Behind the Screen: Problems with planes and psionics...

I was reflecting on some old college D&D games, and I remembered a certain guy in our group that always wanted to play a psionic. Eventually, we did have a game where our DM allowed psionics and I remember it being a confusing and generally frustrating process largely because this person would, at length, dictate to us his specific rules for using his skills and it was rather painful.

I have found the same issue with planar travel and trying to weave a storyline that involves traversing ephemeral distances in this fashion. Much time is spent explaining the state of the situation you want your players to get into, the usual dangers of travelling across the fabric of space and time, and the preparations that come along with that.

I've had some limited success in enticing the players with plot or treasure to make the plunge into different planes, but by and large this type of game seems to walk on a knife's edge of fun. It's either really enjoyable, or really painful.

How do you handle introducing these elements into your campaigns? Inquiring minds want to know!

I Used To Believe

I Used To Believe is a wonderful site where people share silly things they used to believe as a child. The vast menagerie of monsters that children create (most of which apparently live in the toilet) is simply amazing to me, and that section of the site is my personal favorite.

My brother, who is a very nice man nowadays, used to implant very strange ideas in my tiny mind when I was little. One was that if you drank milk and threw up, it would come out in cubes. Another was that there was a new kind of bee that looked just like a fluffy dandelion seed. Of course, they were floating everywhere that time of year, and my poor unwitting mother couldn't figure out why she couldn't seem to remove her hysterical 3 year old from the house.

I started reading my brother's D&D books when I was pretty young. I think I was probably 7 or 8 when I was going through the D&D Basic Set and reading through the section on monsters. Not all of them had pictures, and for some reason when I got to the section on Wights, I envisioned them as a pale, flying, undead manta ray that could drain your levels. About 5 years later, I was in high school and I purchased the AD&D 1st Edition Monster Manual, which had a picture of a wight. Needless to say, when I found out the truth, I was very disappointed.

Did you have any strange D&D misconceptions when you were growing up or first started playing? Please share!

Behind the Screen: Loving the one you're with...

While at GenCon this year, I got into several conversations about the breadth and concentration of new gaming options on the sales floor this year. As in past years, offerings ran the gamut from new pencil and paper RPGs, board games, video games, and even a few non-RPG games as well.

I was tasked with selecting a game for one of my coworkers in order to introduce his kids to roleplaying style gaming, so I opted for Atlas Games' "Once Upon a Time" which aims to introduce storytelling gaming via a card game where players attempt to use the cards in their hand to devise a storyline. I figured this would be a conservative, non-threatening way to get the kids into free-form storytelling and it should act as a gateway to more traditional roleplaying style games, but time will tell.

An Abundance of Options

As I was searching for this card game, it struck me that it is easy to experience option overload. So many games, so many modules, so many additions... it is great to have options, but as I have mentioned in the past our group is somewhat change resistant so I tend to stick with a familiar system and setting for our games.

It is for this reason that I usually don't leave the convention each year with a truckload of new games, modules, or other miscellanea. Chances are fairly good that we just plain won't make the leap into a new setting consistently enough to justify the expense, which is also the reason that I don't really frequent our local brick and mortar gaming store as often as I should. I have most of the materials that I need to game with and don't need to purchase much extra to keep the fun times a-rollin'.

One oft-cited example of the change resistance of our group is our limited attempt at a Deadlands campaign. I played this game while in college for the first time and was enamored with the spellcasting mechanics (which used a poker hand to determine success) and the alternative history Western theme was interesting as well. It only lasted a few sessions in our current gaming group, they just didn't feel it as much as I did.

The moral to this story is twofold: be sensitive to the enjoyment level of your gaming group as you introduce new games, and do a cost to benefit analysis before you go buying a ton of new gaming supplements at a convention.

If you have a group that is able to switch focus to different games, how do you pace the introduction of new stuff? Do you do a one-shot session and build on it if the group likes the game? Inquiring minds want to know!

Introducing Katherine!

You may have noticed that a mysterious new blogger posted on Stupid Ranger this morning. Do not worry, we have NOT been hacked by Jesus. This was simply the first post by our new regular contributor!

Katherine, this is the Internets. Internets, this is Katherine.

Katherine plays in our D&D group, and she's an ordained minister. You've probably already seen her first post, which is part of a series called DMing the Bible, which I'd mentioned in a post a couple months ago.

Whether you're a religious person or not, I think this series is important for two reasons. One is because it is a great example of being able to take one's inspiration for roleplaying and character development from any source and adapting it for your own use. The other, which is much more important in my opinion, is that her column proves that you can mix religion and roleplaying. It's better today than it was back in the 80's when people thought the D&D Basic set came with a free sacrificial dagger and pentagram construction kit, but there are still quite a few people out there who don't get what we do and are afraid of it. Katherine makes a wonderful, educated counterpoint to all this blind fear while staying true to her beliefs -- and not by taking sides and arguing points. She simply shows you how to walk the line by doing just that, and in doing so erases it behind her. I haven't really seen anything quite like DMing the Bible before, and we're honored to serve as a place for people to see it.

Katherine also makes splendid breaded pork chops. For these reasons and many others, we have invited her to contribute to Stupid Ranger. Everyone, please give her a warm welcome!

In addition to Katherine, you may also be seeing some guest posts from other authors appearing occasionally. Please do not panic. Or, if you do panic, please post it on YouTube.

DMing the Bible: Taking One for the Team

Introduction
I think there are few stories that could be quite as fun for a first time out in a new place as the one on the menu for today. For those of you just joining us, back issues (including an introduction to the series) can be found on the blog, "Wry Juxtaposition." We're about a quarter of the way through Genesis, still in the thick of the story of the first patriarch. When we last left him, Abram was traveling by stages toward the wilderness that separated Canaan from Egypt. This time we get to see what happens when patriarchs get frightened and some of the resultant consequences. From an RPG side we'll look at party role playing under adverse conditions.

The Text
Our story for the day actually is three stories. The events of Genesis 12:10-20 are repeated twice over in Genesis 20:1-18 and 26:1-11. So what's the story: Abram (remember they haven't had their name changes yet) and Sarai move to Egypt to escape a famine. Abram knows that Sarai is pretty hot, and worries that somebody there will kill him and take her away. So they devise a cunning plan; they will claim only a sibling relationship. That way if somebody wants her they won't kill Abram first. As it just so happens Sarai attracted the attention of the Egyptian officials and was taken into the Pharaoh's house. They didn't kill Abram, but instead treated him royally well and gave him great swag. However trying to marry somebody else's spouse is a pretty big no-no, and as a result the Lord punished the house of Pharaoh. Somehow the Egyptians figure out what the problem is and Sarai is restored to Abram and the whole group of them are invited to move on. This is the basic theme repeated once more with Abraham and once with Isaac both of those stories happen in the land of Gerar and feature King Abimelech (I really feel sorry for this guy).
In each of these cases the patriarch is feeling ill at ease as they arrive in a foreign land under trying circumstances. The experience of travel to a foreign country then was a great deal different that travel is today (with some few exceptions, granted). In general when we go from our home countries to other lands we don't worry about people killing us to take our spouses. This is because we are fairly confident in the rule of law in these other lands and feel that we will be protected commiserate with the protection enjoyed by the country's citizens. In the Ancient Near East travelers could rely on such assurances. Even in one's own home country the safety of an individual was tied most closely to the relative power of the tribe or clan that he or she belonged to. Being a stranger in a strange land, Abram and later Isaac might have felt that their power was too weak as compared to that of the residents of the lands in which they sojourned.
Whatever the motivation, these stories represent very real threats to the promise that God made to Abram and his decedents. In each generation the promise was made to the patriarch, but could only really be borne out with the active participation of the matriarchs as well. In each of these tales God restores the matriarchs to her husband (though you got to figure he was sleeping on the tent equivalent of the couch for quite a while), and the story of this family of people continues for another generation.
These texts have long been problematic for Biblical Interpreters of every stripe. Abram lies, but is not condemned. The duped pharaoh is punished by divine retribution. Abram seems to have no real problem sending his wife to sleep with someone else to save his own skin. Anyway you slice it there's a lack of a hero here. As a code for moral exemplar, this is not the guy upon which to pattern yourself, but as an example for role playing – he might not be that bad.

The Game
Until I get up to speed on 4e this section is going to be more fluffy than crunchy, my apologies in advance. OK so what lessons about role playing can we draw from this tale of silver tongued behavior. Here are some ideas with a word of warning: If you end up with one character being apart from the party for any period of time, have a good and interesting plan to keep the affected player involved and happy. Personally I like given such a person a real antagonistic NPC to play-- hell hath no fury as a player wronged.

• Strangers in a Strange land: though there are thriving towns with efficient town guards and even tempered fair magistrates, it's not a stretch to imagine a town where the PCs are met with hostility. Such a town might regard the party as weak because they are not affiliated with any of the strong area families.


• Taking on for the team: In these stories the matriarch is given up as a way of preserving the rest of the party. In your adventure is there a way to try and separate the party? It seems to me that you get a chance for 1. a character who hasn't gotten a chance to shine yet receive a moment in the sun, 2. basically good characters to engage in some mild back-stabbery, or 3. you have provided a story moment that deepens the bond between characters.


• Only if you all pull together: As was mentioned above, these tales represent a subtle kind of threat to the promise made by God to these people. In adventure writing there is from time to time the tendency to have the one item of power needed to complete the arch; this is a good idea when writing adventures without a clear idea of who will be playing and the relative natures of the player characters. However there is also what I like to think of as the Captain Planet approach. That is, only when all the characters combine some special thing they contribute to the party can there be success. So at the very least selling the other PCs down the river would be a bad idea, though they might not know it at the time.

Player Perspective on 4E

I realize that a lot of people have posted reviews, etc, about 4E, and that really, it's not new news. But it was only recently that our group has actually had a chance to play a few short sessions in the new system, and I have a few thoughts to share.

A Brief Non-Disclaimer

When I say we've only had a few short sessions, I really mean it. I've played one session with only a small part of our normal group, and I played two session of Drunken D&D. Also, our Out of the Box Roleplaying session, but I was mostly a background player and I did more roleplaying than combat in that session. So, in the three-and-a-half sessions thus far, I've played two classes, and I am by no means an expert.

My Thoughts on Character Creation

I was extremely disappointed with my first character creation session because it just took so long to fill in my character sheet. Part of it was due to the new character sheet organization... trying to find the places to write down what I knew. Part of it was the new stuff. I did find the character creation list on page 14 of the Players Handbook to be very helpful that first time; by following it, I knew I didn't miss anything. Fortunately, the next time I created a character (for the Out of the Box session), I was more familiar with the process, and it went a lot faster.

My Thoughts on Character Classes

I've only played two classes: Ranger and Warlock. I'm sure none of you are surprised by the fact that I played a Ranger first, but I have tried both ranged and melee Rangers. I didn't notice much difference, in terms of combat. It took me awhile to get used to the Hunter's Quarry feature, giving me the ability to mark one of my enemies for extra damage, but it quickly became on of my favorite class features. Plus, as a ranged combatant, if none of my allies were closer to my target, I got a bonus.. yay! I had a great time in my first session as a Ranger, and as I'm more familiar with ranged Rangers, it was a comfortable fit for my first 4E character. I played a melee Ranger in the Out of the Box session, but I saw little combat and haven't really gotten a chance to try it all out yet.

The Warlock was very different for me. She was my Drunken D&D character, so everything was pre-generated and neatly detailed for me (thanks!), which was great because it would have taken me forever to get that character all together! I didn't use all of the abilities available to me for that character, mostly because I didn't know what all of them could do. I used the Eldrich Blast a lot, as it was a pretty easy-to-understand attack. Also, the ability to curse an enemy (similar to Hunter's Quarry) was pretty fun, especially as you get to curse more than one enemy at once, contrary to the Hunter's Quarry, which is only effective against one enemy. I will definitely try a Warlock again because it was a fun class to play.

Both of my class experiences so far have been with classes that can mark an enemy. As a player, because it can be confusing after a few rounds of combat, I recommend having some system prepared for keeping track of who is marked. In my first session with my Ranger, we encountered small groups of enemies, so it was pretty easy to keep track, especially as the Ranger only marks one at a time. For my Warlock, it got to be a little more confusing once I had more than one marked. We placed d6's on the minis for the first session; for the second session, we used the Magnetic Markers from Alea Tools. It doesn't really matter what method you use: write it down in your notes, place Life Savers over the heads of your victims, make fashionable sashes out of pipe cleaners. Anything will do, just be prepared.

Overall, I have a great time with 4E thus far, and I am looking forward to continuing the adventures with my ranged Ranger.