Collaboration

Build Bases and Adventurers League Adventures in Eberron!

Collaboration, General / D&D, D&D5e, DnD 5e, DnDBlog, dungeons and dragons, dungeons and dragons fifth edition, Eberron, world building, worldbuilding / 2 comments

March 12, 2020

I’m SUPER excited to announce that I am the lead designer of a really cool product that’s now available on the Dungeon Masters Guild.

In 2019 Will Doyle and Shawn Merwin of the Adventurers League approached the Guid Adepts about making an awesome D&D product. They wanted a product that accomplished the following objectives:

The product would provide mechanics for collecting a resource called salvage found in the Mournland in Eberron.
The product would provide mechanics for using the salvage to build a cool home base for player characters in Eberron.
The product would provide rules and guidelines for creating your own Adventurers League legal adventures in Eberron. These adventures allow the player characters to earn salvage instead of the usual gold or magic item.
The product would provide four ready-to-play sample adventures (one per tier).

I was the lead designer on a team that included M.T. Black, Rich Lescouflair, and Ginny Loveday as well as Will and Shawn. Together we created Oracle of War: Salvage Bases and Missions.

While this is an Adventurers League product, the adventurers and the salvage and base building rules can be used outside of AL play. Who doesn’t want to build a base inside an ancient ruin, old tavern, or derelict warforged colossus?

Here’s the description in from the DMs Guild product page:

Create Your Own Home in the Mournland!

Oracle of War: Salvage Bases and Missions contains new Dungeons & Dragons rules you can use to build a base in the Mournland, a terrifying, magically warped landscape in the Eberron campaign setting. Your base originates near Salvation, a frontier town on the border of the Mournland’s mists. If you upgrade your base to its fullest potential, your home base can travel the world of Eberron with you.

In addition to the rules for building a base, this supplement contains ready-to-play adventures Dungeon Masters can run, allowing characters to earn a new resource called salvage. Salvage is an abstract currency used to purchase upgrades for your base. The supplement also includes rules, guidelines, and random tables to help DMs design their own Mournland adventures called salvage missions.

This supplement, created by the Guild Adepts, is legal for D&D Adventurers League play when used as part of the Oracle of War campaign. Your group can use the Oracle of War: Salvage Bases and Missions as written to create and upgrade a base. The adventures provided here can be integrated into the Oracle of War campaign, as can any base created by the characters. Adventures you create using the rules in this supplement are also legal for Adventurers League play as part of the Oracle of War campaign.

You can find out more about the official D&D play programs at dndadventurersleague.org. If you are not planning on using this product for Adventurers League play, you can use it as you see fit to enhance any D&D game.

Share and Review

Do you like Oracle of War: Salvage Bases and Missions? Please consider leaving a review on the product page and spreading the word about it social media!

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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Spells that will Knock You Out

Collaboration / D&D, DnD, DnD 5e, DnD5e, DnDBlog, dungeons and dragons, pdf, spells, world building, worldbuilding / 3 comments

February 20, 2020

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

Check out my latest DMs Guild release: HAGMALGAMS!

A couple months ago, Ben Heisler (a great game designer and podcaster who often works with his equally amazing spouse, Paige Leitman), asked me if I would be willing to collaborate with him on some design work for his excellent D&D actual play podcast, Feats and Fables. Ben plays a tiefling wizard named Khafra who abhors killing. The way Ben put it, he was feeling a little bored in combat encounters because Khafra didn’t want to use spells that could potentially kill enemies. That means almost no spells that reduce hit points. In D&D you can choose to knock someone out with a melee attack when you reduce them to 0 hit points, but not when you reduce them to 0 hit points with a ranged attack or a spell that requires a save, like fireball. That meant Ben had limited options, like sleep, hold person, and shocking grasp (a cantrip that uses a melee spell attack). He wanted a little more variety in his damaging cantrips.

Ben asked me if I could make some some cantrips that knocked people out and then he would discuss them with Paige, the show’s DM. The Feats & Fables crew is allowing me to share the current versions of what I came up with here on my blog. I have four new cantrips to share today plus a feat I created. Paige and Ben are likely to update and share the versions they end up using (if they use any at all).

Cantrips

Here are the cantrips I created.

Bigby’s Baby Hand

Evocation cantrip

Casting Time: 1 action

Range: 60 feet

Components: V, S

Duration: Instantaneous

A ghostly toddler-sized fist momentarily appears, punching a creature or object within range. Make a ranged spell attack against the target. On a hit, the target takes 1d10 bludgeoning damage and is moved 5 feet to an unoccupied space of your choice. If the damage reduces a creature to 0 hit points, the target is knocked unconscious but stable.

This spell’s damage increases by 1d10 when you reach 5th level (2d10), 11th level (3d10), and 17th level (4d10).

Corrupt Mind

Divination cantrip

Casting Time: 1 action

Range: 30 feet

Components: V, S

Duration: Instantaneous

You briefly and invasively stab your consciousness into the mind of a creature with at least 1 hit point remaining in range, causing extreme mental anguish. The target must succeed on a Wisdom saving throw or take 1d10 psychic damage. If this damage reduces the target to 0 hit points, you may immediately pick one of the following effects:

The target is knocked unconscious, but does not die and is stable.
The target is turned to stone and petrified for 1 hour. You must maintain concentration on the target’s petrification for the duration, as if concentrating on a spell. When the petrification ends, the target has 0 hit points and is unconscious but stable.
If you and the target share a language you both speak, you can probe the target’s mind for answers. Ask the target one question, which it must answer “Yes,” “No,” or, “I don’t know,” honestly.

This spell’s damage increases by 1d10 when you reach 5th level (2d10), 11th level (3d10), and 17th level (4d10).

Justicar’s Chains

Conjuration cantrip

Casting Time: 1 action

Range: 60 feet

Components: V, S

Duration: 1 round

You hurl a ball of life-sucking, ethereal chains at a creature within range. Make a ranged spell attack against the target. On a hit, the target takes 1d6 necrotic damage, and its speed is reduced by 10 feet until the start of your next turn. If the target is reduced to 0 hit points before the start of your next turn, the target is knocked unconscious but stable.

This spell’s damage increases by 1d6 when you reach 5th level (2d6), 11th level (3d6), and 17th level (4d6).

Mind Leak

Necromancy cantrip

Casting Time: 1 action

Range: 30 feet

Components: V, S

Duration: 1 round

You attempt to draw a creature’s mental power out through its eyes. A creature you choose within range of the spell must succeed on a Constitution saving throw or take 1d8 psychic damage, and you become invisible to the target until the start of your next turn. This invisibility ends early if you attack or cast a spell. If the damage reduces a creature to 0 hit points, the target is knocked unconscious but stable.

This spell’s damage increases by 1d8 when you reach 5th level (2d8), 11th level (3d8), and 17th level (4d8).

Feat

Here’s the feat!

Precise Caster

You have practiced casting your spells to get precise results and gain the following benefits:

Increase your Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma score by 1.
When you cast a spell with an area of effect, you can reduce all dimensions of the area of effect by 5 or 10 feet. For example, the fireball spell’s 20-foot-radius sphere area of effect could become a sphere with a radius of 15 or 10 feet.
When hit with a ranged spell attack and deal damage that reduces a creature to 0 hit points, you can choose to knock the creature out. You make this choice the instant the damage is dealt. The creature falls unconscious and is stable.

PDF

Want these spells and this feat in a handy PDF to take with you? Here it is! It will also be linked on the Free Resources page of this site forever.

Spells that will Knock You Out Download

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That GM Advice Also Applies to Players

Collaboration / Player Advice, world building, worldbuilding / 0 comments

January 3, 2019

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!

There are many great podcasts, blogs, streams, and websites that offer incredible advice for game masters. Some of these pieces of advice, such as “be a fan of the player characters” or “share the story with your players,” come up over and over again because they are universally good tips that new GMs need to learn and of which old GMs need reminding. These old hat pieces of advice make help us run better games and our players have more fun.

People who are exclusively players don’t often hear these tidbits because they aren’t scouring the internet for ways to enhance their games. Some people who GM seem to forget these tips as players, thinking the advice is only for GMs as they zone out on their phones during a session.

Those same tips don’t just apply to the people running the game. They also apply to the players.

Share the Story

Just as GMs shouldn’t drag the players through a story only they want to tell, players should not drag other players through stories only they want to tell. If you want the group pursue a course of action and the rest of the party shakes their heads, think twice before doubling down on the decision. Share the spotlight and before/during/after sessions discuss how you feel about the story and where you want to drive it next together. A good discussion can resolve many game conflicts and get everyone what they want (and ensure a good time for all)!

Be a Fan of the (Other) Players

Just a GM should be excited to see the player characters succeed, you should be a super fan of your fellow player characters. Don’t just focus on your character’s story. Engage with every character’s story, set your friends up for incredible moments, and support them the same way you would in real life. Ask questions about each other’s pasts, hopes, fears, and desires. Learn each other’s strengths and weakness both mechanically and within the story. Surprise each other with gifts both material (“Here’s that magic sword you lost. I tracked down the ogre who stole it.”) and abstract (“Also the ogre who stole it is tied up out back if you want to take your vengeance.”). If you care about your friends’ characters as much as you care about your own, your enjoyment and engagement with the game increases exponentially.

When you’re a fan of the other player characters, it helps your own character grow in fun and unexpected ways. Think of any story with an awesome ensemble like Star Wars, Guardians of the Galaxy, Lord of the Rings, Firefly, Star Trek, Game of Thrones, etc. The characters in these stories grow because they care about and learn from each other. Han Solo goes from only caring about himself and Chewie to becoming a general in the rebel alliance because he gives a crap about Luke and Leia. You can see this kind of amazing character development in popular streaming series like Dice, Camera, Action and Critical Role. The waffle crew and Mighty Nein would not be who they are individually without the influences they’ve had on each other.

Interweave Backstories

Whether you begin a new campaign with a backstory or make it up as you go, weave your character’s origin together with at least some of the other player characters’ stories. This investment in each other pays off in spades. Imagine if instead of trying to convince the rest of the party to turn away from their main quest to hunt the murderer who killed your mentor, the entire group agreed to take a detour to hunt the killer… because you all had the same mentor!

Of course, not everything needs to be as dramatic as the example. Just growing up in the same farm town as friends is enough to make two characters bond and become champions of each other. Interweaving backstories helps define your relationship as a group, deepens everyone’s story, and enhances the fun times!

Yes, And…

Just as GMs are encouraged to accept player ideas, you should (for the most part) accept the ideas of other players. First is the “Yes,” which means hear others out and don’t force your own plan of action down their throats. The fun part of this comes with the “and …” which means build on the ideas of your fellow player characters. Do this and you create incredible schemes, unbeatable tactics, unbelievable Hail Marys, and hilarious failures you and your friends will remember for years to come.

Listen to the Players

A big piece of advice given to GMs is to listen to players then respond to their actions. In other words, don’t think about what’s going to happen next until you know what the players are going to do. The same goes for players listening to other players. Too many times in combat I’ve gotten into my own head thinking about where I should place my next fireball only burn my friends to a crisp because I wasn’t paying attention on their turns and didn’t notice they moved.

Listening to your fellow players doesn’t just make you a better combatant. It makes you better fans of each other! If you listen to your another player character as they awkwardly flirt with a bartender or whisper curses under their breath at an older sibling, it gives you a lot of great information to draw on later to help support that other character.

Engage Everyone

A final piece of universal GM advice is to “engage players who aren’t participating” by asking questions and allowing them to drive the story. Do the same especially with new players. Asking someone what they think or how they would approach a situation allows them to experience the game and drive the story. If you listen to these players after offering them the spotlight and are fans of them, soon they will engage with the story on all fronts and become a fan of your characters! Who doesn’t want more fans?

If you like what you’re reading please 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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Burn Bryte Story Paths

Collaboration / Darcy Ross, Jim McClure, Kat Kuhl, roll20, Science Fantasy, Science Fiction, Story Paths, world building, worldbuilding / 1 comment

November 1, 2018

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

I made a science fantasy RPG that’s playtesting now! If you’re a Roll20 Pro subscriber, you’ve already had over a month to check out Burn Bryte, the new RPG that I created with Jim McClure, Kat Kuhl, and Darcy Ross. Today I want to talk about one of the most important pieces of any Burn Bryte player character: the story path.

What are Story Paths?

Advancement in Burn Bryte isn’t achieved by gaining experience points. It’s achieved by gaining experiences. During character creation, you choose a starting story path for your character. Each story path is five open-ended events that your character experiences over the course of the next several sessions of gameplay. When combined, these events create a story arc for your character. Once your character interacts with all five events on their story path, they choose a new story path to start on.

Story paths have broad names like Create Masterpiece or Student. You can take the Create Masterpiece story path to determine if your character wants to create a beautiful work of art, be it a painting, a novel, a recipe, or a dance routine. You can take the Student story path as a formal student studying at a university, or you could take the story path if you are traveling with a wise mentor who is teaching you their original method of biohacking. Keeping story paths broad allows them to fit players with specific story desires, while also allowing a character to take the same story path multiple times (should they wish) without play becoming repetitive.

Each time your character completes a story path event, their character advances. They get better with one of the game’s core eighteen skills or gain a special or nova ability either from their species or an ability that can only be gained via the specific story path. For instance, the first event on the Create Masterpiece Story Path is for the character to find a tutor or institution to teach them the subject they wish to learn. When this event is complete, the character gets to choose a special ability from their species and focuses on achieving the second story event, “Learn the Golden Rule… the Hard Way.”

Not all story paths in the game have such a linear structure. Some, like the Love and Mystery Story Paths, have a middle sequence of three events that can be completed in any order. While something like creating a work of art of learning a new subject has more rigid sequence of events (you can’t paint a picture without inspiration and you shouldn’t take the final examine before you know the basics), other stories require more flexibility (the course of true love never does run smooth and no one knows exactly how a detective will attempt to solve a mystery). We wanted to make sure players and GMs have the tools to tell the stories they want to tell with their characters, so every path is built in a way that serves the broad narrative of the story.

Story paths do not have predetermined outcomes. There’s no way of knowing what an artist will do with their art (sell it, keep it, or give it away) and there’s no guarantee a character playing through the Student Story Path won’t fail to learn the subject they choose. Story paths account for these differences by providing branching rewards. Pass your final examine as a student and your character gains an ability. Fail, and they gain a different one. Both experiences are valuable life lessons that allow your character to grow.

There are only five story paths in the playtest (Create Masterpiece, Discovery, Mentor, Student, and Temptation), but the final core rules of Burn Bryte will have forty.

Story Paths are Good for Players

Story paths are good for players in the narrative side because they are less restrictive than a longer class or path. These short bites of advancement allow you to tell the story you want to tell. Starting out as a student who then fails their final examine because a rival set them up presents an interesting bevy of choices. Will you take the Student Story Path again and double down on hard work? Will you take the Rivalry Story Path and battle it out in your chosen subject with your rival to prove you are superior? Will you take the Redemption Story Path to redeem yourself in the eyes of those who saw you fail? Will you take the Revenge Story Path to cause your rival pain? Or will you go a different route and choose the Love Story Path because your rival is actually kind of hot? All are possibilities, and with shorter paths, you’re not restricted with what you do next.

Story paths also give your character something to work towards. In the short term, you know what story path events you need to achieve, so you are never at a loss for motivation. Don’t know where to go or what to do next? Take a look at your next story path event. It serves as a guiding star.

From a mechanical perspective, story paths are good for players because they make tracking your advancement easy, and because their combinations are nearly endless. With forty story paths, you can get deep into the mechanics and create the exact character you want to play. Even if you’re more into mechanics than story, story paths are a boon. You can read over the paths, find the advancements you want for your character, and start making it all happen through narrative.

Story Paths are Good for GMs

GMs will love story paths too. First of all, story paths are a great collaborative storytelling tool. Each time your player chooses a new story path, they are signaling the story they want to tell with their character, even if the player doesn’t realize it. Story paths are a way of checking in with your players every few sessions to see how things have changed for their characters and what they’re driving towards now.

Story paths also make session planning easy. Take a look at the events your player characters have to achieve in their paths, write them down, tie them into your game’s overall story and bam, you’ve got a session ready to play. Didn’t have time to prep? Have no fear! Ask your players what their character’s next story path events are next in their story, write them down, and in five minutes you’ve got the basic skeleton of an adventure and you’re ready to rock.

Story Path Thoughts

In a nutshell that’s story paths. What do you think? For those of you who are Roll20 subscribers, have you enjoyed playing with story paths or not? (Please let us know in the Burn Bryte playtest survey!)

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Guild Adept Releases – Tomb of Annihilation

Collaboration, General / Adventure, beasts, Chris Lindsay, Cindy Moore, Claire Hoffman, D&D, D&D fifth edition, D&D Next, D&D5e, Dinosaurs, DMs Guild, DMs Guild Adepts, DnD, DnD Blog, dungeons and dragons, Lysa Chen, Monster, monster creation, pdf, Rich Lescouflair, Ruty Rutenberg, Satine Phoenix, Shawn Merwin, Tomb of Annihilation, undead, Will Doyle, world building, worldbuilding, Zombies / 6 comments

September 14, 2017

A quick note to let you know that one of my podcasts, Have Spellbook, Will Travel, just launched a Patreon. If you love the show and want to support it with cash, check it out. If you love the show and don’t want to support it with cash, consider shouting it out on social media! Thanks!

Do you like zombies? Do you like dinosaurs? How about dinosaur zombies? Well, I’ve got them for you in spades!

Last week, the first Guild Adepts products appeared on the DMs Guild. I authored material in three of the products! I’m going to tell you all about them, but first a recap. What is the DMs Guild Adepts program?

Check out this excerpt from Chris Lindsay’s launch announcement:

Over the next few months, we’re going to highlight the creative activities of a select few game designers on the Dungeon Masters Guild through the Guild Adept program. We have chosen 10 extremely talented individuals and, not unlike lion robot vehicles, formed them into a singular formidable entity of creative D&D development. We’ve given them early access to the upcoming adventure from D&D, Tomb of Annihilation, and have challenged them to create kickass adventures and rules options to accompany the launch of that product.

I’m one of those ten people! We’ve put out and will continue to create through October new products on the DMs Guild for Tomb of Annihilation. Here’s what I’ve helped create so far.

Encounters in Port Nyanzaru

Encounters in Port Nyanzaru has the work of nine Guild Adepts and features 13 new encounters in Port Nyanzaru, the only city in Chult. The encounters can be added to any Tomb of Annihilation campaign. Combat, danger, intrigue, and pulp are all yours in this exciting supplement.

In addition to the encounters, the supplement includes 3 new dinosaurs (also found in Beasts of the Jungle Rot), a Port Nyanzaru Chase Complications table, supplemental rules for suspicion, and a map of a Port Nyanzaru bathhouse. I wrote three encounters for the book and edited the thing! Here’s who else contributed:

Lysa Chen
Will Doyle
Claire Hoffman
Rich Lescouflair
Shawn Merwin
Cindy Moore
Satine Phoenix
Ruty Rutenberg

It should be noted that in addition to the amazing encounter he wrote, Rich Lescouflair also did the layout and cartography for this product. He rocks!

Beasts of the Jungle Rot

Beast of the Jungle Rot is a collaboration between Ruty Rutenberg and myself. No Tomb of Annihilation campaign is complete without this collection of more thunder lizards… and more zombie thunder lizards! Behold new dinosaurs, including the legendary giganotosaurus and titanosaurus, and new zombie dinosaurs with terrifying and unique necrotic abilities! Plus expanded rules for random encounters, dinosaur races, and hunting dinosaurs for hides and eggs. A full list of dinosaurs can be found on the product page.

If you like these dinos, you should check out Will Doyle’s Ruins of Mezro. It has a few of them featured, plus a lot of other awesome!

Cellar of Death

In Cellar of Death something evil is devouring the souls of the living in Chult, but before the characters take on the horrors in Tomb of Annihilation, they must first uncover the death curse’s origin by braving a lich’s tower in the Cloakwood. This introductory adventure is designed for a party of four to six 1st-level characters, who should advance to 2nd level by the adventurer’s conclusion. It is a prelude to Tomb of Annihilation that should take about 2 to 3 hours.

What inspired Cellar of Death? The introduction of Tomb of Annihilation states Syndra Silvane learned about the Soulmonger from the Harpers, who “received their intelligence from a lich.” This adventure is the story of how the Harpers gathered that information.

Cellar of Death has a second purpose: to give characters a greater stake in the outcome of Tomb of Annihilation by creating an NPC they love. The death curse kills this NPC, giving the characters a personal reason to go to Chult.

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Support the Spotlight as a Player

Collaboration / D&D, DnD, dungeons and dragons, Player Advice, world building, worldbuilding / 2 comments

August 31, 2017

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

A few weeks ago, I wrote a blog post about supporting the spotlight as a GM. Now it’s time to discuss supporting the spotlight as a player.

In that previous post, I defined what the spotlight is, which I’ll quote below:

What Is the Spotlight?

I’m sure for players who are old hat, they instantly understand what is meant by the term spotlight. In fact, if you’ve never played an RPG before, you can probably still figure it out based on context clues. Still, I think for the purposes of this blog post, it helps to define it.

The spotlight refers to the story’s focus at any given time, specifically a focus character. In other words, if your game’s story were a staged performance, it’s where the spotlight operator would be pointing the beam of light. In film terms, we might use a close-up metaphor. In an orchestra we might call it a solo. You get the idea. It’s a standout moment or a time to highlight a character in the story.

I’ve often seen spotlight moments referred to as a character’s “time to shine,” but I’m not sure this is entirely correct. The story can focus on a character’s failure or sadness and be just as dramatic and compelling for the player and story as a heroic moment. Spotlight moments should be more than just, “You were awesome at that and we knew you would be.” They should involve the player character being an active participant and driving the story of the scene. For instance, if the characters are caught in a Saw-style deathtrap and the rogue manages to reach her thieves’ tools and tries to disable the device, the spotlight is on them, whether they succeed or fail at disarming the trap. If they win the day, their friends are saved. If they lose, the story continues… and now the rogue feels responsible for the wizard’s missing arm or the cleric’s death.

In this post the big question is how can we, as players, support our fellow players’ characters when they are in the spotlight? There’s more to do than just sit quietly or zone out when someone else is the focus of the story!

Encourage

The first thing you can do when it is someone else’s turn in the spotlight: encourage them to take center stage and become the focus of the story. Not all players grab such moments with gusto because they’re afraid of stepping on the others’ toes. The same way you might push your friend to talk with a crush at a party to seize the moment, when the spotlight hits them (be it in the form of a villain their character is hunting, a long-lost family member, or a trap only they can disarm), tell that person to have at it. Give encouragement in character. “You’re the only who can do this,” “Have at it,” or, “I’ve got your back,” are cues for the person in the spotlight to grab the story by the horns.

Ask Questions

When another player’s character has a big moment, help them savor it by asking one or two questions in the voice of your character. Don’t make it an interview, but stay curious and engaged. If the rogue disarms a trap with a great roll of the dice, ask, “Whoa! How did you do that?” so the moment is more than just a d20 toss. The character in the spotlight can respond with the actual information of how they performed the task, or they can give a snarky answer like, “I’m just that good!”

If the character’s rival comes in and challenges them to a duel, ask, “Who in the Hells is this?” It gives that player a chance to do more than just wait for the GM to reveal the story. The player can respond in character to your questions and savor their moment in the spotlight while deepening the story.

Help Out

When someone else sings in the spotlight, be that person’s backup vocalist. Sure, your wizard could lay waste to the fighter’s mummy nemesis with a fireball spell, but why not let the fighter have the glory by using that spell slot to cast haste on the spotlight character? Buff spells are the easy example in combat, but non-spellcasting characters can knockdown and grapple enemies or hold off the minions while the personal enemies duel.

Of course, many spotlight moments happen outside of combat. You can still support players in other ways! Spells that make folks invisible or fly help them sneak around. Loan a friend a piece of equipment that might help them do their job. Stand behind them looking tough as they try to intimidate someone. Watch their back as they try to solve a puzzle which requires full concentration.

Note that many RPG systems have an action in which a player can simply aid a friend doing a task. Sometimes the bonuses granted from such an action stack. If you want to support someone in the spotlight, this is one of your best options, especially if everyone else in the party also aids the spotlight character.

Pay Attention and React

Perhaps the most important thing you can do when someone else is in the spotlight is to continue to pay attention and react as a member of the story’s audience. Don’t reach for your phone or click away from Roll20 to check on Facebook. Stay engaged and cheer for your friend. Applaud victories and sympathize with defeats. Respect begets respect and ensures your friends will pay attention when it’s your turn in the spotlight. Plus paying attention helps you enjoy the game more and get a deeper understanding of every character’s story.

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Support the Spotlight as a GM

Collaboration / D&D, DnD, DnDBlog, dungeons and dragons, GM Advice, world building, worldbuilding / 2 comments

August 10, 2017

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

Just a quick note to let you know that we can meet at Gen Con. Get your FREE tickets to the DSPN Q&A panel to meet Rudy Basso, Celeste Conowitch, Brittany Quintero, Vegas Lancaster, and more of your favorite podcast people. I’m only at Gen Con for one night, so this is the best way to meet my friends and me.

In roleplaying games, we talk A LOT about the spotlight. “Make sure to spotlight every player,” we tell our fellow game masters. “Share the spotlight,” we advise players. But what IS the spotlight? What does it mean? How do we focus, support, and share the spotlight?

What Is the Spotlight?

I’m sure for players who are old hat, they instantly understand what is meant by the term spotlight. In fact, if you’ve never played an RPG before, you can probably still figure it out based on context clues. Still, I think for the purposes of this blog post, it helps to define it.

The spotlight refers to the story’s focus at any given time, specifically a focus character. In other words, if your game’s story were a staged performance, it’s where the spotlight operator would be pointing the beam of light. In film terms, we might use a close-up metaphor. In an orchestra we might call it a solo. You get the idea. It’s a standout moment or a time to highlight a character in the story.

I’ve often seen spotlight moments referred to as a character’s “time to shine,” but I’m not sure this is entirely correct. The story can focus on a character’s failure or sadness and be just as dramatic and compelling for the player and story as a heroic moment. Spotlight moments should be more than just, “You were awesome at that and we knew you would be.” They should involve the player character being an active participant and driving the story of the scene. For instance, if the characters are caught in a Saw-style deathtrap and the rogue manages to reach her thieves’ tools and tries to disable the device, the spotlight is on them, whether they succeed or fail at disarming the trap. If they win the day, their friends are saved. If they lose, the story continues… and now the rogue feels responsible for the wizard’s missing arm or the cleric’s death.

Focusing the Spotlight

So how do we as GMs focus the spotlight on different players? There are a few ways to do this.

Mechanics

The first and most obvious way to focus the spotlight on someone is through mechanics. The best way to create spotlight moments through mechanics is to write down a list of exclusive attributes for each character. What can they do better than any other character? For a rogue in Dungeons & Dragons, you might write down “sneaky, trap disabler, locksmith.”

Take that list and create situations that play to that character’s strengths. Using our rogue from earlier, you’d want to be sure to include places to hide, traps, and locked doors and chests in a dungeon crawl. If there’s a bard in your party who can charm the pants off anything, include some creatures that don’t immediate shoot first and ask questions later in your dungeon, and be sure to include some that do for your barbarian to smash.

Of course, not every game is a structured, self-contained dungeon crawl. With more open or improvisational games, you should keep each character’s list of exclusive attributes handy, and you’ll be able to highlight situations with challenges unique to each character’s abilities. You could even make a list of generic challenges before a session with each character’s exclusive abilities in mind. Your list of challenges might say, “Trap, fussy bureaucrat, melee battle, mage duel,” and leave the details up to you to fill-in as you go along.

Remember a character doesn’t have to succeed in a spotlight moment when it comes to mechanics. They’re still in the spotlight, even if they fail and mechanical spotlight moments are more dramatic if there’s a chance of failure. Let your player revel in failure as much as they would success.

Story

Story moments can be big spotlights for players. The main villain is your mother? You used to work for the bandit king we’re hunting? The IRS finally caught up to you for all that tax evasion? These all throw a player right into the spotlight.

If you’re the kind of GM that uses backstories, there’s often plenty to pull in those tasty tales, but you can also pull from previous sessions. Remember that goblin Ned the Fighter threw off the top of the tower? Well he’s got a sister and she’s coming for ya, Ned. The merchant the Ralph the Sorcerer helped in passing comes back to ask for more aide, offering even more reward.

The best way to keep track of all these possible moments is to keep some lists handy. The digital age makes that super easy. You can plan for these threads to come into a character’s life or you could simply keep that list handy when GMing and highlight story moments when it feels right.

The best spotlight moments go beyond just giving the character new information or exposing a backstory element to the rest of the player characters. Give characters choices to make. When the spotlight is on them, let them take action. Present the information and allow them to react. When the villain reveals herself to be Nadir the Monk’s mother, it should be at a time where Nadir can choose to fight, join, or let her mother get away. If the IRS comes for superheroine Masked Lady Night, she has to make the choice between going peacefully or running away… from the law she claims to represent!

Combination

Truly great spotlight moments are a combination of mechanics unique to the player character and personal story, like Nadir the Monk’s showdown with her villainous mother on the narrow rafters of an ancient castle or Sam the Rogue disarming a trap before it tears his pet pig to pieces. When these truly dramatic story moments happen, remember to utilize the mechanics of the player to whom the story moment pertains. For instance, if Sam the Rogue’s pet pig was stolen by a beholder who just wanted to throw down, that’s not as much of a spotlight on Sam the Rogue as it would be if the pig were in a trap. Now if the fighter’s pet pig got stolen, throwing down with a beholder would be just prime.

Drawing in the Spotlight Shy Player

Some players jump eagerly into the spotlight (looking at you, bard players), while others tend to hang back because they don’t want to jump on someone else’s moment… even when it is the person who is hanging back’s moment! Feel free to draw that player in with head first engagement. “Hey Paul. Nadir is your character. How do you think her villainy should be approached?” If the player still wants to hang back, that’s fine, but it should be a signal to that person and the other players that it is now this person’s time in the spotlight.

Multiple Spotlights!

It can be fun to highlight multiple players at once, especially if they have backstories that are tied together (like siblings or army pals) or they have some crazy plan (the fighter picks up the spikey-armored halfling and hurls him at a dragon). When this happens, take a step back and let the players really drive the story. Only fill in the gaps where you need to, make sure everyone who is in the spotlight at the moment gets equal time to be the focus, and you’ll have a blast!

Coming soon: Support the Spotlight as a Player!

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Worldbuilding for One Shots

Collaboration / D&D, D&D fifth edition, D&D Next, D&D5e, DnD, DnDBlog, dungeons and dragons, One Shots, world building, worldbuilding / 1 comment

July 27, 2017

One shot, or single session adventures, are a great way to play games at conventions or game stores, tell shorter stories, introduce a new player to RPGs, experience a new game system, and play games with friends you rarely get to play with. They are fun, fast, and lack the time commitment of a longer campaign but they’re not without their issues. It can be more difficult to get player buy-in during a one shot, since they know they won’t be playing in this world or with this character again anytime soon (and in many cases, ever). I’ve found myself, both as a player and game master, caring less about the story of a one shot because I won’t be investing as much time in it.

Fear not! We can get both the fast, furious fun of one shot games and the buy-in of a longer campaign. How? By doing some light worldbuilding and relationship building at the top of your game. Here’s how to do that if you’re running a single session adventure.

Three Things

If you’re running a one shot, first ask yourself, what are the three big things my players need to know about the story of the world? For instance, my world of Exploration Age has an incredibly detailed history filled with recently discovered continents, land grabs, mysterious organizations, religions, adventurers guilds, unique monsters, magic technology, and more. If I was running my free (shameless plug) adventure The Wererat Den, I COULD list all of that off to help build the world for the players, but that is way more than they need to know. It’s hard for me not to list it all, because I want to share my baby, but ultimately it is the story that pulls the players into the world, not your lecture about it. It’s a “show, don’t tell” scenario.

Limit yourself to those three things someone NEEDS to know to play the adventure. If only one or two are required, so much the better. For The Wererat Den, those three things are….

Taliana is a country that is home to mainly elves and halflings. It is full of lush temperate forests and as such one of its main exports is lumber.
The Brotherhood of the Moon is a terrorist organization of lycanthropes that wants to turn the entire population of Taliana into werewolves, wererats, wereboars, and more. They believe lycanthropes are superior to other humanoids and that non-lycanthrope humanoids should evolve or die. (Think Brotherhood of Evil Mutants but werefolk instead.)
People in Taliana travel on magic roads (called swifty roads) that connect to magic wagon wheels (called swifty wheels) and horseshoes (call swifty horseshoes) that speed up travel. Still the journey between cities can be long, so there are inns along each long stretch of road for people to stop when traveling from city to city.

Ask Questions

A great way to build the world during a one shot is to get players involved. Jot down their responses so you can pull in details they created later to make the world more meaningful to them (more on that below). A player is less likely to forget a detail they create. There’s three kinds of questions to ask.

Introductory Questions. At the start of a one shot, allow each player to go around and introduce their character. Consider doing this Dusk City Outlaws style, which involves a quick action montage where we see what each character is doing when the story first focuses on them (like the opening credits of an ensemble heist movie). As each player describes their character, make note of any significant details (such as mentions of a specific scar, fancy sword, organization they belong to, person hunting them, important relationship, etc.) and when the description is done ask one lead question about an important detail and note the response. These questions should be phrased in a way that help you build your world such as, “In what town did you meet your spouse and do they still live there?” or “Who gave you your sword and what makes it more special than others?” or “Tell me about a time the person hunting you caught up to you. Where was it and how did you get away?”
Follow Up Introductory Relationship Questions. Once each character has been introduced, ask the players to form relationships among their characters. This brings them together in a meaningful way, and puts the onus on them to bring the party together (instead of you spending time trying to convince the druid who just wants to be a tree to join the party… but that’s another blog post). The questions you ask should form meaningful relationships between the player characters and build the world. Here are some examples:
- Tell me how and when the player to your left’s character saved your life.
- The two of you are strangers from the same far off place. Why have you traveled so far from home together?
- It’s odd to see a dragonborn, an elf, and a tiefling raised together as foster children. Who were your parents and what did your community think of you growing up?
- Dariac the Bloody is hunting you. How and where did Shelby’s character save you from him once? (This one ties in responses to the first type of question.)
Questions During Play. As you play, ask follow-up questions that help create the world. “Where did you get that set of thieves’ tools?” “The bartender is someone you met long ago in another place. Who is it?” “The villain is running to the temple of an evil god. What is this god’s name and what evil act are they the patron of?” Write down these responses as well. Give your players as much control over the story as you and they are comfortable with and be sure to ask different players these questions directly so one more dominant personality doesn’t have all the fun.

Working in Responses

Working in the responses to a question during a one shot is easier than you think. You may not work in the answer to every single question, and that’s ok. Work in as much as you feel comfortable doing. For instance, maybe the main villain’s henchman can be the same person with whom one of the characters has a score to settle. The inn where the characters get a job is owned by one of their relatives. The magic sword in the dragon’s hoard once belonged to a character’s parent. Change what you can in the adventure to make it more meaningful to the story the players are telling you they want to experience so their characters become a bigger part of that story. You’ll get great emotional investment in return.

More at the End

If you’ve got some time after you run your one shot, go ahead and expand on the world. For instance, I might say “Hey if you liked The Wererat Den, Exploration Age is a big, ol’ world with tons to offer. Jungle ruins, unexplored wilderness, warring factions, secret guilds, moral quandaries, and a lot more. Do you have any questions or thoughts about it?” Let the conversation flow naturally if your players are interested. You never know… you might end up with a new campaign in the world you’ve created together!

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Homebrew Holiday Gifts – RPG Blog Carnival

Collaboration / blog community, D&D, D&D fifth edition, D&D Next, D&D5e, DnD, Homebrew, Johnn Four, RPG Blog Carnival, Shadow of the Demon Lord / 56 comments

November 26, 2015

To my friends in the United States – Happy Thanksgiving!

Since I started this blog I’ve been taking part in the monthly RPG Blog Carnival. Currently organized by Johnn Four over at Roleplaying Tips, the carnival is hosted by a different blog each month. The owner of the hosting blog picks a RPG-related theme and then invites other bloggers to write at least one post on that theme in their own blogs. Those bloggers then provide a link to their posts somewhere in the comments of the host blog’s introductory carnival post. At the end of the month, the blog hosting the carnival gathers up all of the links in a new blog post and puts them together in a nice little package for all to see. Check out November’s carnival theme “A Stack of Surprises,” hosted by Mike Bourke of Campaign Mastery.

In December, I’ll be hosting the carnival. If you’ve been following me for a while or you’ve checked out the Free Game Resources section of this site, you know I love crafting homebrew creations. For fifth edition Dungeons and Dragons I’ve created numerous backgrounds, magic items, monsters, D&D fifth edition rules modules, spells, adventures, and more. I’ve also been on a Shadow of the Demon Lord pregen creation kick recently, since there don’t seem to be many out there for this new game yet.

Now I’m inviting others to join in the fun. This holiday season, give the gift of your gaming creations. Create a new monsters, feat, spell, force power, weapon, magic item, NPC, PC, adventure, map, world, background, rule, society, or anything else you can dream up. It could be for your favorite game system or something system agnostic! It doesn’t matter. Heck get into the spirit and stat out Santa or go dark and make a murderous longsword forged in the blood of demons. Your imagination is the only limit. No creation is too small if it’s one that came right out of your brain.

Leave links to those creations in the comments below and at the end of the month I’ll post them up in a nice blogtastic package for GMs everywhere to steal for their games! Give the gift of gaming, my friends. There’s going to be plenty homebrew fun to come from this blog as well, so stay tuned!

If you like what you’re reading, please check out my podcasts on The Tome Show, follow me on Twitter, tell your friends and share this blog post, and/or leave me a comment and let me know you think. Thanks!

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Trigger Warning

Collaboration / Barak Blackburn, collaboration, conventions, D&D, dungeons and dragons, storytelling, world building, worldbuilding / 5 comments

June 25, 2015

So it probably goes without saying, but in this post I’ll be discussing trigger warnings at the game table. While I won’t go too in-depth into any one topic, there will be mention of some topics that might make people upset. Just a heads up because I love you all and don’t wish to offend.

I’m almost 30. When I started playing tabletop RPGs as a 10-year-old kid, my games were a lot like The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien. By that I mean simple tales with simple themes of good folk battling evil folk and scoring some treasure. As I got older my games became more complex and sometimes verged into themes found in the Song of Ice and Fire series by George R. R. Martin (that’s Game of Thrones to all you HBO viewers out there). Plots certainly became more complex but the stories of my games also dealt with more adult issues. While these themes and ideas made for more interesting narratives and more realistic characters, many of these issues can make players, even fully grown adult players, uncomfortable. Suicide, sexual assault, sexual intercourse, physical and mental abuse, torture, addiction, physical illness, mental illness, and a lot of other serious, complicated real world topics can make for a moving story, but they can also ruin a game for a person who just showed up to have a good time and forget about the worries of the world for a bit.

It’s a Game First, Art Second

Personally when I read or tell a story, anything goes. As a professional writer and producer, I believe in a storyteller’s right to portray these topics as they choose and I believe an audience has the right to not watch, gripe, and criticize as they choose. That’s not to say I’m always comfortable with tasteless storytelling where gratuitous violence or offensive material of any kind is itself the entertainment, but I am comfortable saying storytellers should be able to make what they want and people should be allowed to pick it apart and/or not consume the product as they see fit.

All of that being said, remember that role-playing games are games first and the art of storytelling second. Players and a GM tell a story together for their own fun and entertainment. It should not be a GM or player forcing the story they want down the throats of others. People have given up hours of precious free time to come and sit at a table, often with strangers at a friendly local game store or convention, and don’t need to leave the experience feeling uncomfortable, offended, or ostracized. That kind of stuff doesn’t get people to come back to a game. I’m reminded of a Vice article in which a DM forced an NPC onto a female player’s character. That player left the table in tears and never returned to the game. I think most of us can agree we do not want anything to get that far at our tables even if most people think a topic is harmless. These situations are even more likely to come up at conventions and organized play events where the group may be strangers to one another and have no idea who is comfortable with what. We need to be able to put all people involved in the game at ease. That doesn’t mean these triggering topics are off-limits, but it does mean we need to be mindful and respectful of our fellow gamers.

Here are some handy tips and methods for keeping everything cool and comfortable at the table when you story heads into questionable territory.

Ways to Mitigate Trigger Activation

When someone has a visceral uncomfortable or hurt reaction to an event or description in a game, a trigger response has been activated for that person. Here are a few ways to avoid trigger activation.

Communicate, Communicate, Communicate

When it comes to trigger activations, nothing helps more than simply talking with your players. Before you get started ask them what style of games they like to play and what books, television, and movies they like to watch. Remember that just because a person enjoys book containing a triggering topic doesn’t mean they’ll enjoy it in the shared environment of a role-playing game but it gives you a good idea of where to start. This is also a great way to break the ice before getting going during a game at a convention or local friendly game store with a bunch of new players.

Remember to set up questionable events with trigger warnings before you play. If you aren’t sure about how a description or event will go down with the players, ask them first. “Hey this adventure includes a possible suicide, but let me know if you’re not ok with that because I can change things very easily. You don’t have to tell me why, just let me know if it’s a problem,” is a great way to give a warning. Make sure the players know they aren’t inconveniencing you or ruining the fun of the game for anyone else. Don’t make them give you a reason why the topic makes them uncomfortable since that defeats the purpose of the warning. Be cool. Everyone is there to have a good time.

If you’re playing a longer campaign made up of multiple sessions, spend some time talking to your players about what makes them comfortable and uncomfortable throughout the run of the game. Let them know they can come and speak with you if they have a problem with anything that comes up. Establish trust by listening to concerns, and by not asking probing, personal questions when concerns are brought up. In addition to providing trigger warnings, talk to them after a questionable event as a check-in to make sure everyone’s still feeling good about the campaign and story. It’s definitely better to over communicate than to have a friend get upset and leave a game.

Set Ground Rules

Before a long campaign there’s time to talk with your players and go over a list of questionable topics that might come up in the story. Why not immediately check off all the things that someone says are off-limits for them? You could email the list to people or talk with people one-on-one so they can respond individually and not in front of the rest of the group. Then you can just let your players know topics that won’t be part of your game so they don’t bring them up at the table as well.

If you’re playing with a group of good friends, you could always have a larger discussion about setting ground rules before a game starts. A discussion like this can even allow for ground rules to be more specific. Rather than removing an entire topic from your story (e.g. physical disease) you might be able to cross off a specific item within that topic (e.g. a specific terminal illness).

Tap the Card

Setting ground rules and lots of communication are great, but what happens when you don’t have the time cover everything before a convention game with a group of strangers? Or maybe you’re playing a game with so many questionable topics, like Monsterhearts, that going over a list would be maddening and time-consuming.

On an episode of The Round Table podcast where we discussed sexual harassment at the game table panelist Barak Blackburn brought up the idea of placing an index card in the middle of the table. Whenever any person for any reason felt uncomfortable with what was happening in the game’s story, that person could tap the card without a word and the GM would simply fast forward and move the story past the scene and the topic wouldn’t be touched again. If you’re running a short game with a lot of questionable material and don’t want to upset anyone, this is a great trick. It’s commonly known as an X-card, because the DM typically draws a large X across the index card.

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