Welcome back to Blue Lightning. Today I have one of my favorite ideas that I always use.
One aspect that I work into virtually all of my high fantasy campaigns is the beloved Bag of Many Things. My heroes always find it randomly, and I never tell them what it is. But it is always a hoot when they figure it out.

Twice per day they can reach in and pull out a random item. That is it. Really simple. I do not even bother to tell them that it is twice a day. If they try a third time, the bag comes up empty. There is no saying whether the item will even be useful or not, but it is always fun to figure it out. I have a huge list of random items that they can end up pulling from it.

Below is just a fraction of that list. Whoever reaches in gets to roll 2d10 to determine what it produces.

1. Grandfather’s broadsword, plain but quality. An unknown script runs along the inner side of the scabbard.
2. Floppy hat.
3. 100 feet of rope.
4. Jug of pickled eggs.
5. A healing ointment of your mothers, heals 2hp per application. Four applications.
6. A sock full of sling stones.
7. A cat, it followed you into the village.
8. A scroll of deposit worth 168 gold pieces if presented to a member of the Auric Brotherhood of money changers.
9. A shortbow and quiver of eight arrows.
10. A prayer book.
11. A ratty kilt.
12. A flute.
13. An extra pair of boots.
14. Two men-at-arms sworn to six months service. Armed with Chainmail, shield, and spear.
15. A hooded cloak with a dozen inside pockets.
16. A golden signet ring, origin unknown.
17. A dwarven tunnel dog, loyal and well trained. A gift from “uncle Guorgi”.
18. Ten sticks of chalk.
19. A hide of fine leather.
20. A dozen hard sausages.
21. A five gallon cask of usk brandy.
22. Four yarpick thorn javelins.
23. A phostwood staff.
24. A ham.
25. A boar spear.
26. A set of four horseshoes.
27. An ink pot, quills, and sheaf of paper.
28. A small bag of salt, and one of pepper.
29. A sewing kit.
30. A dozen 12 hour candles.

Feel free to use these, or just the idea. Everyone loves getting random junk. Even if it is useless, they enjoy how unpredictable it can be.

And say they roll a 2 and a 4, making it 24. Make it have a fun effect if they decide to eat the ham, like they now smell like ham for three days.
Like I’ve mentioned before, use your words. Don’t just say “You pull out a ham.” Have them smell its smokiness first, see how it glistens in the firelight, and how it drips with fat. Truly tell them what it is, regardless of how mundane it may seem.

The more that you can add to your game that personalizes it, makes it unique, and really encompasses all of their senses, the more fun your players will have, and the more successful your games will be.

Would you consider using The Bag? Do you see any problems with the idea? Or what would you like to see come from the bag? Tell me in the comments!

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Turkey Day is here and it’s getting to be that time of year when we all are reminded to be grateful for everything we’ve got — something I know I do a little less often than I should. Because of that, when I was posed the question “Why are you grateful for Dungeons and Dragons,” (like several other DungeonMastering writers answered last year around this time) I was more than a little stumped. I mean, of course I love to play tabletop games — I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t — but why grateful was never a word that came to mind. I gave the question a lot of time and thought, and I eventually came to the conclusion that I had no idea why I was grateful. Until something completely unrelated to D&D happened.

While spending time with a friend I mentioned that I had written something, and I was working on editing it. Of course, her response was “can I read it?” I explained that it was really meant for performance — a spoken word poem — and her response was, “then perform it!” It took a little coaxing, but eventually I did perform it, and I found that as I read I wasn’t getting nervous. I didn’t have stage fright, like I’ve come to expect. That amazed me to no end, and for the rest of the night I was filled with a mixture of pride and curiosity as to where this new-found confidence came from. That’s when it hit me:

Dungeon and Dragons.

I’ve been Dungeon Master in my friend group for several years now, and I’ve run more than five campaigns in that time (not to mention countless one-shots, both themed and not). I’ve run games for friends’ parties, introduction for new players, and more often than sometimes a group of mostly strangers. In all of that I never really thought much about it, but I’ve come to realize that what we do, as Game Masters, takes a lot of courage. We pour our hearts into stories that may or may not take with the players you share them with, often times with no idea how it will go over and usually with at least one person you don’t know very well. Despite that, we perform for our small group of players — and it is a performance — likely with confidence, and we don’t even realize it. For me, that’s carried over to just about every other kind of performance, from spoken word to publishing articles on a blog. Even if I’m not confident in the quality of what I’m putting out all the time, I’m always confident that I am passionate enough that it’s worth giving it a shot.

So I would like to say that I’m grateful for Dungeons and Dragons because it’s given me the confidence to do the things I love, both at and away from the table.

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Greetings readers, and welcome back to A Villain They’ll Love to Hate. Last we left off I gave you a plot hook to grab your players and get them thirsty for your villain’s blood. Path One was a little slow, though, and sometimes you just don’t have the time for that kind of set up. So let’s say you’ve got five good sessions to run the game, and no time to provide a home, connections, and that sense of security you would rob them of in Path One. So what do you do now?

I’ve found that those personal attachments can be fostered just as easily away from the table as they are in the game. If you have the kind of players in your group that like immersion and character development, it becomes extremely easy to exploit personal attachments and sleight the characters in any manner that you need to get them ready and raring for vengeance — I mean justice, of course. Path Two will explore one easy way through which you can use pre-game character building to inspire your players to take on their quest with gusto.

Path Two: Hey, stop! That’s mine!

For this path you will need to stress with your players, ahead of time, that you want them to really put a lot of thought into their characters. In later articles I will discuss different methods that you can use to help your players develop deeper and more complex characters, but for now we’ll just use a simple values, beliefs, goals chart. Tell your players that in addition to the character sheet, they should do their best to come to the first game with a piece of paper that lays out three values, two beliefs, and one ultimate goal that their character has. Encouraging backstories is also a good idea. Tell the players that, in coming up with a backstory, they should think long and hard about one item that their character carries with them that they couldn’t live without. Something they would be willing to kill and die for. That kind of sentiment is powerful, and it will get your players thinking long and hard — after all, it takes an incredibly personal possession to inspire that kind of emotion. I would like to note here, that because of the nature of these items you may allow players to make the possession magical and, ultimately, as powerful as they please (within reason).

In a game that I ran my players consisted of: A Dwarven Cleric noble, who treasured his family and estate above all else, a Human Rogue who carried with him a magical ring of invisibility, a Human Shadowcaster who wore a pendant given to her by her mentor, and a Half-elf Rogue who wore a sewing pin bent into the shape of a ring.

So, now that they’ve developed their characters and the game has begun, you can collect their extra sheet and look over each one, making sure to spot-out the thing that they value the most. This is paramount to getting them heated about finding the villain. In the first session you want to have the players thrust into a chaotic and sensually overstimulating environment, like a midnight ambush in the middle of a panicked town, or a battle taking place in the middle of a rainstorm. Make sure to stress the details so that the players feel as nervous, overstimulated, or disoriented as the characters themselves would feel. Then, in the middle of the situation, have each of them make perception checks, opposed to hidden rolls that you are making. These rolls are made to see if the players notice small creatures — minions of the ultimate villain — stealing the item that they so treasure right off of them! No matter if they succeed or fail, the minions succeed in thieving them away, and fly off with the possessions. If they fail the players might not even notice the item is missing until the battle is over. For this part I like to use winged minions, like quasits, imps, or mephits. It makes it more believable that the minions managed to get away so easily.

The Dwarf, Half-elf, and two Humans all awoke to the sound of a thundering crack in the center of the town they were in — the Half-elf and Humans were passing through, while the Dwarf’s estate was located in the town. When they arrived at the town square they found it overrun with Lemures, which they needed to fend off. In the middle of the battle, Quasits stole the players’ pendant and rings. The battle ended when two massive demons appeared, proclaiming their work done, and the demons fled through a portal. It was only then that the party realized the estate was up in flames, and a message was written on the streets in blood.

You can imagine how powerful this motivation can be for a player and their character. It’s a great, easy, quick way to get your party both ready and willing to hunt down a big bad. Next time I’ll look into a great way to develop your Villain further, add depth, and create living breathing characters for your players to hate, so keep in touch!

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You’ve spent hours pouring over charts, grids, drawings, stories, and reference guides and finally you have it: a tale worth playing. So you call up your closest friends and your local pizza joint, and you all gather to play this game. It’s all going pretty well at first; everyone’s having fun and the game’s running pretty smoothly. But you start to notice that the conversation’s moving away from the story, and while the Sorcerer has been rolling high all night on her diplomacy checks, she’s yet to say more than two words at a time to the NPC’s. You wrote down paragraphs of imagery for the dungeon at hand, inciting every sense the players have available to them, and yet you find yourself sharing the descriptions less and less. The game is over and, yeah, it was fun, but you can’t help but feel like something was missing. The story is done, but it wasn’t ever really told at all.

As a DM, I have always found that the two most important tasks for me are to create a captivating and engaging story, and to provide my players with an environment in which they will feel comfortable roleplaying as much or as little as they would like. Because that is the style that I tend to prefer, I have decided that I would like to do my best to give you all the advice I can on how to create, write, and run living, breathing stories and environments for both you and your players to lose yourselves for a while. Now that I’ve given you an idea of what I’m all about, let’s get started!

One of the most frequent issues I run into as a Dungeon Master is how to create a villain that my players really, truly hate. There’s nothing I hate more than spending hours building a dark, twisted avatar of evil to haunt my players from the shadows only to have him become nothing more than a goal post; it’s all too often that players will take up arms against your villain purely because you told them he’s the villain. So, how do you avoid a goal post villain? How do you breathe life into the struggle between party and foe? There are a few really solid paths to take that I’ve come up with in my time as a Dungeon Master, and I’d like to share them with you.

“You come into my house?”

This is by far my favorite tactic for sowing the seeds of conflict in my players. Take a few game sessions ignoring the villain for a while. Stick them in a town, village, hamlet, or whatever pleases you. While they’re in town give them side quests to help the village folk out: there are goblins in the hills, the blacksmith’s daughter was taken by necromancers, Ol’ Mill lost his hatchet in the eye of a Basilisk — get creative. All the while let the players get to know the villagers (particularly little children who look up to the heroes). After a while the party gets a house, or houses, in the village and sets up a base there. The blacksmith owes them, so they can always go to him for repairs, and they helped the kooky old witch get her frosted newt flakes so they’re getting potions 25% off. Then bring the villain back. The party will run off for glory and gold, and it will carry on like that, but they’ll always come back to that village; it’s their home, after all. Let them get comfortable with that. When the game is coming to an end and they’re closing in on a final battle, the villain will strike. They’ll return to their home to find the village burned, and Lily, the little girl who’d always bring the players biscuits from her pa’s shop, is dead. If you haven’t the heart to kill the NPC, kidnap him or her. Nothing stirs a good boss fight more than a personal vendetta.

Now, obviously this is only one path you can take. Maybe your players don’t want to settle, or maybe you’ve got too much piled on and a detour in a village would drag the game out farther than you’d like. Maybe you want more immersion, but the villain’s not the thing you need to fix. If you like where I’m headed, but you don’t know if path one is really right for your game, then keep in touch! Check in often; I’ll be doing my best to give you frequent advice on villains, stories, writer’s block, and more!

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Who is this Blue Lightning guy? Why should I listen to him?
Hopefully you’ve never asked that. But if you have, I just wanted to offer ya’ll a bit of my D&D past, my nerd credentials (nerdentials?), if you will.

The cold air whipped outside the window, blowing ice crystals against the panes as it tried to get in. Three men sat huddled inside the tiny room. One was rail thin, standing over 6 feet in height. The next of average build, with a scruffy, brown beard hanging from his chin. And the last man, the shortest and squattest of them all, with thick spectacles resting on his nose, a mop of thick, black hair atop his head.
“Roll your spot check,” the Gnomish man said, looking over a little cardboard wall.
With a tentative flick of my wrist, I rolled my first d20.

It was that fateful night in February of 2006 that I first played Dungeons & Dragons. And I’ve not looked back since. And have actually become a firm advocate for the game.

To be completely honest, I was spoiled. I was introduced to the game, and played for two years, with a group of writers and actors. I may never be so lucky to have that degree of role-playing or plot-twisting go on again. We committed, with reckless abandon, at 4 in the morning. While the halls outside our dorm were filled with screaming, drunken frat boys, we were screaming our battle cries as we swept into battle.

We had a D20 Modern game known as Gang Land, where each semester, a new person would DM, taking over with their own plots and ideas. It was role-played television. I was the Russian demolitions expert, Dimitry “Boomer” Babashav (complete with life-like accent!).

We had a Star Wars game, that I died in so many times. I played every bizarre, edge of the galaxies race available in that game. That one was DMed by a guy whom we refer to as Death Star, because his talent was so good it could blow up a planet. No joke.

And then we had countless high fantasy games. All in 3.5, mind you. All of my original D&D nerd buddies are staunch supporters of 3.5.

It wasn’t until I graduated, and didn’t have those guys for an outlet, that I made the jump to 4th edition. I got the core books, my first set of D&D rulebooks, and read them like novels. I learned the rules, I listened to the Wizards of the Coast podcasts, I played pickup games at my local game shop. I was proud of my encyclopedic knowledge.

I ran a game based in the post-apocalyptic setting of Gamma World. I ran one set in an alternate universe, circa 1930s New York City, where no one looked askance at the Tiefling wizard.

And my mind is always thinking of more. Everything I see is an idea to turn into a game. There is nothing that cannot be used, it is only the limit of your imagination, as the DM, that hinders the creative extent of the game. Some of you may have been lucky enough to have a start into D&D like mine. Others, maybe not. But every game, every group, can be something new. Every character can open up a whole new world of excitement and possibility. Just because one game biffs it, doesn’t mean they all will. Keep Calm and Roll That d20 On.

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I am pretty new  to DM’ing  only a year into my Dungeons and Dragons  gaming  and I have a question about how to deal with a situation that has befallen in the group that I am DM’ing.

To cut it short, one of the players is more or less leeching the enjoyment of most around  with general bad attitude and taunts here and there, always trying to find loopholes and make stuff up like  for instance  what he said in our latest game: ”I am a Genasi  so I can sense magic naturally”  and  ” I am a Genasi  so magic comes natural to me, meaning i didn’t study to become a wizard.” Which we know is total bogus. And if it was not enough with bad attitude in game,  he is seemingly going around talking about how $#!+ a player is,  how $#!+my DM’ing is, all the while he is attempting to bend the rules to his liking.

What do I do with this?

-           Martin S.

Wow, Martin. It sounds like you have your hands full here. Let me start by saying congratulations on DM’ing for a year. It is a labor of love and it poses its own unique challenges. Hopefully you stick with it and enjoy the DM’ing aspect of our wonderful hobby.

That said, it’s important to understand that because we’re all human, and the fact is that when humans get together there is all sorts of dynamics, you sometimes run into such difficulties.  I’ll break it down real easy for you. The two most important rules in roleplaying are as follows:

• Everyone has fun.
• DM has final say on all rules questions.

It looks like this player either does not understand these very important, fundamental rules, or just outright rejects them. You can handle this one of two ways: very carefully and diplomatically, which hopefully leads to him becoming a more respectful and all around better roleplayer that enhances everyone’s experience; or you grab your cleaver and cut him loose. For the sake of diplomacy, let’s opt for the former.

You need to take this player aside and speak with them one-on-one. Face to face or e-mail is fine, as long as it is not public in front of the rest of the group. You don’t want him feeling threatened and try for another power play. Explain that his play is inappropriate (taunting others, breaking/bending rules, etc.) and makes the gaming that much less enjoyable for you and everyone else. The open taunting and berating of anyone else at the table needs to stop immediately.

So as to not come across as completely rejecting him or his character, use some of the ideas he has already put forth. A quasi-planar character who can naturally sense magic and did not have to study his magic? This sounds like a sorcerer and not a wizard. As long as the mechanics are sound and rules are being followed, let him describe the flavor of his magic any way he wants. If he has unlimited uses of detect magic according to the rules, then there is no harm in him saying that he can do it “naturally”. Make sure that his character is balanced with the others in the party and there should be nothing broken about it.

If his character still needs to be the center of attention, offer logical in-game challenges to such behavior. For example, have him rushed by fans, or have him become the center of controversy like a city watch investigation or an outside force is seeking to detain, injure, or even kill him. Perhaps he’ll learn that such in-game attitude and antics have their own consequences.

If, after you’ve told him that his attitude and behavior is not welcomed at the table and his behavior still does not improve and he will not listen to reason, there is only one alternative at this point: tell him that he is not welcomed at the table. No DM wishes to kick a player out but sometimes people just don’t play well with others. Time is too precious to spend so much on someone who is treating you or the other players like that. I wish you luck, and if you can, let us know what happened.

How about the rest of you DM’s out there? Has this ever happened to you? How have you handled it? Any advice you wish to share?

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Last time we talked about using the ‘unknown’ as the fear to make your D&D games scarier.  This article we’ll look at using the 5 senses to convey horror because the time between anticipation and action can be anxious for people. Your players are no different. I find that a good DM knows how to really work tension until it becomes unbearable and therefore horrifying.

On closer reflection I’m not sure if there is a perfect equation or model to determine when the perfect time is to build such tension in an adventure. I believe that, like comedy, such tension requires a certain level of natural timing in the DM. But that’s not to say there aren’t some fundamentals or patters that can help us be better at it.

Get a feel for your group, if they are at ease, make them uneasy. Adventurers in a world of necromancy and mythical creatures should never be at ease. Make them roll Perception checks, keep them on edge. Anticipating the unknown is an easy way to keep them on their toes.

Change the rhythm of your speaking. Take the time to offer slow intricate descriptions of rooms and areas. Give them hints and clues to what they might be facing in the near (or far) future. When you finally spring combat on them, don’t give them the lengthy descriptions, keep it quick. Trying to balance the flash-in-the-pan nature of a surprise round with the slow burn of a multi-layered epic plot can be difficult at times but to incorporate both in your campaigns can lead to greater effect – and greater horror.

Hang ‘em high. From a cliff. Cliffhangers are a classic way to build tension between sessions. Especially if the night is getting long and they’re about to enter the inner sanctum of the BBEG, it would be acceptable to stop right before combat begins. Give them a taste of what they’ll be facing next session and let the players stew over it. This might backfire if your group does not meet regularly and every once in a while I find that it’s a good thing to use e-mail or other electronic communication like Obsidian Portal to  build the tension between sessions.

As the players strategize over a session, or the week (and the party in game-time) describe what they see, hear, smell, and feel in front of those inner sanctum doors. Engaging their imaginations using a variety of sensual descriptions helps them better envision the environment and thus increases the tension. Here’s a table to get the ball rolling to ramp up the sensual tension (yeah, you read that right… sensual tension).

Visual

1. Darkness and shadow pool in the archway
2. Smoke or mist roils from underneath
3. The doors seem to slowly heave and retreat like some gargantuan heart valve
4. Bright light intermittingly flashes through the seams of the doorway
5. Blood seeps from underneath the door
6. There is no visual change to the door

Tactile

1. Your hair stands on end
2. Your molars begin to buzz
3. Your skin begins to feel slicked with oil
4. All the moisture wicks away and your throat feels dry
5. A dull ache begins in your joints and extremities
6. Heat/cold seems to pulsate from the door in waves

Aural

1. Stark silence
2. Wailing
3. Laughing
4. Rhythmic booming
5. Whispering
6. Chanting

Smell/Taste

1. Musk
2. Mold
3. Rich loam
4. Metal
5. Rotting flesh
6. Ozone
7. Blood
8. Flowers
9. Ash
10. Spice

Thanks for reading this installment of Ask a Dungeon Master.  Next time we’ll look at how ‘empathy’ can make your games scarier.

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Last time we looked at different aspects to the horror setting, today we finish that topic up with the most important aspect of horror: The Twist. Now this is the most important trick to writing horror. Details and presentation are all nice and dandy, but the twist is where you blow your party’s mind. It could be as simple as a betrayal, as complicated as an evil plot being unwound so another plot could surface instead, or as backward crazy as it all being an illusion set upon you by a novice student, and having it go wrong…oh so wrong…
Whichever twist you choose, make it good, strong and leave the party feeling helpless. A helpless party is the perfect way to make them know that not only have they been duped, but they actively aided in the duping, whether it was turning a blind eye to some strange activity, listening to a mad old man or aiding the King in slaughtering some “witches” who turned out to be simple peasant women.

However, there is a tradeoff: make them feel too helpless and they will say “well there’s no way we can turn this around. Lets just end it here before things go from bad to worse.” If they feel soo defeated they want to give up then you did it wrong. There has to be a glimmer of hope, whether its a sign that reinforcements are coming, a chance to seek vengeance or stop the end of the world. There always has to be a way to stop the evil forces, even if its hidden, and if they can’t find it make it obvious. Make it the light in the dark, the white dove in the window. If need be, have Pelor himself strike the evil doer with a bolt of his holy magic, even if its just enough to let the parties last surviving member kill the evil wizard.

 
Now, as for inspiration, well look no further than your bookshelf. Movies, games, those things people read with the pages and the bindings, they all are horrible to someone. A love story to one person is a horror story to another when they dont end up with the girl of their dream. The football team that lost the game faces humiliation by their friends and family. George is scarred for life after shooting Lenny in the head and watching him die! (Of Mice and Men, it can’t get much worse then that now can it?)

 
Horror is all around you, its all about perspective. Learn perspective and watch as a million ideas flood your mind and secure themselves within your imagination. If you enjoy a certain genra of horror, then imagine your within that genra, read that genra, watch that genra and read that genra. I myself like Lovecraft horror, which limits me quite a bit when it comes to material. Besides Lovecrafts obviously large collection of works as well as his copy-cats and fans, not too many films have actually succeeded in adapting his horror to the big screen. Good news for me then that many of his short stories have been turned into user based short films on YouTube, my favorite among them being The Music of Eric Zann. So all you need to do is search for it and you will find it. Good luck, and may the darkness take you!

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