Behind the Screen: Material FOREVER!

First off, I'd like to officially thank everyone who posted a comment on my Wednesday post to talk about their campaigns! Talk about an outpouring of excellent ideas... I hardly know where to start, so today I'm going to discuss a general theme that I saw across the board that really impressed me.

First, a note on game settings

Before I launch too far into the minutiae, I would like to make a few general comments regarding my own lack of exposure to certain gaming systems. I am 90% a D&D man, having played both 2e, 3e, 3.5e, and I intend to play 4e when it arrives. In case it wasn't dreadfully obvious to those of you that frequent other systems, most of my perspective is only relative to D&D.

I have played (or attempted to run, in some cases) Call of Cthulhu, Deadlands, Star Wars RPG, and a handful of others. I occasionally draw experiences and lessons learned from these, but my experience is limited. I would be much more prone to trying new settings if I had more books or materials for given systems, but alas right now this is not the case. Until I get more "hands on" exposure with some of these gaming systems, I might not be too much in the details of those settings however I will attempt to do some research and maybe give some cursory feedback where applicable.

That being said, I would like to address a common theme among the Wednesday comments.

Creativity and the Player Role

I was utterly astounded at the amount of diversity in ideas around how to structure the player experience. Some of you have set up the players to be heroes, some have gone the "political cog" route, and some have created a group of anti-heroes. These ideas are all excellent, an
d certainly merit further discussion but the takeaway at a general level is simply this: Don't be afraid to shake up the role that players and their characters will play in your campaign.

As I have mentioned here several times, players tend to get bored when presented with the same concepts of heroism, adventure, and intrigue. Turning their worldview on its ear and questioning what the role of the character will be within your world is a very powerful tool and can revitalize a sagging campaign.

Doing this organically

And I'm not talking about fertilizing heavily. Well, maybe I am... to continue this strange botony reference you really need to spread crap all throughout your campaign, and by crap I mean character development opportunities. If you build up this major engineered moment of character change where you thrust them into a new role that has been designed specifically for the purpose of doing something new, they will freak.

In literature, this is called a journey. Noah T. Lukeman has written a very appropriate article on the matter, where he asks a relevant question at the end of his discussion on why the journey is important for characters in fiction writing "Do your characters arrive at any inner realizations throughout the course of the work?"

In the case of our abrupt thrust into a new role, your players and characters really haven't taken a journey at all and they are responding to a forced march that you have placed them on as a DM. This is a very dangerous course and usually leads to player disengagement and the potential for complete artistic corruption of the character that they are running. By shoehorning a character into a role that they had no real preparation for you are making the story drive the characters instead of the other way around, and in my opinion this is one of the worst sins a DM can commit.

What to look for in coming weeks

Honestly, I really enjoy hearing reader feedback and I find it quite energizing to consider some of the campaign ideas that were listed on the Wednesday post. This has given me a wellspring of great inspiration, so expect that I tackle a few of these ideas each week and eventually I may ask for more feedback on different areas of the roleplaying experience.

Hopefully, this discourse adds some value to your gaming sessions and gives you some things to consider. As always, don't hesitate to email us with ideas for future columns and one of us will pick up the ball and run with it.

Thanks again everyone!

Khan!!

Yax posted a great article on D&D Nemeses... those things that detract from enjoyment of the game. Included in Yax's list: his roommate, crits, stress and conflicting schedules. I completely agree with (at least the sentiment) these nemeses, though I do have a slightly different take to add to my list.

The Parents

Instead of the roommate factor, I have the parental factor. My family consistently forgets about D&D night, and even if reminded that afternoon, will call and expect to talk. Now, we don't have a no-phones-at-the-table policy, and as much as I like to ignore the phone, I am always concerned it might actually be something important.

The Oops!

I do truly enjoy the critical hits (what player doesn't?!)... it the critical misses that undermine my game enjoyment. There's really nothing more degrading than hitting yourself in the foot during a very crucial moment of battle. And if it happens multiple times, well, just call me cranky for the rest of the night.

The Calendar

Scheduling conflicts are definitely in my top list of nemeses. A long hiatus can ruin the cliff-hanger moment and create a distance from my character that can be difficult to overcome sometimes. Unfortunately, with the holidays, there's not much we can do about the scheduling except to try our best to find a time that works for everyone. The implementation of a Google calendar has facilitated our scheduling, but there's only so much organization can do in the face of family gatherings.

And The Arch-Nemesis is...

In-game stress can very quickly reduce the level of fun. I have had situations where evil characters have attempted (and succeeded) in killing party members (me). Or recently, the strict laws of a matriarchal society created a lot of tension and arguing among the party. The kind of stress that does not lead to good roleplaying but instead leads to anger is my arch-nemesis (also, Taryn, who stabbed me in the back).

Call for Feedback: What kind of a campaign are you in?

Following the success of our recent series on puzzles and investigation campaigns, in coming weeks I intend to continue writing articles on major thematic elements and campaign types.

What I'm getting at here

Since this site is pretty much all about you, loyal readers, I want to make sure that I get to your campaigns first. If you really want to hear my $0.02 on the type of campaign you are running (or participating in) go ahead and post a comment below and I will run a few articles together discussing those thematic elements or campaign types.

If I don't get any feedback, you'll be subjected to whatever takes my fancy on Friday! Our recent campaigns here at SR Headquarters have been overland style campaigns, where our party has to travel long distances to accomplish goals and advance the plot. Barring no comments, I will likely start my new series by examining this type of campaign along with common problems, pitfalls, and benefits.

So let's hear it!

Tribute to the Table

Martin over at Treasure Tables announced the likely end to the TT blog. This marks the end of an era, and I wanted to pause for a moment of silence at this passing.

Treasure Tables was one of the inspirations behind stupidranger.com. Dante, Vanir and I all enjoyed reading TT, and we learned that we had stories and advice of our own to share. Without Martin, we likely wouldn't be here today.

Treasure Tables offered a wealth of knowledge and advise for the DMs of the world. And even as a player, I enjoyed reading Martin's articles and the comments from the great community of readers.

Martin, if you're reading this, thank you for the hours of work you put into TT. I can only imagine how difficult it was to maintain daily posts for so long, and I commend you for sticking with it as long as you did. Thanks for all your support in our early days, and I wish you the best of luck!

Behind the Screen: Get a clue!

Due to the (somewhat surprising) success of the investigation series, I'm decided to give it a holdover for a few more posts as I discuss a few items of interest. Today, we'll be discussing how to drop a clue in an enthralling way.

Make it obvious

As I mentioned last week, the key to getting characters to really pick up on your clues is to make them obvious. Allow them to overhear a conversation describing the exact location of Leopold the Dancing Plot Point, and let them know when he's showing up. Allow your roleplay and the interactions that take place to be where you choose to give them information or let them fumble around, but don't make the information drop itself obscured.

The characters don't know your plan, neither do most of the players. Make clues and plot points easy to come by while you gauge your players ability to decipher what you're laying down.

Make the obvious clues tantalizing

A murder was committed. Now, it could've been done at the coaching of some big bad, or at the command of a guild of evildoers... it doesn't much matter. At lower levels (and with certain players), you need to make the clue a little more tangible or at very least motivate them to follow your trail.

The best way to do that is to commit the murder with a +5 vorpal longsword. Maybe the cleanly severed heads everywhere is a clue! I guarantee you that it will take only nanoseconds before the fighter of the group mentally says "if I find the killer, that weapon can be mine!"

Once engagement is achieved, then you can get a little more mundane and subtle with the clues as you unravel the tale of how the murderer came to his vocation, and for what greater nefarious plot. They'll follow the trail until the fighter gets a chance to lay hands around that sweet, sweet blade.

Pre-load your clues

If you have the breadth to assist your players with their character creation, you have the opportunity to pre-load the clues with your player. I can't count the number of times that I've used the fact that a player didn't want to write a backstory to my favor... I simply would weave a part of their past for them that would give them Something Important, be that a direct clue to the investigation or a means of deriving the clues a bit easier.

If your players are agreeable to this type of interaction it can serve you as a DM for a very long time in these types of campaigns.

It seems we really struck a chord with discussion on this topic last week. As always, please feel free to request further topics of discussion like our good buddy Phil did last week! I really enjoy the discourse that comes from covering topics of specific interest, so keep 'em coming!