Movie Trailers as Adventure Seeds

Posted on August 9, 2013 by Iron Tavern Guest Blogger

Like most GMs and writers, I’m always looking for inspiration. Sometimes it comes from within. Sometimes you have to go looking for it. And one place it occurred to me to look for such inspiration is in movie trailers.

I’m sure you’re wondering why use movie trailers. But if you think about it, they’re the perfect vehicle for getting plots, settings, and characters. In about 60-120 seconds, you get the rough outline for the setup of the story. Plenty of plot points to snag quickly. And you don’t get bogged down in all the details as you do when you watch the whole thing. Plus, and this is the key, without all the context your mind is more free to interpret what it sees and put things together in different ways.

Sure, you could watch the whole movie. Or the whole television program. Or read the whole book. But it’s too much information. You might get a few plot points here or there, but it’s a different beast entirely. For our purposes we want broad strokes and nothing more. The details just get in the way.

The steps are simple. Pick a trailer. Watch the trailer. Take some notes about key elements. Ponder the notes and turn them into an adventure idea.

Let’s start with an easy one. Take a trailer like the one for the movie Devil’s Pass (watch it here). I’m not a huge horror fan, but I find that just about any trailer can be broken into story elements around which a story could be built.

In this case, you get a few high points…

A past expedition went to explore a mountain pass and disappeared
A modern expedition is going to recreate the expedition /li>
They arrive in the valley (snowy or otherwise) that the past expedition was heading to
They get strange readings on their equipment
They decide they don’t want to hang around, but it’s nearing nightfall and it’s too dangerous to leave
In the night something/someone triggers an avalanche that they get hurt in but survive
In the morning they are attacked by a group of people
They find refuge in an old cave system or underground facility
But something is in there with them that’s decidedly not friendly

Doesn’t this sound like a solid adventure for your PCs? I don’t even really have to massage it much.

Though the movie appears to be set largely in a wintery location in the mountains, it could easily be moved to just about any location. Perhaps somewhere isolated like a dark wooded area or a desert. Or even somewhere in space… a distant world, shipwreck, or whatever. Just about any group with a secret agenda might have a hidden location they’d rather not have someone bring to light could be the antagonists… And perhaps they have something truly evil in store.

As with all ideas, your imagination is the only limitation.

So you don’t think this is a one trick pony, let’s take another trailer… This time for the upcoming Jobs movie about Steve Jobs (watch it here). Not a movie I plan on seeing. And yes, this one is a little tougher to translate into something usable. 🙂

We can break it down into a few points:

Jobs goes to college
Jobs drops out of college
Gets involved with girl
Gets involved with Wozniac, who creates Apple I
Businessman gets involved
Apple gets big
Jobs and Apple have fight
Jobs fired
Jobs finds himself again
Jobs back at Apple making history

Let’s change it slightly and go with two wizards who went into business together to produce a better quality of magical items. Quality over variety or production. But when one wanted to change the company philosophy towards increasing production by making a deal with dark forces, the two parted ways. Years later, the wizard who left returns to find an empire in ruins because his partner had sold out to a demon. The second wizard asks the PCs to help find and stop his old friend, now corrupted beyond saving… Can they save the empire? Can they save his friend?

Not quite as clean a conversion, but I think I ended up with something usable. In fact, I may start doing a weekly challenge over at my Moebius Adventures blog to have folks submit movie trailers for me to try and massage into adventure plots!

What can YOU come up with? Pick a random movie trailer on the Internet and see! Be sure to put your adventure plots and the movie trailer link into your comments – we’d love to read them!

Brian “Fitz” Fitzpatrick is a Software Engineer who manages (or is that mangles) Game Knight Reviews and tinkers with writing game materials via his Moebius Adventures imprint. When he’s not writing about gaming, he’s actually gaming or at least thinking about gaming in some capacity. During the non-writing, non-gaming time he’s likely trying to keep up with his wife and two daughters or wrangling code for a living!

Homeless in Fantasy RPGs

Posted on July 26, 2013 by Iron Tavern Guest Blogger

My wife is a veterinarian who helps out with a local organization called Street Petz in Colorado Springs, CO. She and her volunteers go out once a week to help out the homeless population downtown and their pets by providing food, vaccines, and whatever supplies they can. She also gives blankets, water, socks, some food, and whatever she can to the homeless themselves. I’ve met a few of them and many are kind folks just trying to get by. They are people and deserve our help if it’s within our power to provide it.

But it’s left me wondering about the many homeless populations that must exist in fantasy RPGs and why we don’t usually see them appear in our campaigns and adventures.

Take a common scenario we see again and again. Bandits. Marauders. Barbarians. Swoop into a village, take what they want, and set fire to the rest. If you’re lucky enough to survive, you’re likely hurt, your family is dead or missing, and your home is destroyed. Or take the Robin Hood scenario. Good men, women, and families taxed to the brink of starvation and death flee for their lives as their homes, livestock, and more are possessed in lieu of payment. Again, the strong take what they want from the weak and leave them to fend for themselves. What happens to these people? Where do they go?

If you’re in an urban environment, imagine the devastation from a simple fire burning out of control through a group of houses. Just like today, those people may lose loved ones, but more than likely they lose their property and homes, with nowhere to turn for help. Again, I’m wondering where these folks go. Does anybody help them? Do they get justice or help in any form?

So let’s take a look at a few possible angles from which to tackle this question.

First, if it’s a wilderness setting, there’s always the camping alternative. Imagine a hidden camp area where folks gather, share resources, and work together to survive. Would these people be fearful of outsiders? You bet. Whether you represent the law or not, they’re going to be reluctant to let anyone in to take advantage of whatever they have left. Even if all they have left is a shred of dignity, they’re going to hold onto that and likely fight for it to the bitter end.

I could see an adventure where the PCs are asked to investigate some bandit activity and come across a burned out village. They might track the survivors down to one of these camps and ask some questions to determine who the bandits were or where they came from. Then they could track the bandits down and remove the threat so the villagers could return and try to rebuild their lives if they chose to do so.

Or your PCs may simply run across some displaced individuals along the road. Where did they come from? Can the PCs help? Where are they going?

Second, maybe we’re dealing with a rural setting. Farms and ranches. Sometimes a kind family will take in those affected by tragedy and help them out for a time. They may even be integrated into their daily lives, helping out with chores and jobs, or building new lives with their benefactors. Like in the camp situation, bonds will be formed and they will become protective of one another if things are going well. Or if they aren’t, they’re likely to turn out the troublemakers quickly.

Imagine an investigation into a series of deaths in the vicinity that all started when a family farm was decimated by wild creatures. The PCs may have to talk to many local farms or ranches in the area to figure out where any survivors went and then see if one of them perhaps caused the initial incident and the following murders. I can see resistance to the idea that “one of their own” would do such a thing…

Third, let’s look at an urban setting like a town or city. Larger civilized population centers typically have one or more spots where homeless tend to congregate. Unless the local police force is really draconian about their policies, homeless may group near bridges, drainage areas, parks, or even on church grounds. A homeless population may form a community in the wilderness beside a town or city. And again, most will try to keep to themselves and avoid trouble if at all possible.

An adventure idea here may revolve around an arsonist destroying homes in town and forcing people onto the streets. Can the PCs determine where the survivors are? Will the survivors give them any clues they may have? And can they stop the madness before more people become homeless?

Though all of these ideas are fairly dark and gritty, each offers some interesting ways to work ethical and moral dilemmas into a campaign world. Will a local government help or hinder an investigation? What are the laws like? How corrupt are any local officials? Plus, you have plenty of room to make the homeless in your worlds a part of the tapestry, with plenty of colorful characters with dark pasts and potential links to other adventures…

Total Lunacy

Posted on July 19, 2013 by Iron Tavern Guest Blogger

A few weeks ago we had a “Supermoon” event and it strangely made me ponder the use of moons in fantasy campaigns. Beyond the fact that ancient Greeks once thought that the full moon’s pull affected the fluids of the brain like it does the tides and the strange correlation between a full moon and increased police, fire, and emergency activity (talk to any fireman, police officer, or ER nurse for details), I’m pretty sure I’m not going to go all wolf-man any time soon… But here are a few ideas for how you might be able to use the moon (or moons) in your campaign.

1. Tides

In my years of gaming, I don’t think I’ve ever seen the tides show up in any meaningful way in an adventure except for some of the recent modules from Kobold Press. But if you live on the coast, they’re a literal fact of nature. Why not use them in your stories?

A sand bridge or other submerged feature may only appear at low tide to allow access to a small island off shore. (See “Sand Bridge at Low Tide” @ TVTropes.org for some examples.)
A cave in the rocks that serves as the entrance to an ancient temple or hidden treasure trove in a weatherbeaten cove and is only accessible at low tide for a short time.
In a small boat at high tide might be the only safe way to get to an alcove inaccessible from above along an ocean-facing rock wall.
High tide might wash ashore clues to an ancient (or recent) shipwreck, including bodies and debris.

And if you have more than a single moon for your campaign world, I’m sure you could plot out extremely low tides where the remains of ancient civilizations are exposed on the ocean floor (think H.P. Lovecraft) or extremely high tides when coastal cities have to batten down the hatches or be swept away.

2. Lycanthropy

Everybody likes a good werewolf story, right? Whether it’s in a battle with vampires in Underworld, Benicio del Toro’s The Wolfman, Russel Tovey’s “George” on Being Human (the BBC version), or Seth Green’s “Oz” on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, we’ve had a few recent entries since Lon Chaney Jr.’s take on the story in The Wolf Man back in 1941. Howling at the moon has never looked so good.

And D&D brought all sorts of other fun shape-changers to my attention as a kid. Were-creatures gained all sorts of friends such as werebears, wereboars, and wererats. Whether you use lycanthropy as a disease or a racial type, you have plenty of options.

So perhaps it’s time to introduce some wild things into your campaign and let the full moon bring out the beasts!

3. Symbology

Depending on how you look at the moon, you can gain some interesting ideas from how we use it today and how the moon appears in myths from around the world. Usually the symbology has some practical application to the original cultures of the myths and stories.

For example, the Algonquin tribes of North America named the full moon differently throughout the year. The “Worm Moon” in March signified the beginning of spring when earthworms would appear and birds could find them more easily. The “Hunter’s Moon” in October offered light for hunting so the tribes could put away food for the coming winter. Other examples can be found here at Windows To The Universe.

Joseph Campbell talks about the moon and sun in a different manner. The way the moon’s phases work with the shadow of the earth make it seem as though it slowly is eaten away, disappears, and is reborn in a regular cycle. The sun on the other hand is a constant, so if it’s ever eclipsed it’s panic time, but also represents the constancy of consciousness. Or the impression that the sun is trying to dry out or kill the world. There’s a great portion of an interview with Joseph Campbell on YouTube here that talks about this very topic.

Or you could use the simple approach of the moon passing through it’s various phases as a show of strength. A whole or “full” moon represents some forces at their zenith while a new or “dark” moon represents those forces at their weakest. So various cultures or myths or even magical abilities could be dependent on the cycles of particular moons or suns. I could imagine a multi-lunar system as being quite an interesting force to reckon with as far as moons and magic might go.

Credit: ESO/L. Calçada

4: Cosmology

I saved cosmology for last because it to me brings in the world building or setting aspects for the fantasy genre. Though we scientifically know now that there is no life on our one moon, there was a lot of debate about what was “up there” for a long time. Some even believed there were beings living on the moon.

If you look at the John Carter of Mars stories, there’s the idea of portals or technology that allows one to transport from Mars to Earth and back again. Perhaps something similar could exist between moons and planets to allow magical transport between them. Instead of a group of Drow inhabiting the Underdark, perhaps they instead live on the dark side of the moon and stage raids on the worlds for various supplies, slaves, and sacrifices.

The idea of moons corresponding to different planes of existence or dimensions is another aspect to explore. Even if the correlation is merely philosophical in nature, I could see various moons corresponding to different elemental planes of fire, earth, water, and air for example, depending on how the solar system was arranged.

Entire plots could come into play if gods or other powerful beings began adding or removing moons from the sky. How would a religion take the loss of a moon? Or explain the sudden intrusion of a new one? What sorts of cataclysmic events would arise from having additional bodies in orbit? Would the tides become worse as the push and pull of gravity changed stresses on oceans or even internal pressures?

Meta vs. In Character Knowledge

Posted on July 16, 2013 by Jeffrey Tadlock

As generations of gamers blend and the OSR movement seems strong, there seem to be more and more occasions where someone wants to run or play in an old classic. But someone else at the table is near certain to have played in many of the old TSR classic modules. This seems inevitable as some of us who have been gaming for years introduce a new, younger generation to the hobby.

This often presents a problem as someone at the table has to pretend they do not know anything about the module. At least that is how we have tackled it in groups I have played in. The person that has played the module before simply bows out of any major decision making point. They don’t reveal a particular trap or help choose the right path. This lends itself to a tremendous amount of meta knowledge bleeding into actual play.

Sometimes this makes people shy away from certain modules. We all know it isn’t a lot of fun to not participate in solving puzzles, choosing passages, or delicately investigating that fearsome looking door bearing the face of a grinning demon. So the easiest way to handle that is to simply play adventures no one at the table has played before.

A Different Way

I recently started listening to the actual play podcasts over at the The Delvers. The podcast is on a bit of a hiatus at the moment due to various issues, but the past episodes are of course available. I started listening because of the Barrowmaze actual play under the Labyrinth Lord rules. The shows are well done, sort of like an old radio show with generous edits to keep things moving and interesting in easily listened to nuggets.

I noticed there was also a Tomb of Horrors actual play episode that was one big show. Intrigued I listened to that one as well. In this case one of the players had run the module at least once, maybe more, and possibly played it in the past as well. He found an interesting way to not have to sit on the sidelines with his meta-knowledge.

His magic-user’s backstory included him spending many years in his wizard tower studying the tomb of Acererak. This course of study over ancient tomes helped the wizard in-character know more about the Tomb of Horrors than normal. The player was able to blend their meta knowledge into why their character would know more detail about the Tomb.

I thought this was an interesting way to tackle this issue as the generations of gamers blend and we replay the older classics. Listening to the podcast the early parts, the more familiar parts, of the tomb were quickly explored as this meta knowledge showed as in character research. The further into the tomb though, things became uncertain as the meta knowledge was less precise. By the midway point of the module decisions were needing to be made as part of the whole party, with no clear answer.

I think this tactic could work for other scenarios as well. In my own games if I happen to run something someone else has played or run, we can chalk up some of that character’s research in some dusty library that happened during downtime earlier in the campaign. This will help allow the character to fully participate without having to keep quiet all of the time.

Now this might not work for all modules, where they are less puzzle or trap oriented and more “big twist” at the end oriented. But it does provide yet another tool to the GM to help run something that might have been played before. I will certainly add this tool to my arsenal of GM tricks.

A Unique Issue

Have other GMs run into this issue of trying to run a module another player in the group has run or played? Do you avoid such adventures? Have you developed work around for that situation? If so I want to hear about them!

Injecting A Little Horror Into Your Game

Posted on July 8, 2013 by Iron Tavern Guest Blogger

I have always been a fan of horror in my games. In fact the games that I remember the most have been those that I have centred around a horror fantasy concept. But not just any horror. If you are after a horror game that will make the players sweat bullets and jump at your every word then you are trying to create a setting that is the hardest to pull off. It is a prize I have tried for many times and failed each time. But if you want to run a game which will leave the players at the end with open mouths because of the horror story that has just been told read on.

A horror game that leaves an impression needs to be a story game on the whole. Every horror story that has been successful for me has had at its heart a tale of tragedy. Every single game that I recall was based on an innocent situation gone wrong. If you look to popular culture for examples of horror you will find a broader range of possibilities available to you but some of those are really precluded by the style of game we play. For example, the slasher flicks like Halloween or Friday the 13th are not really recreatable in Fantasy Horror as everyone has Combat abilities so the only way this style can deliver horror to the players is through the NPC’s they kill in gruesome ways. If that happens it becomes a story game rather than a gore fest. Movies like Jaws could be created but rely on a lot of suspense. Having a creature that lives in an environment like the shadow/astral plane that attacks from surprise may be an option but how long you could sustain that suspense may be limited. I must admit I have never really tried that style of game and I will put it on my to do list.

The horror that really leaves me and my players in love with an adventure are those that detail tragic circumstances leading to a horrific manifestation of evil. In my games this tends to gravitate to ghost stories but in reality it can be any style, vampire, zombie, ghoul, werecreature etc. that involves transformation from a normal innocent being into a creature of malevolence. I use ghosts a lot because I am a fan of them, especially Japanese spirits who are rich in story detail. Not to mention there are a massive amount of Japanese spirits out there to draw information on. So many you could create an entire campaign around the theme. For some idea check out http://hyakumonogatari.com which translates traditional Japanese spirit stories into English.

Once you have chosen the style of threat you want you need to weave a story around it. To be fully effective the story should be one of terrible corruption and circumstance. I will give you a few ideas for you to work with.

A girl married in secret to her love murdered by her own mother (who did not know she was married) who caught her in the act of consummating the marriage
A husband finds a box filled with letters to his wife from an admirer. Not realising they had never been opened (and therefore it is a love not returned) the man kills his wife and then commits suicide
A child born with an affliction (mental impairment or physical deformity) is kept in a sealed room until their death to save shame on the family
A vicious werewolf attack barely scrapes a baby in the wound as the mother is killed. The baby transforms into a horrid thing come the full moon…
A demon possesses the body of an innocent girl who is then convicted of witchcraft and burnt at the stake

This gives you a few basic ideas that you can turn into your own games or you can build your own from these ideas. At the heart of them all is one concept and that is innocent corrupted. If you want to look at a great (and cheap) module that follows this style designed for Pathfinder look at the recent release Haiku of Horror for inspiration!

Why is this corruption necessary? Well it may not be but in every game that I have run that seemed to get the best reaction it was at the point that the players put together the story. They find the journal that details the neglect, they find the box of letters and realise three quarters of them are still unopened etc. It is these twists in the tale where the players realise that the horror was built out of misunderstanding or prejudice that really hammer home that horror. These adventures make great side track adventures and tend to bring out a lot of roleplaying in a group if you can get them interested in the story to begin with which may be a challenge.

So how do you get them interested? Well, the easiest way is a reward. The town mayor wants to know why all his townfolk are turning into werewolves. A young couple have moved into the previous home of the murder/suicide and the parents seek the help of the players to find out what is behind their increasingly unusual behaviour. Reward is good, but then the players are not overly concerned if it goes poorly and they just don’t get the reward. Try to get them personally interested as characters (and players)! If you are playing Pathfinder, grab the Gamemaster Guide or go the the reference document and read up on haunts. You can use haunts subtly or overtly to drag the players into a game. The walls of the basement begin to ooze blood, the player gets distracted by a sound, looks back blood gone. Or something as simple as the innkeeper warning them not to wander around the Inn at night. No reason, just “Stay in your room under all circumstances!” Players love to break rules.

To keep the interest in the story really requires good pacing. String out a series of events that alternate between storytelling and supernatural activity. The players need to get a sense that there is a story to be had before they pursue it. Make the first visitation of a spirit enticing and the players will be seeking information from NPC’s everywhere. Have every NPC have a variation of a story, and throw in a couple of red herrings too. Watch them try to chase down the truth. Prepare artifacts (props) for the players to handle (the box with the letters or an old toy etc.) that will increase the interest in the story. If you feel that your players will not buy into the story without some fights make them mean something. Have the players rewarded after the battle by a bit of the story, e.g. a diary or a map that shows a secret basement level of the house.

The climax of an adventure should not be a battle with the spirit or creature. It certainly should happen though. What needs to happen is the players have to finish what they have started or the problem continues. With a spirit, they just continue to show up! You have to bring to light the circumstances that lead to the malevolent spirit coming into being. Remove the body from the hidden basement and have the parents arrested (Lawful Good) or seal them into the same room (Neutral!) should do it. One way or another the players need to continue to pursue the story until its end. It is when they put all the pieces together that you will get the response you are after. That wow factor from them as they complete their investigation and they marvel at the evil that can be done to even the most innocent amongst us.

I strongly suggest you give this style of game a go once you have run some regular games and are looking for a challenge to your GMing. To run one of these games well takes a good amount of skill and they do not always work, but when they do they have a lasting effect on your game. The players will get a boost out of solving a story based option and may reach for a roleplaying situation first. Or they may just talk about the game a lot. Both are satisfying for a GM either way!

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.

Geologic Time

Posted on July 5, 2013 by Iron Tavern Guest Blogger

photo by meckimac from commons.wikimedia.org

As GMs and players we have an odd obsession with time. When it comes to combat, we track it down to rounds of a few seconds, making sure we know who acts when to keep order at the table. We track it as our characters cross expanses of wilderness, caves, or dungeons to gauge when random encounters may occur, when magical effects expire, and when daylight appears or disappears…

But time for world designers is a different beast. Was an area always forest? At what point did the seas form or boil away? How long did a particular type of creature or organization rule unopposed over the landscape?

When this type of question appears, I try to look at time from a different perspective.

If it’s a question involving individuals or small groups of people (families, organizations, and so on), it happens on a much smaller scale. Months, years, decades, or centuries usually. These events occur in the span of mortal lifetimes.

If it’s a question involving civilization, I look at things in terms of decades, centuries, or millennia. This is more of a generational time frame, where organizations can pass knowledge and prejudices over a longer span of time. I also keep in mind the effects of the “telephone game.” Time, like space or any other context, can change how a message is interpreted down the line.

If it’s a question involving nature, I use the same scale but expand it to multiple millennia or even millions or billions of years. Look at how the jungles of many parts of the world have hidden the ruins of fallen civilizations effectively for hundreds or thousands of years. Or how rising waters have swallowed entire portions of continents. The landscape of the dinosaurs was far different than what we see today.

If it’s a question involving geology, it gets expanded to the wide end of the time spectrum as well unless the world is technologically adept at terraforming. Tectonic plates can shift. Mountains rise. Land falls into the sea. Rivers carve canyons. Glaciers advance and recede creating valleys.

As GMs we are in a great position to use time as another tool in the box. Do we want a culture to be in decline after ruling the world for thousands of years? Figure out where they were at the height of their empire and then determine how that has been whittled away year by year, decade by decade, century by century.

Or imagine a world in the throes of great geologic change where land bridges form and dissolve, allowing civilizations and animal populations a way to shift and become isolated over time, changing from what they were in the beginning.

Using Published Modules In A Home Campaign

Posted on July 1, 2013 by Iron Tavern Guest Blogger

When building your own campaign it can be taxing coming up with adventures on a schedule that matches your games. Sometimes you just want to pick up the module you have been reading and play that for a few sessions. That way most of the work is done. Isn’t it?

Well, it may surprise you that it can actually be just as much work building a module into a running campaign as it is to create one of your own. Especially with modern styled adventures, that tend to be styled toward sequential play. So what should you be looking at doing to run a module in your existing campaign?

The first thing that you have to do like you would if you were just running a store bought module is read it. Make sure you know your material and the flow of the module. Get familiar with the major characters and NPC’s and the background to the module. While you are doing this make sure you work out what parts of the story are going to be apparent to the players openly or through investigation. There is always material in modules that is given for GM understanding that the players never get to see but some of the information may come out in play.

Once you have a working knowledge of the module you would normally be ready to play it. But as you are adapting the module to your campaign you will now have a bit of work to do before it is playable in your campaign. First of all, tackle the easier things like how to incorporate the geography into the game. Each module will likely contain a pile of maps that show the surrounding area as well as where the action happens. You need to consider this material. Normally modules start in a town or somewhere similar. Do you have a settlement that closely matches the descriptions provided in the module? Can you slip it directly into the campaign unaltered or do you need to adjust the material in some way as the players may have already visited the settlement and expect something else. Do you need to add it all in somewhere else on the map or expand the map for this to occur?

The next step is looking at the story of the module. Many modules of today’s gaming systems are part of a larger narrative with more modules that make up a whole story. To do this the writers of the modules will consider the series as a whole and implement certain themes as well as links to other modules in recurring characters or items. It is your job to go through the module now and find those bits and pieces and adjust them if need be. If part of the module is set up building a desire in the players to tackle the next module you have to pull them out (unless you want to move on to the next module).

From a story perspective what works with the theme of your campaign and what does not. Eliminate those things that will confuse the players with their inclusion. If you are running a campaign in a world full of undead and the module is about a visit of fey inspired creatures it may jar the players from the overall campaign that you are working with. You may need to alter the creatures or the overall theme of the module to allow the narrative arc of your campaign to survive the modules length.

Alter the module so that it now includes items your players you will find useful and use the NPC’s to involve strands of your own campaign you want them to follow on with. Think of how you can turn this module even further into an adventure that the players would not know the difference between your regular campaign and the module. Alter the look and feel of things. Alter read aloud text (if you use it) to a style that is consistent with your own. Turn the dungeon into a tomb. Turn the mountain that dominates the adventure into the statue that exists in your major city. Swap all the monsters out for creatures of a different kind and drop your own NPC’s in. Modules are so called because they are modular and meant to be used in this manner.

Once all this is done take one last look at what you have done. Is all this work still going to have the module achieve what you want? If you say yes then you are ready to run. But if you are still asking questions about something you may still have some work to do. Go back through what you have done with a fine tooth comb and make sure it is at the point you are happy with before running the game.

I am always amused at the snobbery that goes on between some GM’s when you do not make your own adventures or you introduce a module into a campaign. I actually find altering a module to suit my group play time consuming when I am running an adventure path. When you integrate a module into an existing campaign it is even more work! Using modules is not the act of a GM with no imagination, sometimes you read a module that inspires you so use it! But if you are running your own campaign you will likely find slotting a module in to be a lot of work.

Keep your eye on modules that come out, especially if they are one shots! They can be really useful tools when you need a bit of a break. The more you use them too the easier it will get but it still requires work to get a seamless feel to the adventure. Every now and then you will read a module that just suits your style of play and it would be a shame not to use them! Keep on rolling.

Family Ties

Posted on June 28, 2013 by Iron Tavern Guest Blogger

Character histories seem to be one of those things that players seem to love or hate. But they help put our characters into a bit of context in the world they live in.

Our characters live in terms we can all identify with… They are born, live a while, then die. In between, they live in terms of all those delineations we’ve come to accept – from seconds to days, months to years, decades and even centuries. Not many of us may live to the century mark in the real world, but our family memories can stretch far beyond a single life into the lives of whole generations. So why don’t we use the generational view to help define our characters a bit better?

When we construct character histories, we often ask things like:

How old are they?
Do they have any siblings?
Are their parents still alive? Grandparents?
What do they know?
Who do they know? Friends or enemies?
What do they do?

But sometimes it can be fun to ask some questions on a more macro level:

How far back can you trace their family tree?
Who were the heroes and villains in their family history?
What major historical events did their family participate in?
Where did their family start?
Is the family known for anything in particular?
Is the family name recognized beyond the confines of their particular neighborhood, town, city, nation, etc?

Obviously when we delve deeper like this we need our GMs to buy into the process, but basically we’re seeking ways to clarify how the character fits into the greater scheme of things. And asking questions about one family can raise points about other families that they may have crossed paths with along the way. Are there any family rivalries? Feuds? Rifts? It can become a much larger thing than one single character.

Yes, I understand that every bit of information you come up with for your characters can potentially become a hook for your GM to tug on mercilessly during a campaign, but isn’t that the goal? Each hook means that the character is that much more an actual part of the world they inhabit. It becomes that much easier to find ways to motivate your character and the characters around them to do heroic (or dastardly) things if you can put events into a perspective that they understand.

Plus, this broadens the conversation that you can have with your GM or DM to learn more about the history of the world and how your character is woven into it. That way even if your character should die in the telling of a particular story, perhaps they become part of the larger narrative even in death that you, the GM, or other players could then build upon.

Obviously this is just one avenue to explore when building a character. What other avenues have you explored as players or GMs to help the world seem more alive to PCs and NPCs?

Natural Disasters in Campaigns

Posted on June 21, 2013 by Jeffrey Tadlock

F5_tornado_Elie_Manitoba_2007_justin1569

photo by justin1569 at en.wikipedia

My home state of Colorado is currently on fire, which has me thinking about using natural disasters in campaigns. (Yes, I’m struck by the irony that my house is 6 miles away from the site of the Black Forest fire and I’m sitting here pondering how to use that in a game…) Though I’ve played through at least one module (Second Darkness from Paizo) that involved a tsunami of some variety and read a Kaidan adventure that involved a blizzard (Frozen Wind from Rite Publishing), I’ve not really seen many adventures that use them. Wonder why?

Natural disasters offer some interesting hooks GMs and designers could leverage in a variety of ways. They might encounter people fleeing the site of a crisis. Perhaps there are first responders (knights, clergy, mages, etc) charging to face the crisis head on. It might be as simple as a royal decree declaring some area off limits due to a crisis.

And though these may be created by Mother Nature herself, nothing says they couldn’t be created by some deity or wizard or elemental force blowing off steam. The God of the Sea might have been offended by a king and choose to wipe away some city or town along the coast out of spite. Or two wizards may battle it out and destroy the environment in an area to the point where tragic drought drives people from their homes in droves. Maybe a rift between the planes allowed a chaotic elemental force into the world and it’s on a rampage…

The possibilities are truly endless. And as we see in our own world, disasters seem to occur regularly on scales both big and small.

Natural disasters might include things like tsunamis, hurricanes, water spouts, or floods; blizzards or hard freezes; volcanic eruptions, lightning-sparked fires and droughts; thunder storms or tornadoes. And if that’s not enough, you can also add at least two of the classic biblical plagues – disease or pestilence – to the mix. Plus, there are always the man-made variety of disasters such as genocide, slash and burn, arson, war, mass poisoning, acts of terrorism, and so on…

Here are ten different ways you can think about working a disaster into your game. The party…:

…passes a group of people on the road fleeing the site of a recent disaster.
…overhears some people talking about a recent disaster in a crowd or tavern.
…is passed on the road by a small group of heroes heading to the site of a recent disaster to help.
…hears a town crier announcing that the area of a recent disaster is now off limits by royal decree.
…notices a sudden evacuation of wildlife escaping a local disaster.
…comes across the site of destruction from a recent (or ancient) disaster.
…feels the impact of a nearby disaster while traveling (local tremors, strong winds, torrential rain, etc.).
…runs into a staging area where people have gathered to treat the wounded after a local disaster.
…can see the effects of a nearby disaster at a distance (smoke, volcanic eruption, storm clouds, etc.).
…is stopped on the road by local authorities preventing them from entering an area affected by disaster.

For some reading on ancient disasters, here are a few articles:

8 Natural Disasters of Ancient Times at Listverse by Shelly Barclay
Wikipedia has several articles on Ancient Health Disasters and Ancient Natural Disasters
About.com has a collection of articles on Ancient Natural Disasters
Erik Sass @ Mental Floss has a list of 11 Natural Disasters that Led to Wars
Ben Conoley @ ModernMan.com has a list of Ancient Cities Wiped Out By Disasters

We don’t lack for disasters to use in our campaigns, only the reasons and will to use them!

(Please keep a good thought for the people affected by the fires in Colorado and disasters elsewhere this summer. It’s going to be another rough season I’m afraid.)

Settings From Different Cultures

Posted on June 17, 2013 by Iron Tavern Guest Blogger

Wow, what a weekend! For some it was Origins, for others it was the online Let Us Game Convention (L.U.G.Con) on Google+ Hangouts and for others (I am sure) there was more gaming as usual. I do wish that I had been going to Origins, and I am putting it on my wishlist for next year, but living in Australia may make this a little bit of an expensive trip! So it was L.U.G.Con for me and I hit L.U.G.Con with a force this weekend.

I ran four games at L.U.G.Con over the weekend, two of them were Pathfinder games set in the Land of Kaidan, the Oriental (Japanese style) contribution from Rite Publishing for Pathfinder. I have to say that the quality of roleplaying that the game promoted was excellent. Both of the games were the same (except for the players) and were based on the recent module added to the setting called Haiku of Horror. The module is a short (perfect for a con or side adventure) module set in a Japanese style bath house.

To use the module I expanded it out with 12th level pregenerated characters, most of them Samurai taken from the Way of the Samurai sourcebook from the same setting. This book gives an excellent write up of different archetypes of samurai branching off not only the Samurai class from Ultimate Combat but from the Ranger, Paladin and Wizard as well. This sourcebook gave me a real education about samurai and it was a great read with character classes being a treat to make. There was such a great variety of Samurai to choose from. To give you an idea I will include the blurb that I gave the players to help them choose their Samurai for the game.

The following all belong to the Samurai caste in Kaiden but may not be variants of the Samurai class (that will be explained in game if it confuses)

Yamabushi is a Paladin offshoot. A divine warrior monk who draws his power from the Yomi (Realm of the Dead). They generally serve as spiritual advisors to the clan head. Their powers come from a combination of inner strength and spiritual enlightenment.

Bugyo is a Prestige Class. They are a Samurai who has been given a great deal of authority. They are often magistrates, tax collectors but officials of the Daimyo who gave them their title.

Tajiya is a Samurai archetype. Champions of the natural world they seek to eradicate the blight of unnatural creatures. They stand against all supernatural foes and generally do not sign on with a Lord to avoid conflicts so they are considered Ronin.

Kuge is a Samurai archetype. They are Samurai born into a life of wealth and privilege. They start training later in life than most Samurai and spend a good deal of their training focussing on refined culture than others. They are often the ranking officers in Samurai outfits.

Onmyoji is a Wizard archetype. Respected and feared, these magicians are the court wizards of the Samurai. Their magic is delivered in the form of origami spells that when cast burst into flames as the magical energies consume them.

Yojimbo is a Ranger archetype. The Yojimbo literally translates as bodyguard. Generally serves the lord as a trouble solver travelling to areas and “fixing” problems that the lord foresees.

Mosa is a prestige class. These are the warriors that stand their ground to the last. Firmly planting their feet on the ground they draw on an inner strength to fight beyond the ken of normal man.

Nitojutsu Sensei is a Samurai archetype. These are Ronin Samurai who dedicate their entire life to the study of fighting with the Katana and Wakazashi. Fearsome warriors they are champions that need to be coerced to join a cause.

So you can see that there is a pretty comprehensive selection in the sourcebook, and that was not even all the archetypes included!

Enough about Kaidan (though I strongly recommend looking at it) and more about the game. This is my first ever attempt at running an oriental setting game. Sure I have run futuristic games with Yakuza etc. but never a fantasy setting rich with spiritual lore and the focus on oriental styled play. So I did not know what to expect but I tried to oriental it up. I fired up a Japanese random name generator, watched Fast and Furious Tokyo Drift (note: not a great help), set up Roll20 and then made the characters. Sounds easy? Wipe about a full two days off the calendar…

But the game surprised me! A lot. It has made me excited about my decision to run my own Land of Kaidan campaign after my current Adventure Path from Paizo is complete. The players in this game took to the Samurai wholeheartedly with the idea of honor and caste, really focusing on how they should authentically act in character. Plus, the module is really geared toward an investigative mode style of play. In both games there was opportunity for two or more combats but in each game the players chose diplomacy first so each game ended up with only one combat. The combat in both cases was swift and led the players on to more investigation as it created more questions than it answered.

I would suggest that if you have a tendency toward running more traditional Western fantasy that you branch out. In my two forays in different culture (Kaidan and Serpent Skull adventure path has a lot of African mythology connections but is still largely Western styled) I have had a great time and experienced some great role playing from my players. Just the fact of trying something new will have everyone nervous and excited and guaranteed to get some great responses to a new styled game.

For me, I have a respect for Japan and its heritage but little actual understanding of its real social structure. This has been changing recently as I have been gaming with some players that are in Japan so I am beginning to understand the culture and mindset of the country a little more. This is what initially attracted me to running an oriental styled game. Plus the third edition addition to Earthdawn of the Cathay setting which I so dearly want to run. Ah if only I could clone myself and find a group that still loves Earthdawn…

So, that is my suggestion, nay challenge to all of you this fine Monday. Think of an unusual setting to put your next games in. It might even be based on a traditional “Western” setting but from the cultural history and folklore of its people rather than populating it with trolls and ogres populate it with Bunyips and Rainbow Serpents (Aboriginal mythology from Australia) and think of some innovative archetypes that will bring out the best in your players as they explore something new. Do it as a one off to inject some relief into a long campaign, or build a campaign from the ground up. But please, if you have the opportunity, give it a try!

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