“What’s My Motivation?” is a regular column that uses a variety of methods found in the disciplines of acting, writing, and improvisation to help Dungeon Masters create compelling NPC’s and further flesh out their campaigns.  Last time we looked at how the official alignment system can assist with roleplaying.

This week’s installment will look at how building relationships between characters and NPC’s leads to stronger characterization on both sides of the screen, greater depth to your campaign, and thus enriching the overall roleplaying experience.

One of the reasons I enjoy Game of Thrones is because George R. R. Martin is so good at writing human relationships in all of their glory and depravity. The characters, while fictitious, seem compellingly real because they respond to each other as real people would.

I have come to realize that most player characters are created somewhat detached from deep relationships. Orphans and widowers are just two examples of stock backstories that many players and DM’s rely upon when creating characters. My hypothesis is these particular backstories easily explain why a character is willing to possibly traipse around the world (or even the planes), delve dungeons dark and deep, and otherwise put their life at grave risk adventuring. Personally as a father of three I would find it hard to leave my family in the face of a national or global crisis – so I might be uncomfortable with my character having similar ties to the characters of the campaign world. But I have experienced a few characters leaving the exciting life of adventuring due to in-campaign relationships: the first that comes to mind was a half-orc barbarian who left the group to protect a love interest. While it “split the party” it was a genuine and authentic choice for that character. It then lead to the PC evolving to an NPC who could still interact with his former comrades.

I suggest that even if you play an orphan or widower that your character needs to have strong relationships. I once ran a virtually orphaned half-elf cantor (bard) of the goddess of death who was completely disconnected from her biological family because neither parent would accept her. But she was so connected with the dead that she sang threnodies and laments in her sleep. In hindsight it would have made for even better development to have her consciously speak and relate with a variety of particular spirits. She also was a surrogate aunt for her neighbor and her brood of children. This allowed the DM to heighten the tension throughout the campaign as a threat to the city was a threat to those souls she cared for deeply (both the living and the dead.

Every character is connected in some way to every other character and the stronger the relationship the stronger the emotional response. Sure peasants across the world from each other have very little in common experience and even less in terms of personal interaction but global threats are global threats. In terms of the microcosmic, that is the world surrounding your campaign, it is important to have strong relationships between characters.

Family is the first source of relationship. What is the character’s place in the birth order? Are the other family members living or dead, proud or disapproving, heroic or villainous? What about extended family? Is it large or small, influential or vulnerable?

Family relationships

1. mother/ father
2. brother/sister
3. husband/wife
4. son/daughter
5. aunt/uncle
6. niece/nephew
7. grandfather/grandmother
8. cousin
9. godparent
10. in-law
11. adopted
12. surrogate
13. step (step-sister, step father, etc.)
14. half (half-brother, half-cousin, etc.)
15. bastard
16. first
17. second
18. third
19. ex-
20. great-

Friends and neighbors are also good places to start. At the creation of every PC I offer that the player and DM create at least two NPC’s in particular, one positive the other negative. This allows the DM to use the NPC’s as appropriate for any given situation, already knowing that there should be a strong emotional response from the PC. When a party is being formed for the first time it might even make for stronger ties to the group if some of these relationships are shared or even found between the party members. Playing siblings, neighborhood friends (or enemies) can lead to some great character dynamics and hopefully better roleplaying.

Friend/neighbor/other relationship roles

1. next door neighbor
2. teacher/tutor
3. customer
4. patron
5. barkeep
6. servant
7. slave
8. owner
9. priest/priestess
10. merchant
11. counselor
12. student
13. confidant
14. rival
15. bully
16. support
17. nemesis
18. lover
19. leader
20. subordinate

Other relationship roles: , etc.

But as in real life relationships change. Perhaps a curse, spell, or a natural 1 on a diplomacy roll leads to broken ties with an NPC. Death also severely changes relationships. Perhaps a cleric cuts ties with their deity out of an experience of loss or a loved one becomes distrusting of a resurrected character. As a DM, you have ultimate control of the NPC’s and so you can determine their fate or how they would respond to particular events or stimuli. Perhaps the PC now sees it as her goal to avenge the death or heal the relationship; or perhaps the NPC becomes a nemesis or foil to the PC. This gives you a small amount of emotional control over the PC’s but only use a drastic change in relationship if it serves the story. In other words, do not kill an NPC or make a friend an enemy unless it serves to further the story and entertains the players.

Be cautious of not overusing this story tool or you slip into what I like to call the “Daredevil Effect.” As a comic book fan I must admit that I am a fan of the Daredevil character. But in recent years they took every single meaningful relationship away from him and as soon as he hit his third rock bottom they collapsed the ceiling. After a while it just was not entertaining anymore.
Lastly, new relationships spring up all the time. As the PC’s interact with the NPC’s in their world they do not have to become deeply involved with every single one. But take note of particularly striking interactions like natural 1’s and 20’s in performances, haggling, bragging and other skills; or when a PC giving a street urchin a gold piece. These may lead to a future patron, spouse, cohort, or nemesis.

If there are any other roles you think would be the list, please add them to the comments below.

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“What’s My Motivation?” is intended to be a regular column that uses a variety of methods found in the disciplines of acting, writing, and improvisation to help Dungeon Masters create compelling NPC’s and further flesh out their campaigns.

This week’s installment will look at how the standard alignment system, which many times is derided as a hindrance to roleplaying can actually be a boon, especially for the DM without much time on her hands.

Law or Chaos, Good or Evil? And what in the Nine Hells does Neutral actually mean? In terms of characterization I like to replace these particular terms with synonyms or at the very least related terms so that I can better imagine how a particular character will act on the fly.

For example, Lawful Good might be better understood as “Honorable Selfless”, which might roleplay differently than “Legalistic Benefactor”. In the first case I imagine an honorable character who is willing to sacrifice his own life even though he comes from a place of poverty. The second character I imagine is a noblewoman who follows the letter of the law and is quite generous with her wealth. Both of these characters are expressions of the Lawful Good alignment but lead to two completely different characters. Chaotic Evil might be better understood as “Bloodthirsty Selfish” or “Schizophrenic Sadist”. Those sound like some seriously unnerving NPC’s (and even creepier PC’s). Whether I’m using a pre-generated NPC or if I’m rolling up an NPC from a table I have a lot of other information at my disposal to fill in any cracks.

The following list, using Thesaurus.com, offers a number of synonyms and related terms that can help with this style of quick characterization. If you’re looking for some randomization, use a d12.

Lawful

1. authoritative
2. calm
3. collected
4. canonical
5. commissioned
6. judicial
7. official
8. organized
9. orthodox
10. proper
11. rightful
12. tyrannical

Chaotic

1. bloodthirsty
2. deranged
3. disordered
4. disorganized
5. free-spirited
6. lawless
7. non-traditional
8. purposeless
9. rampageous
10. riotous
11. tumultuous
12. uncontrolled

Good

1. altruistic
2. approving
3. beneficent
4. benevolent
5. decent
6. humanitarian
7. kindhearted
8. merciful
9. philanthropic
10. tolerant
11. upright
12. virtuous

Evil

1. base
2. corrupt
3. depraved
4. mean
5. obscene
6. pernicious
7. repulsive
8. selfish
9. sinful
10. spiteful
11. vicious
12. vile

Neutral

1. aloof
2. balanced
3. disinterested
4. dispassionate
5. evenhanded
6. fair-minded
7. impartial
8. impassive
9. nonaligned
10. noncommittal
11. unbiased
12. undecided

I find that this technique helps me with the extreme alignments in particular (lawful/chaotic or good/evil) but how does one play “neutral”? I find “personality neutrality” a lot harder to define so I need to ask myself, why? “Why is the character neutral?” leads me towards a sense of the character’s background. But what typically leads me to a much more interesting character history is the question, “when is the character not neutral?” This usually leads to all sorts of interesting character quirks.

For example, in my current Pathfinder campaign I play a Lawful Neutral dwarf bladebound magus. In place of the Lawful I have imagined him as Honorable and Traditional. This has lead him to argue with the party when they tried to sneak up on a party of sleeping kobolds or rebuked a fellow companion who uses circuitous logic to justify a shady course of action. But the neutrality is harder for me to pin down. So I tried to imagine him as Balanced. This seemed to be to be just as hard to wrap my mind around. I began to ask myself what would lead him toward good or what would lead him toward evil. I came up with the following: when he encounters innocence he leans toward good and wishes to protect it and nurture it. When he encounters lying and dishonor, especially towards himself, he becomes extremely irate to the point of spitefulness. This then lead me to envision him as being a victim of some grave lie. Sharing some of this information with the other members of my gaming group lead to another player creating the half-brother of my dwarf magus who joined the party to atone for the grievous dishonor and we have some real fertile ground for roleplaying. And honestly, some of the best roleplaying I’ve been a part of for quite some time.

And that’s my motivation.

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Greetings! I have finally returned for another edition of One Die Short.  The ODS site fell apart, and so I had to rebuild it, but it’s back and better than ever, and so am I.  This week I want to talk about the little things in D&D:

In the above page from ODS, there are a few things I want to point out about the Half-Orc character, Matilda.  She has a necklace, earrings and tattoos.  These are supposedly inconsequential to gaming, and are little more than extra fluff to add some depth to a character.  Those of us that like well-rounded and interesting characters never forget to leave out the details, but for a lot of people, these things get lost.

I don’t know if it’s generational, or a result of the ever-evolving rule system, but I know when I used to play AD&D back in the day, these little details were essential.  I remember spending hours on my character sketch until is was just right.  And then of course, being the artistically inclined one in the group, I was forced to draw everyone else’s character.  I’ve spoken with other DMs that have expressed similar complaints recently, so why do these little things seem to fading away, and what can we do about it?

Some players love roleplaying and character development, and others just want to get in there, kill some things, and level up.  It’s the latter players that tend to gloss over the more roleplaying heavy elements of the game, and it’s these players that often couldn’t care less about what color their tunic is, or whether or not their character likes to wear jewelry.  If a piece of clothing or item isn’t magical, it isn’t worth their time to think about.

Personally, I love RPGs because I love ROLE-playing.  Character development is important to me, not just for my own characters and NPCs but for my players PCs as well.  I want to know their character’s motivations, likes and dislikes, and the location of ever freckle on their body (okay, even I’m not that bad).  I want interesting PCs in my game – not just PCs optimized for dice rolling – and the solution I’ve come up with works well for me and for my more stats focused players.  But best of all, it’s already built into the rule system.

Returning to the above page from ODS, let’s look at the necklace.  Is it magical?  No.  Is it an important plot piece?  No.  It’s just there.  One of my current players has a similar necklace that he has slowly been fashioning out of the bones of his enemies.  I enjoy this, because it’s good roleplaying, and I like to reward players for good roleplaying.  So, all I do is offer various circumstance bonuses, which become equipment bonuses, as they are usually a permanent effect.  I say usually because even a bonus from an object might not apply to every situation.  For example, a necklace with gnome skulls dangling from it is pretty scary, so I might grant +1 or +2 Intimidation bonus, unless you’re trying to intimidate a Hill Giant.  A lot of us are used to granting circumstance bonuses, but most of the DMs I know tend to focus more on combat bonuses than anything else, and sometimes they get overlooked completely.

Here are some other bonuses I like to give:

• Diplomacy bonuses for dressing fancy
• Charisma bonuses for being well bathed and smelling nice
• Intimidation and/or Charisma bonuses for having awesome tattoos

There are a great many possibilities, so be creative with it.  I think the circumstance bonus is one of the most overlooked tools of good DMing, and one we can use to add more depth to our game and our players.  Sometimes a little bribery can go a long way, and really, what’s a +1 bonus every now and then if it keeps the DM and the players happy?  Sometimes we get so wrapped up in game “balance” that we start forgetting to have fun.

Thanks for reading, and please be sure to check out the rest of One Die Short, as well as my personal opinion/advice blog, Ask the Dungeon Master, all about Life, the Universe, and Roleplaying.

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Hi there.  I’m Steve G., aka MythicParty.  You might remember me from such posts as The 1 Thing You Should NEVER Ask Your Players, d10 Things You Must Do Between Campaigns, Console Cleric #1, &  Console Cleric #2.  (Yes, we did another one)  I seemed to get a lot of discussion on Thoughts from a New Year, New Campaign: Have a Homogeneous Party, which would spawn a spin-off about gaming Bucket Lists.

If you like the Question Keith column, that was something I helped setup.  Ditto for getting Logan Bonner over here for his Top Ten lists.  The images of Expy?  Also from me through my character portrait service.  I came on board here at DMing right after we had an infamous piece, Keeping Players Alive With a Magic Fox, which- and I wish I was making this up- various bodily activities of this house-made forest creature would cause healing or other effects.  I’ll leave what the ‘Golden Deuce’ did up to your imagination (where it doesn’t even belong there).  Suffice to say that this the point where DungeonMastering jumped the proverbial bulette.  Comments ranged from “I can see this gimmick getting old really quick” to “I’m posting here to tell you that I’m unsubscribing.” So I joined to help the site Level Up.  And I think we’ve done that overall, but we know we still have to do better.

We truly need your help with 2 very important things to make stuff run more smoothly around here.

The 1st is that in 2008 DungeonMastering.com won the Gold ENnie (the Oscars of gaming) for Best Fan Product, thanks to the voting of its fanbase.  Our red dragon mascot Expy even got to take a bow.  While we remain a long ways from those glory days, we’re going to start on the quest to regain that spot.  I need to hear from our readersship which of our posts between May 1, 2011 and April 30, 2012 should be sent in for ENnie consideration by their judges.  Please, PLEASE help us pick.  Just post in the comments which article you liked the most & why.  The one with the most impromptu votes will be sent on for judgement, & then, our master Orcus willing, a chance to be voted on.

The 2nd  is an ongoing thing that is pretty straightforward. We simply need more comments.  Comments are the feedback that is crucial to letting us know how we’re doing.  It was comments that encouraged Darkwarren to share his Bucket List & a lone comment on the 1st Console Cleric that encouraged its sequel, keeping the column alive.  So please- if you take the time to read what we’re doing, take an extra minute to tell us how we’re doing.  That’s the only way we’re going to know what to keep on writing & more importantly, what to not write.  Well, other than magically-shitting foxes.  Think we learned our lesson on that one.

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After a previous DM’ing article and the first commenter asked for more bucket list stuff I thought I would write an article regarding d10 RPG Bucket List items.  Here are mine.
1. Play a party that is the same race
We already have an article regarding this particular type of campaign.  But in order to summarize: imagine the awesomeness of a party that consists of only Halflings, Elves, Dwarves, etc.

2. Play a party that is the same class
Of course the most famous example of this is how Wizards of the Coast got its name, a party of all wizards who traveled Faerun’s Sword Coast… but in all actuality this has some amazing potential.
In almost every campaign there are organizations that cater to one specific class. I’m thinking guilds, colleges, churches, and the like. Perhaps your party wishes to be a new thieve’s guild and find an urban campign and all the political intrigue a welcome challenge. Or perhaps an ecumenical council made up of a variety of clerics wishing to stop a greater threat.
Multi-classing would most likely happen in such a party in order to grant greater utility. Perhaps one thief is also a cleric of the god of thievery or a cleric of the god of magic is also learned in arcane spellcraft.

3. Play characters that cross a variety of genres
This would be one of the most challenging campaigns, in my opinion. But with OGL systems and a variety of cross-genre rules sets it is not out of the realm of possibilities. If you would like to switch rules systems mid-campaign you are more than welcome to go for it but it may be more trouble than it’s worth.
How the genres are crossed is a decision that is both complicated and exhilarating. This could mean a straight genre mash-up like Cowboys vs. Aliens or an Aboriginal zombie apocalypse. Or is this expressed simply as planar travel? Time travel?
Or perhaps a TPK is actually the way the party moves on to the next world or genre (a’la  Stephen King’s Dark Tower series).This particular type of campaign now offers unique roleplaying opportunities. Do the characters remember everything from the past world/genre? How does a modern cop learn to use a crossbow? Or are only certain parts of the character kept whole from leap to leap (motivation, alignment, skills but not feats, etc.)
This may even allow for a DM switch without losing campaign continuity. For example, when the characters leave the aboriginal zombie apocalypse perhaps they are now transported into the Wild West. The old DM can step down and a player can become the next DM. An NPC can become a PC and vice versa.

4. Play a completely low magic campaign
This is usually called low fantasy, as magic is a staple in the fantastical stories that inspire such gaming. The standard D&D experience is one that relies on magic in the form of spells, weapons, armor, etc. It is written into the rules and so all sorts of game balance issues take it into account.  But if the characters intentionally don’t have access to magic (such as in the Bad-Guys-Won Midnight setting) then everything is different.  Now combat is quite dangerous because with no ability to heal or raise from the dead, characters need to rely more on stealth, diplomacy, and possibly even tactical retreats in order to survive in the long term. But this does not take the magical completely out. There can still be dragons and fey, but the party itself has little to no access to magic, thus making the characters take center stage and not the spells and items they wield.

5. Play a historical campaign
From “low fantasy” to “no fantasy” this is the rpg version of historical fiction. This of course is the inspiration for any number of historical war games, but in an RPG it allows you to get personal and really delve into the character motivations in any number of historical periods. Pick a historical period or an event and use it as inspiration. With so much history at our disposal from a variety of human cultures I believe there are limitless options even in a no-fantasy setting.

6. Play a complete sandbox campaign
The end of the railroad line, you’re in sandbox country now. Relying on nothing but random tables, this campaign truly offers the original D&D experience. Paizo’s Kingmaker is a good hybrid of the “railroad” and “sandbox” campaigns, offering major plotlines and quests but also having a good balance of random elements that require the use of encounter tables. But to go completely of the rails so to speak is a unique challenge that only the most stalwart and traditional of gamers still try to accomplish.
This doesn’t mean that your 1st level PC’s cannot ever truly experience a great wyrm red dragon should the DM roll that, just having it fly overhead can cause all sorts of roleplaying opportunities as they all dive for cover, tremble in fear, swear an oath to slay it or make a personal note of where it goes in order to steal its treasure at a later date.

7. Play villains
Many times we gamers prefer heroics. Or at the very least, anti-heroics (we all know Han shot first). All of our favorite stories ultimately are about good triumphing over evil. But sometimes it can be cathartic to break out of that mold. It is important to note that a master villain is typically played solo (with minions) because at the heart of evil is ego and selfishness. This means that a party of villains might end up stabbing each other in the back and this may not be so much fun (except for the last player standing).
To make it more compatible with the cooperative gaming experience that is group roleplaying, you could possibly use one of the previous homogenous campaigns in order to lend the party a greater sense of unity and purpose. That party of thieves, or hobgoblins, or hobgoblin thieves might offer some unique roleplaying opportunities. Can evil act with honor? Can evil act as a team? If a villain has a change of heart does she become an NPC?
But the players need to decide how dastardly they are willing to play. Graphic descriptions of evil acts may turn the stomach of many a player. To lay waste, rape, and pillage is all well and good when its kept to that simple list and the story moves on. But as a father of three I would be uncomfortable with other players describing, in graphic detail, certain evil deeds, for example those involving children. Does it happen in the real world? Sadly yes, but that might be a little too dark for some players.

8. Play epic
Start with epic level powers. Some campaigns never get to this power level. Why not start a campaign with the ability to bend reality? Many campaigns have “the end of the world” as an overarching threat. Now it actually makes sense as your characters, instead of being nameless peasants looking to make a name for themselves are already global power brokers. In fact, it might be cool to have your characters act as gods. They each take a particular role or portfolio, come up with their own personality, throw in some intrigue between the various powers and soon you have the beginnings of a new world for your next campaign. Let there be game.

9. Play with a celebrity
There are two distinct categories to this particular gamer bucket list item. The first is to play with a celebrity that other people outside the gaming world would recognize. For example, we have all heard that somefilm and television stars are known for playing games such as D&D. Heck, Vin Diesel even wrote the forward for the D&D 30th anniversary coffee table book.  The second, and let’s face it more likely scenario, is to play with a gaming industry celebrity. Not many of us can work at Wizards of the Coast or Paizo and work with some of our favorite game designers. Even less of us grew up as friends of Ed Greenwood or the late Gary Gygax. But when we have a chance to it can be a very memorable experience. If you don’t mind a little name dropping I’ll share two quick stories:

I remember when I first got to play Battlelords of the 23rd Century with Mike Osadciw, one of the game’s artists and designers at the now defunct UNY-Con. I was probably a little fan-boy-ish but it was cool to see how comfortable he was going through a scenario.  Not many people may know of BL23C or “Mike O.” but you might recognize the next industry celebrity DM I had the pleasure of gaming with: Keith Baker. A cool friend of mine asked if I wanted to play in a one time session with Keith Baker. I was familiar with his work, but not necessarily a fan of the Eberron setting. Regardless, I thought this could be really cool.

And it was.

Keith turned out to be a great guy and I was amazed at how fluid his DM style was. He made on-the-fly decisions without consulting rulebooks, he let me “bend the rules” slightly with creative descriptions of my character’s spell usage, and he offered a challenge unique to my D&D experience up until that time. He asked me to design a ritual inspired by four words that he gave me at the table. This was completely unexpected and exhilirating as I was now challenged to create something in a way I had never had before. It was truly a memorable experience and I while I may not be a the biggest fan of Eberron I am a huge fan of Keith Baker.

10. Play your own published adventure. Almost all of us DM’s play in our own worlds, games, and adventures. Many of us dream of one day being published so that others can revel in our creativity. I submitted a few proposals to Paizo back when it was publishing Dungeon and one of them even got greenlighted. Too bad that I never heard back because two months later the news broke that they would no longer be publishing that magazine.  But that didn’t stop me. Every year, except this most recent one due to the birth of our third child, I have submitted to Paizo’s RPG Superstar Contest. Admittedly I have never been chosen as one of the top 32 but I’m pretty sure I was 33rd or 35th at least a few years.

The Internet offers many free publishing tools so that we can do a lot of this ourselves. As long as you don’t mind people playing your adventure for free, you can post your own adventures and campaign worlds for the masses on a variety of web sites.

However you choose to get yourself published, the keys are: never give up, seek good criticism, and never give up. Who knows? You might end up fulfilling an item on some other gamer’s bucket list eventually.

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Zachary asks: Do you ever run unscripted sandbox style games? Any hints for pacing in such?

I prefer a sandbox style of play, and when I’m running a long-term campaign it’s my usual style. Even when I’m running my traveling game, I prefer a semi-linear style where the players are free to move in many different directions to a more concretely linear format.

By way of example, one of my early campaigns began with the adventurers being shipwrecked in a Bermuda Triangle-like area in another plane of existence. The players had a week of game time to find a way to get back to Eberron before the planar convergence ended. The area around their crash site included a number of shipwrecks from different eras; a crypt infested with aberrations; and a forest filled with lycanthropes. Meanwhile, they had their own shipwreck and the other survivors to deal with; some of these people were essentially commoners who wouldn’t survive without assistance, while others had skills and schemes of their own.

Within this structure, the player characters were united by a common goal (return to Eberron) and pressure (one week to accomplish it). But how they chose to pursue that goal was entirely in their hands. They could head straight for the forest. They could methodically explore each of the other shipwrecks. Or they could have spent the first three sessions interacting with the other survivors and creating a makeshift society.

On the one hand, this may seem like far more work than running a linear adventure. However, the individual pieces are relatively small compared to creating a full dungeon. Essentially, instead of mapping out a dozen rooms, I created a dozen scenes; it’s simply up to the players to determine the order those scenes occur. As the players have a common goal, there is also a certain hidden structure, because as they find clues about how to go back to Eberron they’ll find reasons that they need to visit the other locations. There are four places they have to go, it’s simply that uncovering the reasons for this is part of the adventure and even then they still decide the order – so it really feels like their story.

Depending on system, balance can be more challenging in a sandbox game. Given that you don’t know the precise order adventurers will encounter the scenes, you don’t know exactly when they’ll level or how many resources they’ll use up. In a linear dungeon you know they’ll go 1-2-3-4-boss fight. If your sandbox allows them to change that order, you need to decide how you’ll handle it. One option is to be very flexible with the values; be prepared to scale down a strong encounter if they tackle it at a lower level than expected, or to pump up a weak encounter if they come to it at a higher level. And of course even in a sandbox game you have controls. Perhaps the adventure won’t go 1-2-3-4… but you can still set things up so there’s no way to get to that ‘boss’ encounter without overcoming specific challenges. In a murder mystery, you may provide players with multiple paths of investigation, but they’ve still got to put together enough clues to identify the murderer. A sandbox places more control in the players, but it’s still up to you to have a satisfying narrative structure; stumbling onto the wizard performing the doomsday ritual by accident just because you chose door number 3 isn’t especially interesting for anyone.

As for pacing: One of the points of a sandbox game is to let the players have considerable control over the pacing. It’s an opportunity to do what they want to do. However, you’re the one who has to lend a hand if they get bored or confused. If they’re having fun poking in every corner, great; but if they just don’t know what to do next, you need to be ready. Thus, when creating a linear scenario I develop a number of static scenes (in the example above, the forest, shipwrecks, and crypt). But I also come up with a number of mobile scenes that can occur anywhere. A roc attacks. One of the shipwreck survivors has a dramatic and dangerous scheme. A storm filled with hostile elementals comes up (potentially forcing the PCs to seek shelter in a shipwreck or crypt). The party stumbles onto an exiled lycanthrope, alerting them to what’s going on in the forest. You don’t need a lot of these; just a few strong scenes that will get things moving if the players aren’t having fun and that will point them in the direction of something interesting.

One of the most important things in running a sandbox game is that you really need to be ready for the players to go off-script. The point of a sandbox is to let players choose their own paths; sooner or later, they will come up with ideas you just haven’t thought of. In my example, they could have come up with a way to get up to the dimensional portal their ship had come through (established as being in the sky)… or they could have decided that they didn’t WANT to go back to Eberron, and were in fact more interested in making an entire campaign out of exploring Lamannia. In my opinion, part of the point of running a sandbox game is that players should have this freedom. Rather than trying to force them in the direction you had in mind, it’s your job to run in the new direction. You may have to make up new encounters or challenges on the fly. But in the end, it means you get to see the story unfold in a way you’ve never expected. I have an adventure I’ve run 55 times, and it’s STILL fun for me to run it, because I never know exactly how it’s going to turn out; it’s always a thrill to see what the players come up with.

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One of my Gaming Resolutions for 2012 was to be in a campaign that started right in January.  The goal of this ‘New Year, New Campaign’ was to try  out various concepts/ideas which would hopefully ‘level up’ our collective game.  So we moved our record keeping over to Obsidian Portal, completely re-organized the basement where we play, &  started the in game calendar to match the real world one from 2011 (since there were some extras) allowing them to sync.  Then, prompted by one of the items from my Geek Bucket List, we all agreed to make a racially homogenous party.   Of Dwarves.

Like this. Until some halfling shows up.

After having played with 6 other fellow ‘stunties’ for the past few months, here are 3 observations about this sort of setup:

1) It is much easier to get the party together. One of the tricky things about a new campaign is how the group initially forms.  I’ve had games where the DM sticks us together via a few sentences- “Well you’ve all known each other for awhile and decide one day to become adventurers.”  Or there is a Job Tree that points everyone to a certain tavern to be hired.  But if each character is from the same race either of those coincidences are much more realistic & therefore believable.  In our group, 2 of the characters are half-brothers (although there relationship is strained), another lived nearby their town, mine came to the region specifically seeking out other Dwarves, etc.  Much how immigrants/ethnic groups can conglomerate in pockets in communities, by having a homogenous party, like will attract like.  And the coming together part will naturally fall into place.

2) The party will have to be non-stereotypical. If you only have a single halfling in the band, odds are that the halfling is burglaresque.  And an Elf would likely be the ranger.  And the half-orc makes the barbarian.  This for of predestination is simply a natural outgrowth of racial modifiers with their various pluses & minuses to key ability scores.  But if everyone is a halfling, then there will be a halfling fighters/paladin or a halfling wizard/sorcerer.  With an all-halfling party, there could even be a Hairfoot barbarian.  Wild huh?  So you’d see nontraditional builds, each which would have to come with interesting backstories to explain their rarity.  Moreover this arrangement gives people an opportunity to play a character they might otherwise never run.

3) The party develops a sense of pride. One of the things that I’ve noticed in being in a 100% Dwarf company is how quickly expressions of racial pride happened.  We’d make statements boasting about the greatness of all things Dwarven as well as vice versa: i.e. the shoddiness of other races’ construction or how weak their beer was.  Or we’d purposefully speak only in Dwarven both for tactical reasons as well as to separate ourselves.  Soon even Humans were being called ‘Hurms.’  Now certainly there are negative aspects to such beliefs in racial superiority however even these can provide amazing roleplaying opportunities.  Especially when 2 homogeneous groups meet & have to work things out somehow.

Although it can be tricky to organize, having a party completely made up of a single race creates multiple interesting game-based results.  Have any experience with a homogeneous group?  Want some suggestions to make it work?  Just post a comment below.

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Q: I’m a soft-hearted DM and I never know how to handle player death. Any advice?

(Cassie from Austin)

A: This relates to a number of the questions from previous months—how to make combat interesting, what to do when things take an unexpected turn.

As DM you hold the player’s lives in your hands. At its most obvious level, you have the DM’s screen and the power to lie about what happens on your sides. You can always choose to ignore a critical hit or to turn a hit into a miss. At the end of the day, a character will only die if you choose to kill them.

With that said, by the time you’re lying about dice rolls, you’ve already passed by a number of tools that control the fate of your PCs.

Intelligence and Story. Whether you’re the DM or a player, one of the greatest challenges of roleplaying is playing a character or creature that is significantly smarter or less intelligent than you are. When you look at an encounter group, you may see a particular combination of abilities that are ruthlessly effective. However, that doesn’t mean you HAVE to use those abilities to their fullest potential. It may be clear to you that the proper strategy is to focus fire on the weakest PCs… but perhaps the mighty bugbear will see the scrawny wizard as an unworthy foe, and choose to challenge the fighter instead. The kobolds may have backstabbing abilities that make them an excellent team… but perhaps this group includes kobolds from two feuding clans that refuse to help one another. These sorts of decisions also serve to add flavor to encounters and differentiate between different species and cultures. If you were playing Chess, you’d use every piece to its fullest ability. But in my opinion, what differentiates an RPG from a tactical wargame is that there is story—and the story may keep your pieces from acting at full efficiency.

Equipment and Damage. You’re running an encounter for first level characters. You create an orc fighter. He’s a fighter, so you give him what you’d take if you were making a fighter PC… say, plate armor and a greataxe. Of course, if he hits with that greataxe, he has a 60% chance of killing any of the player characters with a single blow. So? The players have the same tools, right? This is just what a first level fighter looks like.

That’s true… but it doesn’t HAVE to be. Yes, if you were making a PC fighter, you might take the heavy weapon. But this isn’t a PC. He’s not one of the main characters in the story. He’s not even an important villain. He’s just a random orc with a pie. If you don’t want him to kill PCs in a single blow, well, maybe he just loves big knives—a choice no PC fighter would make, but this is a sociopathic orc and it happens he loves skinning people with knives. Another option is to say that weapons simply don’t deal as much damage in the hands of NPCs as they do for PCs. It doesn’t matter what the weapon is; whenever an orc thug hits an opponent, they will deal 4 points of damage. If the player picks up the weapon, it will do 1d12+Str – but that’s a reflection of the player’s skill, and the orc doesn’t have it. This lets you have a clear, concrete idea of just how many hits a character can take, and to know that the orc can kill the wizard in one shot but will need three hits to take down the fighter… as opposed to using a 1d12+2, which leaves things completely unpredictable.

So you can always choose to lie. But you’re also setting up the odds when you decide how much damage the enemies can inflict on the PCs and how effective their tactics will be. So if you like to let the dice fall where they may, you can still set things up so the encounters that are most likely to kill the characters are the ones that FEEL dramatic. Really, the key point here is that Your NPCs aren’t player characters. The story isn’t about them. As a result, you don’t have to equip them or play them the same way you’d handle a player character of your own… and making these sort of choices will help to differentiate encounters.

Having said all of that, we come to a critical question: What is the point of death in your campaign? Why is the threat of death important? For me, the main purpose of having a meaningful risk associated with defeat is that it makes victory mean something. If the heroes can’t lose, then why bother having fights or challenges in the first place? However, the flip side of this is that defeat doesn’t have to mean death… it just needs to carry consequence. Consider the following house rule.

When a villain reduces a PC below zero hit points, the villain decides whether or not the injury is lethal.

Aside from this, you can keep all the standard rules for your system. The PC can “bleed out” and in 4E they will have to make death saving throws each round. When they reach the state that should indicate final death, they either die or pass into a state where no magic or skill can restore them for the duration of the combat. So in 4E, a PC who fails three death saves caused by a nonlethal injury no longer makes death saves each round, but they also can’t be woken up with a Healing Word. Reviving the character will require a short rest and attention from either a character with healing magic or training in the Heal skill; if this doesn’t happen, you decide if the character recovers or dies, based on the nature of the injury.

Once you’ve established this rule, the next question is what the default state is. It could be that all wounds are lethal unless the attacker makes a special effort to spare the victim. But it could be that people only die if the attacker makes sure it’s a mortal wound. Imagine that the PCs are guarding a caravan and bandits attack. The bandits don’t actually care if the PCs live or die, they just want these guards out of the way so the path to the loot is clear. Essentially, if defeat has clear consequences – the caravan is robbed, the king is killed, the magic artifact is stolen – it may not matter if the PCs die. An initial defeat can actually make the ultimate victory over a colorful villain more satisfying.

Looking to consequences, you can also consider permanent or semi-permanent impacts on the characters. For example, a villain might spare a hero’s life but leave him with a dueling scar or take a family signet. However, I wouldn’t do this sort of thing unless you’re sure your players will enjoy it. For some people, this creates a satisfying thirst for vengeance; but others would rather have a clean death than feel that their character has been humiliated.

Beyond this, my main advice is this: if you’re going to kill a character, have it MEAN something. When my character is killed in a random encounter with a first level orc with a greatsword, I don’t feel like a hero. But when my character gives his life to hold the gates of Moonwatch against the Duke of Frozen Tears, buying time for the wizard to complete his spell? In that case, I’m OK with it. Especially if there is lasting impact of some sort. Perhaps they raise a monument to me, or say that my spirit infuses the city gates and protects them against future enemies. For me, the ultimate test is this: if I saw this death in a movie, would it make sense? Or would I walk away saying “I don’t get why they killed the ranger in that random bar fight”? If it’s the latter, I’d consider one of the alternatives suggested above

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