off to Home Depot. I found a large pack of medium thick poly styrene for less than $10, which has enough in there to make enough terrain to encompass at least two whole dungeons if cut properly. Also at Home Depot I found a lot of options for flooring. The nicest looking option is ceramic tile, some of which is already split in 1” squares. This is incredibly costly, and limits creativity in that colors and patterns aren’t as varied as some of the lower budget options. I wound up picking up six pieces of vinyl flooring at $0.45 a sheet. I picked out a nice stone pattern. Also available (completely free!) are numerous smaller samples of most of their patterns, which can also be incredibly useful for smaller rooms or even for elevated terrain. Leaving Home Depot feeling considerably more masculine than I felt walking in, I traded that feeling in by heading to Michael’s for more supplies. I was able to pick up a Styrofoam cutter for less than $10, which allows me to cut and stylize my poly-styrene into any shapes desired. I also picked up some gold beads (large ornate ones and small ones), clear applied / drying Elmer’s glue, and a special gold glitter glue loaded with large flecks of gold, glitter, and metallic colored shapes. Also at Michael’s I got a bag of decorative sand and some small decorative pebbles. Judging myself prepared, I put on “Eye of the Tiger” and spread out my materials to get started.

Wanting to start small, I picked the map used in the final battle for this season of Encounters (SPOILERS), a pretty basic dragon lair – specific enough to be needed, but conventional enough that it could be used and re-used whenever desired. I cut a large piece of Styrofoam and used basic acrylic paint to paint it gray. Taking two pieces of my flooring, I used a sharpie marker to draw 1” lines horizontally and vertically, connecting them with a straight edge to form a grid that covered the whole sheet. From there, I draw the necessary borders of the cave within the grid, just as one would do on a dry-erase battlemat. I then painted all of the unused flooring the same gray color as the foam base, so the only part with the grid was the available terrain. From there, I cut a smaller portion of foam out to serve as a large platform of stone which the dragon’s hoard would rest on. I took a quick hike in the woods outside of my apartment and found five serviceable stones which would serve as boulders – they were then cleaned and painted that same shade of gray, and super glued to the vinyl. Two patches of difficult terrain were manufactured by applying some of the Elmer’s glue to the desired portions in the shapes and sprinkling the decorative sand and pebbles on top of the glue, spreading them out thinly. A small pool of water was made using blue and white paint, which was then covered with the Elmer’s glue, which when dry gives it a shiny and wavy look. To add some finishing details, the gold flecked glue and various gold beads were heaped onto the smaller piece of painted foam. Using a paint brush I spread that glue around over the edge to give it the appearance of spilling off the edge. Finally, I used a larger paint brush to spread Elmer’s glue all over the areas of the cave that were not in use, which were then also covered in the sand and pebbles to give it a rock like appearance. When all the glue as dry, I dry-brushed various shades of gray all over the pebbles and sand wherever they appeared on the map to make them blend in with the natural stonework.

The result is magnificent, and didn’t take all that long or cost that much – compared to, say, Dwarven Forge terrain, or even the requisite sets of WotC Dungeon Tiles.

Before you embark on your own terrain, a few tips from my own idiocy

• Do not use spray-on primer on poly-styrene. It corrodes the foam, smells bad, and scares the wife.
• The same goes for super glue on poly-styrene.
• A rock the size of your fist is scaled to be a boulder the size of a huge or even gargantuan creature. Simple pebbles from your neighbor’s garden will serve as good sized boulders.
• It is very hard to cut through vinyl, especially vinyl with an adhesive backside. There are a number of tools to do it, but it’s much easier to cut your foam to match the size of the tile and simply put in the portions of the tile you don’t need.
• The Styrofoam cutter is HOT. Do not touch the wire when it’s on, and do not leave it on unattended, especially with kids / pets / clumsy dungeon masters in the house. In case of clumsy DM, make sure spouse has hospital on speed dial.
• The foam is light and easy to transport, but it is delicate and can be easily broken. When transporting, do so safely and carry it with both hands on the edges of underneath from the center.

Mbeacom comes back to us with a post about brevity and conciseness in regards to adventure design. It’s a good one; I’ve included some follow-up thoughts at the end.

One of the groups I currently run is taking a short break while I prepare for, and go on, a family vacation.  I had this planned for a while so I was able to make sure the narrative we were engaged in had tied up pretty nicely leading up to the break. There are several dangling strands for future adventure but nothing that is time constrained so as to make the break feel unnatural.  As far as my group of heroes is concerned, they’ve earned a nice chance to kick up their heels and let the locals gush over their hard fought successes.

But where to go next?  As I said, I’ve peppered seeds of adventure here and there but now I need plans for what those seeds may become.  Normally, I like to use published adventures as a framework, at least pulling some villains and motivations from them to lay at the feet of my players. Then letting the players show me what they feel needs attention. If they follow the hooks of the adventure, great, if not, that’s fine too. I like the potential for things to happen that I hadn’t thought of. It makes the story feel more organic and it’s a nice surprise to see where things will lead, rather than having all the spoilers in advance. For some reason though, this group has me a bit stumped. I’m relatively new to the group, having only DM’d them for a few months and not knowing any of them personally prior to the start of the campaign (props to Wizards Encounters program for giving me the opportunity to meet other local gamers).  They’re not a particularly vocal bunch but they definitely love playing the game.

It’s this background that I’ve been mulling over in my mind as I try to decide what tasty challenges to put on the gaming menu.  When I’m in a situation like this, I tend to reach out to the web for inspiration. I try to find an article or story or even a random comment that helps me put things into perspective.  In this case, it was a fantastic writeup by Chris Sims over at Critical Hits.  Chris is a guy I’m really starting to sync up with. His great perspectives and original ideas make him a solid source of inspiration.  Back in February, he wrote this story about game design.  That’s right, about GAME design, RPG design mostly.  However, in reading his thoughts and suggestions, I realized that they’re not exclusively relevant to the design of new games. They’re so fundamental and easily overlooked that they’re useful for almost ANY type of design or creative process.

In my case, I’m going to endeavor to use his tips to help me focus on my adventure design. This brings us to “The Nanopitch”.  Chris describes this as the single sentence one might write in an effort to get their idea in front of a decision maker at a company. What is it about your idea or product that makes it unique? Or, tell us about what your idea means and why it’s worthwhile.

Ideally, you want to couch your nanopitch in terminologies that everyone understands. If you use references to common cultural icons, you can sum up ideas and concepts in a very short bit of text. I think this is not only great advice, but it’s a great way to think about your campaign plans, or even more simply, your story designs. Heck, even a villain could benefit from having a nanopitch.

Whether you’re a player or a DM, think about your game. Can you sum up why it’s great in a sentence or two? Can you make one sentence that encompasses what the story is about? Ok, so maybe campaigns can get more complex than a couple of sentences allow. Even so, I think it’s a great exercise to try to apply the concept of a nanopitch to certain aspects of our adventures. Perhaps each character could have a nanopitch. Perhaps each subplot or quest could benefit from this focused approach.  Just one simple concept of what it means or what motivation drives it forward.  Using this, I think it can help us design encounters, both combat and non-combat. Does the encounter serve the concept? Is it “necessary”? I think if we start to look at things this way, we can avoid some of the oddities of adventure design that tend to creep in. Those things that dilute the awesomeness of the story, or confuse the players as to what is really important.  And as I’ve learned from my experiences of running games, diluted awesomeness and confused players are very often a signal that your adventure design needs to be more focused.

So, as I sit here and ponder what unthinkable evils my players will have to overcome, I’m thinking of them with laserlike focus. I’m designing with greater consistency of theme and purpose.  I hope not to lose that 50,000ft view of the world, even as I dig deep into the wild antics of the skirmisher I plan to use in certain encounters.  I’m resolved to create a “core ethos” and stick to it, letting it guide my design decisions. Hopefully this will help over the long term as transition into Paragon tier. I really want my players to look back and feel like they made a journey, rather than just did “a bunch of stuff”.  Perhaps I should ask my players to make the nanopitch.  That could get really interesting.

This nanopitch idea reminds me a lot of something that exists in the Dresden Files RPG: the high concept aspect. Each player character has seven aspects–descriptive phrases that say something about who and what your character is–one if which is the high concept aspect. This aspect sums your character up in a few words to a sentence, boiling your character down into something short, punchy, and memorable. In fact, all named characters (NPCs included) have a high concept aspect, which helps to keep them differentiated in everybody’s minds. Applying a similar thing to D&D (or to other games) can help you come up with a cleaner, clearer vision of your game world and the cast of characters populating it.

I also want to touch on the idea presented at the very end of this post, the idea of letting your players give you the nanopitch. I love this idea. Again, DFRPG does this to some extent. The first session is City Creation (of which Character Creation is a part), and everyone’s involved. All of the players, in concert with the GM, create the game setting in concert, complete with NPCs, threats, and locations. New things can, of course, be introduced during the game, so the GM is not constrained by what is created in the first session, but it’s a great way to mine your group for ideas, and a great way to get them to tell you what they’re interested in seeing in the game. Chances are, if a player tells you that there’s a mob boss controlling the trafficking of supernatural drugs somewhere in the city, that player probably wants to do something about that problem at some point.

Again, the applications to D&D are intriguing. Setting aside the first session of a new campaign for character creation and setting creation takes a lot of the creative burden off of the DM, and gets the players immediately invested in the world (since they helped make it).

Another post from our friend mbeacom, in which he talks about soliciting player input in your campaigns.

I just read a great article over on Dungeon’s Master and I’d like to use it as a stepping off point for some thoughts and experiences I’ve had on the subject.  In this article Wimwick discusses the subject of player input, and in particular, how much should players have in building the story and even the campaign.

I think he rightly surmises that player input is both vital to the story, as well as incredibly helpful to the DM, a person who often struggles with the endeavor of putting together an intriguing interactive fiction that is hopefully enjoyed by all.  He starts with the tried and true; the player back story. Then he moves on to what I think is just as key to keeping things moving along; the Paragon Path.  Wimwick supports my belief that Paragon Path is more than a few extra class features and attack powers we can expect to get in the mid levels of the game. It’s something we can use to fuel our player progression and set us apart from (or bring us closer to) others in the group in a good way that advances the story while supporting creativity.

So, let’s take those solid building blocks and see if we can pepper in some more juicy bits that might benefit players, DMs, and more importantly, stories moving forward.

The Player Trademark
I play in two alternating groups and DM for two others so I have lots of opportunities to try out different techniques.  One that I’ve been tinkering with, as well as been exposed to, is The Player Trademark.  It’s still in its infancy but I’d like to throw it out there to see if others are having success doing something similar or if it sparks an idea that might improve on it.  I’ve been trying to put together a few little eccentricities (as have some of my players) for the characters I play to give them flavor. After reading posts like Wimwick’s, I think there may be greater potential here.  I can see a possibility where a player Trademark would be a great vehicle for using story to give information to both the DM and the other players in the group.  

An example of this is my Ranger character.  He’s level 7 now and I’m considering the Battlefield Archer Paragon path.  That’s good information for my DM to have for planning adventures and we’ll eventually have the very discussion that Wimwick advocates. However, being the story loving type that I am, I would like to influence the story in more subtle ways as well.  I’m going to try to develop a Trademark that will give the DM even more flavor for developing any portions of narrative that lead to my eventual Paragon Path. Currently, I’ll call what I do a gimmick more than a trademark.  My Ranger has a habit of whispering the name of the enemy he attempts to kill in combat prior to rolling the d20. I’ll probably take this a step further and begin whispering the name to my bow, or perhaps to each arrow specifically, communing with it as an extension of myself. Perhaps I’ll come up with a post-combat ritual to add to this.  Doing this can be an interesting RP exercise as well as giving my DM a peek into what is important to me as a character, i.e. my bow and how I use it to dispatch my enemies.  Knowing this can add the extra oomph to how he plans my trajectory into the Battlefield Archer Paragon Path.  This extra depth allows me to impact the story such that I can help seed the DMs imagination in a way that is in keeping with who I view my character to be.

Player Relationships
Another interesting story seed is player relationships.  This is a pretty common thing to think about. Does the Paladin get frustrated by the Rogue or the Warlock? Does the Dwarf constantly bicker with the Elf in the party? Is the Warlord constantly “over” negotiating NPCs with his intimidate and diplomacy skills?  These are pretty standard tropes insofar as we understand them. However, thinking about this has made me realize there is more potential there for the thoughtful player and DM.  

Others may take this for granted but it struck me recently that these relationships should both be informed by player backstory as well as impact Paragon Path choices.  Our relationships with other PCs, NPCs and even villains, can be a great way to set our characters on certain adventure paths. Do we want our character to be someone who melds easily into society? Do we want them to be someone who struggles to maintain relationships? Do we perhaps antagonize certain types of characters or villains? Do we have things in common with them? How does the way we make these choices, and how we RP them, affect the ideas we have about our Paragon Path choice?  I’m not sure I have all the answer to this one, but I’m certain that with further thought, and potentially some feedback, there is great storyline potential here, especially as we try to link it to our chosen Paragon Path.

Player Weakness
Now this is one that I think has some great potential.  We all spend a lot of time building our characters strengths, powers, and capabilities.  However, inherent in those very designs is weakness.  In many ways, those weaknesses, those “holes” in our character optimization can be just as interesting as our actual abilities. Perhaps you’ve designed your character to be an expert in certain areas. This could very well mean your character is narratively deficient in others. Think about your skills.  What happens when you stack your design to have great scores in certain areas? Naturally, your scores in other opposing specialties will suffer.  This is more than just good game balance. This is a narrative opportunity.  Similarly, those nights where your dice are ice cold can present an opportunity to tell a story that is interesting and different from the nights where they are flaming hot.  This is a story challenge, and even failure can be exciting if you build a story around how it relates to your relationships and even your Paragon Path.  Just like failure needs to be interesting in a skill challenge, so too does failure need to be interesting when it comes to our characters’ abilities and endeavors.

In fact, I’ve recently had discussions regarding one of the games I play in where the DM makes success a bit too easy.  All those potential storylines that revolve around failure, or lifting yourself out of defeat become purely theoretical. Don’t get me wrong, I like to do awesome things as much as anyone (see my most recent guest post) but I also think that the greatest feats of awesome often begin life in the shadows of failure or near-defeat.

Think about your character’s weakness. Perhaps it’s a Barbarian who is weak at ranged combat. Perhaps it’s a Cleric who was built around healing but has little damage potential. Perhaps its a character designed for combat but who suffers in RP situations.  These are all great hooks that can be influenced by backstory and further used to make our Paragon Path choices all the more interesting and potent.

I guess the point I’m trying to get across as it relates to Wimwick’s post is that he’s more right than he realizes.  Backstory is huge. Paragon Path is huge.  So much so, that we need to continue to expand on both as well as what they mean for the future and how they relate to our past.

If you have any thoughts on getting the most out of your backstory and Paragon Path, I’d love to hear about it in the comments.

Frequent commenter mbeacom gives us is first guest post today. Those of you who’ve followed recent comments might know where this post is going, but I encourage you to read it anyway. Mbeacom does a great job explaining his own little house rule, and backs it up with a lot of, well, awesome stuff!

Marcelo Dior wrote a wonderful column last month on speeding up combat in 4E. It took the bold position of questioning whether or not speeding up 4th edition combat is really as vital as internet message boards would have you believe. It really got me thinking, and based on Marcelo’s well reasoned treatment of the subject, I’d wager it did the same for a lot you.

So I asked myself, “Do I need to speed up combat?”. A year ago, you’d have heard me give a resounding, “YES!”. I was still youthful in my experience as a DM in 4E, having spent most of my time running far simpler versions of the game decades ago. I was a strong proponent of gridless combat and theater of the mind. I avowed collaborative storytelling and eschewed what I understood at the time to be a heavily mechanical design shift underpinning all of 4E’s combat. To put it simply, I thought combat took too long. And, embarrassingly, I endeavored to recreate the combat of previous editions in my 4E game.

A year and several gaming groups later, I’ve come to different conclusions. My understanding of the workings of 4E and its “underpinnings” has changed markedly over that timeframe (much thanks to Brian Engard and this great site in helping with this). I’ve seen all sorts of gamers chew on the rules and spit out wildly different results. I’ve learned that not only is beauty in the eye of the beholder but so too is “speedy combat” in the eye of the gaming group. While one group might grind to a halt at the 45 minute mark, another would burst into the second hour full of energy. I started to put things together and came to some conclusions. These conclusions have lead me to make changes to my own games. In this article, I’m thrilled to have the opportunity to share one of them with you.

The most successful initiative I’ve tried over the multiple gaming groups I’ve run 4E for has been what I call, “The AWESOME card”. It was derived as a response to something I noticed happening at every table I ran for and played at in the 4E era. Players would flip through their character sheet scouring over their juicy powers and feats. The funny thing is, they would do this in an almost unspoken effort to find something that wasn’t there. I could see the looks on their faces almost as if to say, “Hmmm, this looks good, but not quite right”, or “Oooh, I like that one but I better save it for later”. To this, I wanted to shout out, “NO! your character sheet doesn’t have the answer!” “Just do something AWESOME!” That’s when it hit me. What SHOULD they do? Did the awesomeness potential of the character begin and end during the process of choosing powers? I certainly hoped that wasn’t the case. So I decided if they couldn’t find that “perfect” power on their character sheet, I’d help them make one up on the fly. And when they did so, I’d reward the effort with a power card of my own, something that says, “You did something creative and entertaining and we all enjoyed it!” I’d give them and “AWESOME! Card”.

Lead By Example

My first step towards insinuating this new “mechanic” into my game was to demonstrate what was possible. As a DM, I started really describing the actions of the enemies. I’d tumble around opportunity attacks and one enemy might leap on the shoulders of another as they both got combat advantage positioning before falling prone in a heap on the floor. My players were initially stumped as as I bent the rules to the breaking point and played up the strengths and weaknesses of the enemies they faced. But it didn’t take long for the craftiest of my players to return the favor. He asked if he could “try” something and my eyes lit up. I was prepared to say yes to my own execution at that point. His idea was great. It was well within the “exception” based rule system of 4E and when he was finished, everyone was impressed. Immediately, they were looking over at his character sheet for something they had missed. We had all visualized an action that was significantly more interesting than “State power, role dice, announce damage”. Don’t get me wrong, sometimes, that’s exactly what needs to be done, but in general, flavoring things up can be a lot more fun.

After he completed his epic turn, I looked to the next person in initiative order and said, “Well, what are YOU going to do?” And to this day, we’ve never looked back. Recently, one of my players informed me, he doesn’t even look at his list of powers anymore, except to try to find some mechanics that make sense for what he wants to do.
I said to him, “GREAT!”

Reinforce The Awesomeness of The Players

Ok, so you’ve shown your players what “awesome” looks like and they’ve even tried it themselves. Isn’t that enough? Sadly, I wish it were so. Unfortunately, with 4E combat being very tactical with powers that make life so easy by telling you essentially what 6 actions are available to a character, it’s easy to fall back into old less-exciting habits. That’s where the AWESOME! Cards come in. Each time one of my players does something really creative, clever, or simply entertaining to the group, I hand him or her an “Awesome” card. It’s essentially just a reformatted homebrew power card that says some funny things and gives a reward. A few examples of the rewards are that perhaps you get to reroll a missed attack, regain a healing surge, recharge an encounter power, or even roll a special giant D30 that I keep around for fun.

These concrete mechanical rewards make the creativity feel that much more awesome. Players feel a sense of achievement more frequently through the course of the combat. This breaks up the work and reward cycle that comes from working hard to achieve a goal. If they work for 1 hour to achieve a goal (defeating the enemy, surviving, escaping), things can get stale because this one singular goal takes a long time to achieve and no single action stands out as making the achievement possible. Then when they finally achieve it, it can feel almost anticlimactic. However, if there are smaller intermediate goals that can be achieved, it removes the sense of slowdown one can get as combat draws toward the hour mark. The bite sized bits of greatness keep things surging forward and keep everyone entertained as each player tries to find some fun thing to do rather than decide which power would be the most effective at that time. The players worry about their characters and what they would actually do, rather calculating the most DPR possible. Now, if you LOVE calculating DPR or dropping mind numbing Novas, that’s great, there’s no “right” way to play D&D. But I’m of the mind that 5 people calculating DPR is generally not going to be as entertaining to watch over an extended period. (although Novas can be pretty amazing) Now, if you want to calculate DPR as well as do amazingly creative things, then I’m all for it. That’s what I would describe as “winning” D&D.

Other benefits

The last thing I’ve noticed since I’ve started using AWESOME! cards with all my groups is that the players’ interaction with the game world seems to be more under their control. What does that mean exactly? To be honest, it’s hard to explain. These awesome cards work much like an Action Point, in that you choose to use it when you feel it would be most beneficial or interesting. This gives the players more agency; more depth in how they can control the game they get to play. And, in the case of the re-roll awesome card, it keeps the dice rolling. Nothing I’ve seen has greater impact than getting that high die roll when you’re really in a crunch. Nothing is more devastating than when you get just the opposite. With a re-roll card in your pocket, you can more frequently experience the best of both worlds. You can fail spectacularly and still have a shot at saving your hide. You have more chances for those elusive crits. In the end, it just gives you that much more reason to do something fun, entertaining, and NOT predetermined by a character generator.

So this brings us back to the initial question posed by Marcelo. DO we need to speed up 4E combat? I think the answer is a resounding . . . not necessarily. Combat really only needs to be sped up if it’s too slow. It’s only too slow if it lasts longer than your players interest and it will mostly likely only last longer than your players interest if something isn’t happening during combat to pique that interest. Well, I’m here to assert that finding ways (one is via in-game rewards) to incent players to entertain themselves and each other through their characters actions. A side benefit of this is that it takes a lot of load off the Dungeon Master as entertainer. It also helps make the game more fun for him or her, as well as everyone at the table. And, isn’t that it’s all about?

I was reading through the Dresden Files RPG, and came across the above phrase. It really made me sit up and think for a second because it’s an idea that I believe a lot of people forget about when they play many RPGs, most notably D&D and its ilk.

Here’s what I mean. Say you’re at the table, playing D&D. You’re fighting a frothing band of orcs, and you’re rearing to go. You take up your sword, and you say, “I activate Cleaving Stance, then I use my move to get over here. Then I’m going to charge this orc.” Notice anything? You’re describing your character’s actions in terms of the game mechanics. This is a clear example of mechanics preceding story, and while it might not be a terrible thing (it does have the advantage of making your actions mechanically clear and precise, and eliminating confusion), it’s not all that exciting.

Now, what if you instead said, “I draw my sword as a run over here to get into position. Then I barrel headlong into this orc, and my blade cleaves through his flesh to lodge into his ally over here.” That’s a little more exciting, a little punchier, and it says the exact same thing. The main difference here is that you’re leading with story rather than mechanics; you’re describing things from your character’s point of view instead of your own. Intent is preceding mechanics.

This is easy enough to do when you know exactly how you want to handle your actions mechanically; you just figure out how to describe what you’re doing narratively and you’re golden. But here’s the awesome thing about leading with story: you can do it even when you don’t know what powers or abilities you want to bring to bear on a given action.

This is a great tool to use when you’re unfamiliar with a character’s specific abilities, or even the game in general, but you have a decent amount of familiarity with the concept of your character (which you should, if you made him). When it comes to your turn, don’t worry about what’s on your character sheet. Think about what your character would do, how he would react, given the situation. Would he move to intercept an orc charging at one of his companions? Try to fry the chieftain with arcane fire? Cry out in defiance and lash out at everyone around? Think about what your character would do, and describe it in terms of narrative. Then, work with your DM to come up with a way to model it mechanically.

As a DM, try to encourage this kind of play. In general, I’m willing to bet you’ll see your players doing interesting things more often, like using the environment and taking improvised actions. Powers are great, but they can be a crutch, too. Most importantly, your characters don’t know what powers they have, or what they’re called. They only know what they would do, or try to do.

Another guest post by The Great Seamus. Today he talks about playing D&D on the cheap by making use of local craft stores. As an aside, Seamus and Marcelo are both contributing pretty regularly to the blog, so I think it’s time I made them honorary members of the Guild. Their posts will no longer be prefaced by “Guest Post” (though they’ll still be in that category, for easy finding of things). I will, however, be including little intros like this on any posts I don’t write myself.

I sometimes feel that the hardest thing to convey to players these days is perspective. In our digital age, simply telling a player that a colossal black dragon is rearing on its hind legs, acid dripping from its maw, eyes glowing a hateful red . . . players today want to see it. I know many “old-school” gamers decry this, saying that back in their day, all they needed was imagination. I say that this is that natural progression of entertainment and technology. PONG doesn’t cut it anymore, and neither (necessarily) does imagination and dice. And while there is no substitute for a healthy imagination, these days there are a number of tools at a player’s and a DM’s disposal to help make the game come alive.

The two biggest aides one can have are maps and minis. Thinking up a character is great, but it is a little more endearing to put down your perfectly crafted mini on the table, geared for war. The same can be said for monsters – that same black dragon is much more impressive set dead center on the map, towering over your players’ minis like some dark god. Minis range from metal to plastic to paper, and obviously the quality varies accordingly. Some DM’s are perfectly happy have a round disc-shaped token on the field – me, I’ll take my dragon. The maps are another key addition. Most modules come with nice paper maps, featuring excellent artwork on a 2D surface. Some companies even make modular dungeon pieces for you to collect and assemble. Of course, this gets very expensive after a while. Dwarven Forge, for example, makes some of the most beautiful modular gaming terrain you will ever see – and for hundreds to even thousands of dollars, you can have it all. That black dragon I described to you can be bought, too – for around $75, straight from Wizards of the Coast. So how does one do all of this on a budget?

I find that craft stores like Hobby Lobby and Michael’s are the perfect place to do gaming on a budget. Michael’s sells and distributes toy figurines from a company called Safari Ltd, which produces both real and fantasy based animals that are in good scale with our friendly neighborhood D&D game. I myself purchased three dragons of equal size to the Wizards black dragon for a fraction of the cost. Do you need a blue dragon? Grab some paint and brushes, too. The best purchase you can make there are plastic tubes filled with miniature versions of their larger animals – perfect for medium and large sized creatures, and also able to be painted to look however you like.

Moving on to maps and terrain, you can also find a myriad of things to help out your game at these stores, too. Numerous stones, shells, and small plants can be purchased for less than $5 and added to your 2D maps to give perspective on cover, blocking terrain, and even difficult terrain. There are even trees and bushes made by those same toy makers that can be added to your map. Do you need castle walls? Get yourself some building model bricks and stack them however you need them. Another good resource would be looking online or at local garage sales and thrift stores for dollhouse furniture or accessories from the now defunct games Heroscape and Mage Knight. These accessories can be resurrected and help breathe life into your game.

Of course, some things you may need to get from the source. You will probably never find a beholder at Michael’s, and those maps need to come from somewhere. Also, if gamers fail to support the company, the company goes out of business and the game suffers an irrevocable loss. Try to balance your purchases. By all means save some money, but remember not to bite the hand that feeds you, as it were and support Wizards and your FNGS as much as you can.

Other links:
Schleich S
Reaper Minis

Skill challenges are an oft-maligned aspect of D&D. In my experience, this is likely because they are often misused. D&D is a very mechanics-heavy game, and very focused on tactical combat. There are a lot of tactical combat options, meaning that combat is, by its nature, mechanically interesting from moment to moment. Skill challenges are a different beast. They’re mechanically much simpler and–lets be truthful here–less interesting mechanically, too. There’s not as much going on from a purely gamist standpoint, and that’s very likely intentional. In my experience, a lot of DMs have a misunderstanding of how skill challenges really should work at the table; this leads to bad experiences with them, which leads to not using them. There are a few relatively easy things you can do, though, to make them interesting again.

Keep it Secret, Keep it Safe
Skill challenges are at their best when they’re invisible. I can’t even count the number of times I’ve been at a game and the DM has said, “Okay, this is a skill challenge. You can use Perception, Nature, and Insight here. What do you want to do?” That’s mistake number one, in my opinion.

See, the players don’t need to know that they’re in a skill challenge. In fact, it’s probably better if they don’t. When you couch it in mechanical terms, everybody looks at their list of skills and tries to find the ones they’re best at. If those skills aren’t relevant to the challenge at hand, those players are just going to sit there and do nothing, or try to aid someone else. That’s pretty boring, as is simply going around the table calling for check after check.

Instead, read the skill challenge beforehand (even if you wrote it), and imagine what it looks like in the world. Imagine how a group of adventurers might face it, and overcome it. Describe it in those terms, in terms of the world and the narrative. Give players some hints as to courses of action that might be useful, but don’t ever mention specific skills. Let them describe for you what they want to do, then tell them what to roll based on their description. If a player says, “I roll Insight”, ask that player what his character is doing. Try to coax the narrative out of your players, and get them thinking in terms of the story rather than the numbers on their sheets.

Go Off-Script
A lot of DMs look at the list of skills provided in a skill challenge, and they get tunnel vision. If a player tries to use a different skill, the DM tries to guide him back to using one of the ones listed in the skill challenge. What a wasted opportunity!

A skill challenge is a basic framework that allows you to adjudicate success or failure in a particular, non-combat encounter, and reward it appropriately. It is not a script that you must adhere to slavishly. Think of the skills on a skill challenge as suggestions more than anything else. If you’re using a pre-written skill challenge, some of the work has been done for you, but you may not need it. Your players are creative, and will likely think of things that the designer never did. That’s a good thing, and you should reward it.

Let me tell you a secret about how I write skill challenges: I don’t! At least, not in the traditional sense. If I’m writing one up for publication somewhere, yeah I’ll do the full writeup. But for my own games, a skill challenge is represented in my notes as a level, a complexity, and then a brief list of possible skills with DCs, sans any descriptive text. I don’t want to decide beforehand what success on a given skill means; I’d much rather let that evolve organically, in reaction to what the players are actually describing.

Make Failure Fun
Or at the very least, make it interesting. Your players are going to fail skill checks from time to time, and they might even fail the whole skill challenge. This is an opportunity for drama, and to throw additional challenges at your players. It’s very tempting, when a player blows a Perception check, to say, “Yeah, you don’t see anything.” Resist that temptation. Describe what the player does see, instead, but be deliberately misleading. Emphasize things that aren’t important, and downplay things that are. Describe things in ways that cause the player to draw the wrong conclusion. In the long run, this will be a lot more fun than a null result.

When considering these tips, consider this, as well: it’s a good idea to rehearse the skill challenge in your head beforehand, probably more than once. Look at it from your players’ perspectives, as well as from the perspectives of any opposition they may be facing. Think of possible outcomes, and come up with cool descriptive elements or awesome turns of phrase that you can pepper your narration with. It’ll pay off big time.