Author Archives: Iron Tavern Guest Blogger

Part 1: Quick NPC Parties

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stopwatchMotivation

Done by the book, you can easily spend 2 hours making up just one character in Pathfinder or D&D, even with software like Hero Lab to help.  While this might be acceptable for a player who has just one character to make up, the poor DM who wants to make up a whole party of NPCs might need to spend 8 hours!

But before we discuss quick stats for NPCs, let’s first discuss the NPC party itself.

1. NPC party’s primary and secondary mission

Why does this NPC party exist?  Who are they working for?  What are their primary and secondary missions?  This will help fit the NPC party in with the campaign’s plot.

Example: The NPC party are members of the Mercati, a smuggling operation based in the Badlands.  Their primary mission is to smuggle some goods through the Badlands, so their merchant client can avoid Baron Imoldo’s onerous import tariff.  Their secondary mission is to oppose any Impuniti, a rival group, they might meet along the way.  The PCs run into them by chance while exploring the Badlands.  To add spice, the NPC party mistakenly identifies the PCs as Impuniti and draw their weapons.

2. NPC party’s primary and secondary archetype

I define “character archetype” as a specific class (or subclass) along with either a specific gender, a specific race, or both.  All characters with that archetype have those same characteristics, but can be of varying levels.

Each NPC party should have primary and secondary archetypes, and they should make sense for the party’s mission.

Example (cont’d): The NPC party’s primary archetype is human smuggler (rogue).  Its secondary archetype is human scout (ranger).  Gender is not specified for either archetype.  The smuggler(s) handle the financial and law evading aspects of the mission: forging papers, sneaking into the destination city, and selling the smuggled goods on the black market.  The scout(s) lead the way through the Badlands, help the party survive the rough terrain, and look out for enemies with their keen senses.

3. The party leader.

The leader of the party has the highest level and always has the primary archetype for the party.  If you want the NPC party to be a challenge for the PCs, make the level of the NPC leader the same as the highest level PC.

Example (cont’d): The PCs are averaged at 5th level.  The highest level PC is 6th.  So we make the leader of the NPC smuggling party 6th level also.  He/she has the primary archetype of human smuggler (rogue).

If race is not part of the primary archetype, roll for the race of the NPC leader:

Table 3.1: Race of NPC leader (d10):

1-5: Human
6-7: Elf or half-elf
8: Gnome or halfling
9: Half-Orc
10: Dwarf

If gender is not part of the primary archetype, roll for the gender as follows:

Table 3.2: Gender of NPC leader (d8):

1-5: Male
6-8: Female

Example (cont’d): Race (human) is part of the primary archetype for the NPC party, but gender is not.  So we roll for the leader’s gender.  We roll a “7”, so the leader is a female human.

4. Additional NPCs

Number and Level

First, roll 1d4 to decide how many additional NPCs there are.  This will create a fairly small party, so adjust upwards if desired.

Next determine the level of each of these NPCs.  If the leader is 5th level or higher, subtract d4-1 from the leader’s level to determine the level of each of the other characters.  If the leader is 4th level or lower, subtract d3-1 from that level (minimum 1st level).

Example (cont’d): We roll a 3 on a d4, so there are 3 additional NPCs besides the leader for a total of 4 members in the NPC party.  Since the leader is 5th level or higher, we roll d4-1 and get 3, 3, and 2 levels lower than the leader.  So the additional characters are 3rd, 3rd, and 4th level.

Class

Next, determine the class of each additional NPC.  There must be at least one party member with the secondary archetype, though it need not be the NPC with the second highest level.  Determine the class of additional NPCs as follows:

Table 4.1: Class of additional NPCs (d20):

1-5: Class from primary archetype
6-9: Class from secondary archetype
10-11: Mage type (wizard, illusionist, or sorcerer)
12-13: Cleric type (cleric or druid)
14-17: Fighter type (fighter, warrior, paladin, ranger, or barbarian)
18-19: Rogue or bard
20: Aristocrat, expert or commoner

Example (cont’d): The first additional character (3rd level) is of the secondary archetype (don’t need to roll since we must have one).  So he is a 3rd level scout (ranger).  For the second additional member, we roll a “20”, so we decide he’s a 3rd level expert (the merchant client whose goods are being smuggled).   For the third additional NPC, we roll a “12”, so a cleric type.  Since its an outdoorsy party, we decide its a druid.

Race

If you rolled an archetype on Table 4.1 and race is part of the archetype, use the race for that archetype.  Otherwise, roll for race using Table 3.1 above.

Gender

If you rolled an archetype on Table 4.1 and gender is part of the archetype, use the gender for that archetype.  Otherwise, roll for gender using Table 3.2 above.

Re-roll race and/or gender if you get results that seem odd for your campaign, such as a halfling barbarian.

Example (cont’d): The scout is an archetype that specifies human, so we don’t need to roll for race.  But we must roll for race for the expert and the druid.  The archetype doesn’t specify gender, so we roll gender for all three additional characters:

  • 3rd level scout: Rolled “3” for gender. A male human.
  • 3rd level expert: Rolled “4” for gender and “5” for race.  A male human.
  • 4th level druid: Rolled “7” for gender and “5” for race. A female human.

Summary

Now you know the purpose of the NPC party and its makeup: how many are in the party, their level, class, race, and gender.

In Part 2 of this series, we’ll discuss different techniques for quickly creating stats for each member of the NPC party.

In Part 3, we’ll cover quickly generating equipment and treasure for the NPC party.

About the Author

Ed Larmore is a long-time GM of the Eraven Campaign.  He is also the developer of Scabard, an RPG campaign manager.

Ticket to Ride

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ticket_to_ride_coverTicket to Ride is an insanely popular board game. It has expansions and different versions but it always impresses me how well the base game plays and how much fun it is. There have been a lot of board games that have come out and a few are more popular than this, but Ticket to Ride is the one game that everyone I’ve played with has enjoyed. My parents, my siblings, my aunts and uncles, and well everybody. More so it is the one game that they ask me to play. Most of the time I’m suggesting games to people but Ticket to Ride is the one they remember and the one they want to play. It is the only game to achieve this level of status with my family.

Ticket to Ride is a game set in the early 20th century in America. Players collect route cards and then use train cards to claim routes between cities. It is pretty simple though it can be fun to learn which of your family and friends are geographically challenged. Some of my East Coast friends are always trying to figure where Helena is and some of my friends who know where all the American cities are have trouble with the few Canadian cities on the map. To be fair once we switch to the map of Europe, Asia, or Africa I have trouble finding some of the cities on those maps.

I mention a few of the expansions but there is only one I feel is a must have. The regular Ticket to Ride comes with cards but they are small cards. The other full games come with normal sized cards so in the 1910 expansion they have normal sized cards and routes for the regular game. It also comes with additional routes to use with some different options on what routes to use that can bring a little variation to the game.

I have been enjoying the map packs they have put out. These require a base game like America or Europe for the train cards and train pieces, but they do include new maps of different areas with route cards for them and new rules to make the games more complex. I have used many of the new maps without any new rules and I think they work fine like that, especially with players that just do not want a complex game. The Asia map has rules where train pieces get lost in the mountains and are taken out of play. We call this giving a sacrifice to the Yeti. If you see the map you’ll understand that more. The Asia map also has a version for team play that can be fun and brings in a neat dynamic for the game. I have yet to try the team rules with different maps and I am curious as to how well that would work.

Ticket to Ride is my game of choice to play with family and with people that are not hardcore board gamers. There are some of my hardcore board gaming friends that really love the game and many times it is their game of choice when we get together. Even with people who play a bunch of different games and who have played Ticket to Ride countless times it amazes me how enjoyable the game still is for us. There is a closet full of games that we played once or twice or were popular for a bit, but we grew out of. Ticket to Ride so far has stayed a fun and popular game among my family and friends.

Chris Gath.  I’ve been gaming since 1980 playing all kinds of games since then.  In the past year I’ve run Pathfinder, Dungeon Crawl Classic, Paranoia, and Mini d6.  My current campaign is mini d6 and we are using that for a modern supernatural conspiracy investigative game.  On some forums I’m known as Crothian and I’ve written a few hundred reviews though I took a sabbatical from reviewing for a few years as it burnt me out.  I was also an judge for the Gen Con awards (ENnies) six times.  Jeff, the owner of this blog, is one of my players and a good friend.

Selling Expensive Loot

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ruby_resizedMotivation

The PCs in your campaign want to sell a powerful magic item they found in a dungeon. The rulebook says it’s worth 50,000gp. How do you handle that? Do you just say, “OK, you find this guy who buys it off you at full price,” and then send them back to the dungeon for more mayhem?

Doesn’t that leave a bad taste in your mouth? Like you made it too easy?
Shouldn’t selling such a powerful item to an NPC be handled through role-playing?  What consequences might arise from an NPC having such an item?  And who is this guy anyway?

Well, worry yourself no more!

Applicability

These rules presume a D20 fantasy setting like D&D or Pathfinder.

They are meant to add flavor to the game.  In order that they not become tedious, use them only on the 1 or 2 most expensive items the PCs wish to sell.  Additional items they want to sell at the same time should just be automatic at the regular price.

If the most expensive item the PCs wish to sell is cheap relative to the party’s level, don’t use these rules at all.  Just let them sell their loot at the regular price and move on.  Your players aren’t going to be keen on using these rules to sell every rusty dagger and 10 gp gem.

Set-up

First, download the Buyer Encounter deck, print them out (card stock works best), and cut into cards (paper cutter works better than scissors).

Next, divide the cards into two piles, “Good” and “Bad”.  The type is shown in the lower-left corner of each card.

Selling a single item

Determine if the town is big enough to have a buyer who can afford the item.  The PCs may have to travel to a bigger town or city in order to find buyers.  Or they may opt to just keep the item for now if that’s too much trouble.  You may want to bend the rules a bit if you feel that traveling to a bigger town or city would derail the campaign.

Example: The PCs are trying to sell a +2 sword in a large town.  Its base value is 8000 gp, so the local economy is big enough to have buyers.

1. Determine item legality

Determine if the item is illicit or licit.  Illicit items are ill gotten; e.g., contraband, smuggled goods, or items obtained through robbery, burglary, or pick pocketing.

Licit items are those that are obtained legally, such as those purchased on the open market, those found in a typical dungeon, or gifts.  Good cards are more likely to be used if the item is licit.

The GM may allow a PC with a high bluff or disguise to make an illicit item appear licit for purposes of these rules.  But only one attempt per item should be permitted.
Some cards can cause a licit item to be considered illicit for subsequent buyer event card draws.

Example (cont’d): The PCs found the sword in an abandoned keep, so the GM rules it is licit.

2. Advertising

Some advertising, word-of-mouth and buying drinks must take place in order to find prospective buyers.  Assume the party spends 5 gp/week for this.

Example (cont’d): The players buy rounds of drinks at some bars frequented by fighters and warriors.  They pay 5 gp for the first week.

3. Potential buyer

One or more potential buyers will show up for a given item.

3a. Time between buyers

Roll 2d6 to determine the number of days before the first prospect shows up and between prospects.  On a 2 or a 12, a potential buyer shows up, but no other prospects will show up in that city or town for this item.  It this happens, they may try again in 3 months.

Example (cont’d):  GM rolls a ‘6’ so the first prospect doesn’t show up for 6 days.

3b. Draw cards

Draw one card from each of the two piles.  Do not show them to the players.  This does not mean that one Bad buyer and one Good buyer shows up.  Just one buyer will show up at a time.  Which card to use depends on the roll of a d6 (see next step).

Example: The GM draws the following two cards without showing the players:

bad_good_card_loot_R1

3b. Roll die to determine which card to use

Secretly roll 1d6 and resolve as follows:
a. Licit item: 1-5 use Good card; 6: use Bad card
b. Illicit item: 1-3 use Good card; 4-6: use Bad card

Sometimes a Bad card refers to a Good card; but never the other way around.

Silently read the appropriate card you drew based on the roll.  If a Bad card refers to a Good card, read that one too.

You may wonder why I didn’t have you roll the die first and just draw the card you need.  If the decks are completely hidden from your players, you can do it that way.  Otherwise, the players might notice that you drew only from the Bad deck, which would spoil the fun!

Example (cont’d): The GM rolls a ‘4’.  Since the item is licit, use the good card.

3c. NPC quick stats.

If you already have an NPC appropriate to the role, by all means use him.  Otherwise, quickly make up only the needed stats for him.  Assume that 0-3 (d4-1) of his henchmen/allies are present, who are each 0-3 (d4-1) levels below him.  Only select stats for henchmen/allies if it becomes necessary, such as if a chase or battle ensues.  The NPC should be someone who can afford the item (see Step 6 here).

Do not take 2 hours fleshing out full stats for NPC buyers while your players die of boredom.  If you spend more than 2 minutes for this, you’re taking too long.  I hope to write a future article on more techniques for quickly creating an NPC party.

Note these NPCs in your campaign notes, so you can tie them into future adventures.  You can add detail to them later if needed.

Example (cont’d): The good card says the prospective buyer is a typical maker of the item.  Since he should be able to afford the item, the GM decides he is a master weapon smith (9th level expert).  He has two followers: a bodyguard (7th level warrior) and a journeymen weapon smith (6th level expert).

3d. Pick turf

On the lower left of the card, is a note on turf.  An “S” indicates seller’s turf (i.e., a place the PC is familiar with and frequents).  If “B” is indicated, use the buyer’s turf, such as his home, a shop, or a place he frequents.  If “N” is indicated, use a public place that neither is familiar with.  If two letters, pick one; e.g., “BN” means you can choose either buyer’s turf or a neutral location.  Finally, if “Any” is indicated, pick anywhere.

Preferably, use a location you’ve already made up and have a map for.  But if you’re good at making up random locations on the spot, by all means do so.  Just be sure to write it down in your campaign notes afterwards, so you can use it again in the future.

If you use a battle map, draw out the scene and pick some figures.

Example (cont’d): The good card indicates “BN” so the GM decides that the PCs are sent word to meet the weapon smith at his shop.

3e. Follow instructions on card and role-play

Silently read the card again and use it to role-play a bit with your players.  If a bad card is to be used, in most cases it should not be immediately obvious that it’s bad.  In fact, with some bad cards, the NPC is posing as a buyer.

Example (cont’d): The weapon smith asks to see the +2 sword, makes some comments about it being a bit beat up, but that he’s still interested for the right price.

3f. Haggling

Once you’ve role-played a bit, transition to haggling, if applicable.  In the future, I plan to write an article with detailed haggling rules.  In the mean time, use the following simplified rules:

Determine haggle skill of both buyer and seller. For the seller (a PC), look at the skill with the most ranks.  If it is Profession (Merchant), the PC has a high haggle.  If it is a trade skill, such as Trade (Blacksmith), Bluff, Appraise, or Diplomacy, the PC has a medium haggle.  Otherwise, the PC has a low haggle.

For the prospective buyer (an NPC), look in the lower right corner of the card you’re using (good or bad).  This will be high, medium or low.

In these simplified haggling rules, there is only one opposed roll.  Both sides roll a d20, modified by the haggle skill of each side.  Low: +0, Medium: +4, High: +8.  There may be further adjustments to the seller’s roll as indicated on the card.

If the seller’s modified roll equals the buyer’s modified roll, the settled on price is the fair market value listed in the rules.  If the seller’s modified roll exceeds that of the buyer, then the settled on price is +5% of the fair market price for each point over the buyer’s modified roll.  If the seller’s modified roll is less than that of the buyer, then the settled on price is -5% of the fair market price for each point under the buyer’s modified roll.  If the adjusted value is 0% or less, then both sides roll again.

NPC’s will always accept this settled on price.  But the PC may reject the offer.  If so, no further negotiations are possible.  Roll for another prospect.

If the sale is made, proceed to selling the next item, if applicable.

Example (cont’d): The PC seller has a low haggle skill (+0), while the weapon smith has a medium haggle (+4).  The PC rolls a ‘6’, the NPC rolls a 9+4 = 13.  The difference is -7. So the most the weapon smith will pay is 7×5% below base price, or 65% of 8000 gp = 5200 gp.  The seller decides to reject the offer, so he leaves the shop.  Go back to step 3a.

Final Notes 

If you know before your players arrive that they want to sell some expensive loot, and think you need additional time to prepare, feel free to go through these rules ahead of time.  Draw 4 of 5 pairs of buyer cards and take some notes.

About the Author

Ed Larmore is a long-time GM of the Eraven Campaign.  He is also the developer of Scabard, an RPG campaign manager.

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Blinded By The Light

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brimorak_fight

Illustration by Wayne Reynolds – used under Paizo Community Use Policy

Conditions in a game can play as big or as small a role as you would like as a GM. It is pretty rare in a fantasy game that some kind of exotic creature does not have some way to cause an issue to the character they target. Conditions can be great equalizers to power players and awesome factors for players that want to puzzle their way around things.

A quick proviso: We all know I am a Pathfinder player for my fantasy largely, so I am going to describe the conditions here that are pertinent to a Pathfinder game. It is likely that your own game system has rules covering these same things but if I do slip and talk about statistical effects I am coming from a Pathfinder perspective.

Have a two-handed weapon specialist who sneers at the rogue every time they drag out a short sword or a dagger? Well do I have the condition for you! Swallowed whole. Hit them with a big creature that has a penchant for not chewing its food. Have the character slip down the gullet of the creature. Inside the gullet of a creature it is much easier to harm BUT the character can only attack with a light one handed weapon. Seleca, the Cavalier in one of my games, is the two handed specialist and she has recently just scored level 18. She is capable of cutting a twentieth level fighter down with over 300 hp in one round. She has just taken to carrying a dagger as she has now been swallowed around seven times and been able to do absolutely nothing until her companions cut her out.

A condition that hampers nearly every type of character is the blinded condition. In Pathfinder Blindness/Deafness is a second level spell and is a permanent effect! While running the Reign of Winter adventure path for Pathfinder I have blinded a Paladin twice in the campaign. The first time this occurred he remained blind for about four sessions and the condition really hampered his ability to be effective. The second time lasted only a single combat (in which he hilariously got eaten by an oven) but it caused a big drama as he struggled to be effective against the witch that had caused the blindness. This condition also seriously hampers a magician. A magician that cannot see is severely hampered in creating lines of effect for spells or using a lot of the spells in their repertoire.

Continuing on with the spell caster perspective you also could use deafness. Deafness causes any spell with a verbal component a chance of failure as although the magician can think of the correct words the brain cannot tell if the mouth is verbalizing them correctly. Tonal information is important to the casting of spells and this feedback to the brain is important to ensure the tone and pitch is correct in the delivery.

Creatures that can cause confusion or stunning effects are also good to have. If they can cause these conditions for multiple rounds it can turn a powerful enemy into their own worst nightmare! Confusion gives the player a random chance of what they are going to do for the round. There are four different options in Pathfinder. They can continue as normal, babble incoherently, attack themselves or attack the nearest living creature, regardless of who it is! As you can see, two of these outcome (50% of the time) the player will likely be doing awful things to themselves or possibly their companions! Stun on the other hand is effective against characters that get a lot of attacks per round with a weapon. It causes the player to drop anything that is held. That means to become effective again the player needs to pick up the weapon (which draws an attack of opportunity) or draw a new less preferred weapon (no AoO) before they can be effective again. The player is also unable to act for a round which means the creature can attack for that round. It is likely confusion will last multiple rounds while stunning is very rarely any more than one round.

Just a quick post today. Use your creatures wisely to inflict interesting conditions. There are far more conditions that exist in the game than what I have listed here, but the ones above are always a good place to start. The players will remember these combats for the way they overcame them regardless of the ‘x’ condition they were carrying. it makes for more interesting combats and more heroic actions from the players. Keep rolling!

Mark Knights is  39 year old guy living in a small rural town called Elliott in Tasmania, Australia.  I have been role playing since I was 11 years old playing the original versions of Dungeons and Dragons, MERP, Elric, Dragon Warriors and the like amongst other genre games.  I played D&D 2nd Edition through the 90′s but I ran Earthdawn for my fantasy setting and loved it as a GM.  When 3rd Edition came out for D&D I tried it but found it too heavy on rules.  I ignored the 3.5 edition of DnD in favour of Earthdawn (big mistake) as I thought it was just a money spinner.  When 4th Edition DnD came on my players and I gave it a red hot go but hated what it had dumbed the game down to be.  On a trip to Melbourne to buy some 4E stuff from a hobby store an old mate of mine pointed me at Pathfinder and in a Fantasy setting I have never looked back.

Creating a Boring Game With Intent

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Artwork Copyright William Ausland, used with permission.

Artwork Copyright William Ausland, used with permission.

Last week I ran a boring game! I fully understood what I was doing and I ran with it. I wanted the game to be boring. I wanted the players to look at me and for me to shrug as the game was their responsibility at this point. I planned it, I ran it, and it worked very well. Today’s post is in a way about why I did this to my players, and on a larger scale, a follow on from last weeks post about violence in games where I said I would write about other styles of conflict.

Now, the game I ran last week was not so fantasy based so let me relate to you the tale in fantasy speak. The players are members of a vessel that set out exploring trade in mysterious lands. Unfortunately the player that had taken up the sextant in the role of the navigator knew very little about where he was going and somehow managed to get their vessel afloat in the sea of darkness. With me so far? Good!

The players aboard the vessel soon learnt they were not alone in the sea of darkness. They found another interesting vessel seemingly built for a different race afloat on the sea. They boarded it and found nothing but unusual magical items and a tome written in a long dead language. They returned to their own vessel and began the process of deciphering it. As they did though another ship appeared on the sea of darkness and offered our lost heroes a way to free themselves from the sea if they would just follow them. They did and found a big vessel long thought lost to the ravages of time.

Right, now we are done fantasying up the Traveller game I ran (sneaking it under Jeffrey’s nose as fantasy is a job I enjoy!) [Editor’s Note: Not so sneaky! I pre-read all posts! ~Jeffrey] let us talk about why I made the game a boring one. Players are largely used to working out things with the help of large neon signs that we as GM’s load up the game with. If we want to get you to rescue a princeling or something similar, he will likely appear in a couple of games and then be stolen in the dark of night once someone takes a liking to them. Or they will find a scrap of one of the players clothing left at the scene of the crime and you will have to rescue the blighter just to clear your name. In his room you will find a bone wand inimical of the orcish clans just north of the city. You get there and find out it was stolen but one of the orcs caught sight of a member of the thieves guild stealing it. You head back to town and hit the thieves guild finding the princeling and uncovering a larger plot… continue campaign.

Sound familiar? We GM’s can be real stuck in our ways at times. Well in my exceptionally fantasy Traveller game I actually run a very open game and I have a completely open mind when it comes to running it. I don’t necessarily want massive amounts of conflict to run the game and I take the cues from my players as to what is actually happening in the game world. In the particular game I mentioned the players have put themselves in a pickle. I have allowed them the chance to get themselves out of it but they need to drive this. So what did I do? I put the players in a room (errr.. cold dungeon cell) under guard and allowed the game to run from there.

I did this because the vessel (yes I am fantasying it up again) was controlled by two things. First thing that the players would realise is that they were being held by a spirit (best analogy for an AI I could come up with) and it’s henchmen undead (read robots) for guards. They were by no means inhospitable and all requests were met with excellent focus though they were not allowed out. So the players sat in the cell and discussed their options. They seemed to be talking with other real life people but they knew there was something shifty going on. They discussed this at length with themselves and kept coming up with plans to be let out of the room. After all, they had been promised a way out when they came here. In all honesty, the game lasted a good two and a half hours with the players trapped in this room. There was much conjecture and trialling going on by the players and eventually they cracked the “spirit” and made an interesting discovery.

They were not alone. In fact there were other humanoids also in lockdown that were being kept alive and there was also a new race on the scene, a GM special as we GM’s arrogantly like to call them. They were a race borne of humans and they were the only living thing the spirit allowed free roaming on the vessel. OK, if you want to know how our hale adventurers (read space explorers) handled themselves, nip over to my blog (the awesome Pathfinder Chronicles and look up the blog that mentions the errr… pre-eminent fantasy writer Asimov?) As for the rest of this blog I will explain why I designed the game this way and show you why it was the best boring game I have run in a long time.

This game was all about conflict, but not the kind that involves eruptions of blood from arteries in high action sequences. This was four characters in a room with no idea what was going on who had to make sense of their situation. It plays on the amnesia trope in a way where the player wakes up and has no idea what is going on. In this situation though the tension was drawing on the fact that they knew everything that their character knew up until walking into the room, but had no clue what was going on aboard the vessel! The conflicts in this game came from social conflict (as they had communication remotely to the spirit and its incarnations) between themselves at times as well as the unknown environment. The other thing that this setting brewed up was the imagination of the players. I can not tell you how many hairbrained situations that they came up with while trying to work out what was going on!

The players really enjoyed this game I think. Right at the end they got to meet with the true villains of the piece (the Panold race) and have some interaction with them. They had a great game and not a single shot was fired (although they did mention it a lot!). There are some secrets in making this style of game come off well.

  1. Know what is really happening before you play this style of game. It is really important as a GM that you go into this eyes wide open. If you wait for the players to come up with a great idea for you to run with you will overstay the excitement of the game and then they will say that you just did what they said.
  2. Play up to some of the PC’s propositions if the circumstances could seem to be exactly what they are saying
  3. Push through the silences. The players will look to you for a giant glowing neon sign. Do not give it to them. Just keep asking what they are doing or how their character is feeling. They have to become aware that the game relies on them to make the decisions.
  4. Have an exit point. You can’t leave the players in the room forever. Have them spot something in a vent (er.. small cave) that may show them another way out. Do not reward them with anything informative though. They still need to use this new information to find out what is going on (e.g. they feel a breeze coming through a crack, could there be a passage just beyond the door?) This gives them a way of getting out of the cell but they will still be surprised by the new race and the overall plot.
  5. Let them out when they are close enough to knowing something that they could succeed at a bluff with. Once they are that close, reward them. They are never going to guess that they have been captured by a race of highly intelligent mice but they might be able to get close and they should be rewarded!

So there you have it. Combat is fun as it risks a character’s mortal coil, but social or mystery encounters can offer new and varied experiences with the game that puts a focus right on the character. Consider your current game and think like Batman’s Riddler. How can you wrap the next clue to the puzzle in a box wrapped in a mystery and surrounded by an enigma that the players need to solve by role playing their characters. Once you have that in your head design it and you are guaranteed to make a memorable session for the players. Keep rolling!

Mark Knights is  39 year old guy living in a small rural town called Elliott in Tasmania, Australia.  I have been role playing since I was 11 years old playing the original versions of Dungeons and Dragons, MERP, Elric, Dragon Warriors and the like amongst other genre games.  I played D&D 2nd Edition through the 90′s but I ran Earthdawn for my fantasy setting and loved it as a GM.  When 3rd Edition came out for D&D I tried it but found it too heavy on rules.  I ignored the 3.5 edition of DnD in favour of Earthdawn (big mistake) as I thought it was just a money spinner.  When 4th Edition DnD came on my players and I gave it a red hot go but hated what it had dumbed the game down to be.  On a trip to Melbourne to buy some 4E stuff from a hobby store an old mate of mine pointed me at Pathfinder and in a Fantasy setting I have never looked back.

Review: Bluffside City on the Edge

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Bluffside: City on the EdgeIn the days of d20 we had more than a few city supplements published. Freeport is the most famous and the easiest to use with all of its support. It is a gritty pirate city making it easy for players to understand and the original trilogy of adventures written for it as well as other after that served as a great introduction and way to make good use of Freeport. But while Freeport is great, and I did run a very enjoyable campaign there it was not my favorite city published in the days of d20. That honor goes to the city of Bluffside. Bluffside is a city built on the ruins of a lost civilization. It is written with creativity and plenty of mystery that appeals to me. I just hope this time around it gets the support it deserves and that some of the many mysteries the book raises get some kind of answer.

The new version of Bluffisde is written for the Castles and Crusades RPG. It is not a system I like and when it was first announced I was not going to buy it for that reason. However, I found my old copy of the original and was reminded on how much I enjoyed reading the setting. I did eventually buy a copy and I am pleased that I did. I have zero intention of ever using it with Castles and Crusades but luckily there are very few rules that I would need to convert into whatever system I might use when running the setting.

Bluffisde has a rich history and is filled with mystery. A very long time ago there was a civilization that was destroyed in a cataclysm. Bluffside is built over and around the ruins of one of their cities and seemingly the center of the cataclysm.  It is named Bluffside because it sits high on a cliff over the ocean. The many districts of the city are in many ways small cities themselves. Each district is separate as the area the city is built on has crevasses that make it impossible to build a single large expansive city. This really makes the different area unique and feel much more like small neighborhoods.

The books is filled with great places of interest that are ridiculously easy to use. Each one defines a shop or building, lists the regulars so it is easy to know which NPCs one might encounter there, and lists a couple hooks to turns any point of interest into a seed for some type of adventure. Some of the hooks are complex, others are just simple sentences, and all serve to be a good starting point for some type of adventure – big or small.

The book does have a lot of Castles and Crusades information in it. It has 20 pages that are just NPC stats, and many pages of creatures, spells, items, classes, etc. They take up almost half the book coming in at about seventy of the hundred and seventy pages. Because of that, the decent sized book becomes a lot smaller for people like myself that will get little use out of those pages.

Bluffside is a city of mystery. There are plenty of underground caves that can lead to ancient ruins. Even the ancient palace the city is built around has not fully been explored in over a century. There are ancient magics alongside a very modern political set up that create issues for the player characters. There are a few powerful groups each with different agendas and knowledge of the city and its mysteries. The area around the city is also still wild. There are valuable metals to be found in the mountains along with tribes of goblins and other monsters. It is a city ripe with opportunity for adventuring.

Chris Gath.  I’ve been gaming since 1980 playing all kinds of games since then.  In the past year I’ve run Pathfinder, Dungeon Crawl Classic, Paranoia, and Mini d6.  My current campaign is mini d6 and we are using that for a modern supernatural conspiracy investigative game.  On some forums I’m known as Crothian and I’ve written a few hundred reviews though I took a sabbatical from reviewing for a few years as it burnt me out.  I was also an judge for the Gen Con awards (ENnies) six times.  Jeff, the owner of this blog, is one of my players and a good friend.

Violence in RPGs

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Blood SplashWhat purpose does violence in an RPG have? Why is it the section of the rule book that gets so much love in most games? In games that have multiple types of combat it is not unusual to see multiple combat chapters that factor in the different styles of combat! It must be a very important topic to warrant so much information to be written about it in all of those rule books that sit on our shelves, beside our bed or in our tablets.

First, let us consider why combat is featured in games. Combat is a staple of the role playing worlds, especially fantasy. What would Conan be if he talked everything out? Boring, that is what he would be! That statement also holds a bit of the key as to why combat is so important in the game. It adds a layer of excitement to the game. But where does that excitement stem from? Conflict and the risks that are involved in that conflict. A role playing game could quite easily be about a person who gets up every morning, goes to work, struggles with a member of HR over leave, heads home, has tea and then goes out trying to find love. Why is this game not common? Because there is very little risk involved.

For a game to be memorable to a player there has to be the risk of failure present. In the day to day life that I mentioned in the paragraph above there is little risk and the risk that is involved involves very little consequence. If they fail the argument with HR the employee is likely to be stuck with the status quo, as is the same with trying to find love as they head out for the evening. In role playing these circumstances there would likely be rolls involved (unless you are playing Lords of Gossamer and Shadow that was released yesterday!) and the tension for the player comes from the random roll, will I succeed? If there is little investment in this though what is the point and many games these days are suggesting that if there is no real consequence, just let the player succeed. This is why combat is so popular in role playing games because if you fail it is possible, sometimes even likely, that you will pay the ultimate consequence.

There are a number of situations other than combat that offer consequences that are important and significant. Imagine if the fight with HR actually had a separate context such as the HR officer was actually stealing from the company and you were trying to weed that information out of them. The consequences are larger in this circumstance and more dynamic, but it is still not as dynamic as having a dragon snake out its long scaly neck and attempt to bite you in half as you use a pillar for cover. The consequence is obviously a much more important thing here and make it a much more exciting scene.

Are role playing games far too focused on combat though? Running a game you probably have combat rules for an individual with a weapon, some have magic battles laid out separately, you may have rules for chariots and mounted combat, rules for fist fights, naval battles and so on. I watched a video blog once by Shawn Driscoll on Traveller and he boiled it down to a basic statement. Combat really boils down to a single roll, be it a skill roll in some games or an ability roll in some others, so why do we go through all the complicated rules? I agree with Shawn’s point of view but there needs to be some provisos put into that statement.

Traveller has an abstract and deadly combat system. Combat erupts and there is likely going to be a death. The system prepares players for this by even introducing the possibility of death into character generation itself! In other games though players are not as used to losing a character every second game. These combat rules are there so that the players can work things to their favour as they are invested in the characters that they build and invest themselves with. An example of this is things like cover and spells such as blur and displacement or the grappling rules.

As Shawn pointed out though, it really does boil down to a single moment of conflict resolution. Try to simplify this as much as you can as a GM. One thing that I do enjoy doing with new games is looking at the combat rules and playing the “will I use it?” game. Look through the rules and decide what is going to complicate your game and also cause you to have to go for a rule book every time that the situation comes up. Once you have your list do one of two things with the rule, either chuck it or alter it.

Chucking it is exactly as it sounds. We think that the rule is either going to be needed so rarely and is too complex to use or it is just too confusing to use so we put it on a list of rules that aren’t used and communicate this to the players. When a group sits at a table they expect to get some gaming done and very few people enjoy dead time where you are all sitting around while people investigate rules. It needs to be clearly communicated though so the rules lawyers of the groups know up front that they cannot expect to use that rule for justification in a game.

For the alter rules you need to find a happy medium that you can live with. House rule the material. By saying you want to alter the rule you are saying that the situation the rule refers to is valuable and needs consideration. The actual rules may be a little too complex or convoluted for the game though so work out how you want to approach that and create a rule that you and the players at your table can understand. These house rules should be recorded in a place that is easily accessible such as an online Campaign collator or in a book that the GM brings to the game each time. If these are the rules that you play to then they should be as accessible as the core books that you use for the games.

Once this material is all nailed down then you should abide by these rules and also remember that combat is just a skill roll or an ability roll. Honestly, you could run a combat with one roll, but most systems tend to try to branch it out into a number of rounds. In general though, the person with the better skill or ability will win a conflict. Clever play can alter these results of course.

Combat does tend to be the most intense form of conflict resolution and you will rarely find a group of players so attentive as when the beholder starts shooting off its eye rays because of the mortality of their character. The idea that their 9th level character that they had played all this time could be killed because of a bad roll or result really makes them wake to the circumstances. Close shaves stick in the memory like caramel to a wooden spoon.

Remember that there are other types of conflict and a game needs to be more than just fight after fight. Social and magical conflict is important in games as can be investigations and subtle maneuverings. Players will tire of well balanced fight one after another and want more from their game. It is a great way to get their attention but not an excellent way of keeping it. I will look at other types of conflict in my post next week to see how they can be used to make your game a complete story guaranteed to keep every type of player interested.

Mark Knights is  39 year old guy living in a small rural town called Elliott in Tasmania, Australia.  I have been role playing since I was 11 years old playing the original versions of Dungeons and Dragons, MERP, Elric, Dragon Warriors and the like amongst other genre games.  I played D&D 2nd Edition through the 90′s but I ran Earthdawn for my fantasy setting and loved it as a GM.  When 3rd Edition came out for D&D I tried it but found it too heavy on rules.  I ignored the 3.5 edition of DnD in favour of Earthdawn (big mistake) as I thought it was just a money spinner.  When 4th Edition DnD came on my players and I gave it a red hot go but hated what it had dumbed the game down to be.  On a trip to Melbourne to buy some 4E stuff from a hobby store an old mate of mine pointed me at Pathfinder and in a Fantasy setting I have never looked back.

The Thing I Hate About Pathfinder

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pathfinder_core_coverSo, hopefully we are going to start a discussion here that I have been wanting to have for some time. I think this is an important discussion to have and I most certainly want to hear your point of view on it. I want to discuss the one thing that I dislike the most about Pathfinder and it is not even Pathfinders fault, it is a legacy of third edition D&D.

I dislike complex rules systems and Pathfinder is really not all that difficult except in one aspect. Feats. I hate feats. I hate them as a GM and don’t mind them as a player which is a bit of a paradox. I GM far more than act as a player. If people ask me what I do not like about Pathfinder I will unerringly mention feats. These things have been a core of the rules since Wizards of the Coast created their first version of D&D and interestingly enough Wizards of the Coast in their D&D Next material have begun to pull away from them as well. Is it possible that the company that created this curse is as annoyed at them as I am?

Why do I hate them? It is down to one thing and that is rules bloat. Every single feat is a little gem of rule changing evil, or new rules or rules twists. And there are thousands of them depending on how many books you have. They are little packets of moderately powered rules changes. Consider that from the GM’s perspective who works to be an arbiter of the rules. The d20 based rules of Pathfinder are pretty easy to come to terms with but then when you look at feats you have to rethink everything you know because for nearly every rule they mention there is at least one feat that modifies it. Apply several of these to a character or creature and you really have a complex series of interactions occurring that you need to juggle in game which can be quite a hard job.

I understand the rationale behind feats though, which means I am torn. Feats were introduced so a character could apply some individualization. Prior to this (2nd edition D&D), if you played a fighter, a fifth level fighter had all the same abilities as any other fifth level fighter. The differences between characters largely came through experiences and favored equipment. TSR realised that with newer style games coming out focussed on character customization that they were beginning to lose players. They worked on their books that introduced more combat options and also started working on certain builds that mixed up the character creation process. I actually think it was this explosion of customizable material that led to a lot of rules bloat and confusion to 2nd edition and it also caused a lot of players to leave the system.

Feats were born in third edition so the customization was built into the core rules from the very start. When I first played 3rd edition I liked the concept and enjoyed the differences they could create in a character. Of course I did not know then, when I held that Players Handbook 3.0 that feats would bloat horribly. To customize anything the company would add more feats, the third party contributors would add more feats and in the end feats became a swamp that I found myself being sucked into. Overwhelmed I could not get out. So between feats and attacks of opportunity I left my 3rd edition D&D behind.

So, there you have it. I do think feats overcomplicate Pathfinder, but what can you do? As a player I like feats because each one gives me that little bit extra for the character but as a GM they are too much. Especially when players take feats but take no responsibility in keeping them in mind either and a round after an action they try to retrospectively change it because they forgot X feat did Y. Then every NPC has reams of feats, monsters have them too as well as their normal abilities and I find the times I have to pause in game to check a rule always tends to be to look up the rules of a feat.

What do you think? Am I making a mountain out of a bullette burrow? Is there something that you hate more? Let us talk about the things we hate the most about Pathfinder and see if we can come up with some solutions to these problems! Until next time, keep rolling.

Mark Knights is  39 year old guy living in a small rural town called Elliott in Tasmania, Australia.  I have been role playing since I was 11 years old playing the original versions of Dungeons and Dragons, MERP, Elric, Dragon Warriors and the like amongst other genre games.  I played D&D 2nd Edition through the 90′s but I ran Earthdawn for my fantasy setting and loved it as a GM.  When 3rd Edition came out for D&D I tried it but found it too heavy on rules.  I ignored the 3.5 edition of DnD in favour of Earthdawn (big mistake) as I thought it was just a money spinner.  When 4th Edition DnD came on my players and I gave it a red hot go but hated what it had dumbed the game down to be.  On a trip to Melbourne to buy some 4E stuff from a hobby store an old mate of mine pointed me at Pathfinder and in a Fantasy setting I have never looked back.

It’s a Trap!

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Grimtooth's TrapsGrimtooth’s used to invoke fears in players. I don’t know if it does anymore. A copy of Grimtooth’s Traps needed to just be seen in a pile of books the DM might be using or over on a counter with a book mark or sticking out. The very idea the DM might be using the book and the deadly contraptions inside was usually enough to keep players overly cautious and paranoid. Perhaps in the history of gaming only Tomb of Horrors can invoke such a response from the players.

Grimtooth eventually became a series of seven books. Six were generic to fit into any system. The last one they made recycles some of the classics for the d20 system. I only have the first three books and considering how little they ever got used I doubt I would buy the others if given the chance. The books are fun reads to think of the ridiculous deadly nature of the overly complex traps. Most of them though are just there to kill the PCs without giving them a fair chance to do anything about it. I understand their use and the reason they exist. Most traps are pretty lame and barely a challenge. The games made it too easy for them to detect and avoid. Even if one sets them off they rarely do anything more than a few points of damage. But Grimtooth takes it too far. They make it so the traps are near impossible to find and disable and are so complex that it is impossible to predict what setting off the trap will do. Others need to be described in a specific way to confuse the players as if they were described normally it would reveal what the trap is. Going back through the books I am surprised to see how many traps were designed by Michael Stackpole.

The biggest improvement Grimtooth’s and other trap books can use is more pictures and possibly even including some player handouts. Many of the rooms, corridors, and other devices are just described with text and do not always make the most sense. These are complex devices and sometimes having multiple moving parts. A picture really can help one understand how all the pieces fit together and work to make mincemeat of most of the player characters.

Grimtooth’s Traps might be the most famous and most deadly, but it is not the only collection of traps and tricks. Fantasy Flight Games produced Traps and Treachery 1 and 2 in the d20 era. These hardbound books are filled with traps and deadly mechanisms but has the benefit of improved writing and layout. They are much easier books to read and I like how they are organized. There is a wider variety within the books as they have some game mechanics and character options in them. The first book really concentrates on the Rogue and giving them options as well as traps. It has information on thieves’ guilds, though Canting Crew and Den of Thieves are much better books on those guilds. Traps and Treachery also have puzzles in them that are pretty well done. I find I get more use out of the puzzles as they can be more difficult to create on one’s own.

Traps and Treachery suffers from some of the same problems as Grimtooth’s does. It doesn’t have enough pictures, though the descriptions are better. Some of the rules are not well done but at least there is something to use as a baseline. The books are more usable because of their versatility in including other things besides just traps.

Book of ChallengesThe most useful book of this type for me was put out by Wizards of the Coast in 2002. The Book of Challenges is an overlooked book that does not just present traps and puzzles but it combines them into encounters. As a DM this is the great as they are rooms or places easily inserted into a dungeon or building. It has monsters as well as traps and puzzles and many times they are combined to really take advantage of something more complex. There are also almost thirty sidebars of DMing advice that is well thought out and useful. The encounters are organized by encounter level with something for each encounter level one through twenty and with one that is encounter level 22. I’m not sure the higher end ones are really as challenging as they should be but they are still good for mid to higher level groups. Of course if one is using this with Pathfinder or 3e D&D one must take into account that sheer amount of new options that were not available when this was written. The power level of say a fifth level character has risen noticeably within the game in the past ten years.

This of course does not cover all the books on traps that have been published. Goodman Games has an interesting one called Lethal Legacies: Traps of the World Before. What is great about that book is there is background information that gives reasons for the traps presented in the books and so it also has adventure hooks and mystery. So what are your favorite books on traps and puzzles? Do you find them easy to use or a waste of paper? Does Grimtooth’s Traps still hold its power to scare players?

Chris Gath.  I’ve been gaming since 1980 playing all kinds of games since then.  In the past year I’ve run Pathfinder, Dungeon Crawl Classic, Paranoia, and Mini d6.  My current campaign is mini d6 and we are using that for a modern supernatural conspiracy investigative game.  On some forums I’m known as Crothian and I’ve written a few hundred reviews though I took a sabbatical from reviewing for a few years as it burnt me out.  I was also an judge for the Gen Con awards (ENnies) six times.  Jeff, the owner of this blog, is one of my players and a good friend.

Reflections of a Non Player Character

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Lords of Gossamer & Shadow CoverOf recent times I have been spending a good deal of my blogging time creating non player character (NPC) profiles for the Lords of Gossamer and Shadow RPG over on my blog. Due to this I have had a lot of comments from people regarding the way I make these NPC’s from the rules and how I have applied them right through to the themes I have used to create them. One comment in particular caught my eye this weekend and got me to thinking a little more in depth about the process I use to create all NPC’s in all of the games I run.

The comment was made to the FATE Core community on Google Plus and mentioned as an aside that the work I had been doing on my NPC’s had highlighted the importance of gear, magic items, allies and all surrounding material as a reflection on the NPC itself. This obviously was not a new concept to me as it is true, I was making the items, creatures, domains etc. all be reflective of the NPC as a whole. This is an important concept when building an NPC. If you want the players to accurately demise the archetype of the character, you use all of the character, not just their personality to reflect this. If I am after a big bruiser barbarian in Pathfinder I am unlikely to dress him in ceremonial robes of a peace god and arm him with a rapier. It is more likely that he will appear in the hide armor of a T-Rex (that he killed) and wield a massive two handed vorpal battle axe or something similar that evokes the reaction of the big bruiser barbarian with the players.

It sounds simple enough. Some might even say it is really a no-brainer that you use this method to create flavor and evoke feelings from players. But it is not in actuality all that easy when you are working with a complex system such as Pathfinder for example. The reason this becomes a much more complex problem is based on the complexity of the system. Let me take the big bruiser barbarian from above and explore the idea a little further.

Let us suggest our players are around 7th level and the big bruiser barbarian (henceforth known as Bob) is going to be their nemesis from say their current level through to around about when they are level 12. Bob is the mid-range foe in an adventure of Cthulhu worshippers the players are trying to shut down. If we take that description and think about our mate Bob for a moment I would suggest that we put him at 13th or 14th level as a Barbarian class, or CR 12 to 13 for GM speakers. From a simple building of the class perspective we find this is going to involve 3 ability score increases (easy – Strength or Con depending on starting stats), 8 feats (8 because Bob is a human. All the best monsters are human. This is a tricky one though because feats are very complex) and 6 rage powers (also not a simple solution based on the number of powers available).

pathfinder_core_coverWe are really just dealing with the core build of the character here and we are already frowning and reaching for multiple rulebooks. Stats are an easy decision because any good Barbarian needs to be hale and healthy as well as capable of lifting a small moon should the need arise. But then we move on to feats and the complexity involved in those decisions can be a bit overwhelming. If you look at the core books alone (Core Rulebook, Advanced Players Guide, Ultimate Magic, Ultimate Combat, Ultimate Campaign, Advanced Race Guide, Mythic Adventures, Inner Sea World Guide) you can easily be overwhelmed by the number and complexity of Feat choices that you need to make. Of course as a fighter class we would expect to see Improved Initiative and Toughness as well as some weapon specific things like Weapon Focus, Improved Weapon Critical etc. but really there are thousands of options here and even more combinations that could be used so it really is up to personal knowledge and choice here.

Once we are past that we are then faced with a similar customization problem with barbarian rage powers. You could take an archetype suggestion and build Bob from that perspective or do you try to customize him yourself. Certainly there are far less options than feats in this regard but getting the right balance can be a difficult thing entirely. The good news is that once we are at this point we have a naked Bob with all of his personal functions dealt with. This is Bob when he wakes up of a morning and Bob when he goes to bed at night. But we need to look at the external things to Bob and how they reflect Bob to the external world.

What I am speaking about specifically is Bob’s equipment, allies, pets, magical items etc. This is what anyone wandering down the street who runs into Bob has to look at and reflect on to decide how they view Bob. Although most of the material that we have covered is how good Bob is, this is the stuff that we can flavor Bob with for the true purpose of role playing him in our adventures. We want the players to fear Bob (rightfully so when they first encounter him) and have him a recurring threat to the players for a good portion of the campaign.

But of course we are back to the same problem here as we were with feats. There is soooo much to choose from. If we want normal equipment we have the Ultimate Equipment guide, if it is magical then we are staring again at multiple (at least 4) books for the information. But each piece that we add to the character builds him up. A GM with a photographic memory will do this very well as they will remember the precise items they need but this search can take a long time for those of us that start to read magic items one at a time to get the right match.

From the above six paragraphs I have given you a basic understanding of the complexity that can come of making a simple NPC for a game. The larger the ruleset the more likely you are to find the complexity shoots through the roof. I actually intend to do a series of Pathfinder NPC’s for my blog in the near future and I already know that I will be spending a lot more time on them because of the complexity of the system. Believe me, complexity of a system does not necessarily mean that you will end up with better NPC’s overall either. The NPC’s that I have worked up for the Lords of Gossamer and Shadow have such a small rule base to choose from but the rules are really aimed at storytelling conventions and thus each is very different from one another, even those that have a similar focus.

brigandineSo back to how we make our NPC reflective of what we want. The very first thing is have the concept. We have Bob the big barbarian bruiser and we want players to be fearful of him. Why are they afraid of him? Is it because he is deadly, or just intimidating? I want to go with an intimidation style for him so I think about how that looks. T-Rex armor mentioned before would be cool, but what is cooler and scarier looking is a suit of magical bone armor! Perhaps the bones of a T-Rex instead. His weapon needs to be large and differentiate him. When I want a weapon that stands out I normally choose a flail, and in this case I think that is what I will do. A big double headed flail with spiked heads that has some kind of magical enchantment. I would like an amulet of bone or something similar, but he already has the bone armor, so perhaps we work on a magical amulet (probably natural armor or something similar) fashioned from the shriveled T-Rex’s heart? Take the above three items and apply them to a mental image right now. He is an intimidating guy. Now, just for flavor add the crisscrossing of many scars to his exposed body and a scar that starts at his right brow and marks its way all the way down to his left cheekbone. Nice.

By considering the character first and what you want to achieve you can peel away some of the complexity. Make the weapons and armor be custom magic items and you can build them how you want. Decide what you want in a magical item (such as the amulet) and then backwards fashion it. An amulet of natural armor is normally made from bone or beast scales. I don’t care, lets make it a T-Rex heart, it is all good!

Regular equipment is normally not that flavorable. Of course you can make it a little more intense with description but this tends to delude the player into thinking things are magical (if it has a description it is magical to a player) so it is best not to be too descriptive of other material. But then consider if they ride a dragon (Bob doesn’t but wouldn’t it be cool if he did!) or have a troll hound as a pet. What about his generals that surround him? What are they like? Are they strong and confident or sniveling and scared? All of these factors build up an impression for the players.

The next thing to do is to plan how the players come across Bob. It is much better to layer an NPC onto the players. The first time they meet Bob have him making off with a magical treasure they were sent to collect. He is by himself and he fights and defeats them making off with the treasure. Then the players do some surveillance and to their surprise they find him at the heart of the enemy camp, seemingly surrounded by sniveling lieutenants, suggesting he may be of importance.

This layering of the NPC builds the tension and the sweet success the players will feel as they finally defeat him after a string of interrelated adventures. You use other NPC’s and the NPC’s gear to be reflective of the character as a whole. That way they do not necessarily need to talk to Bob to realize he is the big bruiser barbarian. Of course it is nice to work against archetype once in a while (e.g. Bob actually sympathizes with the players and becomes an ally in the long run) but these twists should be used rarely or otherwise the players will always expect the unexpected from your NPC’s and rightfully so.

Crafting an NPC is an important role and I hope the points above help you to consider a few things you may not have in the past. Simply getting the class and stats right is only one half of the job, if that. Players will judge based on how the NPC looks and how they act. They rarely know that Bob has Strength 22 but they do know he just cleaved that Hobgoblin right in two with one hit. Consider your NPC’s from every angle and make sure they accurately fit the bill that you need for your game on game night. Keep rolling!

Mark Knights is  39 year old guy living in a small rural town called Elliott in Tasmania, Australia.  I have been role playing since I was 11 years old playing the original versions of Dungeons and Dragons, MERP, Elric, Dragon Warriors and the like amongst other genre games.  I played D&D 2nd Edition through the 90′s but I ran Earthdawn for my fantasy setting and loved it as a GM.  When 3rd Edition came out for D&D I tried it but found it too heavy on rules.  I ignored the 3.5 edition of DnD in favour of Earthdawn (big mistake) as I thought it was just a money spinner.  When 4th Edition DnD came on my players and I gave it a red hot go but hated what it had dumbed the game down to be.  On a trip to Melbourne to buy some 4E stuff from a hobby store an old mate of mine pointed me at Pathfinder and in a Fantasy setting I have never looked back.