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Burn Bryte Core Mechanics

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You can order The Demonplague, my level 1 – 20 fifth edition adventure, right now!

Inspired by Brandon Dixon’s awesome post about the incredible Swordsfall mechanics, I thought I would spill some (virtual) ink in this post to divulge a bit about the Burn Bryte core mechanics.

People new to the blog might be asking, “What is Burn Bryte?” Oh just a new science fantasy RPG I created with Jim McClure, Kat Kuhl, and Darcy Ross for exclusive use on the Roll20 platform. I’ve written about the setting of Burn Bryte and the advancement system in previous blog posts. Now that we’ve had a chance to refine the core mechanic and combat of Burn Bryte through playtesting, I’d love to share a lot more of it with you. Burn Bryte isn’t out yet, but it is coming soon!

Side note: If you want hear these mechanics in action, listen to Kat’s Autonomic podcast. She’s running a game using the same system as Burn Bryte.

Over-the-Top Science Fantasy

Burn Bryte is a science fantasy game inspired by some of the designers’ favorite stories, like Star Wars, Guardians of the Galaxy, Jupiter Ascending, The Expanse, Voltron, Gundam, Outlaw Star, and Saga. These are stories about competent, heroic characters facing impossible odds. During dramatic, comedic, or action scenes in these stories, complications can pile up, the odds can seem overwhelming (ridiculous even), but the heroes always seem have the tools to handle anything life throws at them. We wanted to create a game that captured that idea.

Skill-Based

Burn Bryte is a skill-based RPG, similar to FATE in that skill rolls drive most of the game’s action and story. Every character has the following 18 skills:

  • Computers
  • Engineering
  • Knowledge
  • Medicine
  • Perception
  • Streetwise
  • Athletics
  • Melee
  • Power
  • Ranged
  • Skullduggery
  • Stealth
  • Deception
  • Decorum
  • Empathy
  • Performance
  • Presence
  • Suavity

Each skill has a die size associated with it: d4, d6, d8, d10, or d12. The larger the die size, the better you are with the skill. Burn Bryte assumes characters are competent heroes, so rather than rolling to see if a character succeeds, the game asks you to roll to see if you fail. How does that work?

When you make a skill roll to perform a task, the skill roll has a complexity, which determines how difficult the task is to overcome. The higher a roll’s complexity, the harder it is to perform. The GM determines a roll’s complexity, which can be as low as 2 (easy) or as high as 7 (ridiculous). Outside of combat most skill rolls have a complexity of 2 (easy), 3 (moderate), or 4 (hard). The skill roll’s complexity determines the number of dice you roll.

When you make a skill roll, you roll number of dice of the skill’s die size equal to the roll’s complexity. If you roll the same number twice or more, known as rolling doubles, the skill roll fails.

For example, Luwe the glean (an alien species in Burn Bryte) wants to attempt to leap across a chasm. She tells the GM she wants to use her d8 Athletics to leap across the pit, and the GM tells her that skill roll has a complexity of 3. Luwe rolls 3d8 and rolls a 5, a 3, and a 7, so she succeeds. If Luwe had rolled a 5, a 5, and a 7 or a 6, a 6, and a 6, she would fail the roll because she rolled multiples (or doubles) of the same number.

Justifying Skills

Unlike many other RPGs each skill in Burn Bryte is not designed to be used for specific purposes. Instead skills are used as ways to approach the challenges that face the player characters. They are intentionally broad so that players may choose from a variety of different skills to solve a problem the way they want to solve it. This freeform use of skills gives freedom to the players to tell complex and differing stories with each roll (and try some ideas that just might be crazy enough to work).

For example, a character could certainly use the Melee skill to attack someone with a laser sword. They could also use the Melee skill to intimidate someone during a negotiation by flaunting their weapon or to impress someone with fantastic feats of finesse.

Here’s another example. Imagine a group of characters trying to cross a chasm in a cave. One character might use the Athletics skill to jump across the pit, another could use Engineering to figure out the precise place to kick off the cave wall to make it across, another could use Computers to jury-rig a broken flying robot to ride it across, and a fourth character might use the Melee skill to ride the shockwaves of their sonic caber (oh yeah) across the chasm. All are valid and have the same complexity.

GMs almost never tells a player, “You must make a Stealth roll to avoid being seen.” Instead the GM should say, “Guards are coming, what skill do you use to handle this situation?” and players can choose any skill they can justify.

Why Not Use the Best Skills?

Since you can justify almost any skill, you might be asking yourself, “Why not always use the skills which give me the highest chance of success?” You could always use your best skills, but that is actually not the optimal way to play Burn Bryte. If you only ever use your best skills, you will never earn Nova points.

Nova points allow a character to take very powerful actions that are far stronger than what can be done with a standard skill roll. Nova point abilities are the best abilities a character can get, and having Nova points is often the difference between success and failure in tough conflicts.

Characters only get a Nova point after they have used one skill of each die size (d4, d6, d8, d10, and d12). The only way to get Nova points is to use a combination of strong, intermediate, and weak skills.

Failure Means Consequences

Whenever a player character fails a skill roll in Burn Bryte, there are consequences beyond simply not succeeding at the task the character tried to accomplish. When your character fails, they might take damage, suffer a harmful condition, break an object, or suffer a setback in the story. For instance, failing to pick a door’s lock sets off an alarm that sends enemies running toward them, or a poor performance for an audience means the governor in the crowd refuses to meet the character backstage after the show. Whatever happens, failure on a skill roll should always have a cost.

The player and the GM work together to create the consequence for failure. If they need a prompt, we’ve created a table of 100 failure consequences to help inspire ideas (check it out below). The prompts are purposefully open to interpretation. For instance, the prompt “something breaks” could indicate an item of value the player character has breaks, that the spaceship they’re on suffers an engine malfunction, or an NPC the characters are negotiating with reaches their breaking point and storms off.

Modifying Skill Rolls

In Burn Bryte skill rolls can have their complexities modified by character special abilities, Nova abilities, positive and negative conditions, and equipment. More on those in future blog posts!

Combat

Burn Bryte‘s combat system is divided into three phases:

  1. Phase 1: Enemies Declare Actions
  2. Phase 2: Player Characters Act
  3. Phase 3: Enemies Move and Resolve Actions

Phase 1: Enemies Declare Actions

The GM almost never rolls dice in Burn Bryte. During Phase 1 the GM declares which player characters enemies intend to attack and other actions they wish to take. Roll20’s token markers make it easy to remember which monsters are attacking which characters. Before these enemy actions resolve the characters get to act.

Phase 2: Player Characters Act

During Phase 2 the player characters can act in any order they choose. On each player character’s turn, the character can take any number of actions they choose until they decide to stop or fail a skill roll. Almost every action a player character takes during combat requires a skill roll. The first skill roll they make on their turn has a complexity of 2. The next has a complexity of 3 and so on. Player characters can use skills to attack, counter or dodge incoming enemy attacks, gain Advantages (more on those in another post), gain extra movement, use special abilities, and more. As long as the character succeeds on a skill roll, they can keep taking actions, but if they push their luck too much, they fail and end their turn after suffering the consequences of failure as described above.

The Adrenaline Effect

During combat the complexity of skill rolls fluctuate and are dependent on the number of actions a player character has already taken. Outside of combat the complexity of skill rolls are static. You may wonder, “Why does a chasm that requires a complexity 3 skill roll to cross outside of battle become a complexity 2 skill roll during combat if crossing it is my first action and a complexity 4 skill roll if crossing it is my third?” The answer is the adrenaline effect.

During life-threatening combat (not a situation engineered by the player characters for easier skill rolls) player characters start their turn with a boost of energy that helps them focus, making the first task they perform easy. This energy boost also allows them to take multiple actions, but the more a player character takes on in a turn, the more difficult it is for them to perform tasks.

Phase 3: Enemies Move and Resolve Actions

During Phase 3 enemies move and their declared actions from Phase 1 resolve. Any enemy attacks that weren’t countered by the player characters in some way (usually with a skill roll or by knocking out/killing/scaring off/etc. the enemy making the attack) deal damage and/or effects.

One More Preview

So those are the basics of the Burn Bryte core mechanic and combat, but I wanted to share one more thing with you that might be useful in RPGs beyond our science fantasy baby. Remember that GM failure table I mentioned earlier? Here it is for your enjoyment.

Failure Prompts

d100 Failure Prompt
1 Something breaks.
2 Something is destroyed.
3 You get hurt.
4 You hurt an ally.
5 Enemies arrive.
6 An enemy is back in the fight.
7 You stumble.
8 You lose something.
9 An enemy gains an advantage.
10 You get stuck.
11 You offend someone.
12 A damning secret is revealed.
13 You cause a scene.
14 You cause an accident.
15 Something explodes.
16 Something wears out.
17 A fire starts.
18 Something shakes.
19 Something stops.
20 Your luck runs out.
21 You can’t try that again.
22 You make a mess.
23 You attract the wrong kind of attention.
24 You let a friend down.
25 You make an enemy stronger.
26 Something scares you.
27 You miss the mark.
28 You get tired.
29 You become impaired.
30 Something pulls you away from the action.
31 You get separated from allies.
32 You are suddenly alone.
33 Something works differently than you expected.
34 You can’t sense what’s in front of you.
35 The plan falls apart.
36 Something goes haywire.
37 A problem solved becomes undone.
38 An old wound reopens.
39 A good thing turns bad.
40 A bad thing gets even worse.
41 You lose your stuff.
42 You lose focus.
43 Something gets dropped.
44 You suffer a massive distraction.
45 You get screwed.
46 Something pops loose.
47 You lose traction.
48 Your mind goes blank.
49 Karma comes to get you.
50 Karma comes to get an ally.
51 You look like a total loser.
52 You lose steam.
53 Something bad infects you.
54 Something bad infects an ally.
55 Your stuff gets stuck.
56 You accomplish your goal too hard.
57 You lose all hope.
58 You expose yourself.
59 You expose your allies.
60 You must choose between hurting yourself or an ally.
61 You freeze and cannot act for the next round.
62 You temporarily cannot communicate with anyone.
63 Your failure makes you weak.
64 Your allies lose faith in you.
65 Your enemies charge you in your moment of failure.
66 Nothing makes sense to you anymore.
67 You crack up.
68 Something you thought was true is a lie.
69 You are proven right about something you want to be wrong about.
70 Your defenses drop.
71 You knock over an ally.
72 You break an ally’s stuff.
73 An ally becomes an enemy (even if just for a moment).
74 You cause an ally to get stuck.
75 You and an ally crash into each other.
76 You relive a painful memory.
77 This failure is personal.
78 Your priorities change.
79 There’s a new problem you must solve.
80 You open a can of worms.
81 Something tears.
82 Your confidence disappears.
83 Something jams.
84 Something beautiful turns ugly.
85 You get burned.
86 You burn an ally.
87 Your latest success is undone.
88 The latest success of an ally is undone.
89 You succeed at the cost of an arm and a leg.
90 You go over the edge.
91 You believe a lie.
92 The joke is on you.
93 You must choose between saving two allies.
94 You must choose between hurting two allies.
95 You can’t stay here.
96 Your nightmare becomes reality.
97 Something breaks beyond repair.
98 This failure leaves a scar.
99 The thing you fear most happens or appears.
100 The worst happens.

If you like what you’re reading please consider supporting me on Patreon, supporting me on Ko-fi, follow me on Twitter, like World Builder Blog on Facebook, check out my podcasts, find my products on the DMs Guild, tell your friends about the blog, and/or leave me a comment and let me know you think. Thanks!

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Magic Item Sets for 5e D&D

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Publisher’s Choice Quality Stock Art © Rich Hershey / Fat Goblin Games

You can order The Demonplague, my level 1 – 20 fifth edition adventure, right now!

Last month on my Patreon I posted a set of family magic items, the Arms of Bahamut. These items are my take on what has been known in previous editions of D&D as “magic item sets.” Family magic items are treasures that increase in magical strength when brought together, though each is powerful on its own. These items are typically created in sets, but might be flung across the world or the multiverse, making each hunt for an item in a set an adventure. The collection of an entire family could be the central story of a campaign.

In the PDF below you can get a look at another set of items, the Gifts of Nature. They are linked below and also exist on the Free Resources page of this site.

Gifts of NatureDownload

Take a look and let me know what you think!

If you like what you’re reading please consider supporting me on Patreon, supporting me on Ko-fi, follow me on Twitter, like World Builder Blog on Facebook, check out my podcasts, find my products on the DMs Guild, tell your friends about the blog, and/or leave me a comment and let me know you think. Thanks!

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Getting Started Podcasting

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You can order The Demonplague, my level 1 – 20 fifth edition adventure, right now!

I get a lot of questions about how to get started podcasting, so I thought I would put together a bit of a guide in the post.

Step 1. What’s Your Idea, Name, and Logo?

If you’re reading this post, odds are you already have an idea for a podcast! What about a name? Do a little research to see if others have similar podcast ideas and names before you get rolling! There’s a lot out there. If another show has the same name (or a YouTube show or Twitch stream or other medium) then pick something else unique. Your brand recognition is better with a unique name, and you avoid any legal troubles. If your concept is similar to another show, listen to a few episodes of the similar podcast and think about how you can make yours unique. (For instance, if you’re an RPG actual play podcast, what separates you from the hundreds of others?)

You’re also going to need a logo (and one that looks good as a square with the dimensions of 3000 x 3000 pixels) before you launch your podcast.

Step 2. Get Recording Equipment and Software

There are lots of great recording guides out there, but my advice is start small. You could easily shell out a lot of cash only to realize podcasting takes A LOT OF TIME and decide not to pursue it. That said, I’m putting out two options here: a cheap start and an expensive start. You can mix and match elements from these to get the results you want.

Cheap Start

If you’re starting cheap, buy yourself a quality USB microphone (like the Blue Snowball, which always seems to be on sale or the more expensive Blue Yeti). You can record and edit your audio in a simple, free program like Audacity or GarageBand if you’re recording locally. If you’re recording with people remotely, you can record calls through Skype or Zoom (or using Audio Hijack) and also record your own audio tracks separately through free programs. If you can get one track of audio per guest, that’s ideal for editing, but ALWAYS RECORD A BACKUP MASTER.

Expensive Start

For a more expensive start buy a microphone that has an XLR connection. This avoids the condenser USB mics use and gets you better sound quality. I use the Rode Procaster, but there are many amazing options out there that will fit your specific needs. You’ll also need an audio interface to plug your mic into your computer. I use the Focusrite Scarlett Solo, but your needs might be different especially if you have more than one microphone.

For recording and editing software I recommend using Adobe Audition. You’ll pay a monthly fee, but if you’ve already got the Adobe Creative Suite, you have this powerful software. It has a steeper learning curve than the cheaper programs, so give yourself some time to figure it out and watch plenty of YouTube tutorials.

If you’re recording guests remotely, you can pay for a monthly site called Zencastr that makes things easy on them. Zencastr gathers each individual’s audio locally then uploads it to the site at the end of your audio session, creating beautiful and synced individual tracks. While the program is good and works almost always, still record a back up. My recommendation is to turn off Zencastr’s built-in VoIP and chat through Skype or Zoom to record a master through those programs. If you do this, have your guests (and yourself) check Zencastr’s setting each time you record to make sure you’re recording through the proper microphones.

Step 3. Record a Session 0

To get your podcast feed started, you need at least one episode ready to rock. My recommendation is to record a super short episode 0 where you explain what your podcast is all about. If you can, record in a room with carpets and lots of soft surface covering the walls (like canvas paintings or hanging decorative blankets or the clothes of a walk-in closet). If a studio is available, even better!

You may also want to do a practice session for your podcast, especially if you are planning on having guests record in other locations. You can make this part of your episode 0 just to get a feel for how the recording software works. Even if you don’t use the guest’s audio in the final version of your episode 0, it will be good for you to understand how everything sounds and works. If the guest is actually a regular on the podcast, you can make sure their recording setup sounds the best it possible can as well.

Step 4. Edit Session 0

Use your editing software to edit your session 0. You should edit your podcast however you like, but I recommend cutting out pauses, removing “uhs” and “ums” where you can, and adding a little royalty free or original music you own as an intro and outro at the very least. You can usually purchase some decent tracks from Pond5 for very little money. They also have some free options.

When you’re done editing, export your podcast. I usually go as small as possible with my export settings, because the sound quality difference between huge and small files is usually very tiny, especially if your podcast is just a few people talking about cool stuff. Give your podcast a final listen once exported to be sure you’re happy with it.

Step 5. Find a Place to Host Your Podcast

There are lots of sites that host podcasts. Most DSPN shows use Spreaker, but you can use SoundCloud, Blurbrry, Megaphone, Podbean, and more. Many have paid and free plans that you should read carefully. If you podcast long enough, you’ll likely want or have to upgrade to a paid plan, but to start you may be able to get away with a free account. Create an account, upload your podcast particulars, and create an RSS feed! You can always switch your hosting platform with a little work at a future date.

Step 6. Track Numbers

If you don’t care about your podcast listener numbers, you can skip this step, but at some point in time, most of us want accurate numbers so we can know how many people are listening to the show. In general podcast hosting platforms don’t get as nitty-gritty as advertisers like with unique download numbers. DSPN is set up with a free service called Podtrac that takes measurements for us. Our sponsors are always happy with those numbers. Instructions on how to use your RSS feed to track numbers through Podtrac can be found on the site. If you can set this measurement up for your podcast before you launch, do it. That way you can measure from the start.

Step 7. Set Up Feeds

Once your podcast RSS feed is ready to, submit it to Apple Podcasts using iTunes Connect, publish your podcasts on Google Play, put them on Stitcher, and submit your podcast to Spotify. It usually takes a few days for these feeds to get approved, which is another reason why an episode 0 is a good idea before your first full episode. You should also embed your podcast on a website if you’re planning on hosting it there as well as the normal hosting platform. Share your RSS feed wherever you post, so listeners can submit the feed to the podcatcher of their choice.

Step 8. Promote

When your feeds are setup, promote your podcast! Create Twitter, Facebook, and other social media accounts and get blasting. Shout it out on message boards, and encourage listeners to spread the word. Ask people to rate and review your show on iTunes (and maybe even have contests or gimmicks to encourage people to do so).

Step 9. Repeat Regularly

Once you are set up, now start cranking out those episodes. You won’t need to set up feeds each time, but steps 3, 4, 5, and 8 should happen on a regular basis be it weekly, monthly, or some other schedule. A regular schedule keeps listeners engaged, so keep it up!

This blog post is on a topic selected by my Patreon donors. Thank you for your support!

If you like what you’re reading please consider supporting me on Patreon, supporting me on Ko-fi, follow me on Twitter, like World Builder Blog on Facebook, check out my podcasts, find my products on the DMs Guild, tell your friends about the blog, and/or leave me a comment and let me know you think. Thanks!

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Beyond the Words: The Costs of Layout for RPGs

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Image from Tactical Maps: Adventure Atlas.

This World Builder Blog post is by guest author Rich Lescouflair.

When I started writing my own tabletop products to sell, I also wondered how I could get them to have the look and feel of something of equal value to the words being put into it. Over time and with the help of some friends, I learned not only how to put together my own layouts, but also how much time, patience, and resources it takes to do so.

It wasn’t long before I was asked to do layout and design work for others. I was surprised at how difficult it was to figure out what to charge. But even more so, I was shocked to discover how little even long-time writers and designers understood about the nature of the job itself. In fact, the most readily available information to freelancers on how much to pay for layout is provided by people that don’t actually do it. So, the question becomes: How do you know what to budget for layout? And if you’re doing it for someone else, how much is it worth?

Covering the Basics

Whether you’re hiring or looking to be hired for layout, it’s important to understand the basics of what’s involved. For starters, it’s important to note that layout and graphic design are two completely different jobs. Now that we’ve established that, let’s get into some specifics:

What It Costs: As far as costs are concerned, there is no universal “page/word” rate for an RPG layout. Since every project is different and has a varied number of art pieces, headers, columns, tables, sections, and many other variables, trying to estimate layout costs by page or word count is unrealistic and often undervalues the amount of work required. While some freelancers still offer their services at a “per page” rate, professional layout work more commonly starts out at $20-25/hour, increasing based on the designer’s skills and experience. Unlike writing, which can at least be measured by content, what you’re really paying for with layout is time, judgment, and expertise.

What It Is: Layout is the art of taking a written document and applying headers, character styles, colors, markers, tables, and other forms of formatting. This gets applied to a page template that may contain artwork and additional page graphics, all while making sure it all fits and flows evenly on each page in an aesthetically pleasing way. A lot of this can be accomplished just using Word, but quality layout requires InDesign and similar programs that allow you to adjust the flow of text, resize artwork, and use graphic layers. These programs take time to learn and are expensive to use and maintain. Even then, just learning the software won’t help you without knowledge and practice on where to place and position elements. To make the most out of their skills, some layout designers also create their own page elements to keep the look and feel consistent.

What It Isn’t: There’s a growing misconception on what’s included in layout work. Commissioning/locating art and assigning their placement in a book is called “art direction”, which is a completely different job. Graphic manipulation of artwork is also a different job, which utilizes a different set of tools and skills. Cover design, logos, cartography — all handled by artists or digital graphic designers, and usually a different one for each task.

Asking the Right Questions

With the basics of the job in mind, the next step is to decide what’s required for the layout project.

Commissioning Layout Work

Unless you’re doing it yourself, each RPG project should have a planned budget for layout. Aside from rates, your expectations on how you want a book to appear should define what questions to ask when hiring someone to layout your project.

Providing Examples. One of the easiest approaches is providing a sample of another book or other work and asking if the person you’re hiring can create something similar. Although visual examples are best, even a description of a theme can get you on the right track. If your project requires its own unique page elements or trade dress, be sure to mention that as well. Discuss what art you have available in terms of size, quantity, and format. The layout designer should know what they can and can’t do.

Alternate Rates. With more and more options for digital marketing such as DMs Guild and Roll20, it’s also easier to offer sales royalties as compensation for layout work. This is likely the best method for working with freelancers or for projects with a small budget. Offering royalties not only saves on upfront costs, it lets the layout designer’s quality of work present itself as a value to how well it helps sell your product. This, however, works both ways. Offering to pay in royalties should be done with the intention that the layout designer eventually earns at least what they would have up front.

Bundling Options. Even though they require a different skill set and software, many (if not most) layout designers have one or more additional development skills such as graphic design work, art direction, and even digital cartography. It’s likely they’ll charge extra for these (and it’s important to remember that they should), but you’ll also likely pay a lot less than you would hiring multiple people. The only thing you would have to sacrifice is the time it takes them to do the extra work.

Edit Before Layout. Nothing can derail a layout faster than a major change in the written format. This is why before sending anything in for layout, you should make absolutely sure the work is properly edited. Simple copy edits and spelling corrections are fine to make within a layout file. Adding/removing/replacing paragraphs, sections, and art at any point in the layout immediately shifts everything around it, requiring the layout to be redone, which could sometimes take hours depending on the change. It’s a far more difficult task than just “making something fit” on a page, and your layout person is likely to charge you for the additional time and work.

Saving Time and Work. You can easily cut some time off on a layout commission by eliminating unnecessary steps. For example, providing a plain text file with tagged headers can save hours of work for layout in InDesign (which we’ll have to discuss in a separate article). In all honesty, style and header tags are not only helpful, but often expected when sending over a file for layout.

Accepting Commissions

First off, I’ll start by saying I’m no expert on marketing myself out for commission work. I’m very much still a novice in that regard. That being said, once you are approached to do a layout assignment, there are certain questions you should ask about the project:

Time and Time Again. Ask if there’s a deadline or timeline. That, combined with page count, art density, and product format (ex. Print, PDF, DTT, etc.) should give you a rough idea of how long it’ll take you to complete the work. To save yourself some additional time, ask if there are available page elements/graphics as well as text pre-formatted for layout (see my comment above regarding tagged headers). Always remember that time is the primary factor for your rate and availability.

All in the Details. Make sure your idea of how the product should look lines up with that of the writer or lead designer. Showing examples of your past work gives others an idea of what your capabilities are, as well as guides expectations for the end result of your current project.

Offer Up. If you have additional design skills, don’t be afraid to ask if they’re needed and offer a competitive rate. If you can design your own elements and do your own graphics editing, you’re not only gaining additional paid work, you can also merge those skills into a beautiful design that would have been much harder for multiple designers to put together.

Go With a Template. If you’re doing layout work for multiple books in a series, find out if the designer or producer has an established template you can work with, or at least an example you can build a layout template from. It’ll save you tons of work and provide a better feel for what the designer is looking for. If there isn’t one available, you can offer to sell the one you build from scratch to the publisher as a universal template to be used for their future products.

Go Outside the Boxes. Yes, obviously, practicing layout makes you better at it. There is also the advantage of being able to see all of the pieces as you put them together. When building and adjusting a layout design, pay attention to the types of graphics and artwork being used. How were they built? What kinds of effects/shapes/colors are involved? What file types and software were used to create them? Are any of these things that you could learn to do on your own? Understanding what goes into the product as a whole makes your part in it easier to manage. Learning new skills from those parts also increases your value as an overall designer. Who knows? It might even become something you really enjoy doing.

Finding the Balance

In the end, whether commissioning or being commissioned, honesty and flexibility delivers the best results in a layout project. Understand the job, define your needs, and don’t be afraid to make adjustments for anything else. A poorly laid out book can make for an annoying read, no matter how great the writing is. The best RPG layout work is one that wows the reader and draws them in without them even knowing. It’s a part of the book, often unsung but invaluable in its role.

Rich is an RPG writer and graphic designer. He is the creator and lead designer of Esper Genesis, the ENnie Award nominated sci-fi RPG for D&D 5E. In addition to his work for D&D Adventurer’s League, Rich is also one of the DMs Guild Adepts. His work can be found in many products including Xanathar’s Lost Notes, Lost City of Mezro, and The Expanse RPG.

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Who Do You Know?

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You can order The Demonplague, my level 1 – 20 fifth edition adventure, right now!

Last week at D&D in a Castle I got some big inspiration, and some of it was acquired before I ever even sat down to play. Cameron Rout, a writer and one of the event’s founders, Konstantinos Martinos, founder of Archvillain Games, and I had a conversation the day upon my arrival about traveling and meeting with friends and family who live in distant locations. That got us talking about the module I am going to present in this post. You can use this module to build each player character’s personal relationships and backstory with your world as you play. The module is system and setting agnostic.

Relationship and History Tables

Whenever the characters come to a new settlement, you can choose or roll on the NPC Personal Relationships and NPC Relationship Statuses tables for each character to determine if that character has any old friends, foes, or family settled or passing through the area.

The NPC you introduce could be from the character’s backstory, a previously encountered NPC, or it could be someone entirely new that the player of the character helps you create. Be collaborative in this process with your players.

For instance, the GM rolls on the table and determines Bluffo McFlumph the cleric has an NPC cousin who lives in town that owes Bluffo money. The GM reveals these results to Cindy, Bluffo’s player. Cindy tells the GM that Bluffo’s cousin is named Miranth and owes Bluffo money after the cleric bailed her out of a gambling debt. Now the GM has to decide if Miranth has the money for Bluffo, or if she has even deeper gambling debts that have gotten her in more trouble.

You could also roll on the table and keep the results hidden from the player until their character encounters the NPC. Make sure your players are comfortable with improvisation on the spot before trying this approach. For instance, when the characters arrive at a new space station, the GM rolls on the table and determines Kixaras Laserface the space marine has an ex-lover who has an item Kixaras desires. The GM waits until the marine is having dinner at a bar and the lover walks in to reveal the results and asks Jenny, Kixaras’s player, who the marine’s ex is and what item the person has that Kixaras wants. Jenny decides the lover is Tal, a pirate the characters met in a previous adventure, and that she has a map to a treasure Kixaras desires.

NPC Personal Relationships

d100 Relationship
1 – 20 Friend
21 Parent
22 Grandparent
23 Great-grandparent
24 – 25 Sibling
26 – 30 Cousin
31 – 50 Distant cousin
51 – 53 Nibling (such as a niece or nephew)
54 – 56 Pibling (such as an aunt or uncle)
57 – 59 Great-pibling
60 Offspring (a child of the character)
61 Ex-lover
62 – 70 Ex-friend
71 – 75 Rival
76 – 80 Former business associate
81 – 85 Current business associate
86 – 90 Someone the character idolizes
91 – 95 Someone who idolizes the character
96 – 100 Friend of another relation (roll again on this table to determine)

NPC Relationship Statuses

d20 Status
1 The NPC owes the character money.
2 The character owes the NPC money.
3 The NPC is in dire danger and needs the character’s help.
4 The NPC has information that could help the character.
5 The NPC has an item that could help the character.
6 The last time the NPC and character saw each other, they had a terrible argument.
7 The NPC knows a dark secret about the character.
8 The character knows a dark secret about the NPC.
9 The NPC previously bullied the character.
10 The NPC loves the character unconditionally.
11 The NPC secretly desires to publicly embarass the character.
12 The NPC and character used to be close but have grown apart.
13 The NPC likes the character but has a close friend or lover that cannot stand the character.
14 The character’s enemies are forcing the NPC to betray or trap the character in some way.
15 The NPC wants to share gossip about a common relation with the character.
16 The NPC has a scheme to make money using the character’s skills.
17 The NPC competes with the character as often as possible.
18 The NPC has bad news to deliver to the character.
19 The NPC is keeping an item safe for the character.
20 Roll twice on this table and use both results, ignoring this result if it comes up a second time.

If you like what you’re reading please consider supporting me on Patreon, supporting me on Ko-fi, follow me on Twitter, like World Builder Blog on Facebook, check out my podcasts, find my products on the DMs Guild, tell your friends about the blog, and/or leave me a comment and let me know you think. Thanks!

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Weredolphin and Wereorca

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Art by Gary Dupuis.

You can order The Demonplague, my level 1 – 20 fifth edition adventure, right now!

Last month my Patreon reward for Content Tier Patrons was my version of the werecrab, wereoctopus, and wereshark aquatic lycanthropes. I had so much fun putting them together that I created two more and I’m sharing them with you today! The weredolphin and the wereorca! You can get them for free in PDF below and on the Free Game Resources section of this site.

Sea Lycanthropes

Take a look and let me know what you think!

Become a Patron!

If you like what you’re reading please consider supporting me on Patreon, supporting me on Ko-fi, follow me on Twitter, like World Builder Blog on Facebook, check out my podcasts, find my products on the DMs Guild, tell your friends about the blog, and/or leave me a comment and let me know you think. Thanks!

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A meme of the Proclaimers from the "I'm Gonna Be" Music video that reads, "And I will write 500 words, and I will write 500 more."

By the Word Isn’t Working

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You can order The Demonplague, my level 1 – 20 fifth edition adventure, right now!

There has been a ton of talk on Twitter this week about creators in the tabletop roleplaying game world being undervalued (or sometimes undervaluing their own work). I want to thank everyone who participated in those discussions and shared thoughts, ideas, and opinions. Creators should make more money, and it is going to take consumers willing to pay more for products, publishers willing to increase paychecks, and creators increasing their rates. One blog post isn’t going to solve this issue, but I do have a thought I want to share.

It’s hard to make it as a freelancer in any industry let alone as a freelance RPG designer. In our industry 10 cents a word has been considered a premium rate for decades, whereas in many other industries it is the starting rate for new freelancers with the top of the scale being 1 dollar a word or more. I think payment for writers, editors, artists, and other freelancers who work in RPGs needs to increase (and consumers need to change the way they think of RPG products). I also think publishers need to stop paying RPG designers by the word and pay instead for their time.

There are few reasons publishers should budget time and not words for designers.

Work Beyond Words

Design work is so much more than putting down words. In addition to writing (which should include a healthy dose or editing and revising your own work) roleplaying game designers are expected to draw at least rough maps, create art orders, do research, attend meetings, pull together appendices from other resources (such as a list of monster stat blocks at the back of an adventure), playtesting, and review and comment on the work of other creators on the project. All of these activities take time, often days or weeks of work depending on the scope of a project. For instance, it can take me four or more hours to create a rough map for an adventure location, review another designer’s work to give feedback, or attend a month of hour-long meetings once a week.

A low word rate barely covers expenses when a designer is just writing. Asking a designer to do all the extras takes time and labor, which should be compensated.

Every Project is Different

Some projects require more work beyond words than others. Are you writing a few thousand words to give some flavor or alternate rules to an existing world or system? If so, a word rate is probably fine (but being compensated for your time works just as well). Are you writing a single chapter in a long adventure that requires two different maps and several art orders? If so, being compensated for your time is better. Are you creating an original roleplaying game from scratch that requires months of meetings, playtesting, creating rough maps, writing art orders, writing/rewriting/deleting/rerewriting, and more? If so, you should be compensated for your time (and likely receive royalties for your efforts). Compensating designers for time is fairer on large projects, especially since publishers often stand to make more money on bigger products.

Encourage Smaller Writing

Paying by the word has problems beyond fairness to designers. Asking for a minimum number of words usually means a publisher will get at least that many from a designer, since the designer wouldn’t want to turn in fewer words for fear of getting a smaller paycheck. This contradicts a writing adage that it is better to be brief. Seasoned designers can often say in one sentence what might take others a paragraph. I’ve spent a lot of hours trying to hit a word count goal after I feel I’ve achieved a writing project’s objective in fewer words, only to have my extra words cut from the final draft. It would have saved everyone time (and possibly the publisher some money) if I had just been paid for my time instead of words.

Publishers should still plan out products and provide word counts (because plans help publishers from going over budget), but freeing a designer’s pay from word count makes it easier for the designer to say, “I could make this section shorter.” The publisher can then say, “Great! We can put those words somewhere else they are needed,” or, “Now we can add more art to the book,” or, “Now the book is thinner, and my print costs are lower!” This approach also could save a publisher money, since a designer takes less time to write 10,000 words than they do 15,000.

How Do We Do This?

How do we pay freelancers for time? I can already see people saying, “Won’t freelancers lie about the number of hours they spend on a project to make more money? What if an honest freelancer works more hours or days than the publisher expects? Word counts are safer because they are quantifiable.” Have no fear. Many industries pay freelancers for time (like television, which is where I have my other freelance life). We have good, tested model for this.

The best way a freelance RPG designer can work for time is by arranging everything with the publisher before writing a single word on the project. Here’s how I see it happening. (Note this idea is not an original one. I’ve stolen it from other businesses that have worked the same way for many, many, many years.)

  1. The publisher reaches out to a freelancer and provides the full scope of a project. The publisher might even provide the budget they have for the freelancer’s work.
  2. The freelancer provides an estimate for their work to the publisher. This includes the amount of time the project will take the freelancer and the freelancer’s rate for the project.
  3. The publisher and freelancer agree or negotiate (then hopefully agree) on the terms of payment. They also outline what actions should be taken by both parties if the project expands beyond the original scope of work.
  4. If the publisher and freelancer agree on terms, they put those terms of the project into a contract and both sign it.
  5. Get to work!

To publishers, consumers, and my fellow freelance designers out there, what do you think of this model? Sound off in the comments below!

Become a Patron!

If you like what you’re reading please consider supporting me on Patreon, supporting me on Ko-fi, follow me on Twitter, like World Builder Blog on Facebook, check out my podcasts, find my products on the DMs Guild, tell your friends about the blog, and/or leave me a comment and let me know you think. Thanks!

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Buying and Selling Magic Items by Population Size

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Publisher’s Choice Quality Stock Art © Rich Hershey / Fat Goblin Games

You can order The Demonplague, my level 1 – 20 fifth edition adventure, right now!

This blog post subject was chosen by my Patreon supports. Thanks for supporting World Builder Blog!

There are several systems, both official and not, for buying and selling magic items in fifth edition D&D. When I think about buying and selling magic items, one of the key factors for me is the population size of the settlement where the characters plan to sell their goods. Surely a character has more luck finding a buyer or seller in a big city (but has to spend more time searching through a large populace)! With that in mind I’ve come up with a system for buying and selling magic items. Take a look.

Note: These are the rules and prices I use for my game. I am aware they are different than the very excellent rules in Xanathar’s Guide to Everything and the Dungeon Master’s Guide. Use any rules you like (or mix, match, and tweak to create your own). These are the rules I use for a typical high fantasy setting like the Forgotten Realms.

Buying and Selling Magic Items by Settlement Size

When buying or selling a magic item there are multiple variables to consider:

  1. What is the item’s type?
  2. What is the item’s rarity?
  3. What is the population size of the settlement where the transaction happens?
  4. Is there a swindle during the transaction (and if so, what is it)?
Item Type and Rarity: Base Price

For the purposes of dividing item types, this system places them into three categories: consumables, which includes potions and scrolls that are not spell scrolls, spell scrolls, which only includes spell scrolls, and permanent items, which includes everything that does not fall into the other categories. Each category has a base price for its items, based on their rarity (or spell level), as shown on the following tables.

Consumables Base Costs
Potion Rarity Cost
Common 50 gp
Uncommon 100 gp
Rare 500 gp
Very rare 5,000 gp
Legendary 50,000 gp
Spell Scroll Base Costs
Spell Scroll Level Cost* Rarity
Cantrip 25 gp Common
1st 50 gp Common
2nd 100 gp Uncommon
3rd 250 gp Uncommon
4th 500 gp Rare
5th 2,500 gp Rare
6th 5,000 gp Very rare
7th 15,000 gp Very rare
8th 30,000 gp Very rare
9th 50,000 gp Legendary

*Plus the cost of any material components used in casting the spell.

Permanent Items Base Costs
Item Rarity Cost
Common 100 gp
Uncommon 500 gp
Rare 5,000 gp
Very rare 50,000 gp
Legendary 150,000 gp
Population Size

The population size of a settlement where a magic item transaction occurs determines the likelihood of finding someone willing to buy or sell the item, the time it takes to find that person, and the variable price of the item. You can use the Magic Item Sales by Population Size table to determine an item’s price and availability in a settlement.

Finding a Buyer

The Number of Days column on the Magic Item Sales by Population Size table determines how many downtime days a character must spend searching a settlement for a buyer or seller for a particular item. At the end of this time, roll a d100 and consult the number listed in the item’s rarity column. If this number is equal to or less than the number shown, the character finds a buyer or seller for the item. If the number rolled is higher than this number, the character cannot find a buyer (see “Starting Over”).

If an item’s rarity is 100 for a settlement, the character does not need to spend any downtime days finding a person to make a transaction. A merchant with a storefront in the settlement is happy to do business with the character.

Variable Price

The Variable Price column on the Magic Item Sales by Population Size table shows dice that should be rolled to determine the price variable for the magic item. The number rolled on these dice increases or decreases the item’s price by a percentage equal to the result. When you roll these dice, roll an extra die, which does not count toward the total. If the number rolled on this extra die is even, the item’s price increases. If this number is odd, the item’s price decreases.

If the character is not happy with the price offered, that character can make a DC 15 Charisma (Persuasion) check. On a success, an NPC buying a magic item increases their offer 1d10 percent, and an NPC selling a magic item decreases the price 1d10 percent.

Some NPCs may offer trades for magic items instead of gold. These NPCs only offer items of equal or lesser rarity for the items the characters wish to trade.

Starting Over

If the character cannot find an NPC to make a transaction, or if the character refuses an NPC’s sale, the character cannot search for a new NPC to make another transaction in the same settlement for 1 month.

Magic Item Sales by Population Size
Population Size Common Uncommon Rare Very Rare Legendary No. of Days Variable Price
0-50 20% 5% 0% 0% 0% 1d4 4d20 + 10
51-500 25% 10% 5% 0% 0% 1d4 + 1 4d20 + 5
501-2,000 50% 25% 10% 5% 0% 2d4 4d20
2,001-5,000 75% 50% 25% 10% 5% 2d6 3d20
5,001-10,000 100% 60% 40% 20% 10% 2d8 2d20
10,001-25,000 100% 70% 50% 30% 15% 2d10 3d12
25,001-100,000 100% 80% 60% 40% 20% 2d10 2d12
100,001+ 100% 90% 70% 50% 25% 2d10 1d10
Swindles

Whenever the characters make a deal for a magic item, you can roll any die to determine if a swindle occurs. On an odd result, roll or pick a swindle on the following tables. You can also choose to have a swindle occur if you feel the dice are giving the characters an unfair transaction in their favor (because if a deal seems too good to be true, it usually is).

Swindles When the Characters Sell an Item
d6 Swindle
1 The buyer tries to steal the item without paying.
2 The buyer tries to rob the characters of everything they have.
3 The buyer is an enemy of the characters and assaults them instead of making the sale.
4 The buyer plans to use the item to frame the characters for a crime.
5 The buyer later decides the deal was unfair and hunts the characters down to get money back.
6 Thieves attend the sale and try to steal the item.
Swindles When the Characters Buy an Item
d8 Swindle
1 The item is cursed.
2 The seller tries to rob the characters of everything they have.
3 The seller is an enemy of the characters and assaults them instead of making the sale.
4 The item is a fake.
5 The seller later decides the deal was unfair and hunts the characters down to get the item back.
6 Thieves attend the sale and try to steal the item.
7 The seller stole the item from someone else who will stop at nothing to get it back.
8 The seller secretly works for an enemy of the characters. The item is enchanted to allow that enemy listen to the character’s conversations and know where they are as long as they carry it.

Become a Patron!

If you like what you’re reading please consider supporting me on Patreon, supporting me on Ko-fi, follow me on Twitter, like World Builder Blog on Facebook, check out my podcasts, find my products on the DMs Guild, tell your friends about the blog, and/or leave me a comment and let me know you think. Thanks!

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reddragon

New Warlock Patron: The Dragon

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Publisher’s Choice Quality Stock Art © Rich Hershey / Fat Goblin Games

You can order The Demonplague, my level 1 – 20 fifth edition adventure, right now!

I’ve had the idea to make two new warlock patrons for a while now. I put it out there on Twitter and asked people to vote as to which I should make first: the dragon or the tarrasque.

The dragon managed to squeak out a narrow victory, so we’ll begin with that! The challenge with the dragon patron is to make it a subclass with different abilities and flavor from the dragon soul sorcerer.

Note that what is below is considered playtest material. This is not this subclass’s final form. Please let me know what you think!

The Dragon

You have made a pact with an ancient dragon, one who has outlasted entire civilizations and has knowledge far beyond most other creatures in the multiverse. Your dragon patron may be a chromatic dragon with evil desires, a metallic dragon with a good heart, or perhaps another kind of powerful dragon with aims that could be selfish, charitable, or inscrutable. Your pact gives you a taste of this being’s innate power and knowledge and also connects you to the pride and greed of dragon minds, qualities you might adopt.

Dragons powerful enough to make pacts with mortals include Iymrith the blue dragon and Klauth the red dragon from the Forgotten Realms, Borys the Dragon of Tyr in Dark Sun, and Niv-Mizzet of Ravnica. A cabal of powerful dragons could also become a warlock patron, like the Chamber in Eberron.

Expanded Spell List

The Dragon lets you choose from an expanded list of spells when you learn a warlock spell. The following spells are added to the warlock spell list for you.

Dragon Expanded Spells

Spell Level Spells
1st chromatic orb, shield
2nd darkvision, levitate
3rd clairvoyance, slow
4th conjure minor elementals, polymorph
5th geas, legend lore
Draconic

Starting at 1st level, you can speak, write, and understand Draconic.

Draconic Senses

At 1st level, you gain proficiency in the Perception skill. Your proficiency bonus is doubled for skill checks made with this skill, and you can take the Search action as a bonus action on your turn.

Terrifying Blast

At 6th level, you gain the eldritch blast cantrip if you do not already know it. When you hit a creature with more than one attack granted by your eldritch blast cantrip on the same turn, that creature must succeed on a Wisdom saving throw or become frightened of you until the end of your next turn. If the creature’s saving throw is successful, the creature cannot be frightened by attacks from your eldritch blast cantrip for the next 24 hours.

Draconic Attunement

Starting at 10th level, you can choose one of the following damage types when you finish a long rest: acid, cold, fire, lightning, or poison. You gain resistance to that damage type until you choose a different one with this feature. In addition, you can choose to have the damage from your eldritch blast cantrip be the chosen type of damage instead of force damage when you cast the spell.

Draconic Transformation

Starting at 14th level, you can transform into a dragon. As an action, you can turn into any creature of the dragon type whose challenge rating is equal to or less than your level for 1 minute, until you revert to your normal form as a bonus action, or until you drop to 0 hit points or die. Your statistics, including mental ability scores, are replaced by the statistics of the dragon form. You retain your alignment and personality. You can’t use any legendary actions or lair actions of the new form.

You assume the hit points of your dragon form, and when you revert to your normal form, you return to the number of hit points you had before you transformed. If you revert as a result of dropping to 0 hit points, any excess damage carries over to your normal form. As long as the excess damage doesn’t reduce the your normal form to 0 hit points, you aren’t knocked unconscious.

You are limited in the actions you can perform by the nature of your dragon form, and you can’t speak, cast spells, or take any other action that requires hands or speech, unless your dragon form is capable of such actions.

Your gear melds into the new form. You can’t activate, use, wield, or otherwise benefit from any of your equipment.

You can’t use this feature again until you finish a long rest.

Feedback

I’m definitely looking for feedback here, so let it rip in the comments. Thank you to those who do!

Become a Patron!

If you like what you’re reading please consider supporting me on Patreon, supporting me on Ko-fi, follow me on Twitter, like World Builder Blog on Facebook, check out my podcasts, find my products on the DMs Guild, tell your friends about the blog, and/or leave me a comment and let me know you think. Thanks!

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Fighter

Combat is Comfortable… Too Comfortable

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Publisher’s Choice Quality Stock Art © Rich Hershey / Fat Goblin Games

You can order The Demonplague, my level 1 – 20 fifth edition adventure, right now!

Have you ever been in this situation? You spend time planning elaborate combat encounters for your player characters to face only to have them attempt to negotiate, fool, sneak by, or otherwise evade your monsters’ claws, jaws, eye beams, and blades. The players’ plan is clever. Their checks are succeeding. They just might pull this off!

But what about the epic battles you’ve planned? What will you do for the other three hours of game night after they bypass these encounters that were meant to take the whole time? What about the time you spent preparing the battles? So you force the fight anyway. There was nothing they could do! Battle was unavoidable. Everyone slogs through, but it’s clear the players aren’t having as good a time rolling dice as they normally do. Why? Their agency was taken away. No matter what they did, you were going to make them fight.

For about the first decade or two of running roleplaying games I did this constantly. I had a fight prepared and therefore it must happen! It took me a long time to realize that whenever I forced my players into a battle they tried to avoid, those encounters were slower and less exciting because the players were less engaged. It’s not to say a few failed checks or a bad plan shouldn’t result in combat, but if the players are clever and luck is on their side, don’t force combat on them. The players are telegraphing the kind of story they want to tell with their actions. It’s important to pay attention when they try to avoid combat (and when they rush headlong into secure facilities with guns blazing seeking a fight).

All of this is easier said than done. In many game systems combat is the most comfortable arena for new GMs and players. The best way you can break out of the cycle of forcing combat on your players is to get comfortable with all aspects of your chosen game.

Why Combat is Comfy

Let’s look at why combat is comfortable then I’ll break down some techniques to help you get comfortable in all other aspects of play (also known as exploration and interaction in Dungeons & Dragons).

Clearly Defined Rules

Because combat in many roleplaying games is deadly and/or has a big outcome on the story it tends to have the most clearly defined rules of the game. Time is broken down into rounds and turns, everyone acts in an order according to the initiative, and all participants can only perform a certain number of actions on a turn. In many games it is easier to adjudicate combat as a GM because we have so many rules working for us. A GM doesn’t need to make a judgement call. They just need to know the rule. If a case comes up that isn’t covered by the rules, it’s easy to make an on-the-fly ruling because there are so many rules surrounding the rule-less space.

Outside of combat the safety net of lots of specific rules drops away in many games. It can be scary to adjudicate in a more lawless arena, especially for a new GM, for fear of messing up the story, accidentally treating player characters unfairly, or simply freezing and not knowing where to go next.

Easier to Estimate Time

While there are exceptions, it is much easier to estimate the time it takes the player characters to fight a group of enemies than the time it takes to do almost anything else in a roleplaying game. When I was playing fourth edition D&D, I could plan on each combat taking 45 minutes to an hour, which made preparation a snap! Got four hours of game time? Plan four battles! Looking back it’s easy to see that is a LOT of combat, even if every battle is on the lower end of the time spectrum.

If I had been more comfortable with improvisation and group storytelling, I could have planned for less combat and my players (who like variety as many do) would have probably enjoyed those games more.

Easy to Prepare

Because combat has so many rules attached to it, it’s easy to prepare. Put a few goblins and worgs in a room and you’re good to go! But if you need to give those goblins and worgs names, personalities beyond murderous, and motivations beyond slaughter, preparation takes more time. When a GM is starting out, combat seems to be the easiest part of the game to prepare, so it gets prepared a lot.

The truth is being flexible and learning to come up with story on the fly is even easier than preparing for combat, but it takes some getting used to!

Getting Comfortable Beyond Combat

So how do you get comfortable with other aspects of your game of choice beyond combat?

Have Improv Tools and Techniques Ready

My first recommendation is to have a few safety tools ready to go. I wrote a blog post about a few good improvisation techniques and tools. In addition to the tools and techniques listed there have a few random tables or lists with names, NPC personalities, and random encounters (including noncombat encounters) ready to go! Not only are these useful, but these tools have another function. They make you feel comfortable. Being comfortable is essential to improvisational storytelling. If you have a net to catch you, you’re more likely to take risks and figure it out as you go, rather than having it all planned out.

Include the Players

Invite the players to build the story with you by asking questions. Did they bypass your combat encounter and get through everything you prepared earlier than you planned? Ask them, “What do you want to do next?” Let them provide ideas of where to take the story. That takes the burden of storytelling off of you, and a direct question like that tells you EXACTLY what your players want out of the story. You might be surprised at the responses you get, and enjoy the exciting new direction your game takes!

Take Breaks

Don’t be afraid to take a break from playing to think about and prepare the next leg of the journey. Players are often grateful for a chance to stretch their legs, check their phones, use the bathroom, chat, or grab food without feeling like they’re missing something or being rude. This gives you an opportunity to make a rough plan.

Save Your Prep

One reason GMs force carefully prepared combats upon players is because we spent time planning and don’t want to lose the investment. Fear not! Save that prep. You can use it for another game, another group, or another time. If you remember this, no prep is ever wasted and you won’t feel the need to force a battle.

Become a Patron!

If you like what you’re reading please consider supporting me on Patreon, supporting me on Ko-fi, follow me on Twitter, like World Builder Blog on Facebook, check out my podcasts, find my products on the DMs Guild, tell your friends about the blog, and/or leave me a comment and let me know you think. Thanks!

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