Evensbrook #6 Posted

The Most Amazing Breakfast I Will Ever Die At

When I was about 7, my brother got the D&D Basic Set, and as a consequence I knew who Gary Gygax was pretty early on. I started playing D&D myself when I was about 12, and his name was still printed all over practically every sourcebook I owned. I always wondered what he'd look like and what kind of person he was. In 1997, I attended my very first Gen Con, and I was in awe of the giant sales floor. I'd never seen anything like it before, and all the companies from Dragon magazine that I wanted to order stuff from over the years were all right there. In retrospect, it's probably good that I didn't have a large credit limit yet. Anyway, I wandered into a a booth to look at some books and I realized I'd tripped on someone's feet. It happens, I'm tall and I don't always look where I'm going. I looked down and noticed an older gentleman who came about up to my chest. Imagine my surprise when my brain finally caught up to the name printed on his badge: "GARY GYGAX". I don't have to imagine my surprise. I said "OH. BEH BUH SORRY!" and I got out of there as fast as I could. A similar incident happened the next year, followed by a similar unintelligible outburst, and a failing of my fear check. And I didn't see Mr. Gygax again until this year. I'm sure he was around, I just didn't run into him again (no pun intended). I saw him on the sales floor on Friday, signing books.

On Saturday, I attended Hickman's Killer Breakfast, which turned out to be every bit as awesome as I'd heard. Basically, Tracy Hickman is a killer DM, and literally a hundred first level PCs have to amuse the DM somehow to survive. And we were in Ravenloft this year, so that was basically completely impossible. I arrived early because I thought it'd be packed, and to my dismay I couldn't find the generic tickets I had bought for this event. Fortunately, a kind couple walked right in front of me to the ticket taker and said "We have an extra ticket we're not using. If someone else could --" and and that point I was on my feet going "OOH OOH ME ME ME", except in a much more polite way. I hope. I had the choice of being a spectator, or being killed with the rest of the players. I didn't come all this way to spectate, I wanted to be killed by the best. So, I lined up with the players.

Before too long, a man in a black shirt came out and everybody started cheering. I had no idea who he was. I thought they were cheering because they were going to let us in. It was shortly thereafter that I was struck with a very important realization -- Tracy Hickman was a dude. Up until last week, I thought Dragonlance was written by two women. How do you love and cherish a person's creative works for almost 20 years AND NOT KNOW THIS? I felt the geek cred seeping out of my body, and I wondered how I was to survive the next two hours.

They marched us into the ballroom seperately from the spectators, and somehow or another my row got ushered into the spectators section and a staffer came over and put us back with the players about two rows back from where we should have sat. Soon the event started, and Tracy and Laura Hickman (OK, I admit it -- I thought they were sisters until last week) came out and started singing a parody of The Phantom of the Opera. A "safety presentation" was then shown, and then the carnage began. You had to say why your character was there right then, and it had better not be boring or you died. That let you live one round. And you better DO something brave, stupid, or entertaining the next round or you would die. Also, if anyone around you did something stupid you died. You were pretty much hosed.

I'm usually pretty good at coming up with random funny ideas. I was choking. Hard. I thought briefly about several jokes about how I got there ranging from "I'm here to pick up goth chicks" to "my mom and dad gave each other a special hug" (which thankfully, someone else did and he killed them on the spot). But when I was called up to go backstage, I was out of ideas. About 30 seconds before I got onstage, my random thought generator kicked in, and I got an idea. A funny one. I just hoped everyone else thought it was too.

So I got on stage and I was just about to sit down when Tracy Hickman says "STOP STOP STOP! We have a celebrity that needs to be killed next!". And I look to my left and Gary Gygax walks on stage. The crowd goes completely bat-shit insane, and a stupid, indelible grin crosses my face. I almost forget to sit down when Tracy tells us to. And that's when I realize I can only vaguely remember what I was going to say. Fortunately, there was one guy before me and he said something dumb and got killed horribly, giving me time to remember. And so it was, playing D&D with Gary Gygax in front of a crowd of hundreds with Tracy Hickman as my Dungeon Master, I uttered the following words in my best attempt at imitating Peter Cullen:

"I am Optimus Strahd. MegaSoth must be stopped, no matter the cost."

That's right. Who of you is nerd enough to make a Transformers joke in front of two D&D legends, one of whom created the characters you just transformed into undead robots? I AM NERD ENOUGH. Thank GOD everybody laughed, I thought my heart was going to stop.

The guy between me and Gary dies, and Gary says he got there by hitchhiking. We're both still alive. Tracy starts over the table again after telling us a horde of vampires led by Strahd is coming one way and zombies led by Soth the other and we're in the middle. The guy next to me dies. Then it's my turn:

"I transform into a bat and ROLL OUT!"

Less laughter that time, but it's enough to keep me alive. Gary burrows underground, which was smart because the guy at the end of the row hands Tracy a piece of paper with the following words on it: "I prepared Explosive Runes this morning." The crowd went completely nuts, mostly because it was a hilarious joke from Order of the Stick, a very popular D&D webcomic (and one of my personal favorites). All of us died, except for Gary, who was underground. He died shortly thereafter, when somebody threw the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch.

It wasn't until I sat down that I realized HOLY SHIT I JUST PLAYED D&D WITH GARY GYGAX AND TRACY HICKMAN. Even if it was for only 2 minutes and 17 seconds. And the shame of not knowing Tracy's gender? Fellow gamers, I am healed.



(Special thanks to neal_swint who graciously allowed me to use this picture from his flickr set. I was really hoping all this wasn't some sort of E.L. Fudge-fueled hallucination!)

Getting into the game

Every week, when I sit down at the table, I complete a specific ritual that helps me get focused and ready to play.

First, I make sure I have a drink. Next, I pull out my character sheet and review it; I check over my weapons/spells, depending on what class I'm playing. Most importantly, I review my notes from the last session. I take pretty extensive notes (you never know when you'll need to know the name of the innkeeper from two towns back); I like to look over my notes to remember what happened last time, to get my mind thinking like my character. Finally, I pull out my dice for the evening. I have to find my lucky d20; for those of you who are curious, it's translucent green with white numbers, and the 7's are crossed. Then I find a couple of other d20's (in the event that my lucky one lets me down) and a handful of whatever other dice I need for my attacks.

Completing my ritual helps me get focused and ready to play, and while I'm not saying everyone should follow my ritual, I do think everyone needs their own.

Using Spell Research to augment your roleplay...

Once upon a time, there was a wizard named Medric. Medric was fascinated with rope tricks, so much so he spent much of his youth learning how to tie knots, do simple rope magic tricks, and generally annoy his parents.

As Medric ventured out into the world and had to use his spellcasting ability to keep himself safe, he quickly became resolved to use his interest in ropes to aid him in his quest.

I asked my Dungeon Master how he wanted to approach spell research, and his answer surprised me a little: write up a spell description based on the rules, and also begin to roleplay researching the spell. When he was satisfied with both sides of that equation, I could add the spell to my repertoire.

Medric spent the next several sessions researching different spells to base his rope magic, and he decided on a force spell similar to Magic Missle to propel the end of his rope through objects, after which it would do some residual rope burn damage if he continued to concentrate to direct the rope.

While he was researching, he decided to use this spell to bust through some melons and other various produce. After some practice, the DM allowed me to use the spell on some attacking orcs. It didn't end too well for the orcs, and Medric was happy that his research paid off.

During the spell research time, the DM would flex how effective the spell was based on a d20 roll. Sometimes it would do more damage than I had written in the spell description that I provided, and other times the spell would fail outright. Once, Medric's rope backfired and entangled him for several rounds.

I found this to be a much more engrossing way to research new spells, and certainly a lot more fun as a player than spending time slaving over a spell description and just having it appear as reality. It also presented some great opportunities for the rest of the PCs to see what was coming and experience the highs and lows along with my wizard.

I liked this approach so much that I have adopted it to use with my own campaigns. I'd love to hear thoughts on this process!

Be a Dungeon Master, not a Dungeon Novelist!

Novels are great. They're good for stacking up to make your desk look impressive, a nice escape from the work-a-day world, and they even make you look cool on airplanes (so I've heard). They're great places for linear stories to unfold, only a few writers have been so good to have their work transcend that paper cover and become truly "alive".

You can use elements of novels in your campaigns, however take special care not to inundate your players with too much information. If you have to work hard to sound like you're not reading, you're probably reading too much. I've found that around half of my group will tune out if forced to listen to (or read) more than a short paragraph's worth of description. Mostly, they want to become immersed in the story, not have the story told to them.

Don't get me wrong: I am a strong proponent of having a vibrant and colorful world. I believe that you have to let your players explore and experience the world, and your job as DM is to sprinkle colorful descriptions around not force them to have all eyes on you as you read your five page description of eleven generations of the Elf Lords that have predated that guy you just walked by on the street.

I can't exactly remember where this premise came from, but I really love it: Your players do not care as much about your plot and your NPCs as you do. I will amend that statement with some advice: have details, but don't feel obligated to use all of them. Drop them in as the characters make spot checks, or interact with NPCs, or do their research at the wizard's school.

It can almost feel like a video game cut scene when this is done incorrectly. As your characters walk into a town, you stop the group and read to them an intricately detailed description that you've been working on for six weeks. There's a reason that video game makers usually include a way to skip those establishing shots. It's because after a very short time the players get the gist of it and want to move on.

If it really fulfills you to have an ornate and colorful world and share it, do everyone a favor and write a novel. Take elements from that world and storyline and weave it into your campaigns sparingly.

Good writers create long stories that every reader can immerse themselves in and identify with. Good D.J.'s play music that the crowd wants to hear. Good Dungeon Masters create campaigns with just enough flavor to act as a vehicle for the player's enjoyment.

Be a Dungeon Master, not a Dungeon Novelist.

Roll Your Own

One of the best things about D&D is that it can be played a lot of ways. Some live for the battles, and treat it like a strategy wargame. Some, like us, love the roleplaying. And there are also those who enjoy extending the rules and creating new materials. Whole new game worlds, spells, character classes, monsters, you name it.

I personally did this a lot in high school, especially new spells. But one of the things I quickly discovered was that my stuff was usually massively overpowered or caused some other game mechanic to completely fail. For instance, my level 2 "Enhance" spell that I made when I was 13, which required you to roll a d10 -- and whatever number came up was the damage multiplier for your next attack spell. 100d6 fireballs, anyone?

It wasn't until much later, in a good friend's recent campaign we played in, that it finally sunk in that the reason the classes/spells/monsters in the books work so much better than the homebrewed ones is that they have had the holy living crap playtested out of them by lots of people. In this particular case, we spent the majority of a campaign working the bugs out of some classes he'd created. It takes a lot more work than you'd think. More work than just one guy playtesting it in a campaign, anyway.

It is for this reason, that I really like the idea behind Eruvian.com. It's a place where people who like to create stuff can put it out there where others can see it and try it out and report their experiences. As the Linux guys say, "many eyes make all bugs shallow", and creative types generally tend to egg each other on. It's always good to see people acting on their creative urges, and I'm expecting some pretty great stuff to come out of this site.

Oh, and those classes we were playtesting? Our friend says they're totally going on that site. Sweet.

Attacking on Sight, and Oh How I Hate Those Who Do

Ever have this happen on D&D night? You get a player whose character's parents/friend/pet cat were killed by orcs. As surely as the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, the party encounters a bunch of orcs twice the size of the party and three times as tough. They are all standing around minding their own business and they haven't even seen the PC's yet. And at this time, our intrepid hero bravely adjusts the helmet atop his pointed little head and declares "ORCS! I ATTACK ON SIGHT!" and proceeds to charge the orcs in a manner that would do Leeroy Jenkins proud. This usually results in at least one character death and possibly even a player death, usually via bludgeoning with a PHB.

For the sake of your continued survival, please don't be this guy. This player has clearly not given any thought to anything other than the fact that his character hates orcs. Anything. Survival, his friends' survival, the DM sharpening a meat cleaver under the table, anything. His abysmal intelligence and social skills aside, this player's problem with his PC is that he isn't roleplaying his character. He is roleplaying the sentence "I hate orcs and will attack on sight." No sane person, much less a seasoned adventurer, would charge a war party of orcs by himself as soon as he saw them. He would probably get out of sight and form a battle plan with his party. This battle plan could (and in this case probably should) include running as fast as their little imaginary legs could carry them.

This is basically the D&D equivalent of going to play tennis with your friends, except instead of playing tennis, you set yourself on fire and run screaming headlong into the net. You die, but sadly that doesn't give anyone any joy whatsoever since the net is burned and the cops are coming. Congratulations -- you've just ruined the whole game!

If this sounds like something you might do on D&D night, please know that our spy satellites are watching. And they have lasers.

Five-Minute Backstories

As Vanir described earlier, your game will be so much more interesting and enjoyable if your character is something other than a set of numbers on a piece of paper. And while there are those who enjoy creating genealogies, childhood memories and character portraits, not everyone has that kind of time. When you need to quickly generate a backstory, try these quick tips:

#1: Family - this is an easy one: decide the kind of family environment in which your character grew up. Did you have a loving mother and father who raised you fairly with your other siblings? Were you an only child because your mother died during childbirth? Maybe you were orphaned and never knew your family. Your family background can give you quick insight into why your character started adventuring.

#2: Career - you as a player have probably already what class you are playing, but why did your character choose this profession? Determining why your character chose that career can help you develop goals quickly. Did you become a cleric because you feel the need to eradicate all undead? Or maybe you're a fighter because you were drafted into the town militia, but you've always wanted to study magic; now you have a goal to cross-class.

#3: One More Thing - give your character a little bit of color with just one unique characteristic. Develop a personality; do you interact well with others, or would you prefer if everyone just left you alone? Add a distinguishing feature: scar, birthmark, unusual hair color, something that sets you apart from everyone else in town. Create just one tiny story: you inherited your grandfather's traveling cloak when you told your family you were setting off on your own adventure, or you learned to speak elven from one of the town elders who had been a bard and was well-versed in the language. It doesn't take a lot of time or effort, but adding just one extra detail can help make your character seem a bit more real.

With these few little details gained from your five minutes of thought, you should have enough to at least get your feet wet with your new character. Just remember to fill in the rest of the details as you go!

Behind the Screen: Rolling with it...

And I'm not talkin' dice, people.

We've all been in this situation as DM's: your carefully wrought plans are starting to go askew, your characters have either overwhelmed the situation or taken off in the opposite direction. What do you do?

If you're me, you lay back and enjoy the ride.

Some of the best roleplaying and group cohesion comes on the back of success in the face of overwhelming (or at least very scary) odds. Nothing is more demotivating than to put your storyline ahead of their actions.

Letting your players dictate the action and shape the world around them as they play is what makes D&D fun. It gives the players a sense of belonging in the world and getting to affect it. If the PCs do something unexpected and put themselves in a situation to kill the Big Bad long before he does most of the evil things that you wrote into the plot line, consider letting them do it.

You can always take the time between sessions to revise your story to react to their actions, or better yet take the opportunity to shoot off the cuff and exercise your own impromptu creative skills. I have some good techniques that help enable doing this, but I'll leave those for another time.

There is no better distraction than a centaur with an impacted bowel!

The stupid ranger, Dante, and I went to Gen Con this weekend, and it was there that I introduced them to the event that basically revitalized my Gen Con experience: Nascrag.

For those of you unfamiliar with the event, it is a competition in which teams of 6 play D&D. But it's not like the D&D Open. There are monsters to fight and puzzles to solve, but in this event you are also scored on roleplaying. And you are encouraged heavily to think outside the box and ham it up heavily. And they're a little nuts. In exactly the way that I enjoy!

To wit: I played an old man who used to be a powerful knight. Some roleplaying goals I was scored on included:

• wanting to die a warrior's death
• being disgusted by magic, but still trying to patch things up with my son who is a talented sorcerer (with a raging penchant for the kind bud)
• making up war stories and sharing them in-game with my old war buddy Jules the cleric (played by our own Dante)
• making fat jokes about the druid
  

In case it wasn't already abundantly clear, the settings are somewhat more humor-based than your standard D&D, but it doesn't get in the way. A lot of fantasy analogies to pop culture creep into the stories, and they're really damn funny. (In one adventure, we were IM'ing LonelyElf15, who would only speak to us in 1337).

The puzzles are of all varieties, but my favorites are the ones that require performances. It really gets the players involved and out of their shells. For instance, we all had to play charades to figure out the words to a passphrase. And another time, we had to talk to an important NPC so we all had to sing to get into a talent competition he was running. It was at this time that I, in my Scottish accent, declared that "mah old friend Jules and I here will be performing a duet!", and I received a look from Dante that was a mixture of shock, fear, and death. I attempted to fire up my random thought generator and start singing something, but he beat me to the punch with a reference to a war story I had talked about earlier in the evening. And by this, I mean he started violently shaking his fist and yelling "STONE GOLEMS! STONE GOLEMS! STONE GOLEMS!" And I was shocked for a moment but I, again in a Scottish accent, started yelling "SHOOT THEM IN THE GENITALS! SHOOT THEM IN THE GENITALS!" This continued for a moment to shocked and amused looks from everyone at the table, and then we stopped. But not before I threw up the horns and yelled "PUNK ROCK!!!!". With a Scottish accent. I have known Dante for almost two full decades, and never in my life did I ever expect the man, when pressed for a musical decision, to go for hardcore death metal.

As for our group, it was the stupid ranger, Dante, myself, my old roommate Ryan, my work friend Ryan (who we referred to as "WaRyan"), and this guy whose name I never knew but he had an awesome UNIX-beard. And, well, I'm afraid our team, "Carnal Bardic Knowledge", didn't make it past the first round of play (of which there are 3) this year. I did get listed as an alternate player and got drafted into another team, and so I had the pleasure of playing round 2 with team "Skull in a Bag" who were some very nice guys from Iowa City. My new team ended up getting listed as alternates for round 3, but they unfortunately did not call on us. Regardless, I had 8 hours of unbridled excitement and fun, and it was still the best $4.50 I'll spend all year.

Nascrag basically rewards roleplaying the way I think it ought to be. The characters and scenario were full and rich, and offered me the opportunity to let go and do some crazy shit while still not disconnecting from the game. That takes some good writers and some very talented DM's. I love it, I'll be playing again next year, and I wholeheartedly encourage you all to join me! Players should go to see some very talented people let go and roleplay their characters to the hilt. DM's should go to see what happens when you let them do that. (P.S. the answer is MAGIC. :) )

Nascrag: First impressions...

As previously mentioned, this year the StupidRanger crew took our initial plunge into the irreverent world of Nascrag. What I will recount to you is my impressions, the others will be along this week to share our vast and varied GenCon experiences.

I really enjoyed Nascrag... the level of crazy that was circulating outside the hall that we were going to play in was so thick you could reach out and touch it. This was not Vanir's first rodeo, so he was there to help guide us through it. If we didn't have a repeat offender there, I can see how the pre-game setup could be a little overwhelming.

It came time to call our team name and give our slogan. We all hammed it up appropriately, and I sent my GM fleeing by advancing on him briefly with my backside. Sometimes I have no shame. :)

I'm not going to divulge too much of the storyline since I've heard that the folks at Nascrag make their module available, but for me the only real downside was the amount of background information you were expected to absorb in a very short time frame. Those that have played previous years have a clear edge in that regard, but the actual game session itself was pretty fun.

The GM that we had was pretty good too... his was something like his 16th Nascrag event and it showed. He took his time describing important things well, listened to our group as we roleplayed and asked questions, and did a very good job making the NPCs fun to interact with. He did a good job of giving his characters a specific voice and attitude and took time to let the group explore areas and try varying ideas. Unfortunately, Vanir and I were doing some good roleplaying but I think it might have been overlooked because the GM tended to spontaneously sidebar with adjacent PCs which grew a bit frustrating as the session went on. Unfortunately, I heard from some other groups that we missed some important areas so we didn't make it to Round 2 (entirely, but the rest of the story is for Vanir to provide).

Great moments for me: trying to maintain a French accent for a considerable time, trying to get a leprechauns drunk, and an unfortunate punk metal battle duet with Vanir. I'll let him elaborate a little more on that, since he tends to do the colorful description much better than I.

In all, it was a fun experience for the first time gaming outside of my own group at a convention. Next year is the start of a new three year story arc, so maybe we'll get a chance to get in at the beginning and do a little better!