Working Around Absentee Players

Every now and then, or maybe more frequently than that, players will announce that they will miss your regularly scheduled game session. The various responsibilities and inconveniences of life will crop up and interfere with someone's recreational plans and suddenly your group is minus one PC.

Regardless, this can happen at some very inopportune times for your gaming group. If your last episode ended with a dramatic cliffhanger, it can be very frustrating when a player suddenly drops out of the next session.

I have experienced my fair share of cancellations and missing players. Fortunately, these adversities have only driven me to develop better skills at working around the absences at my game table and keeping the campaign on track. When I handle the players' temporary departure, I prefer to find a way to remove the character from the action temporarily if possible. If I gave that character to another player or used them as an NPC, I would need to make sure that the character wouldn't be placed in serious jeoparady. It would be unfair to let a player character come to harm when their player is not present. So instead I need to find ways to explain why the PC has been taken out of the action.

Here are a few of my favorite tricks for explaining a player character's sudden disappearance from the adventuring scene. Most of them are based around the current context of their character within the adventure. The explanation should ideally make sense based on the state of this individual character and what they might be doing while their player is gone. The DM or another player will probably need to volunteer to role-play the character for a scene or two to establish what they are doing during the episode.

Has the character been hurt in the previous session? You can easily justify their absence as being part of a process of recovery. Even if a healer can restore their hit points with a touch... for narrative purposes it might require hours or days of bed rest before the character is ready to hit the road once again.

Has the character recently been embroiled in some personal drama? This kind of situation could justify a temporary departure from the group in order to explore these new developments. After being 'off-screen' for a session or two, they may then return with new information or story material to progress things along. This time spent away from the group doesn't have to be described in detail, but you can summarize what happened during this period when the player returns.

If your game session begins in the middle of an encounter or a dungeon delve, even more creative solutions are in order. Don't worry about bending the rules to have an absent player's character conveniently knocked out right before a fight. If there is a narrative need for it, just assume it can happen. Additionally, a character might be beset by any number of unexpected inconveniences. From suddenly passing into a mystic vision quest to being enchanted into a hypnotic haze.

Could the character have another reason for being absent? Maybe they remove themselves from an encounter due to a conflict of interest with the party's enemies? Maybe they temporarily lose hope in the mission? Whatever the case, try to be sure that it is an explanation that the missing player would agree with. Don't make it humiliating or harmful to the player or character. There is no need to punish a PC for missing a session.

When more than one player is absent, it works best to integrate these missing characters into a single explanation. Maybe two players are running errands in the local marketplace together, or maybe one is tending to the wounds of the other. If half your party can't make it, it might be a good idea to run a one-shot or sidequest instead of your main campaign. After all, a good group works best when they are at their full complement.

It may be rough going sometimes, but figuring out how to fill in these gaps in the story and work around adversity is how you hone your creative skills as a game master and story teller. Don't let yourself get discouraged next time you see an empty seat, take it as what it is... a test of your narrative instincts!

Happy ventures!

Good vs. Evil Choices: The Path Not Dared

Moral quandaries are a mainstay of any RPG with a strong narrative focus. Presenting the players with a difficult choice, forcing them to reach a crucible that will define their characters growth and future adventures.

But it is all to easy for these choices to be presented as somewhat assymetrical, with one option providing much more favor or appeal to the players than the other. I have never liked that imbalanced way of presenting a problem. It tends to skew the majority of players toward the most pragmatic solution. They might decide to go against the grain for purposes of role playing, but the chances are high that most of the players will go with the 'smart' decision to maximize their returns.

A common example of this is a game in which the 'evil' options of burning down castles and stealing loot are easier to execute than the 'good' option of managing things diplomatically and being honest. If the DM is treating the the most heavy-handed tactics as the most effective method for players, it weights the game toward favoring those kinds of tactics.

That's why I believe it is important to balance the options evenly against one another. The consequences might take different forms, or take effect at different times, but they should always be present. Blowing up a monastery like a madman might settle the ninja problem temporarily, but the emperor will expect the players to answer for it. It's important to have risks and benefits for every path. Risks and consequences are the source of drama, and drama equals entertainment!

With this in mind, make sure that you don't leave players with an easy path to victory. When the players are challenged to choose between two equally perilous options, they are more likely to make a decision based on what kind of story they want to experience rather than basing their choice on practicality. Make it clear that there are no easy answers, just ones that are compelling and challenging. Once they realize that there are no shortcuts, they will be more prepared to enjoy the journey itself. And enjoying the journey is what the tabletop RPG experience is all about!

Happy ventures!

Committing to Themes

There are many kinds of stories to be told on the tabletop. Each genre represents a unique flavor, from fantasy to science fiction, to historical drama and more. The themes commonly associated with your chosen game are the ones that your players will expect to encounter as they play. And while it is great to occasionally subvert expectations, it is important to remember to maintain the unique flavor of your campaign's setting. 

There is a way to run a game in the wrong genre, for instance. If the answer to the question "Could this story happen in another setting?" is yes, you might be running it in the wrong genre. Take, for instance, a story that involves a space cadet chasing an outlaw through a lawless frontier asteroid colony. If that sums up the main storyline, your tale is really a wild western set in space. While it's fine to mix classic genre elements together, it still needs something uniquely sci-fi to justify its reason for being run as that kind of game.

At some point you have to ask yourself why you want to run a game specifically in the kind of setting you chose. What is it about the setting and story that makes them integral to each other? Because if they don't fit together like hand and glove, something will seem off. Your players might not be able to identify what it is, but something is missing from the narrative. 

If you truly want your campaign to shine, include a medley of elements that could only be found in that particular genre or setting. If you are running science fiction, then advanced forms of science should be integral to the campaign (Like a colony of genetic clones.) If you are running a fantasy game, magic needs to be more than just an alternative to technology (Like a phylactery filled with ghostly spirits.) If you are running a cyberpunk game, a certain amount of dystopian grunge is to be expected. Don't just choose a setting at random when you have an adventure idea. Let them match up properly so that the genre can be explored to its full potential. 

Follow these principles and your games will be all the more poignant and memorable! Don't think of this as a limitation, but instead playing to the strengths of your setting. Embrace the core tenants of the genre and you will get the best results in terms of entertainment and storytelling. In future entries, I will highlight and detail a few of these genres, and what they have to offer for your own tabletop endeavors.

Happy ventures!

Creating the Ultimate Antagonist

A good villain, a long running nemesis, a foil for your dynamic player characters... creating a compelling foe that your players truly love to hate can be a real challenge. That's why today I'd like to share this informative video by the Youtube channel Lessons from the Screenplay. Hopefully it will provide you with some interesting food for thought on how to design the perfect enemy for your next thrilling adventure!

Pixar's Rules of Storytelling Revisited

I have previously shared Pixar's Rules of Storytelling to provide some food for thought when it comes to narrative and character development. Today I'd like to share Kaptainkristian's video essay on Pixar and what makes a story worth telling. It's important to consider how this relates to all kinds of storytelling, even on the tabletop. An adventure with any sort of narrative direction should be relatable to your players (the audience) and have some sort of dramatic purpose. Whether it is the redemption of a band of outcasts, or the fall of an evil overlord, it is important to consider what makes a story truly fascinating and worth telling.

Enjoy the video and happy Ventures!

External Links: Creating Conflict!

Conflict is the centerpiece for any good story, as well as an important element of role playing. Today, I'd like to share a couple of thought provoking pieces on creating conflict with your characters that can be applied to both players and game masters alike.

The first is this link to a screenwriting article about ways to create conflict in a story.

The second is this image that I found making the rounds online (Sorry, I'm not sure of the original source) 

Hopefully these will ignite your creative spark and get you thinking about your own ways to create conflict in your tabletop campaigns!

Happy ventures!

Growth, Contradiction, and Organic Gaming

Today I'd like to encourage you to think outside the box. Tabletop RPG are set up with all kinds of rules and parameters that make it easier to create unique adventures that challenge us as players as well as game masters. But the limitations imposed by the rules should be there to enhance the game, not restrict it. 

I often ask players to consider any action they take as a character to be a choice. It's not written in stone. No character should be so simple that their actions can be predicted one hundred percent of the time. It's all about how the player chooses to justify their character's actions, which is up to their own discretion. A 'good' character might do something unethical in a moment of weakness, a 'smart' character might do something foolish based on an emotional impulse. 

I implore anyone who enjoys tabletop adventuring to think of the narrative elements of gaming as something organic and subject to change. Characters grow, fail, or challenge their own values. They contradict their original intentions from time to time. It's natural, it's human, and it makes for more interesting and three dimensional storytelling. If a character reaches a crossroads, faced with two choices, I challenge you to do this... imagine a way to justify either option that they might take. Imagine a way to explain their reason for taking Option A, and then do the same for Option B. It might be hard at first, but it will help you develop as both a player and story teller.

Imagine Luke Skywalker falling to the dark side during the climactic battle with Darth Vader. Think about the possibility of Tony Stark keeping his identity a secret. Someone could make a pitch for a fascinating alternate sequence of events spanning from these choices. The same goes for your own stories, there is always the potential of the path not taken. Understand that it is your choice between these paths, not something carved into stone.

When it comes to the practical points of characters and worlds, apply the same philosophy. Don't pigeonhole yourself into restrictive ways of thinking. Don't decide that a character needs a high charisma to try their hand at singing, or that an elf can't be a buffoonish comic relief. Use the statistics and established details of your character as a way of informing and defining their characteristics, but don't let the numbers be the sole arbiter of their identity. Get creative and keep on exploring narrative adventures that you and your friends will remember for years to come!

Happy ventures!

Start With the Simple

When designing RPG characters and scenarios it can be easy to get carried away with complexity and intrigue. Details will snowball, grow more elaborate, and eventually become a wide web of relationships and events. A character might be part of a triple cross, a monster encounter may include an extensive chase scene, or a villain might be motivated by principles the heroes themselves would agree with. 

Complexity is all well and good, but keep in mind that it comes with risk. The more complicated a story, the more difficult it will be to convey to your players. It will also take a lot longer to sort out a convoluted scenario than a straightforward one, so it can create pacing issues. Nobody wants to run a game that would be considered 'dumbed-down,' but that doesn't mean that every storyline needs to be multi-layered. 

What I recommend is at least starting with a straightforward concept, and make sure it is a strong one. What emotion do you want to convey? Go all out in your pursuit of this feeling. An archduke is seeking revenge. A terrifying monster devours all travelers. A battle will rage in a thunderstorm. Use this as a starting point. Individual players enjoy getting involved with characters and adventures in-depth, but a play group will benefit greatly from artful simplicity. 

Don't let things get boring, or lacking in variety. Go ahead and include shifting terrain, a secret spy, or whatever else strikes your fancy. Just don't overdo it. Don't throw so many things at the players that they feel bewildered. Let them add complexity to the story themselves. They might decide that a bad guy is sympathetic based on their own interpretation of his actions, and that is just fine. But creating a situation in which the heroes don't realize the true foe can easily become more frustrating than exhilarating. (The heroes working for the bad guy is an obnoxious cliche among inexperienced DMs, and hurts DM-player trust)

Sure, there is a time and place for the type of character backstory or encounter design that needs a flowchart to understand. But for most games, it is best to start with the simple. It helps to draw out the foundation of ideas and emotions that will make for a compelling game. After all, the scene that your players will most likely remember from an intrigue-heavy game will more likely be a personal exchange with a character than the interlocking politics of the a royal court. 

There's an elegance in simplicity, so have a key concept that you can explain clearly and concisely for every character and situation you invent. Then you, and your fellow players, will be sure to have a clear understanding, being able to fully delve into the game world and all of its trappings.

Happy ventures!

Recaps of Game Sessions

When you reconvene for a new game session in a tabletop campaign, your players typically need a refresher of previous events. This serves as a reminder of previous events, as well as a way to segue into the new chapter of an ongoing adventure. It's especially important if you have new players or someone who missed a session. What follows are my favorite techniques for delivering useful recaps of the game that are informative and easy to share with your players.

Keep it short and sweet.

Writing a multi-page novelization of your previous session is more likely to cause confusion or tedium than anything. If you include every detail, the players will be unable to distinguish the important bits from those that aren't as relevant. It's important to keep your recap brief, focusing on events that will affect and influence the session to come.

I like to use bullet points of the most important events and details to convey as much useful information as possible without all the extraneous material that might be distracting or boring. Leave out individual encounters unless they resulted in a significant plot point. It's more important to mention that the group finally met Lord Rigel, or found a mysterious gemstone, than the fact that they had a run in with a gelatinous cube. Stick to the highlights.

Present it like a TV Show

There are a lot of television programs that run a synopsis of previous events at the beginning of each episode. Take inspiration from these and try replicating this format in your tabletop campaign. For instance, you might play music while you recap! Choose a song with an ambiance that won't be too distracting and make it your campaign's official theme song. You might have your recap scripted out, so you can read it aloud dramatically.

For my Star Wars campaign, for instance, I replicate the style of the opening crawl text from the classic films. If the beginning of your game becomes iconic to your group, it will be a great way to put everyone in the mood at the start, and get your session launched properly. So give the opening of your game some panache and have fun with it!

Let the players do it

There's no better way to engage your players than by giving them an active role things. By having your players recap their own adventure, you challenge the group to think back on their past and consider their current situation. You'll learn what was memorable and important to them, which will be useful information to have as DM. You can either choose one player to lead the recap for each session, or go around the table and let each party member share part of the story.

You will probably have to coach and prompt the players a bit in order to cover all the important parts, because it is all too easy to gloss over certain details, especially when they happened a week or more ago. No worries! Try kicking it off yourself, then pass it off to the players to finish the recap with whatever details they remember, as you clue them in if they forget something.

Use handouts

For more ease of reference, consider posting recaps of the game to an online group, or having a printed handout. If you run an intrigue-heavy game, an appendix of NPCs might be very useful for your group. Remember that it isn't always easy for players to remember every single element of your campaign, and they probably don't have notes as detailed as the DM. Provide them with the tools to keep up, and remember that having a reference on hand increases their likelihood of putting that information to use. Making it easier for your players makes it easier for yourself!

Happy ventures!

Now Playing: Star Wars RPG Campaigns

The Star Wars universe is a setting rich with creatures, characters, and adventures to experience on the tabletop. It is a setting with some of the most numerous materials and established histories in fiction. I have been running a Star Wars campaign recently and it has caused me to start thinking hard about how to approach the setting, adding personal touches while staying true to the lore and themes of the series.

What follows are my most relevant tips for running a fun and memorable game set in the Star Wars universe.

Use what's out there.

Recently there has been much debate over what is still considered 'canon.' Disney has chosen to ignore most of the previously established continuity in favor of their own creations. This however, has no bearing on what you do in your own tabletop campaign.You aren't limited or constrained by the standards of mainstream continuity. The entire vast library of Star Wars related fiction and merchandise is yours to mine for ideas. You can pick and choose the best material from the old and new expanded universes to create your ideal setting. Whether it is an old module from West End Games, a recent Marvel comic book, or an apocryphal video game by Lucasarts, there is a lot to pull from if you need inspiration.

Part of the appeal of using an established franchise as the setting for your campaign is that some of your players will already have a baseline familiarity with the universe. It can be a lot of fun when your players recognize a familiar ship or alien species. On the other hand, you don't want to alienate players who are brand new to the setting. Mix your original ideas and creations together with elements from the movies and expanded universe so they blend together seamlessly. Encourage players who are seasoned fans of the series to share and explain things they might recognize from the established canon. Let the continuity be shared between all the players rather than becoming an inside joke between those more versed in the lore.

Make the galaxy your own.

The Star Wars galaxy is a place of fiction that is constantly being expanded upon by a great number of writers and storytellers. This is your opportunity to count yourself among that number. You are free to design your own species, planets, technologies, whatever you might need to tell a good story. One of the more useful aspects of the setting is the fact that it is vast. There are new creatures and planets appearing all the time. So if you want to introduce a new and unique addition to the galaxy, there is nothing stopping you. As long as it fits within the continuity you have established and doesn't contradict anything else in your setting it's all fair game!

The only constraint I suggest imposing is to treat the movies themselves as the one incontrovertible source of lore and information. Most people who play the game will be familiar with at least the movies, so it's best not to stray to far from that source material. Don't go changing Chewbacca's homeworld or the way the Jedi mind trick works unless you're looking for a whole mess of trouble.

Create your own story, but stick to the proper tone.

There are a lot of different styles and genres mixing together to create the Star Wars that we know and love. It's part science fiction, part fantasy, part western... but this intermingling of themes and ideas is what gives it such an iconic style. The parts make up the whole, and distinguish it from other sci-fi series like Star Trek or Firefly.

Your first task is to identify which aspects of the Star Wars setting you want to explore in the most detail. Between exploring new worlds, fighting the Galactic Empire, protecting mystical artifacts of The Force, there is a lot of ground to cover here. The term "Star Wars" isn't quite specific enough to define what kind of game you are going to run, because there are so many kinds of stories to be told in that universe. Fantasy Flight Games makes this distinction a bit easier by dividing their RPG material into three separate games:

Edge of the Empire is all about renegades roving across the fringe of civilization. (I call it Pirates of the Caribbean in Space)

Age of Rebellion is a traditional good guys vs. bad guys war campaign.

Force and Destiny is all about space magic and Arthurian fantasy in the cosmos.

These are all cross compatible. You can combine aspects from each of these games and genres in order to create your ideal campaign, but don't overdo it. Choose which of these themes to focus on the most. This is done to avoid a cluttered, confusing game.

The best way to make this decision is with the cooperation of your gaming group. Find out from your players what kind of campaign they would like to be in. Learn what parts of the Star Wars setting appeal to them the most. Then you can decide what kind of exploits are best for your adventuring party to delve into.

The movie Guardians of the Galaxy is a very good example of what a Star Wars campaign might be like. Specifically, it would fit into the Edge of the Empire category... a band of colorful creatures set off on an adventure across the wild and criminal reaches of the cosmos. They each have their own unique abilities and motives for adventuring, but they run across shared adventures and threats at every turn.

Don't make it about the movies.

There's going to be the temptation to cross over with parts of the movies or explore some of the storylines like the Death Star or so forth. Besides the occasional cameo by a canon character, I recommend against this. In series like Star Wars, the main characters of the cinematic universe will easily overshadow your players' characters. Characters like Luke Skywalker are so significant in the grand scope of the galaxy's history that they make the team's adventures seem less impressive by comparison.

Star Wars is a setting to be used to tell an infinite number of tales and adventures. These adventures can have high stakes for your heroes as well as the future of the galaxy. But don't leave your players trying to follow the footsteps of cinematic heroes. Let them carve out their own legacy, and let the campaign be more about exploring the setting than simply trying to relive the original series.

May The Force be with you!

Character Creation: Background Notes

When you get a group of adventurers gathered round the table for a new pen and paper escapade, it pays to establish some details about their characters' history and defining features. However, it is very easy to make the mistake of under-preparing or over-preparing when producing this information, which can result in some problems later in your campaign. That's why today I'd like to share my best advice for devising concise, useful notes that describe a PCs background and defining characteristics.

First off: I strongly recommend that all players are given an opportunity to prepare these notes before the game begins. Take a little time at the first session to walk the players through a few questions about their characters. These questions pertain to the basics of their new character's identity. You may ask two or three, something along the lines of: 

What was your character's childhood like? Why did they choose their current career? What motivates them to adventure with this group?

If they simply answer these questions with a single statement, that's enough to get them started. If they are inexperienced, or short on ideas, they could draw inspiration from their favorite character from books, movies, or television. And if you want to make things even easier to coordinate, you might even invite the players to gather and create their characters cooperatively, in a sort of prologue session before the game begins. That way the players can familiarize themselves with each other's backgrounds and integrate their storylines and roles in the party.

This brings me to my next point... keep the backstory light. I highly discourage players bringing extensive notes on their character's history and personal details. There is rarely enough time for every player to read pages of exposition, and it puts the group in the uncomfortable position of becoming an audience for your own narrative, or setting aside your detailed synopsis with a "Too long, didn't read."

One or two paragraphs, tops. That's all that is needed to establish the basics of a character. The rest is far more interesting when presented through role play in the campaign itself. Encourage the players to follow the old creative writing standby of "show, don't tell." Instead of learning that the wizard started out a pauper from exposition, give her the opportunity to reveal more when she meets an urchin in need. Instead of hearing about the death of the gunslinger's parents in a tedious monologue, see what happens when he finds out their killer has been seen in a nearby township. Let the party learn more and more about each other organically as the campaign progresses. 

Speaking of which, there is another trick that will help all of this go smoothly... leave lots of blanks to fill in later. There will be so many opportunities to add details to a character's backstory during the campaign, so don't waste your chance by telling their whole story right away. Especially when they can find ways to tie their story in with the other characters and the setting itself. They might ask for their character to be in the same thieves' guild as another player, or a former student of a prestigous military academy that their team is now visiting. Better to leave some options open than to remove the possibility of adding these elements at a later point.

You want the characters to think about their characters' backgrounds enough that they have a starting point for playing out their motivations and behaviors. But you also want the flexibility for them to develop a backstory over time, the ability to collaborate with the group, and to convey their character concept clearly and concisely. If you follow these basic guidelines, your players should have a head start when it comes to understanding their new character. Keep it light, keep it simple, and keep it fun!

Happy ventures!

Game Mastering vs. Authorship

In my tabletop gaming experience, I have noticed that a lot of game masters also happen to be aspiring writers. They will take their  passion for creativity and focus it into the craft of building and running adventures. And yet there is a distinction between game mastery and typical creative writing that needs to be recognized in order to avoid some major pitfalls in your campaign.

Game mastering is not intended to produce stories worthy of publication, nor should it be used as a means to do so. It is a participatory creative writing exercise. It is ideas shouted out by friends around a table. It develops and changes at a whim, and the entertainment comes from the act of playing and experiencing the narrative.

Novels, movies, and other media don't work like this. They are crafted with time and care before they even reach the point of publication. Like a sculptor working a marble slab, parts are cut away and molded until they are just right. These stories are the result of outlines, revisions, rewrites, and planning in order to convey some very specific themes and ideas. You won't get a great novel out of a roll of the dice. Luke Skywalker's encounter with Darth Vader isn't contingent on either party scoring a critical hit. You'll never have total creative control over dice or players' actions. Nor should you! Someone who is trying to play author at the game table can be disruptive and creatively stifling to their fellow players.

Tabletop RPGs are a great creative exercise, but they are not a means for producing creative content worthy of publication. So don't try to force it into that. If you find that too much of your creative energy is monopolized by gaming, it is okay to take a break and work on your novels or short stories. Find the time to enjoy the freedom of creative control and free time to weave the kind of tale that you want to tell. You might even collaborate with someone. You will have the ability to incorporate specific themes and establish a beginning, middle, and end as you see fit. It's healthy, fun, and mentally stimulating!

But I have seen too many players and GMs try to apply these methods to the tabletop. They try to 'author' their campaign, and become frustrated when things don't work out like they planned... The players start burning down the world a GM tailored for a specific story, and they take it too personally. Or a player gets frustrated because the GM isn't focusing enough on his quest to find his long-lost parents. They need to take a step back and reconsider how they are approaching the game.

It's really fun to listen to a tabletop campaign featuring creative players, and there are many podcasts that give you the opportunity for just that... there are also places where you can watch creative people play video games with fun commentary. These are forms of entertainment that can be fun, emotional, or dramatic. But it's not authorship, and it doesn't need to be. 

So don't try to turn your boat into a car. If you find yourself running or playing a game with a specific story in mind, or hoping to publish the events of a Dungeons and Dragons adventure as a short story or novel I encourage you to consider it carefully. Because you'll find that authorship and role playing work cross-purpose. Instead simply use RP as an outlet to stimulate your imagination, and channel that energy into other creative endeavors away from the tabletop. The Dragonlance books and Steven Erikson's Malazan series were both inspired by the worlds and characters of the authors' RPG days. They used elements from their games and turned them into something they could work into a narrative. If you do the same, you can still be a good author as well as a good player. Both your campaign and fellow players will benefit greatly from it.

Happy ventures!

Passing the Time: In-Game Chronology

In most tabletop RPGs, combat encounters take very little in-game time. They represent swift bursts of action, separated into rounds of a few seconds apiece. With this system, and a natural tendency to focus on the action alone, it is easy to forget about the time in between, the chronology that determines how many days pass over the course of your adventure. This can result in weird idiosyncrasies such as adventurers spend an hour or two exploring a dungeon between making camp, or heroes leveling up twice within a mere couple of days.  Basically, if you want to build a true epic that spans days, months, or years, you have to remember to step the clock forward.

This is something both players and GMs should keep in mind, and it needs to be performed on both the short-term sense as well as in the big picture. By short term, I mean that you should be sure describe the passage of time whenever you can. When a player takes an action, consider how much time it will take to perform, and don't be afraid to make it a substantial. Explain that it took a few minutes to pick the lock of the next room, a few hours to find the contact the party needed in town. Don't be shy about implementing these passages of time, it's how you fill up a day of a PC's adventuring so it actually seems like a march of progress rather than a sprint to each thirty second encounter.

On a macro level you want to include opportunities for long term story progression... maybe instead of hours, it takes days to find that contact that the party needed. Maybe they have some downtime between missions, and it lasts a week or two. A journey to the capitol might take a day or two to complete. It's probably not a good idea to spend a lot of time having the players act out this passage of time, but the point is to let the time pass in-game. Allow the characters to grow over time, to live and exist in the imagination even if it is "off screen." Events can also occur during this period that don't immediately involve the player characters. It allows for more opportunities for new adventures and plot developments as the world grows and changes.

If you follow these simple principles, you will have adventures that describe the events of years rather than a few days, and the days of adventuring will seem more packed and productive. Just remember that sometimes even slower actions can be compelling. A long-term investigation of a crime can be as cool and suspenseful as disabling a ticking bomb. This doesn't mean you should slow down your game, forcing players to sit through tedious descriptions of every day in a week. Nor should you make players meticulously describe their entire process of searching every single mundane nook and cranny of a dungeon.

Include the description of time passing in broad strokes. Keep things moving ahead. You'll have so many more story opportunities. NPCs will be able to change and grow, players will be able to plan and execute long term strategies, and their will be a greater sense of scope and progress. When you spend so much time building an imaginary world and playing in it, why not give its inhabitants a chance to experience and live in it? These things take time, so be sure you have given it to them!

Happy ventures!

A Quick Note on Splitting the Party

(Hey all, I got kind of swamped at work this week so instead of a full entry, today I'm just sharing a few off the cuff thoughts on a common problem.)

Pictured: the most famous party splitters of all time

There are a number of good reasons not to split up an adventuring party at any given time. Firstly, most of the encounters in a campaign will obviously be designed and balanced to accommodate the full complement of players and will be difficult to overcome with partial strength. Secondly, your party members are made with special abilities and powers to support and aid one another and it would be foolish to waste those resources.

But the top reason to not split the party is to show respect for the your fellow party members and the game master. Splitting the party forces your GM to do double duty and divide his attention between more than one scenario at the same time. It also creates a situation in which players have to wait for long periods of waiting for their allies' scenes to finish before they can play out their own actions. Overall, it's a less than optimal setup that undermines the cooperative nature of the game.

There are ways to run split-party scenarios that can be fun and intuitive, but they have to be executed carefully. A crafty game master can come up with things for a player to do when they are not in a scene, like playing NPCs or helping with the battle maps. They can create encounters that can allow for the players to break into smaller groups in order to fight on two fronts. They can even encourage party-splitting as a regular technique in their game sessions.

But this needs to be something that is planned for. If a GM doesn't feel ready to handle it, or some of the players aren't up for it, don't do it. It's an off-beat style of RPG gaming that is infamous and criticized for a reason. It's not just reviled because it kills your players, it's disliked because of its tendency to kill their fun. And that's the worst thing that could possibly happen to your favorite tabletop campaign. Be smart and stay close to those who bring out the best in you... your fellow player characters!

Happy ventures!

On the Popularity of the High Fantasy Setting

Though Dungeons and Dragons may be the most well-known and ubiquitous tabletop role playing game out there, there are many others that create mythical worlds and stories within any number of genres. From starships voyaging across distant galaxies, to vampires lurking in the streets of the modern day, there are all sorts of adventures to experience. However, even outside the Dungeons and Dragons system there is no category of game more popular than the 'High Fantasy' setting.

By using the term High Fantasy I am referring to the classical Tolkien-esque genre of medieval era adventure filled with magic and strange creatures. In the world of RPGs there is no realm of imagination that is mined for material more frequently than this. So what is it about this particular type of setting that gives it such allure, such staying power in the gaming community? Why do so many players keep getting drawn back to this kind of game rather than, say, a tense spy thriller?

There are a lot of answers and theories that could be presented to explain it, but my own opinion is this... the realms of High Fantasy are the most flexible and easy to customize than any other genre. They don't have to have any connection to events or facts of the real world, and yet they have common themes and elements that are deeply ingrained in our minds from books, movies, and fairy tales. When you enter a science fiction or modern setting your players might feel pressured to have certain knowledge or awareness of the world around them. If your adventure is set in our own world, they might need to know something of our actual history. If it is set in space, they might feel intimidated by their lack of knowledge about space travel.

The fantasy kingdom cuts out all those aspects, and sets them in a world of your own creation, where there are still threads of mythology that will be easy for most players to relate to. Elves, orcs, and gnomes will all be fairly easy for players to relate to based on their appearance in media dating back for years and years. And the fact that the fantastical realm is usually created from the DM's own imagination means that no player will have any more or less knowledge of the setting when the game begins.

It's malleable, there are very few clear-cut rules for world-building, and every world built in this genre can be unique while still fitting with the basic common elements of its ilk. It is very straight-forward and easy to grasp in its appeal. The brutal combat and delving for treasure is old-fashioned and rewarding. Most audiences will easily grasp the wonderment of magic, and the politics of its 'old world' environment. No other genre has managed such a universal appeal, and thus it remains the undisputed king of all RPG settings.

Finally, there is the fact that the middle age era has been heavily romanticized for years throughout media and pop culture. It's known to many through stories of good versus evil, with simpler conflicts and values that transcend the complicated problems of our own times.

There are plenty of worlds to explore in your own adventures, but it's important to recognize why these kinds of fantasy adventures remain the most popular. Now that we recognize the appeal, we can make an effort to apply and transfer some of these elements into our games in other settings and systems. Nothing will ever replace these magical realms of the tabletop, but there is certainly a lot that we can learn from them.

Happy ventures!

Character Creation and "The Six Things That Need Fixing"

Previously on DMpathy I have mentioned the benefits of setting up goals and motivations for your character so that you can have a clear 'arc' for your role playing--a way to develop your character's personality and progression. Well, here is a nifty resource for finding inspiration for how you can set these goals to give yourself a jump start on your role playing.

Based on Blake Snyder's screenwriting book Save the Cat, the Six Things That Need Fixing are character flaws, enemies, and other personal challenges that a protagonist needs to overcome to achieve their happy ending. As the book itself explains, it doesn't need to be exactly six things, but it helps if there are at least a few. This technique is geared toward screenwriters and filmmakers, but it can be just as useful for tabletop players who like rich storylines and character development... If you focus on mapping out the characters most obvious problems rather than their strengths, it makes for far more useful reference when it comes to role playing their motivations and behavior.

Keep in mind that in a tabletop campaign you will often need to keep things organically developing so that you don't just resolve all six things and run out of RP material. Whenever you resolve one of the character's problems (And you should resolve them when you can, don't let your character stagnate and become boring)  it is time to come up with a new Thing To Fix to take the last one's place.

This method is basically the same as that of the DM, to keep presenting your team with challenges as they overcome them. This is just you applying that concept to your own character, providing your own challenges to yourself of things the character needs to learn or change in order to grow. By pursuing these goals, your character will indeed grow and evolve, and that will make for an interesting and fun experience for yourself and your fellow players.

Read more about The Six Things That Need Fixing via this article, which includes a list of examples from popular films.

Happy Ventures

Sorting Songs for Game Night

One of my most recent projects is sorting my musical cues for game night into categorical playlists. Rather than grouping my songs by album, genre, or performer, I am trying to put together comprehensive collections of songs based on the appropriate mood that I am aiming for. This is a trick that some of the more music-savvy DMs use, and it is a big improvement over using a generic collection of songs and themes.

If you are running a game of Dungeons and Dragons, for instance, you might use the soundtrack from The Lord of the Rings series... but the odds are that the various themes and medleys won't sync up so well with the action taking place on the tabletop and in your collective imaginations. Big bombastic battle songs will play when you are resting in a tavern, or whimsical flute solos will undercut your climactic fight with villainous warlock.

So that's why it's better to listen to each individual song and use whatever software you can... Spotify, iTunes, your computer desktop... to compile your favorites into categories of style. Exciting music, soft music, however you want to organize them. Just make sure you have a lot of songs and a few different moods to choose from. Some of my own playlists currently look like this:

• Majestic Themes (For grand halls or wonders of the realm)
• Standard Battle Music (For when a fight begins)
• Triumphant Themes (For when the players are winning a fight)
• Intense Battle Music (For truly epic encounters)
• Travelling Ambience (For playing softly in the background)
• Sad Music (For pulling the 'ole heartstrings)

It also pays to have subcategories of these kinds of playlists, based on the genre of the game you are running (Like science-fiction playlists with techno and synth beats versus the orchestral strings of a high fantasy song.) In any case, I encourage any DM who likes to use music to enhance their campaign to subscribe to this method of music organization if they can. If you have a musically-inclined player, it might be good to have them help out with this. Maybe even let them run the soundtrack and switch playlists during the game so that it frees you up to concentrate on your notes and DMing.  In any case, if you have the right song to fit the moment it will be the perfect tool to complement the action of the tabletop.


Happy ventures!

Link: West End Games' Star Wars Style Guide

Today I would like to share something really neat and helpful for running Star Wars RPGs. The following link collects excerpts from West End Games' style guide for writers of their Star Wars gaming material. Included here is a lot of very sound advice for storytelling and adventure building in the SW universe to maintain its iconic themes and tone of the setting. For those interested in the setting, it serves as a very straight-to-the-point guidebook, advising the game builders to avoid cliches based entirely on the movies and explaining how to treat the galaxy as a vast expanse filled with unlimited potential.

Enjoy these little behind the scenes tidbits, thanks to Pablo Hidalgo of the Lucasfilm Story Group, and may they serve you well in your next foray into a galaxy far, far away.

Happy ventures!

Themes of Paranormal American RPGs

Still from the adventure game Life is Strange

A quiet little community rests in the shade of the pines somewhere in the American Midwest. The wind softly rustles the branches. In the distance, you hear a soft growl. Is it just the sound of the woodland creatures on their nightly hunt? Or is it something else? Why do the townsfolk change the subject whenever you ask? What is that blue light that seems to peek through your curtains just as you drift off to sleep? And why do you keep get the odd sensation that your television is watching YOU instead of the other way around?

This is the kind of introduction you might use if you are going to run a game from the genre that a friend* and I have dubbed Paranormal Americana.  This delightfully weird genre borders on the edge of Lovecraftian horror and science fiction. 

The most notorious examples of the genre are the television program Twin Peaks and the works of Stephen King... and if you are familiar with either of those, you probably have a good idea of what I'm talking about now. 

Other examples in this category include:

• The X-Files (Another staple and trend-setter of the genre)
• Gravity Falls
• Wayward Pines
• Alan Wake  
• Life is Strange
• Deadly Premonition
• The Twilight Zone (Certain episodes, at least)
• Welcome to Night Vale

Night Vale is the setting I usually run these kinds games in, because of the healthy dose of morbid humor and off-beat satire.

But what is this genre really about, and what makes it worth our time? Well, there are a number of common threads that draw people to these stories. The theme of weirdness lurking behind the mundane is always a major theme. More specifically, the genre explores the idea of a sinister purpose lurking behind the facade of the American community. Whether it is a suburban neighborhood or a sleepy little mountain town, the idea that close-knit communities are cult-like conspiracies serving as fronts for something insidious and dangerous. The H.P. Lovecraft story The Shadow Over Innsmouth was sort of a proto-example of this kind of tale, in which an entire fishing village is undergoing strange mutations into something inhuman.

A lot of these stories also draw inspiration from American folklore and urban legends. This covers a wide range of weird but unique phenomenons. Yetis, UFOs, ghosts, anything  that has ever been speculated by conspiracy theorists or cryptozoologists would be a good fit here. A sense of paranoia should be cultivated in these kinds of settings, and classic internet "creepypastas" like Slender Man make for good creative fodder for designing monsters and encounters. 

There are many options for interesting stories and challenges that this kind of game world can offer. For example: in the novel American Gods, Neil Gaiman explored a world where the traditions and superstitions of old world cultures had brought their magic to the new world along with them. The gods of days past then compete with the gods of the new world, gods of media and technology. This is what the setting is all about. Creating a new mythology that is distinctly modern and distinctly American. It's the amalgamation of cultures and traditions with the fears and anxieties of the modern age.

Just remember that when you run these games, don't use combat-heavy systems. These games are more ideally suited for Call of Cthulhu or some version of FATE. They are more about exploration and mystery than battling through obstacles. I think this means that they take a lot of time to think about and prepare, so I don't recommend doing them as long term campaigns. They are better as episodic scenarios, like a really good one-shot session. When I ran a Night Vale game in FATE, I had the players each as a person with a unique occupation and supernatural power. I also gave them very few stress boxes, so that the monsters they encountered would do a lot of damage and be very threatening. For horror games in general, that's the way to go. Low hit points and the potential for lasting and debilitating injury. 

So now you have a fairly clear idea how to start exploring this genre, and maybe some inspiration for a game. It never hurts to introduce some variety to your gaming group,and if your group enjoys the weird and creepy, Paranormal Americana may be just the ticket. 

Happy Ventures!


* I first discussed this terminology with Ryan Teague, proprietor of the Scan Visor podcast, which turns a critical eye to various forms of nerdy media. You can check it out at http://scanvisor.podbean.com.

Brevity is the Soul of Role Playing

Everything you need to know in three simple sentences.

When it comes to players providing information and backstory for their characters, less is more. While it may help a player to flesh out an elaborate character concept and give them a point of reference for their motivations and personality, bringing a lengthy biography of their character is not going to do much to enhance their experience. Most of their fellow players, and many DMs like myself, would much rather get to know a character first-hand, by travelling with them as a party, then to slog through a strenuous record of their past exploits and defining characteristics.

That's why I encourage players to keep it short and sweet. For my games I ask players to keep it very brief when introducing their characters at the start. Two paragraphs is a decent length of text to offer everything you need to know about a character that you bring to the table. Focus on the most important aspects of the character at hand. What defines them? What is most outwardly apparent? 

There needn't be any "required reading" when it comes to the backstory of your fellow players. I have known some players who brought a novella's worth of information to the table, and it just didn't add much to the experience, nor did it feel good to be obligated to read through the lengthy tome just to know another party member. It's fine to have this information for your own personal reference, but leave it behind at the game table. Convey this information about your character gradually, as it becomes relevant or appropriate to bring it up. Let it flow naturally as part of the overall narrative.

If you use this method, you also have the flexibility to make changes and alterations as you see fit. Anything that hasn't been explicitly stated could still be changed as the story progresses. If you haven't declared your character to be an orphan as you originally planned, then maybe she isn't... maybe her parents live on an island far across the sea... perhaps your story-line crosses over with that of another party member, maybe you shared a class at the academy (intertwining your story with your teammates is always a plus.) By leaving some of these details unsaid at first, it allows you to fill them in as the game goes on.

This somewhat applies to DMs as well. Good DMs should not bombard players with lengthy and long-winded prose when a simple description will suffice. They should leave themselves some openings to fill in the details of your setting as the campaign unfolds. Dungeon Masters: Be clear, be concise. Your players will appreciate you for it, and your game will run more smoothly overall. And encourage your whole game group to follow this advice. Keep the detailed backstory in your personal notes, and don't overwhelm your teammates with a backstory "infodump." If you are conservative with the presentation of information, it will have much more impact whenever it comes up. And your teammates won't get burnt out or bored either. 

Happy ventures!