Tag Archives: Advice/Tools

RPGs

Where Is It?

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With AD&D not every table is summarized in an appendix like it is in retro-clones. I don’t have an later D&D rulebooks, so I don’t know about them. For example, there are three tables that are used for player character generation in the DMG, secondary skill, height, and weight. Only two of those are together, the third is back in the NPC generation tables. Combat tables and saving throws are in the same general area in the DMG and on the DM’s Screen, but I lost that part and had to print them off and make my own screen.

In addition to my mostly re-built collection of AD&D books, I have all of the books in PDF from DriveThruRPG. I have printed off the tables that I feel are needed most often, and plan to organize them with cut and paste, not in a word processor, but old school cut and paste, to collect them in a sense that makes sense to me. For example, all of the tables for character generation will be together to avoid page flipping.

The other issue I have is my DM’s Notebook. I organize things by topic, then I still can’t find it when I need it. I pull out the information relevant to the player’s current scenario and put it in a manila folder, or clip it together with a binder clip. Even the few dozen pages that might be get shuffled around going between my map and the monsters/opponents and any helper NPCs. That is the most frustrating part that slows down play.

I have two white plastic folding tables I use, one is a 6′ long 30″ wide table for players, then I put the 5′ serving table on the end to make a ‘T’ and I have an end table and a wooden TV tray on my left, for books and less needed stuff. To the right of the table is a desk in the living room with a short bookshelf next to it. I put my CD player on the bookshelf for incidental music. I sit with my back to my office/computer room. To the right of where I sit is a wall, which is for the closet in my office. I try not to spread out too much, so I can find stuff I need. Part of my struggle is that my sons and I don’t get to play very often, so any system I come up with fades from memory.

No matter how well I plan my organization to smooth out play, the plan never survives actual play. The same goes with planning the sandbox, the players always choose to go somewhere that I have planned the least, or planned so long ago, that I forget what I planned and need to review it.

These are the struggles of every DM/GM. Learning to go with the flow and let the player’s choose among their known options. They always seem to ignore the advice of NPCs, but still manage to find adventure and survive. The main things is that we have fun, and they want to keep playing. At least I have a hook to get them to spend time with me because they want to.

RPGs

Picking a Name for Your Character

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Picking a name for my characters, i.e. that I play when not a GM, seems to be tough. I have come up with a few good ones over the years, some I still remember without having to try to find old character sheets.

I start in a new Google+/Roll20 game tomorrow. We have a main character and a backup to use when the other is in training/unavailable/dead. I have a dwarf fighter and a human ranger. For the dwarf fighter, I used the name of my Lord of The Rings online dwarven champion, Thorfus Ironhand. As an aside, I started playing LOTRO so I could get a D&D feel on my own. It is not the same as D&D, and is far too repetitive. The dungeons, rescues, wars, and quests in D&D may have repetition, but the interaction of players and DM with the chaos of players running around the DM’s sandbox is rarely repetitive, except for some meme that develops among the players and recurring NPCs. There are few things that a single player can do on his own in D&D, unless working on things that below level. D&D is designed for team effort.

Yes, there are lots of random name generators online and I have some of my own, and lists of names. Sometimes, you just want to be creative, but often it is like only the sound of crickets is found….

I’m thinking of Rallan, rhymes with talon. Talon had come to mind, but if memory serves, there is some character in a book, TV series, or something that uses Talon. I don’t want to be accused of copying something I have not read/seen.

Now on to buying equipment and back stories….

Here is a link to an article about a name generator I made.

RPGs

Insolence & Respect

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One of my son’s plays his character as if he is all that, and tries to hit on the daughter/barmaid or a powerful NPC who runs a tavern/inn. The characters know Olo’ (short for Ologran) is powerful, because they have seen him in a fight and other patrons of the tavern talk about him. He is a retired adventurer who got tired of the risks, but likes to help out other adventurers with good equipment and tries to steer them away from the dangers he knows about that green adventurers should avoid. Although the players are free to ignore his advice….

My son acts like his character is important and the rules of social convention don’t apply to him, so I throw it back in his face, and Olo’, charges him exorbitant prices or ignores him.

My son acts this way IRL, and my attempts to show him this is not right via his interactions with NPCs has caught his attention. Raising children is hard, but this is one way I can get through to him without him suspecting that I am trying to get through to him.

I have the wisdom of years and experience to know how to play the NPCs, in the character of the NPC, and not end up with a scene.

What is funny, is that since we play AD&D, there is training before claiming the skills and abilities of the next level. Olo’ trained him for 2nd level fighter and beat on him pretty good for a couple weeks. He made it to third level fighter and got beat on for three more weeks. He quit hitting on Olo’s daughter, but still tries to talk to Olo’ like he is his equal or his better. Olo’ believes in merit and honor, but is not above an tall tale, or embellishments of his exploits. Those who know him, are never quite sure when Olo’ is telling it straight, or stretching the truth, or just making it up.

I find playing with my sons to have a different quality than playing with my siblings and friends. I find that I am teaching them lessons about life, where the game parallels real life.

It is fun playing with my sons, and we still have moments of laughing at the silliness of some situations or things that happen with dice rolls. In our last session, if I made the initiative roll, I couldn’t hit, but if I lost initiative, I tended to hit.

I have read of other dad’d playing RPGs with their kids of different ages and there is a different aspect of teachable moments at different age levels. The youngest kids, it is about understanding the game, and making good choices about equipment, etc. From my experience, the teaching of teenagers and older, comes in the roleplaying and how they choose to have their characters interact with NPCs.

What sorts of teachable moments have you had with your kids, grandkids, nieces & nephews, etc?

RPGs

Trick/Trap Idea

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I had an idea for a combination Trick/Trap.

It is a pit trap that is triggered by the first person to cross it. A combination of flash powder and a shaking thud from a huge stone going into place where the pit was. There is dust in the air and a small pile of dust where the former character stood.

To his companions, it appears that he was disintegrated. It would be funny to see them scoop up the “remains” for a burial or some small hope of resurrecting the deceased. Keep a straight face and go along with what they try to do.

To the character who sprung the trap, he is dropped down a chute and a 10′ x 10′ block goes into the area of the pit behind the character. The character then has to wait for rescue or figure out how to get back to the party.

At your discretion, the character can find a treasure and have an easy time of it, while his companions run into trouble.

Options:

  1. The pit trap re-sets in an hour.
  2. Instead of a pit trap use a teleporter that has a bright flash and dust fills the air and settles on the floor in a pile as dust from the destination trades places with the character. This resets in an hour and only the first character is affected. Be creative about where, how far the character is teleported.
RPGs

100th Post! I leveled up!

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This is my 100th post published on my RPG blog!

This is an exciting milestone.

I feel like a magic user who can cast a new level of spell!

I have to thank the D&D 40th Anniversary Blogging challenge for getting me back on track with my blog.

I find blogging about ideas and fleshing out concepts helps me to clarify and solidify them so that I can present them to players as a better DM.

Reading and commenting on so many other bloggers and G+ pages and Facebook RPG pages adds to the ideas.

I find that it is a banquet where there is so much to try or look at, there is no time to eat.

In other words, I am spending so much time gathering ideas and tables that I am not generating adventures and lists of pre-generated encounters. I like the idea of 3×5 cards with pre-generated encounters of whatever it is I have on my standard encounter tables, so it is ready to go. Don’t write on or destroy those cards. They can be re-used. I think one could have variations on an orc patrol. Have 6 variations of numbers, weapons, leaders and treasure. Roll 1d6 to see which one it is. Use pencil to check it off the players destroy it. For towns and cities and patrols on their frontiers, determine how much of the city guard is set aside for patrols and spec out one or more patrols. Instead of 3×5 cards, one can use a text file or spreadsheet to track the information.

My youngest is here to visit over his spring break and he, big brother, and I are wrapping up our last scenario and onto new things. I wish he was closer so we could do more. We had a lot of fun and hope to squeeze in another session before he has to go back to his mom’s.

RPGs

Tools

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There are two kinds of tools for DMs/GMs and RPGs.

I started old school, so hand written notes and notebooks. They have the advantage of working without power, but are fragile where water and fire are concerned. I have the combat wheel from Dragon Magazine. I photocopied it and pasted it to some cardboard. DM screens, dice bags, book bags, milk crates, boxes, graph paper, hex paper (I still have several sheets of the hex paper TSR put out in the 80s.) battlemats, miniatures, pens, pencils, markers, dry/wet erase markers.

Electronic tools for note keeping, PDFs of rules, graphics programs, mapping tools, random generators, websites of others to glean ideas get maps, CampaignWiki, spreadsheet programs, word processors, genealogy programs, etc. Web-based tools for campaigns, social media for online games, rpg table software   – game table?

I wrote my own dice roller on a TI-99/4A in BASIC. I could specify the number of dice and how many sides. I rolled up 1,000 kobolds, 1,000 orcs, etc.

When I got back into building my campaign, I also used NoteTab to build outlines and clips to help stat NPCs, Kingdoms, cities, etc.

Desktop/Laptop/Tablet/Smartphone

Electronic tools have the advantage of carrying more in a smaller package and if well organized, easier to search. downside – Requires power/long battery life, not easy to let a friend look at your PH while you are consulting the map, or DMG, etc. Not good for playing around a campfire.

I have a Galaxy Tab tablet and I like it for PDFs of my RPG books. I can also convert my notes and other information to PDF and use it. This is really useful for the RPG books I can easily get in PDF, but have not found locally, or turned to eBay. I did buy a second 1e Player’s Handbook on eBay, so my original will last longer.

I have used a GTD Wiki, Campaign Wiki to put together some information on my campaign. I have yet to move it to my Galaxy Tab and see if it will meet my needs.

I have found a dice roller that lets me specify the types of dice. It will be useful to use to roll up stuff over my lunch break at work, so I don’t need to haul along dice and all my manuals and notebooks to work on dungeons, etc.

I recently found three helpful apps, OS RPG Tables, OS Monsters, and OS Spells from Appbrewers. The RPG tables are mostly player related tables and combat tables. Monsters are from all the  books and some OGL creatures, and spells are all the 1e spells and cantrips and can generate random spellbooks or you can create your own spell book. I will do a more in-depth review of these in one or more posts.

There are lots of tables for different situations on blogs, some just on a page/blog article, or others in free PDFs. Some bloggers even have free compilations of all their stuff. One thing I have found, bloggers that might have good ideas, but no search box and no tags, make it hard to find all of their good stuff.

Then there is RPGNow and DriveThruRPG with tons of free and low cost PDFs. I will discuss some of the things I have acquired over the years, in addition to 1st Edition AD&D Manuals.

RPGs

ENCOUNTER TABLES Aren’t Just For Monsters

This is an idea I am putting up so I can flesh it out. Many other RPG bloggers have said the same thing. Variations on the numbers of goblins, orcs, kobolds, ogres, etc. and their appearance and weapons only go so far to be interesting and avoid a slog.

Now throwing monsters into an odd situation, like a group of orcs with some stuck in quicksand, or kobolds climbing up or down a sheer cliff, can add some interesting spice to an encounter. Do the orcs help their comrades, do they stay and fight, or run away? Why are the kobolds climbing a sheer cliff? Did they find a cave with treasure, or are they fleeing something big and bad?

Encounter Tables don’t have to be just monsters. They can be natural phenomena, landscape features, special locations, etc.

If not an encounter table or tables, these things need to be kept in mind for wilderness, dungeon/underground, and town adventures.

Phenomena/Things/Locations

Pits/Traps/Deadfalls -> Monster or Fen or Special

Quicksand/Muck & Mire/etc.

Crevasse/Cliff/Landslide/Avalanche

Tangle of Vines/Dense Foliage

Patrols/Special/etc.

RPGs

Megadungeons Gone Wild

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Megadungeons are something that interest me. As a player I may have played in a megadungeon, but did not know it.

I have read lot of articles and gather lots of notes.

As I think about my own campaign, that I touched on yesterday, and its ten great ancient cities with teleport chambers, I realize that the sewers and tunnels and caverns under each one is its own megadungeon, but each is connected to the other by the teleport chambers. The chambers have a mechanism to specify which destination, so players could end up on the far end of the empire, or on one of the islands they settled across the sea.

Obviously, I don’t want or need to map out all of this that would never be played, but the various megadungeon tables on different sites to help populate them would come in handy if players managed to jump from one ancient city to another.

I think that general areas of the city would be a natural for certain kinds of buildings, structures, events, and encounters. For example, the cemetery/necropolis would have plenty of undead from the time of chaos when the empire collapsed and troops were needed quickly to deal with the dead and defend the city. The nice people fled and the bad guys have set up shop. There would be a near limitless supply of skeletons and zombies. A high magic society would tend to have magical constructs like golems and homonculi. Perhaps trapped demons or elementals. Magic mouths to give directions around the city.

There would be places where treasure in the form of coins might be more likely, and treasure in the form of ancient weapons and other items that might not be magical, but a sage might pay for them. A collector of ancient relics might like a statue or a tapestry. There is more to treasure than just coin and magic.

If there were a zoological garden, would there be small groups of wild animals about the city? A pride or two of lions that fed off the goblins and orcs running around. Other types of creatures attracted by the niche they could fill in such a place.

Whether a city or dungeon, thinking in terms of areas and what was there originally and what is there now will help group what adventurers might find or encounter there.

An ancient cistern overgrown with vines would be a 30 foot or deeper pit, a deadly fall, unless it still held water, then it could still be a deadly fall. Ancient barrows of the early kings could be infested with wights, or other grave loving creatures. Different parts of an abandoned city could be controlled by different factions. Pirates could use the docks to trade goods to orcs or evil humans in the employ of a wizard seeking some powerful device he read about in an ancient tome. Intelligent monsters might control another area, perhaps a dragon of an appropriate size has claimed the ancient treasury. There could be turf wars by the various factions trying to control the city. There could be a big bad trying to consolidate his power and is working to sway other factions to his will and destroy those who don’t come along. Players getting in the midst of such a turf war could be in for a wild ride.

Lots of ideas present themselves, palace, barracks, temples and shrines, colleges of magic, palaces of nobles and the rich, merchants of all kinds, the old bazaar, docks, an abandoned thieve’s guild tower, homes of the populace.

Would each city be built on a similar plan, or would each be unique?

I like to think or areas or pigeon holes for parts of large areas, like a city. All you really need for a map is the rough distance from one “quarter” or section of the city and how long it will take. I just borrow maps for cities online for my use. Of course, to publish my own, if that were every to happen, would take new maps and a LOT more detail for others to be able to use it. There is a HUGE difference between enough notes for a DM to run a session, and enough description for someone new to the campaign to run it. For making your own cities or megadungeons, you just need enough information to keep play moving. You may even have to have some tables for quick random generation of buildings, their condition, and contents.

There needs to be something to break up the sameness. As I wrote this, I recalled a scenario when I GM’d Gamma World and the players found a high rise hotel and in every room were skeletons of people in sexual positions as they obviously were going to do it one last time before the end of the world. Ah the mind of an adolescent teenage boy. After a while I ran out of scenarios for number of people and positions. It was all on the fly. I did not do enough preparation to have more variety. The other guys laughed at what I came up with, so we had fun, but it had an aura of sameness to it. A list of some sort for  100 houses, 100 merchant shops, etc. like many other lists of 100 other bloggers have come up with can go a long way. If you have the spare coin to buy a PDF of a city, you can save Googling for lists, or making up your own.

I would suggest making a list of the different types of things you expect to find in a city, wells, cisterns, fountains, houses, shrines, temples, tombs, etc. and make a list of 100 of them. Use a spreadsheet like Open Office or Libre Office Calc and have a column for a present day, in-use item/building/object and a second column for what it is like in a ruined city or town. You can make your lists as detailed as you need to make it useful for working down the list or picking at random. For a more complex choice and variety, you could have columns for different descriptors to use when applying to the object or building. Obviously, more substantial buildings like temples, palaces, forts, and wizard towers would need more preparation, especially if there is anything there to find or find you. Again, there are lots of maps and free modules describing these very things.

Building your own lists has the power of giving it your own flavor. You don’t have to come up with everything from scratch, you can mix and match ideas and lists from others you find online or in your rulebooks. There is a lot you can do if you are a cash-strapped teen or an adult with other things you need your money for, like bills and trying to save for retirement. Or if you have a few dollars to spend there are a lot of good resources available on DriveThru RPG or RPGNow in the $5 or less range. The D30 DM Companion and the D30 Sandbox Companion are two great resources for the time strapped DM and give lots of ideas for how to organize one’s own tables.

I really appreciate all the other DMs and players who share all their ideas online and so much of it is free. Thank you all, fellow gamers!

RPGs

Resources and Their Source

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I have a BA (Bachelor of Arts) degree in History. I like the ancient and medieval period, Meopatamia, Egypt, Greece, Rome, etc. I like following different websites and one of those is the archaeology page on about.com.

Last week they had an article about Roman aqueducts.

That article got me to thinking about other types of construction, like Roman roads, buildings, city walls, etc. I have ancient cities that I will need to plan at some point in my campaign. Large cities need things like water and food, which mean ancient wells, cisterns, canals, irrigation, aqueducts, etc. and ancient fields and farms. Farms for simplicity sake would include cropland, grazing land for herds, fishing banks along the coast or a lake or river.

Huge stone structures require quarries for the source material. Abandoned quarries and still used quarries would be places an adventure might turn. Granite, marble, sandstone, etc.

Large building project of wood, whether a temple, fort, fleet of ships, or housing for the masses will require access to a large amount of forest. Were ancient forests depleted, are they restored to their former bounds after a thousand years? Stone building projects usually rely on wood for bracing and scaffolding. Without fast growing wood or woody plants, like bamboo, a large city would quickly deforest a huge area. How do sylvan creatures, elves, and druids react to this?

Metals require mines for coinage, armor, weapons, tools, etc. Copper, silver, tin, gold, platinum, iron, mithril, adamantite, etc. FYI – Copper and tin make bronze, copper and zinc make brass. The working of metals will require either large forests to supply wood for making charcoal, or coal mines for coal.

The above mentioned herds for food would also supply the leather for armor, belts, pouches, saddles, etc. Exotic herds could be culled for exotic leather items.

Other types of materials used in civilization are bricks, from simple mud dried bricks of earth, straw, and water, to fired bricks of clay. Again back to using wood for charcoal or mining coal to handle a large number of brick buildings and walls.

Glass is not a necessity, but does require sand and other ingredients, plus wood for charcoal or coal from coal mines to fire it.

Add to that the bakers in a huge city and all their ovens for bread.

One does not need to stat out or write up every little detail of an ancient city. However, keep these things in mind when there is a city or town adventure in a living town or the remains of such things in and ancient ruin of a town or city. For example, the fountains of Rome were the pressure release for the aqueduct system and were the source of fresh water for those who could not afford to have water piped to their homes. Will there be ancient fountains that are silted in, but contain coins from wishes? Or fountains filled with rainwater, but stagnant and smelly, but also have coins, or a monster and coins?

Roads are needed to connect cities and towns, to tie an ancient empire together. Roads, walls, and buildings can all be constructed using mud to rock, for sandstone; or wall of stone, for granite. Yes, they can be dispelled, but in AD&D you have to be a high enough level to do it. If an ancient empire was magic rich and had lots of high-level friendly wizards making buildings, it would explain a lack of or fewer quarries than is otherwise needed. Was a temple devoted to creating food for the masses, and the cities thus needed fewer farms and herds? I can see a very lawful civilization doing such things. Would there be ancient magical fountains that never ran out of water? Magic bread ovens that never ran out of bread?

What problems and challenges of modern civilization would a high magic society be able to solve using magic as their technology?

  • Sanitation: Sewers send it all to a pit of a permanent disintegration to avoid stink and disease. Or if they didn’t have that level of magic available, would use carrion crawlers and otyughs.
  • Construction/Infrastructure: Magic to assist with building roads, walls, forts, castles, etc.
  • Ships and wooden construction: Cooperation and trade with sylvan creatures, elves, or druids would provide all the needed wood while preserving the bounds of the forests.
  • Food and Water: Can be created magically, as suggested above.
  • Communication: Crystal balls, palantirs, mirrors, or other devices could facilitate communication between an emperor/king and his governors, nobles, and generals.
  • Travel:  Magically created roads for the less well to do and caravans. Teleportation rooms/chambers/stations for travel between cities, or across cities, or to neighboring kingdoms.
  • Trade: By the use of superior and coordinated magic in the running of an empire, it could simplify trade due to superior communication and travel capabilities.
  • Health: Sanitation as described above. Health care by clerics of temples.
  • Education: There would be great centers of learning, colleges and universities for the study of magic for the benefit of all. Great temples and seminaries for the study of divine magic.
  • Light: Donations to temples or commerce with wizards would mean everyone has a bulls eye lantern with continual light. Streetlights would have continual light. There would be less need for candles and lamp oil, other than for the poor or ritual use.

A strongly lawful society learning to good with a high level of magic would have a tendency to have these things. War would be far off and the orcs and goblins would be far away, just a story to most people. But if something happened like a strange disease that spread rapidly via the teleport system faster than it could be cured, chaos would ensue. The chaos caused could bring down the whole system. Wizards who survive try to keep things going and end up fighting for turf, thus accelerating the collapse. Troops are needed to keep order, generals who are lawful, but not good would be tempted to pay orcs and goblins to help fill their depleted ranks. Soon wizards are mistrusted and on the run. Civilization as we know it is gone, cities are abandoned as the masses flea disease and civil war. All the neat things that the ancients knew are mostly lost to the knowledge of all but a few after a thousand years. This is the scenario of my campaign. The players don’t know or need to know any of this, just that centuries ago, there was a lot of magic and many wonderful things that a brave and successful adventurer can find.

In a way, my campaign is a “post apocalyptic” world, but there is no radiation and mutants. Although there might be strange creatures brought about by ancient wizards and their experiments. There are powerful ancient artifacts and devices that require study to use without destroying one’s self.

RPGs

City Districts Posted on G+ World Building Community

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I posted this comment and question about names for districts/quarters in towns and cities on the G+ World Building Community.

I am working on ideas for different districts/quarters for towns and cities in a fantasy (D&D) setting.

I have come up with a few from memory and my own ideas:
– Temple quarter
– Wizard quarter
– Royal & Noble quarter
– Government/Bureaucracy quarter
– Merchant’s quarter
– Non-human quarter (for areas where they don’t just mingle right in)
– Rich/Poor
– Docks/Wharves/Shipyards
– Thieve’s quarter

I then turned to Google, and Jerusalem and it’s four quarters, based on religion, tends to predominate the results. I found that old cities often had 3 to 5 quarters, Paris has 18 districts. Usually, there is the old town/city which may or may not be a citadel/acropolis/medina.

So a lot of them also have government quarters, lower/upper town, old town/city, and royal quarter.

I am curious what sorts of Districts/Areas/Quarters/Divisions of town and cities do you have/use?

I have one large ancient abandoned city that I am working on ideas to help with dealing with the players running around it. I have a general idea of what is where, and then am adding my own ideas to some city tables I have found on various blogs to generate some things ahead of time, but also to have on hand for on the fly generation as needed.

It is tricky to avoid every other house/building being the same without some options to help mix it up.

NOTE: I see developing large ancient cities whether active or ruins as related to megadungeons, and it may just be the above ground level of a megadungeon.