by Candice Harris

Keep Up The Fire! is a solitaire States of Siege series game set in 1900 Peking (modern day Beijing), China where Foreign Legations (areas assigned to Imperial powers including ambassadors, business people, and a handful of troops to provide security) are besieged in their compound by Chinese anti-imperialist forces. The Chinese "Boxers" (Society of the Harmonious Fists), with the Imperial Manchu forces of the Qing Army, are angry and determined to expel these foreigners from China.

At the Legation Compound siege, you must coordinate the various foreign detachments that have joined to defend their position until a Relief Column arrives. You also command the Relief Column, battling their way from the port of Taku inland through hostile territory to break the siege at Peking.

Note that this game can also be enjoyed in teams working together (just as the Eight Nations had to), deciding how best to defend the Legation Compound and get the Relief Column to Peking in time!

A set of five standards-based lesson plans are also available for classroom teachers should they wish to use this game as a teaching tool.

The game is a race against time as the Chinese forces besieging the Legation Compound are attacking relentlessly while the Relief Column battles its way to the rescue. With limited time and relentless attacks on the Compound, will you manage to keep up the fire?

Soviet Dawn (Deluxe Edition) brings Darin Leviloff's novel States of Siege game system back for a much larger storytelling adventure covering the Russian Civil War from 1918 to 1921. Upgraded with a bigger, hard mounted game board, beautiful linen finish cards, large counters, full color rules, and more!

With several enemy "Fronts" converging on Moscow, the fate of the revolution and the prestige of international communism rests on your ability to manage and resolve every crisis that the "Whites" can assail you with. As the headlines unfold, you draw upon military and political resources to help you, or try to reorganize the Red Army for special abilities that can greatly enhance your position. Who knows? You might even capture the Imperial Gold Reserve!

Can you deal with the great crises of that time and defend the revolution? Will you withdraw from the Great War (WW1) or exercise the Bukharin Option and fight on? Can you execute the Czar in time, or will the Whites rescue him? Will you fortify Petrograd or press your offensives home? How will you deal with internal and external dissent? Play Soviet Dawn and see!

This Deluxe Edition includes the expansion set.

This simulation game re-creates one of the longest, most complex, and least understood conflicts in U.S. history in all of its military and political aspects.

Non-final P500 cover image from GMT's website
The rules include detailed treatment of movement, terrain, search and destroy operations, special operations, firepower, air mobility, riverines, brigade-level formations, limited intelligence and auxiliary units in each scenario. The scenarios start out small with Operation Starlite, and slowly build in complexity, introducing more rules, until the entire Campaign Scenario which covers the entire war from 1965 to 1975 and introduces South Vietnamese politics, morale and commitment, strategic bombing, reinforcements, and pacification.

The perfect wargame for non-wargamers, Blitzkrieg! allows two players to battle across the War's most iconic theaters, winning key campaigns and building military might.

Original rectangular box cover
Players draw army tokens from a bag to determine their starting forces and to replenish their losses. Rather than "fighting" battles with dice or cards, players allocate their military resources to each theater's campaigns, winning victory points, further resources, special weapons, and strategic advantages as they play. Refight World War Two several times in one evening!

by W. Eric Martin

by W. Eric Martin

by Candice Harris

by W. Eric Martin

UNO Remix features familiar UNO gameplay, with players trying to empty their hand by playing cards that match the value or color of the topmost discard play, but now you can personalize the deck to make it your own and change what's possible during the game.

At the start of each round, you add special cards or write-on cards to the deck. You can personalize cards to specific players, e.g., "Skip to Aldie" or "Draw 2 Chad", you can add a mark to a card to increase the number of cards drawn the next time it's played, you can introduce cards that block penalty cards, and much more!

And as always, when you have only one card left in hand, you must yell "UNO!" to warn others that you're about to win.

by W. Eric Martin

by John Keyworth

by Candice Harris

Root: The Marauder Expansion introduces two new factions and new gameplay options:

• The Warlord is both charismatic and terrifying. He rules over a vast horde of warriors recently arrived to the woodland and is interested only in its domination. To help speed his conquest, he lights massive fires which can spread throughout the woods and destroy the buildings of other factions. The Warlord also interacts with crafted items, which he can plunder from players. These items increase his strength, but also cause him to develop an increasingly fearsome monomania.

• The Stone Seekers are strangers to the Woodland, here only to recover the scattered and lost relics of an ancient civilization. The Seekers work to establish way-stations across the woodland and form alliances with other factions in hopes of recovering their relics more quickly. They will often find themselves deep within enemy territory as they search for their relics. Thankfully their finely crafted armor makes them difficult to dislodge.

image posted by Cole Wehrle
Both of these factions are suitable to Root's two-player game, bringing the total number of two-player factions up to five without the use of bots.

Root: The Marauder Expansion also introduces a new level to the conflict for the woodland: minor factions! These small factions can be used at any player count and introduce surprising new power combinations as well as a chess-like tension to lower player count games of Root.

Finally, The Marauder Expansion also includes a new set-up draft system suitable for both casual and competitive play.

Surviving Mars is a short story expansion to On Mars made in four chapters with four different modes of play, and it uses elements of the Paradox digital game by the same name.

Draft cover posted by the publisher
The short story is called "Alien Invasion" and contemplates the following Chapters and modes of play:

Chapter 1 - The Invasion - 1 vs All - 3 to 5 players
Chapter 2 - Outbreak - Co-Op - 2 to 4 players
Chapter 3 - Power Shortage - Co-Op - 2 to 4 players
Chapter 4 - Monolith - Solo - 1 player

Not all battles are fought on the open field. In many cases defenders hide behind the thick walls of mighty castles. Now is the time to prepare for siege! As castles grew larger and stronger throughout the middle ages, new ways evolved to scale, knock down, and even undermine their walls.

In War Chest: Siege, you will be confronted with fortified locations. Fear not, though, as you have siege towers and trebuchets at your disposal and hardy sappers to both build your own fortifications and undermine your opponents'. Can you successfully return to the battlefield with your war engines in this ingenious and engaging game of tactics and strategy?

In Architects of the West Kingdom: Works of Wonder, builders from far and wide have travelled to partake in the King's latest endeavor: five glorious monuments to beautify the city. However, not just any architect can be entrusted with such a task. Only those of influence and charitable reputation shall receive this great honor. Will you accompany the Princess as she surveys the projects, or rally support from the elusive Profiteer?

Works of Wonder introduces an extension to the main board to hold the new Contribution/Consequence Cards and keep track of players' Influence. Players compete to construct the five Wonders, while gaining support from the new Princess and Profiteer tokens moving about the main board. Also included is an entirely new solo system with six unique opponents against which to compete.

In Paladins of the West Kingdom: City of Crowns, noble allies have responded to the recent attacks against our borders. Only through careful negotiation and diplomacy will these dukes, barons, counts, and margraves offer the aid we so desperately need. Will you be able to muster enough support to once again defend this great city, or will you crumble beneath the weight of indecision and apathy?

This expansion adds new extensions for both the main board and player boards. Players have a new attribute to manage and new actions available on each turn.

by W. Eric Martin

In The Witcher: Old World, you become a witcher — a professional monster slayer — and immerse yourself in the legendary universe of The Witcher franchise.

Set years before the saga of Geralt of Rivia, The Witcher: Old World explores a time when monsters roamed the Continent in greater numbers, creating a constant peril that required the attention of expertly trained monster slayers, known as witchers. Five competing schools trained their adepts through brutal regimes, and once fully prepared, these now-recognized witchers set off to explore the land, seeking trouble and adventures and helping others for coin.

In this competitive adventure board game, 2-5 players travel across a vast map, embarking on masterfully penned quests, encountering and making ambiguous moral choices, fighting monsters — and sometimes brawling with other witchers to defend their school's honor!

The game lets players construct their own unique decks of cards by choosing from a wide range of abilities: attacks, dodges, and witcher combat magic — known as "signs". Through card synergy, players aim to achieve powerful combos as they utilize their witcher school's hallmark abilities to their full potential. Quests, battles, and even dice poker allow each player to earn money, obtain new items, and train their skills.

The first player to acquire 4-6 trophies, with the number being set at the start of play, wins the game instantly. You can obtain trophies by killing monsters, instigating and winning chaotic tavern brawls against another witcher, training attributes to their highest level, and resolving certain quests throughout their adventure.

Seven are the tenets of the Knights Gesa. Twenty are the knights sworn to the Graal. But an eight tenet exists known only to one child. This is his story.

------------
Includes a writeup for a new type of Glamour Knight, The Eighth.
And a new possible Antagonist Secret Society, The Theotokos.

Barbarians! Civilized men huddle behind tall stone walls, trembling at the thought. The soldiers of civilization tighten their shield walls against the oncoming onslaught. And then they come. Savage men and women, screaming at the top of their lungs, oblivious to fear, frothing at the mouth from rage and lust for war. Wave after wave, they storm shields and fortifications. Many die; the pagan gods bless their souls. But eventually, mail and castle fail. Then, the flames of barbarism will sweep the land, leaving no stone unturned!

Sword and sorcery tales speak of cunning thieves, power-hungry sorcerers, and, indeed, barbaric warriors. This game – Barbaric! – lets you play such heroes. Or, more often, anti-heroes. Pit your sword-arm and knowledge of eldritch secrets against ravaging bandits, scheming nobles, diabolic demons, mighty dragons – and, ultimately, the rotten and ugly face of moribund civilization itself.

So, pour your drinks, devour your pizza, turn up the volume of your favorite heavy metal album – and prepare to become… Barbaric!

Barbaric! is a lightweight sword & sorcery ruleset perfect for convention games, one-off adventures, and mini-campaigns where easy-to-learn rules and fast play are preferred. It includes:

• Simple skill-based task resolution!
• Lightning-fast but customizable character generation!
• 30 Traits to spice up your barbarian!
• Brutal combat with varied combat maneuvers and murderous critical hits!
• Dangerous sorcery - risk your soul to gain eldrich might!
• 36 deadly spells!
• 50 fearsome monsters!
• Treasures for your barbarians to loot!

All in a mere 57 small pages!

Barbaric! is compatible with Stellagama Publishing's Cepheus Atom post-apocalyptic rules. Mutate your barbarians! Arm them with laser rapiers! Bring dark sorcery to your post-apocalyptic wasteland!

This free accessory for There Once Were Dragons, the roleplaying game of epic fantasy action, introduces 14 new magical items, including the Blood Pact exotic cloak, the Bound Titan rare shield, the Faith Enforcer legendary mace and the Storm Splitter exotic boots. Plus, magic bags to help you carry all your loot without running out of breath!

You are already a great Dungeon Master. You run a game really well.

What's the difference between a room and a chamber? What's the difference between a mausoleum, a sepulcher, and a crypt? Would disarming traps be more exciting if you understood how those complex mechanisms worked? What does a magic trap look like? What does a solar room look like and what's usually inside?

What's in it?

Over 100 Illustrations of Lavish environments Guidelines for escalating threats while respecting player agency Hundreds of ideas for tricks and traps.

No longer will your players complain about traps or unfair encounters. Now when they meet their doom, they will blame themselves for their own foolishness! Be as cruel and devious as you want with these guidelines on how to do so fairly!

Looking for something to spice up an encounter? Pick one of hundreds of options of traps, rooms, walls, tricks or more! Fill rooms with ease, design encounters in ways that give your players the freedom to put their own characters in hot water!

What's it for?

Referees who run games and understand their role in facilitating the groups adventure. This book provides guidance on how to create encounters that respect players and allow you to make encounters as exciting and dangerous as you want, without fear of being unfair. Imagine a group excited to discover a trap. Fill in your gaps of knowledge raising your confidence and making you a master ready to lead players on an adventure.

These objective procedures give referees tools that fire a desire in players to dive into your creative world, discover its detailed history, and make their mark on it. Artifices, Deceptions, and Dilemmas gives you the tools to eliminate doubt and provides a library of ideas that will take you decades to exhaust. It will be a vade mecum, at hand for every environment and dungeon you create. Design a dangerous dungeon, concoct an ingenious trap, develop a diabolical arena, all with confidence and without concern. Give yourself the power, all with simple and clear guidelines!

This is a book used in every game you run. Your next campaign, the one after that, the one after that. . . Not one wasted word. Every page is crammed with content and creativity. No filler. Tools that describe devilish traps and devious decoys. Explore your own Artifices, Deceptions, and Dilemmas today!

The February 26, 2021 Friday Enhanced Map product contains a multi-layered PDF (allowing the options of white or black backgrounds, numbered or non-numbered areas, secret doors on or off, and grid or no grid) and a zip file with all relevant map files as individual jpg images.

The Friday Enhanced map is for personal use only. If you are interested in licensing the map for commercial use, please contact Tim Hartin at Paratime Design for additional info.

This is a love letter to the action cartoons of the 80s and 90s. More specifically a toolkit for Savage Worlds (Adventure Edition) to emulate the fun and mayhem of the saturday morning animated shows. Whether you plan to use the included microsetting or create your own inspired by your favorite show, you'll find everything you need to play.

• More than 30 new Edges.
• 6 new character races with 25 uniques variations and guidelines to create your own.
• Stat blocks for dozens of adversaries.
• 4 one-page adventures.
• 8 iconic pregens.

This is not a complete product and requires the Savage Worlds core rules to play.

Download Contains

• Home-printable, A4 .PDF of the gridded map at 300dpi, spread over several pages.
• 300dpi .JPEGs of the map for A0 poster printing or VTT.
• 72dpi .JPEGs of the map for VTTs.

Join me on Patreon for $1 and get over 20 battlemaps a month. Experience how good level design can make encounters MUCH more engaging! 

Want one free map a week instead? Become part of my community on Facebook.

Over my nearly 40 years as a GM, I have changed the ways that I have created stories at the table. Similarly, what I look for in games has changed as well. At different times during my tenure as a GM I have been a storyteller, and other times I have been a story facilitator. Both have created amazing times at the table, but both are different experiences and need different things. So today, I thought I would look at these two styles with a little more depth and talk about their needs, the experiences they produce, etc. 

Laying Down Some Definitions

In order for us to get started, I need to establish the main terms for what we are talking about since neither of these terms is universally understood or accepted in the hobby. So for the rest of this article, we will work from these terms.

Storyteller

A storyteller is a type of GM who crafts a story to share with their players. The player characters are the protagonists of the story as the storyteller guides them through it. Through play, the characters experience the story. On the good side of this, the players have agency and are able to influence the conclusion of the story. On the bad side of this, the players are on what is often referred to as a Railroad, where their actions do not affect the outcome. 

The defining trait of the storyteller is the idea that the scenario they are running is a story that they are telling to the players, and that they have some idea of the outcome/outcomes of the story when it concludes. Their job is to make that story unfold and guide the players through it. The players are to play their characters and move through the story.

Story Facilitator

The story facilitator, or just facilitator, is someone who sees their job as helping the group, as a whole, create a story through play. They often have the idea of a plot or challenge, but not much beyond that. Through play, the characters will figure out how to resolve the plot or challenge, and the GM is there to engage the rules and to add things to the developing story to keep it from going stale. On the good end of this, the facilitator brings an exciting challenge to the table and works to keep things moving along, nudging things when needed. On the bad end, they come to the session with very little and push the work onto the players to make things happen at the table.

The defining trait of the facilitator is the idea that they have an idea of how things will start, but are totally open to how the story will end. Their job is to set things up, and then make way for the players to determine how things will end. They are equally as surprised as the players in how the story turned out. 

We Are Not Dealing In Absolutes…

No one is 100%, Storyteller or Facilitator. We are always some blend of these. Perhaps you are a Storyteller who at a point in the game when the player’s actions have changed so much of the story, flip over to the Facilitator and guide the game to its new conclusion. Or perhaps you are a Facilitator who really likes to create a story by crafting very specific plots and situations and uses your moments of facilitation to build upon the story you have in mind. 

…But we have Preferences

Without a doubt, you have a preference, which is comprised of some combination of these two approaches. That preference can change over time, it can change with different games, etc. That is perfectly natural. Sometimes our general preference changes, because how we derive enjoyment from RPGs changes. Other times our general preference can change because who we are changes, again leading to how we derive enjoyment from RPGs. The group you play with can help determine your preference. If your players are the kind who enjoy participating in a story, then their enjoyment and in part your own may come from a more Storyteller approach. In other cases, the game itself may make the choice for you. If a game you enjoy requires the GM to be more of a Facilitator, then you may find your joy in that role.

The Influence of Group And Game

As mentioned above, the group you play with and the games you play may lend themselves to different styles. The truth is any group and any game can be played in either approach, but there are more optimal configurations depending on your overall preference.

When you are more Storyteller…

You will enjoy games where the majority of narrative control remains with the GM — games where the GM sets scenes, narrates the outcomes of skill checks, etc. These are sometimes referred to as more traditional games. Think of something like D&D where the GM has the narrative control and the players embody their characters. Games of this style work well for the Storyteller because they have the most control of the narrative and can use that to tell the story.

In terms of players, the Storyteller does best with a group of players who are more focused on the actions of their characters rather than the flow and structure of the story. With this character focus, these players are ready to embody their characters and react to the world. This allows them to play their part in the story and react to the story as the GM unfolds it before them. 

When you are more the Facilitator 

You will enjoy games where the narrative control of the game is more de-centralized, with the GM having some of the control and the players having some as well. The GM may still set scenes and such, but the players will be able to help shape those scenes as well as help to create upcoming scenes. Think of something like a Powered by the Apocalypse game, where the 7-9 result of a Move gives the players ways to shape the narrative of the game, but there is still a centralized GM role. 

In addition, you may also enjoy games with a fully decentralized GM role, where an even larger amount of narrative control is spread out among the players. Think of something like Fiasco, where there is no GM, but there can be a player who is more familiar with the rules to help facilitate the game.

In terms of players, the Facilitator does well when paired with players who also have an interest in shaping the story; their focus is less on their individual character but more on the story that is being told. These types of players readily enjoy having narrative control and using it not to “win” the game, but to make the game “more interesting” even if that results in endangering their character to do so. These kinds of players are the ones who want to take an active role in shaping the story and will work with the GM to make that happen. 

My Own Preferences

In the 40 years I have played, I have been both a strong Storyteller and a strong Facilitator. In the ’90s and early ‘00s, I went through a phase where I loved being the Storyteller and crafting stories that my group would play through. We played a lot of traditional games, then, and my group was very content to play in that style. We created a lot of great stories during that time.

In the early 10’s I had an experience in my d20 Modern game that showed me how much I enjoyed improvisation. You can read more about that in Engine Publishing’s book Unframed. After that, I had a gradual shift in preference from Storyteller to Facilitator. I started playing more indie games where the GM role was decentralized.

Today, I have reached a point where I am very unscientifically 70% Facilitator and 30% Storyteller. I appreciate creating an overall story for my campaigns, but within the session, I enjoy facilitating much more. My main source of enjoyment is playing along with the players to see where the story goes, and ending a session as surprised as they are with where the game went. 

To that point, I still enjoy a lot of indie games, but I run plenty of traditional games as well. I like indie games that have a GM role, but then share out some of the narrative control to the players, so I play a lot of Powered by the Apocalypse games. For the more traditional games I run, I need more random tables to help create the uncertainty of what will happen next. It is one of the reasons I enjoy the traveling mechanics of Forbidden Lands so much. It is very much a traditional game with random elements that come up that I have to facilitate. 

Your Preference

You have a preference as well. Are you a strong storyteller, crafting masterful plots of intrigue and adventure, or are you a strong Facilitator looking to guide your group through their session making a story by laying the tracks in front of you as you go? More likely you are somewhere in-between. 

What is your preference? What kinds of games work best for you? Is your game group in alignment with your preference as well? 

Different societies and cultures have wildly differing traditions. Some of them are fairly mundane when you look at them from inside the culture that follows a tradition, but if you take a step back – maybe several steps back – you’ll see things from a fresh perspective. This new angle will reveal some really odd things.

I was born and raised in west Texas. This makes me a United States citizen, so I grew up with quite a few odd traditions. To me, they seemed perfectly normal, but I’m going to step back from myself for a bit and describe these bizarre happenings in the weirdest way possible just to illustrate how truly off the wall some of these things are. All of these are from my personal experience, and I’m certain that many of you out there in the world will have things you’ll consider even more strange than what I’m describing here.

Rodent Predicts the Weather

Every year, as the the winter season reaches its peak in early February, men and women dress in clothing from almost one hundred years ago, track down a rodent in its lair, and yank it from its warm and cozy hole. This “Inner Circle” then hoists up the rodent and demands that it look for its shadow. If it sees the shadow, winter will be longer than normal. Otherwise, we’re in for a regular spring. I don’t know how this Inner Circle cajoles the rodent to seek the shadow of itself, but they claim their efforts are incredibly accurate.

Make a Wish; Rip the Bone

Around the Thanksgiving dinner table (which is a rich tradition to explore), we’d pass along the mostly-eaten turkey carcass and rip the meat off with our bare hands. Eventually, the poor bird’s “wishbone” would be exposed by a fortunate soul. That person and the person on their right (always on the right since the bird went around the table counterclockwise like any good NASCAR fans would do) would then carefully dissect the bone from the dead bird with whatever nearby sharp implements they could find. Then, each person would grip a spur of the wishbone, make a wish, and pull. The person who came away with the turkey’s sternum (the central prong of the wishbone) would have their wish granted, but only if it was a humble wish. Ask for too much, and misfortune will befall your entire family (which were usually there with you at the dinner table) for the remainder of the year. I find it extraordinarily strange that a dead bird’s skeletal system could grant a wish, but there are probably even more ways to try and tell the future, I suppose.

Teens Turn to Arson for Good Luck

I don’t have to step too far away from this one to make it weird because I’ve never really understood it. Before the Big High School Football Game against the Main Cross-Town Rival each year, both parking lots at the high schools would be piled high in the center with lumber, wood palettes, a center-piece joist to support it all, and pretty much anything else that would burn without being blown into a neighboring yard. With the fire department on hand, teens would be allowed to douse the entire structure in gasoline, make a trail of accelerant away from the pile, and then light it up! While the giant bonfire burned at the school, everyone would cackle wildly, dance around the fire, play their drums (or other portable band instruments), and cavort deep into the night. Standing far enough back from the fray, I was able to watch it with the appreciation of Rob Zombie filming a wild ritualistic scene from his imagination. Both high schools would time how long their particular bonfire burned, and the school with the longest-burning flame of ritual was guaranteed victory in the next night’s game.

Game Applications

I’m not recommending that we get together and make a book of rules and guidelines for bizarre traditions. These are too wide and varied for any type of “crunchy” approach at codifying them. Instead, leave the weirdness for the “fluff” of the game in which the true richness and depth of world building can be found. Find a seminal (probably beneficial) event in a community’s past, and see what kind of incredible lengths the local populace will go through in order to try and recapture the event again. This is how traditions are formed. Take it to the next level if you can. Put that core event two or three generations in the past and see how the current generation is going to interpret the event and traditions. How are they going to change and morph over the course of time? That’s were truly great world building comes into play.

Superhero media contains multitudes. There are tactical, military-themed super-agent teams. There are magical heroes that fight off demons and vampires. Some heroes travel into the depths of space and deal with alien fleets and cosmic criminal syndicates. But for many people, their first introduction to superheroes are those heroes fighting the street level battles.

The game we’re looking at today, Hit the Streets: Defend the Block, is a game meant to emulate stories where heroes are defending the city they live in against street-level evils, corruption, and exploitation. This is a game for emulating Daredevil, Jessica Jones, The Question, or Wildcat.

Friendly Neighborhood PDF

This review is based on the PDF release of the game. Currently, it is available as a PDF or as a print on demand release. The PDF is 108 pages long, with four pages of credits and playtester acknowledgments, five rules summary sheets, a character sheet, a dedication page, and a three-page table of contents.

The layout is a single column, with a heavily shadowed border, showing the silhouette of a cityscape from different angles. There are various full-color images of different street-level heroes displaying a variety of superpowers, and various boxes with highlighted topics are formatted like comic book narration boxes.

Introduction

The introduction establishes what this game is about. It specifically calls out the Marvel Netflix series as foundational for this game. Characters don’t fly, they don’t move mountains, and they are mainly concerned about the city and the neighborhood they live in.

In addition to establishing the tone, this section introduces the terms that the game will be using. The player moderating the game is the Game Manager, and character heroes are known as Super-Powered Beings.

The introduction also makes it clear how important safety is to the game. Looking at the inspirational material, and the fact that street-level crime-fighting often deals with lots of topics like class warfare, economic disparity, drugs, violence, and abuse, games can easily stray into topics that might cause some emotional harm if not addressed.

The safety section looks at Lines and Veils, the means by which players establish their comfort level with different topics. It discusses active safety tools, specifically citing the X Card as an example.

Power Up

This section describes how characters are built, and how actions are adjudicated. The core game system uses d6s. Above a certain number, the roll counts as a success. Below a certain level, it counts as a failure.

Characters get a certain number of dice to assign to their mundane actions and their super actions, essentially establishing if the character is better at their day-to-day life, or their superhero identity. Other dice ratings are assigned to different superpowers, with a few examples given.

Players then assign a number of dice to their stats, which include:

• Head
• Jaw
• Heart
• Hands
• Feet
• Tools

That means your dice pool for attempting a task involves adding either your Be Normal or Be Super dice to one of your stats that matches up to the action you are attempting, and the dice for a power you are using, if any.

Characters have a resource called Spark that determines if a character can remain active in the narrative. Spark may be the ability to push through physical injury, or it might be your will to go on, depending on the situation. You can lose Spark on failed rolls and spend Spark to add extra dice to your dice pool, and certain actions allow you to regain Spark.

The chapter ends with three example Super-Powered Beings. This gives the reader some examples of what a fully assembled character looks like in the game.

Team Up

This section provides a set of questions that the group should be asking when they develop their team. It also points out that depending on how the team develops, players may need to go back and modify some of their character choices to better fit the team’s dynamic and theme.

There are example tables for things like team names, purpose, and rivals. This section introduces the importance of having a recurring rival team. The rivals don’t need to be villains, although they may be. The rival team is just a recurring group that will cause problems for the player character SPBs.

Where You At?

This section outlines a process for creating a unique neighborhood for the game. This involves drawing lines to represent streets, allowing characters to place various locations.

There are also several questions to help the group determine what people live in the neighborhood, and what the ongoing problems are for the neighborhood. In addition to explaining the process of creating streets, problems, and locals, There is an example to show what an emerging neighborhood looks like, generated by this process.

Taking Action

This section goes into more detail to show how to structure and resolve actions in the game. Depending on what the stakes of a task are, a scene either has Tension or it does not. When a scene has Tension, a character can lose Spark when they generate failures.

The resolution system is player-facing, so the GM doesn’t roll to see if rivals or opponents are successful. The GM just determines the difficulty of a task (how many successes are required), and if there is Tension in the scene.

Some threats have a Total Threat Difficulty. Threats with this quality can be incrementally achieved, rather than being determined by a single resolution, to represent a major catastrophe or a powerful villain.

Successes are referred to as “Pows,” while failures are referred to as “Oofs.” Oofs only cause a character to lose Spark when there is Tension in the scene. Because of this structure, threats don’t need to have any stats assigned to them. They just need to be described and given a difficulty.

Characters may also take part in a Refresh Scene between other scenes. In general, Refresh scenes usually involve either spending time with other team members, doing charity work, or going on patrol. Because these patrols are about stopping “mundane” crime, these scenes don’t involve Tension.

Successfully performing these actions can add Spark to a character’s Spark pool. However, successful actions in Refresh Scenes are also noted on the neighborhood map. These actions can show that different parts of the neighborhood are safer and have developed new businesses and services, and when these actions succeed, the text encourages the group to note on the map how that area is evolving.

There are charts showing what kinds of crimes might be happening in the neighborhood, as well as providing an impressive and interesting list of actual charities that often operate in urban neighborhoods.

This section is rounded out with a series of questions for determining XP awards, the cost of awards, and what happens when a character runs out of Spark in the game. Without going into too many details, the character might die, if the player wants them to, but it may also just be an opportunity to do some soul searching.

How to GM Hit the Streets

This section starts with multiple examples of questions that the GM can ask to get more details about characters, the neighborhood, the team’s rivals, and emerging aspects of the story in the game.

There are also several pages dedicated to the process of “Letters to the Editor,” an end of session process for getting feedback about what the table liked about the current session, what they would like to see in the future, and what might have been less satisfying.

Additional sections include treatments on troubleshooting potential problems, and advice for addressing game themes. There are tables determining corruption and temptations that are acting on the neighborhood, and day to day “be normal” problems of characters to address.

Neighborhoods

This section gives six example neighborhoods. While much of what makes this game unique is derived from the players working together to establish the setting, these are good examples as well as handy settings for convention games, one-shots, or short campaigns.

These neighborhoods include local nicknames for the location, the history of the neighborhood, common sites, and detailed rival teams. While all these neighborhoods have similar structures, the “voice” of the neighborhoods varies depending on the contributor, and each one highlights different social ills, many of which are extremely relevant to modern life.

Why Don’t We Start By Getting Some Coffee First?

 All these components seem to create a strong engine for driving content in play. 

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I love the idea that Spark is about the will to go on as much as how tough a character is physically. I also really like the neighborhood building rules, the concept of the rival team, and the idea of the Refresh Scenes and how important charity work is to the people of the neighborhood. All these components seem to create a strong engine for driving content in play.

I’m Asking Forgiveness For What I’m About To Do

Not much was unsatisfying to me about this game. Some terminology choices are thematic, and may not be what I would have chosen, but in the grand scheme of things, that’s pretty minor. The only other thing I would note is that while some rules address taking on a major, climactic threat or heavy hitter super villain, there is a lot more time spent discussing the rival team (which is a great concept, don’t get me wrong), than there is developing strong, long term villains. This is a little strange when the source material includes characters like Kingpin or Killgrave.

Recommended–If the product fits in your broad area of gaming interests, you are likely to be happy with this purchase.

If you like more story-based games, and you also like street-level comic book stories, this is a very easy recommendation. I would also argue that in addition to being a good game to play, the support for fleshing out neighborhoods, rival teams, and daily problems form a great toolkit that can be applied even to other supers games.

Where is the line you draw between street-level heroes and other superhero stories? What is the deal-breaker when it comes to themes, powers, or background? How do you feel about mixing and matching street-level characters with more epic heroes? We want to hear from you in the comments below.

Thirty minutes into the session, the moment we’ve all been waiting for, our unlikely heroes finally catch up to the malicious war band that ransacked their village. In the events of a single hour, our characters lives were forever changed by the savage pillaging for their war effort. They didn’t just steal gold and weapons from the village. They stole the lives of the people our characters cared for most. They may as well have stolen our characters’ lives as well. It was never going to be the same for them ever again.  

One bad die roll into our party’s fateful clash with their campaign’s most dire enemy and a player character is near death. A fate arguably worse than death at the table, the player character is now incapacitated and unable to act unless they “push” themself. Unfortunately, this isn’t a game with magical healing and we’re just thirty minutes into the game session at the start of a big scene.

How do you keep that player engaged at the table when they are resigned to their current fate? When they are resigned to the notion of “What CAN I do?” or “I’ll probably fail with a -1 die penalty to all my rolls.”

Rules as Written

I run a lot of different RPGs. So, I’m inclined to follow the rules as a GM and to see where the system takes us. I want to know what experiences the mechanics bring out in play. It isn’t like me to play with the same group very often, so I can’t always rely on pegging my players for their play styles. Whether I’m running games at conventions or online, I’m always catering to a large swath of different players that rotate through. As a game designer, I like the looks or insights I can take away from the variety of players I get to see at the table.

I don’t know about you, but I have a handful of horror stories at the table that stem from debilitating conditions. Depending on the game, this could be called harm, damage, trauma, stress, fatigue—you get the picture! Many games penalize player characters for getting hit, for rolling bad, for being in the wrong place at the wrong time (as if the GM had no say in that). While I never miss hit points in games (they can seem so inconsequential, especially as they rise and rise), I’ve found myself stuck between a rock and a hard place as a GM. How do you help a player get enough spotlight at the table when their character is heavily restricted by penalties like -3 dice (out of 4)? You know, the kind of modifiers that render player characters null, their actions void.

Character death is almost easier. The player isn’t in such a difficult bind to figure out how they can contribute—how they can play.

These are the one-size-fits-all moments when a game system kind of betrays you (as written). It’s when the system, like some kind of Master to their pupil,  hands over the reins to the GM and says, you deal with it. These moments need a fine touch, a skillful storyteller’s hand, and some preternatural judgment. In other words, they are easy to fumble.

Once you know what this looks like at the table, you can see it coming. Not from a mile away, but just before it happens. At that point, you can’t necessarily avoid it unless you fudge the rules, but you do have enough time to make the “sacrifice” shine at the table. You can encourage the player to soak up the moment and roleplay the heck out of it. You can slow things down in the narrative and help to prompt the player to make the most of the moment. But, what then?

Let’s call the player Katy. I want Katy to be involved. I want them to act. Instead, they don’t know what to do. They stare at their sheet and see that any action they take is likely to fail due to the harsh penalties stacked against them. They resign their character to give up and fight again another day. But, the group still has so much to do—and the show must go on!

In theory, I love the idea of debilitating conditions. Player characters need to be threatened and put in difficult situations. Debilitating conditions remind players that their characters are mortal. They add risk. They force players to problem solve—to act. Until they don’t.

The rules are here for you (GM), they are a tool, not law. Rule Zero, you see it in the beginning of many RPGs tucked in the “What is Roleplaying” section. As a GM learning new games, I feel like you have got to try out the rules first, right? Step in the mud and realize what to do better next time. But, I hate apologizing at the end of a game session for how I let the game rules dictate the amount of time a player actually got to play. You did something cool, you took a chance, and now you don’t get to play unless I retcon or fudge the rules in front of the players (removing an element of risk from play).

So, what do I do?

• Do I break the rules of healing and recovery?
• Do I rewind the damage once I realize the player won’t act?
• Do I cheat the players invested in an epic scene by quickly bringing it to a close?

What do you do when the game has decided their character has done enough…

I have a friend that once told me that you have to pace each session so that truly dangerous moments only happen towards the end. I remember thinking, that is ridiculous! Why should every meeting start slow? Does that mean that GMs need to hold their players back from the most dire moments, too? Should I pepper in obstacles to pace play in fear of a bad roll?  Not to mention, I hate being predictable! How long will it take for my players to catch on?

Now, I’m not so sure. Running a lot of one shots, I generally find myself following some sort of three act structure. Is that so different? I guess it would only be weird when used for subsequent sessions, when players are already in the thick of the action. Are you like me, always reaching for a cliffhanger ending?  If it has teeth, have you already set yourself up to fail? Clearly, I’m still working through this.

Going Forward

Setting clear expectations: At critical moments, take the time to explain to players what is on the line for them. We often do this with player characters but we don’t always step back to talk about how this could affect the player themself—how it could affect Katy.

The best advice? You should probably hold back any penalty that is going to totally debilitate a player unless the moment is right. Blind for a round? That’s ok. -2 modifier to hit? No big deal. -4d to all rolls (out of 5)? You may as well kill the character—or at least knock them out. Save the crushing blows for when the time is right, in the story and at the table.

How do you avoid players removing their character from the game?

How do you encourage a player to play when their character cannot fight (flashbacks, moral support)?

Do you have tricks for how you pace play to keep your players safe?

I originally discussed this topic in an older article on Rogue Princess Squadron but thought it might be worth discussing again.

Let’s face it. Every GM has played favorites. Maybe it was a subconscious thing, maybe it was on purpose to please someone. Sometimes it’s awful and insidious and can kill a campaign or a whole gaming group. I would say, though, that it’s not completely unavoidable and I would argue it can be beneficial when used in small, judicious ways.

I have definitely had experiences with the kind of favoritism that has a well-deserved bad rap in gaming circles. A long time ago in a remarkably familiar galaxy, my GM for a college gaming group invited a new girl to join our game. Not long after that, the GM and the new girl started dating. This GM already had a bit of a propensity towards favoritism – he and his best friend would often spend hours outside of the game talking about it and coming up with different ideas that would work their way into the game. Usually, it wasn’t too detrimental to the other players at the table, so no one really worried about it. This girl, though. When they started dating, his tendency towards favoritism took on a whole new, ugly level. If she wanted something for her character, she got it. The game came to revolve around her characters and the stuff she wanted to do.

She also wasn’t very nice. We were all young and dumb, but I still remember the pain of her Mean Girl comments as she tried to drive me away from the group. I wasn’t her only target, but most everyone else were just targets of nasty comments behind their backs. It eventually got so bad, I walked out of a game after she started mocking me for being visibly frustrated at, yet again, being sidelined so her plot could take the spotlight. Thankfully, she and the GM broke up not long after that incident. It honestly wasn’t a moment too soon, because his favoritism and her behavior came close to killing that group and ruining what eventually became lifelong friendships.

Now, I can hear you saying, “Ang, you started off saying favoritism isn’t always a bad thing, then tell us a story of how it’s the absolute worst. What’s up with that?” I want to be clear that there is a reason favoritism has a bad reputation. Back in the day, I knew people who would refuse to game in a group where the romantic partner of the GM was also playing. Years later, after playing together with many awesome couples, I can clearly declare that a dumb solution to the problem.

Thing is, when favoritism goes bad, it doesn’t even have to be the GM’s romantic partner that is the recipient of the favoritism. It can just as easily be a good friend or someone the GM looks up to and wants to impress. Add in a degree of emotional immaturity and you have the recipe for a frustrating game where only certain people get to do the cool stuff. I’ve even see GMs do it trying to coax new players into the game, where they were so focused on giving that new player cool and engaging stuff, they ignored the more experienced players.

Most GMs probably aren’t even fully aware they’re doing this. I’m sure most people don’t sit down to run a game and decide that they’re going to butter up to one person and ignore everyone else. One GM I’ve played with has earned a reputation of favoring female players. While it’s not done creepily, it has been noted by more than one person that having a pair of boobs at his table is far more likely to get the character you want. Having played with that GM fairly often, I’m pretty sure he doesn’t even realize he’s doing it.

So, most of the examples I’ve talked about so far have been unhealthy and dysfunctional manifestations of GM favoritism. Giving obvious or unfair advantages and rewards to some players over others is absolutely going to stir up resentment and create problems in the game or the game group. The interesting thing, though, is that favoritism used in small, judicious ways may help a game survive and thrive.

Hear me out on this. We GMs all recognize the star players in our games. In fact, there are several articles on the Stew that talk about ‘rainmakers’ and how they can benefit a game. These are the players we know we can count on to create interesting characters that fit in with the game world and who will drive the action once the game starts. These are the folks that bring such investment and excitement to playing their character that they make the game more fun and vibrant for everyone else at the table. If you’re lucky, you’ve got a few star players or maybe even a table full of them. They make running the game EASY. As a reward, we often throw them the plot hooks and spotlight a little more often. You ever so slightly play favorites because you know it’s going to make the game better.

The crucial thing to understand is that you are definitely playing favorites, even just a little bit. Understanding this can make the difference between doing it in a way that enhances the game and doing it in a way that ends up alienating the other players because they know they won’t ever get the cool stuff. Giving a star player the focus early on in a campaign or session can help kick things off, but you have to keep that spotlight moving around the table and give everyone a chance to shine, even the shy player or even the slightly troublesome player you still enjoy even if they occasionally annoy you. Give a little love to your rainmakers not to make them your only focus, but to let them set an example for the rest of the table.

Good GMs understand that every game session needs to have a moment for every single player at the table, but they also understand how to make use of the players that will help the game be awesome.

Join Chuck, Di, and John for a discussion about paid GMing and its impact on the hobby. Can these gnomes get enough GMing gigs to avoid being thrown in the stew?

Ask yourself the following questions. When you sit down at a table, are your attitude and contributions warm, appreciative and thankful? Do you express gratitude during the event? Would your presence and performance be considered agreeable, welcoming and/or refreshing?

Don’t let me lose you on the touchy feelies, here! I’m not asking if you participate in a group hug prior to initiative nor asking that everyone sings an epic Gregorian chant while handholding after a beloved PC meets their ultimate fate (though, after typing this, I kinda want to experience that!). I’m asking… are you showing gratitude at the table?

Player Privilege

Let’s discuss a few ways to check your Player Privilege and see if you are, indeed, a Grateful Gamer.

Think of your absolute favorite sourcebook! The one that you’ve poured over, played, run and devoured with a passion. Have you written a review online of this sourcebook? Have you left a rating? Have you supported the creator by publicly demonstrating your appreciation? Ratings, reviews, referrals, and engaging feedback helps boost their visibility, y’know. If not, ask yourself why not?

When you sit down to play a game, are you intentional about supporting both the GM and the story that you’re all there to create? Are you engaged, asking questions and making an attempt to support the experience? Or… are you on your phone, sleeping, intentionally trying to derail the game, or otherwise showing disinterest and disrespect to both the GM and the table?

Side note! When you sleep at the table, are more interested in your phone than the game or attempt to derail the experience, it’s primarily the GM that has to navigate that stress, insecurity and nuisance. We begin to think… Am I not doing enough? Is my story that bad? Am I not engaging them?

Players are human, too. I get that. So, if you’re exhausted, do everyone the courtesy of taking care of yourself and get some rest. Unless you’re on call or expecting an important phone call, minimize the table phone use. Don’t derail the story for giggles. Doing so hurts the GM, inconveniences your fellow players and really paints you in an unfavorable light.

Stawwwp, I get it! Not every game is a 10/10. Not every GM is top shelf. We’ve played convention games. We all have stories. However, I’m not asking you to check the quality of your GM, the strength of the table, nor the value of the story. Those items are out of your control. What IS in your control, is YOUR attitude towards the situation. Choose to be a Grateful Gamer.

You know that GM who fumbled table management and storytelling? Are you aware of the time they spent preparing for this game? Can you imagine the anxiety and panic that swelled in their chest prior to sitting down at the table (trust me, more GMs feel this than you may know)? Are you aware of the costs that they accrued purchasing sourcebooks, dice, paper, handouts, miniatures, subscription fees, etc.?  Do you realize that they’ve juggled jobs, families, friends, and their own mental struggles just to be present… for you? Have you considered that they might be a novice?

Show gratitude.

GMs provide a service. No, the service may not be perfect. No, the service may not be ideal. However, they are there, for the love of a shared hobby, to provide a service to you… the player. I guarantee you, none of us GMs are sitting on a dragon’s horde worth of gold and GameStop stocks by running games for you. It’s not about the money.

Be grateful.

Becoming a Grateful Gamer

Heeeeey you experienced GMs and players!!! When you find yourself seated to play a game that you’re familiar with, how about asking the GM (prior to start) if they’re in need of additional support? “Hey GM, I run this system all of the time. I love it. Is there any way that I can support you as a player?”

There is music in my soul when I hear this inquiry. Some GMs may say, “no, thanks.” That’s cool. Me? I’m all over it. I may be insecure about my rule knowledge and recall. It’s a comfort to look across the table and ask, “Hey, what check would you call for here?” I’ve utilized this offer to assist new players navigate their sheets by pairing them up with a Grateful Gamer so that I could keep the story pace. My absolute favorite use of this inquiry? Someone offered me support on the day that I had a family member joining the table who had never tried a TTRPG before. I asked the inquiring player to take care of my cousin, in game, and to help keep him engaged. My cousin had a blast because an experienced player and Grateful Gamer took him under her wing, roleplayed with him, and encouraged him.

Tell your GM that you love their style. Already did that? Great! Now, tell them again! Show that gratitude and offer that recognition. As Erykah Badu once said, “I’m an artist and I’m sensitive about my shit.” GMs leave themselves vulnerable and exposed when they run games. It’s the cost of providing this service. So, if they did great, share that with them!

What if there’s room for improvement? Don’t be that Privileged Player who believes that just because you paid for the event that your experience should be beyond reproach. Ask that GM, privately, if they’re open to feedback. Don’t just lay it on them. If the GM is not open to constructive criticism, then go and vent to your home group and friends. If they are open to feedback, lead with a positive, and then be tactful and supportive about the feedback. Giving constructive feedback is a form of exemplifying a Grateful Gamer. Your willingness to lend both your time and experience to help another GM grow shows gratitude.

Add some positive energy to the gaming experience. People love to be recognized. If the GM stirs you to passion with a riveting speech, inspires you with a colorful combat or haunts you with a terrifying description, tell them. Tell them right that moment. Compliment their delivery. Annnnd don’t stop at the GM. Players have epic moments, brilliant descriptions, clever ideas and fantastic rolls. A quick, “whoa, great kill,” or, “well done,” goes a long way. I promise.

You know that eternal GM that always, always runs for your group? Step back and ask yourself, and them, if they’re interested in playing while you, or someone else runs. The opportunity might come as a relief to them. Whether they accept or decline, you showed gratitude by offering them an opportunity to step out from behind the screen. If you’re able and comfortable, offer to host. If you have discretionary income, comment your CashApp below so that I may beg for money, and then consider ordering food or a custom GM gift off of Etsy for your favorite GM or the other players.  A player did this once for our home group! He purchased each player at the table a mug with their name and the campaign name on it. I cherish that thing!

Is your GM on social media or associated with a company or club? Follow them on social media. Engage with their posts. Like, comment, share. We see that. It matters. Have you purchased a product that you love? Leave a review. Drop a rating, even if it’s a Ninja Rating (throwing stars in silence, absent words). Join in on the discussions. Refer your friends! Oftentimes, it’s that very energy that motivates, inspires and fuels us. Sometimes, it’s a desperately needed reminder that we are appreciated.

Lastly, even when confronting a GM, a fellow player, or deciding to leave a table, you are still capable of showing gratitude. Address your concerns in a sincere, succinct, brief and factual method. Try using, “I feel statements,” versus direct accusations. For example, instead of saying, “I think this game sucks,” try saying, “I feel like this game could be better if we tried this,” or, “I feel like your GM style and my play style don’t mesh.” Don’t attack, blame, or provoke. Oh, and for the loathe of critical failures, please don’t jump down your GM’s throat. We’re human. None of us woke up this morning with the intention of ruining your day. Ultimately, if you’re in a toxic gaming situation, show your gratitude by confronting the situation and/or removing yourself. In order to be a Grateful Gamer, you have to show yourself some grace and gratitude, too.

In Conclusion…

Practice showing gratitude in everything that you do on and off the table. Be grateful. You can’t control the GM. You can’t control the players. You can only control  how you react. It may not feel like it, but your attitude can greatly impact the enjoyment of the game, even if it’s not up to your usual epic standards. Remember, “it’s not happiness that brings us gratitude. It’s gratitude that brings us happiness.”

What are some other ways that you can be a Grateful Gamer?

What’s your favorite method of showing gratitude at the table?

Let us know in the comments!

The most difficult assignment I’ve had in game design remains my contribution to Eureka: 501 Adventure Plots to Inspire Game Masters. 

It wasn’t the writing. 

The taxing aspect was formulating the beginning, the middle and then, that most excruciating of parts, the ending. 

Whichever one of the 36 dramatic situations served as the framework for that particular plot, it had to have an ending. 

Finales didn’t have to be grand or spectacular, but some kind of outcome needed to be presented.

It wasn’t so much that we were prescribing THE ending to a given scenario, but rather, providing a likely or possible outcome. 

Something even a novice GM could hang their hat on, a point they could reasonably wind things up.

It’s a laudable goal, completeness — and if you utilize one of those adventures at your table — you’ll be presented with an endpoint. 

Of course, it’s the one aspect of the assignment that does not fit with my style of gamemastering. 

Sure, I know how to signal an end to the night. “Let’s wrap this up, folks.” 

But endings? What are those? When the bad guy is dead or defeated? When the treasure is found? 

(Or was it No. 17: When the characters discover the dishonor of a loved one?) 

There’s always another bad guy. Another thread to pull. Another ploy that comes with the next sunrise.

No, endings are the players’ prerogative. Always have been. Always will. That’s because their choices — usually at two or three choice moments in the course of the narrative — are what truly dictates the outcome.

Yes, I’m a starting-line GM. Here’s a hook. Here’s a dilemma. Here are some resources. Found a motivation for your character? Great, because it’s time to start. Ready, set … go!

Now, that hardly absolves me in providing a plot nor anticipating a few possibilities and providing interesting elements along the way.

I propose that what the GM should be responsible for isn’t the ending, but rather those pivot points during the course of the narrative. 

Those pivot points are what point the way. 

OK, so what are pivot points?

They are decision junctures. Forks in the road. Do we turn left or right? Do we help or hinder?  Do we fight or flee?  Do we look before we leap? Do we contemplate the next move or do we rashly rush in? 

It’s the scenario that follows that decision point that matters. If it serves the plot and propels the action and the characters forward, that’s what matters. I’m not talking about random encounters, but rather, purposeful, consequential moments. 

Do that well at three or four places along the way, and I think the ending— whatever desired result emerges —  becomes self-evident to the players as well as the GM. 

If they have closed in on the villain, let them at ‘em. If they are close to guessing the secret, unveil it. If the unspeakable horror is just behind that door, then by all means, open it.

If it’s revenge they’re after — here’s their chance.

It’s their moment, their ending, if they so choose.

Give it to them. They’ve earned it.

A move to virtual has had me running many more games than usual. I’ve been refining and honing a few techniques to keep everything moving smoothly and keep track of everything for every game. One simple tool I have come to rely on is my “Game Night Checklist”. It helps me stay focused, on track, and prevents me from getting overwhelmed when I am coming off of a busy workweek or haven’t had time to jump in and prepare as much as makes me feel comfortable.

What is a game night checklist?

Let’s codify some definitions before we begin. For me, a game night checklist is a simple, bullet point reminder for myself and all the players of some of the meta elements of the game. It functions like an itinerary for a meeting and makes sure we don’t miss important, repeatable parts of the structure of the game. It helps the players think through some of the elements that help set the tone for the game and it helps the Game Master not miss any pre-game prep steps. It helps give a structure to things so you don’t have to try to force that structure. It offloads the work to a previous you and an external document.

Basically, a game night checklist functions as an external reminder to keep some of the game elements reliable and standardized between sessions. For me, a Game Night checklist is shared with the players so they have an idea of what you as the GM are doing and covers most of the general easy to forget stuff that isn’t rolling dice, playing out characters, and engaging with the rules system.

What should be on a game night checklist?

My current game night checklist is aimed at online play and covers lots of meta options alongside a few specific to the game and architecture of the VTT we are using. That being said, I think every game night checklist should contain the following:

• Player Pregame Information: Prompts for the players to think about some things as they get ready to play, options they may forget about in your homerules (inspiration, etc.), reminders about interactions / social rules.
• GM Pregame Information: Make sure you have prepped (preferably in a simple style that is easy to riff off of) what you need to run and improvise, reminders to set up things that may have slipped your mind, a prompt to review your plans and past notes.
• Game Start: The general things you have set up about getting into the game. Do you chat for a bit? Do meta game stuff? Have pre-game rituals? Putting it here lets the players all be on the same page and remember.
• Game: Some reminders and prompts for in-game options, such as Always roll 2 dice, one for advantage, move your tokens yourself, always try to click on spell names to throw them in chat, when it isn’t your turn plan next move, pay attention, etc.
• Game End: Anything about wrapping up the game? Is someone volunteering to write notes? Any notes that need made? How do you award xp? Do you stop 10 minutes before game end time? Do you finish out combats, etc.

This is my current, generic 5e game night checklist.

Player Pregame

• Review how your character works, what you want to bring into play
• Setup your play space/test out roll20.
• Think about your character goals, other’s character goals. What are you excited about tonight?
• Think about the spotlight – How it moves between players, how to share it, how to use it when it’s on you.

GM Pregame

• Overview plans for the night (make revisit the 3/3/3) and be ready to throw them out.
• Set up maps / scenes / options in roll20.
• Make sure improv elements (tokens, maps, generic stats) are ready.
• Prep mood lighting – Points of interest (imagine or find a cool image to riff off of).

Game Start

• Game soft starts ½ hour early. GM will be online to talk stuff (probably).
• GM Opens Session notes to type into during game.
• Meta Business? Housekeeping? What are you excited about?
• Dole out inspiration points.
• Review – Review big notes from last session verbally with players
• The Book Opens, The Tale Begins, The First Die Roll is cast…

Game (Player Reminders)

• Don’t forget to move your token.
• Click on spell names/powers/etc to throw them in chat.
• Click on the token, then click initiative. If you need to fix it, click in turn order and change.
• When not your turn, Plan for the next action and try to keep things moving quick

Game End (about 10 to 15 minutes before close time)

• Anyone volunteering to write session notes?
• Make note about Inspiration for next time
• Award XP (Whole Group same amount)

GM write up basic session notes.

Uhh, this is super simple. Why can’t I just get in the habit of doing all this stuff?

The best-laid plans of players and gms… I’ve always found that getting into and running games brings out the spur of the moment, fly by the seat of my pants parts of my personality. That’s a great help in accommodating player ideas, but it often leaves me a bit disoriented and disjointed as I move along in the game. A game night checklist for many of the meta elements keeps me on track, prevents me from collapsing into exhaustion after the game is done (and ignoring things like writing up session notes), and helps me get my brain on track before the start of the game. It really is offloading a lot of the work that may go into a game to a previous self and helps to set a single vision which you can deviate from and improvise off of, but return to as you need. It’s kind of like a simple meta-safety line you might use when rock climbing.

Do you use something similar to a Game Night Checklist? What is on yours? What other tools do you use to help structure your game nights?

New to Sly Flourish? Start Here!

This article discusses how to run a session zero for the D&D hardcover adventure, Rime of the Frostmaiden and contains spoilers for the adventure.

For a video on this topic, watch my Frostmaiden Session Zero YouTube Video.

Clarifying the Theme of Rime of the Frostmaiden

Unlike other adventures, Rime of the Frostmaiden is designed as a book of related quests than a single cohesive storyline. While one might assume the drive of Rime of the Frostmaiden is to "end the eternal night", that drive isn't the best way to motivate the characters in the early parts of the adventure. Instead, we can motivate the characters to follow the wide range of quests in this adventure with the following theme:

"Help the people of Ten Towns survive the endless night."

This gives our characters a clear motivation to follow quests in the adventure wherever they may lead. A common complaint of Frostmaiden is that it lacks this single cohesive narrative that drives the characters through all of the material of the book. If, instead, we reinforce the theme that the characters are there to help the people of Ten Towns, just about every quest works well.

Frostmaiden Session Zero Checklist

When we run a session zero, it helps to clarify our goals in a checklist. Here's my own Frostmaiden session zero checklist:

• Give out the Frostmaiden one-page Frostmaiden Campaign Handout and discuss it.
• Discuss Frostmaiden's themes and our group's safety tools.
• Work with the players to choose a group patron.
• Give players their character's secret.
• Work with the players to build characters together.
• Give the players the optional Icewind Dale backgrounds in the book's introduction.
• Give each character a trinket from Appendix A.
• Run a short introductory adventure.

Beginning in Bryn Shander

Rime of the Frostmaiden gives you the option to start in any of the ten towns of Ten Towns. It recommends, if you cannot choose, to select Bryn Shander, which is what I did. I've seen many discussions online about which town to start in but this one worked well for me.

Frostmaiden One-Page Campaign Guide

For every campaign I run I like to give out a one-page campaign handout. Here's the PDF of my one-page Frostmaiden Campaign Handout. I usually give out these handouts a couple of days before the session zero so the players have enough of a chance to give it a read but not so much that their imaginations go wild and they come to the game with characters fully fleshed out. We want the players to build characters together so they fill in the right roles and build some inter-character relationships before we start.

The Importance of Safety Tools

Rime of the Frostmaiden is a rough adventure. Reading through the adventure, I came to the following potentially uncomfortable material:

• Darkness
• Deadly Cold
• Betrayal
• Paranoia
• Murder
• Incest
• Isolation
• Cannibalism
• Mental assault
• Ritual sacrifice
• Parasitic monsters
• Child endangerment
• Violence towards animals

It's worth discussing the content of this adventure before you choose to run it, even before a session zero, but its certainly worth discussing during your session zero as well.

Consider using the checklist from Monte Cook Games's Consent in Gaming to see if there are any issues players might have with the content in Icewind Dale.

Even after you've worked with your players to discuss the themes they're comfortable and uncomfortable with, you'll want some sort of safety tool in place during the game. Situations can come up quickly that may push a player out of their comfort zone and you want to ensure you can grab onto this quickly and move the story away from the subject at hand. This may seem overly cautious but it can happen to anyone, regardless of how long they've been gaming, and it's best to ensure you're steering the game towards enjoyment for all.

See this excellent safety tool reference by Tomer Gurantz for details on lines, veils, X cards, and so on.

In my own game I chose to use lines, veils, and a verbal X-card for our group in which anyone can say "pause for a second" over chat to break character and discuss whats going on out of character.

You can see more about how I use these in my safety tools video.

Group Patrons

Tasha's Cauldron of Everything describes options for adding group patrons to our game and Frostmaiden is a great place to do it. You can spend some time reading through the adventure and choosing your own group patrons. I chose the following four:

• Vellynne Harpell. A neutral-aligned Member of the Arcane Brotherhood, Vellynne becomes more important in the later parts of the adventure but she'd make for a fun and somewhat sinister group patron early on. Vellynne can be inclined to aid the people of Ten Towns to restore the damage done by Vaelish Gant years before and to gather more information about the secrets locked under the ice of Icewind Dale. Potential Tasha's group patron benefits: Academy.

• Sheriff Markham Southwell. A lawful good sheriff of Bryn Shander, Sheriff Markham makes for a very solid group patron with ties to Bryn Shander's speaker, Duvessa Shane, and knowledge of the other towns. The sheriff would bring on the characters to take care of the jobs that he and the town guard cannot do themselves, including building stronger relationships with the other towns and aiding in their problems. Potential Tasha's group patron benefits: Military Force.

• Hlin Trollbane. The neutral good Hlin can make for a good group patron serving outside of the law but with the drive to serve as a bastion of good in the darkness surrounding Ten Towns. Her first drive to hunt down the cold hearted murderer is a great start. Potential Tasha's group patron benefits: Guild.

• Dannika Graysteel. The chaotic good half-elf scholar who comes to Ten Towns to understand what strange phenomena brought the endless night to Ten Towns can make a strong group patron. Like the others, she desires to help the people of Ten Towns but in particular wants to understand what has changed the natural order of things in Icewind Dale. Potential Tasha's group patron benefits: Religious Order.

Alternative Character Secrets

If you're using the character secrets in Frostmaiden, it's better to let players choose them before they start building characters. In many cases the secrets have racial limitations and won't work if the players choose races outside of those tied to the secret.

I wasn't crazy about the secrets in the book. I found them too limiting and felt they took agency away from the player when building their characters. Instead, I offered randomly selected options from the list below which includes more open-ended secrets so the player has more room to fill it in with their own details. Use this list of alternative secrets if you prefer them:

1. You are a spy keeping an eye out for the Arcane Brotherhood.
2. You are being hunted by a noble family for a crime or slight you committed.
3. You are fleeing from gangsters of the city of Luskin.
4. As a child you were left in the cold to die but an owl-shaped humanoid saved you.
5. You were secretly raised by yetis.
6. You were infected by an otherworldly parasite.
7. You are the secret heir for royalty in hiding.
8. You have hazy dreams of being kidnapped by an alien race and then crashing down in the ice.
9. You seek an heirloom was stolen from you long ago.
10. You covet a small amulet made of a strange black and silver metal. Sometimes you hear it speaking to you.
11. You have dreams of a massive strange black structure, a city, buried under the ice.
12. Someone you love was murdered by a ghost.
13. You are actually an escaped clone, a construct, built by the Arcane Brotherhood for some unknown purpose.
14. You were reincarnated into your current form by a mysterious druid.
15. You are outcast for having documented forbidden text. It could be dark magic or a tell-all book.
16. You are an escaped and hunted prisoner.
17. You have a phobia of talking animals.
18. You witnessed a terrible crime and fear the one who committed it.
19. You escaped a mark for sacrifice to Auril.
20. Your dreams are filled with tentacled nightmares.

One important tip for assigning secrets is to not let the players see the whole list so they can't guess what the secret is for another player. Instead, have them roll 1d20 and tell them privately what the secret is. If they like it, they keep it. If they hate it, they roll again for a new secret. They never, however, see the entire list of secrets so they can't guess what secrets another character has.

A Better Cold Open

Rime of the Frostmaiden offers 13 potential starter quests but gives us no idea which ones work well at any given level. Instead, we have to figure it out or we face the potential of our characters becoming overwhelmed by a deadly encounter. Most of the time, at 2nd level and above, the characters my get over their head but can probably escape. 1st level, however, is the deadliest level in D&D by far. It really should have its own rules for encounter building.

Thus, I recommend running a short adventure specifically designed for 1st level characters to get them to 2nd level quickly.

In my own game, I began with the characters making their way to the Northlook Inn to meet with their group patron when they saw a number of figures (one for every two characters) hunched over and chewing on a body. When the characters investigate, these creatures reveal themselves to be ghouls. When the characters dispatch the ghouls, they investigate the body and discover that the ghouls were eating it but they clearly didn't kill it. Instead it was killed with an frozen dagger, the icy blade still in the lethal wound.

When they take their findings to their patron, they get 2nd level and are now better prepared for the trials of Ten Towns.

This introduction leads the characters to the larger Cold Open quest and their hunt for Sephek Kaltro. Sephek is deadly for 1st level characters but can be defeated at higher levels. If the characters face him at 3rd or 4th level, you can have him summon some icy ghouls tied to his connection to Auril to make the encounter even more dangerous.

A Strong Introduction to an Icy Adventure

Session zeros are vital for running excellent cohesive campaigns in which the characters are tied to one another and to the theme and drive of the campaign's story.

There's more to come as we dig deeper into Rime of the Frostmaiden including grouping the chapter 1 quests into more manageable batches.

Hopefully this article gave you your own tools to run an awesome session zero and begin a fantastic adventure with your friends.

New to Sly Flourish? Start here, subscribe to the weekly newsletter, watch Sly Flourish videos on Youtube, join the Sly Flourish Discord server, or support Sly Flourish on Patreon!

Check out Mike's books including Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master, the Lazy DM's Workbook, Fantastic Adventures, and Fantastic Adventures: Ruins of the Grendleroot.

Send feedback to mike@mikeshea.net.

This article is copyright 2020 by Mike Shea of Sly Flourish.

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The frequency of rests, both long rests and short rests, is critical to the pacing of our D&D games. Too many rests and the characters enter every situation armed with the full force of their character at their disposal. Too few and players feel helpless and frustrated as they watch their characters dwindle down to their last remaining hit point.

It behooves DMs to recognize how and when we offer rests to the characters. It helps when we pay conscious attention to it and arm ourselves with the tools to manage rests and maintain the right exciting pacing of our D&D games.

Reviewing the Core Books

On any topic like this, it always helps to go back to the core books and see what they have to say on the topic. Chapter 8 of the Player's Handbook includes the basic descriptions of short and long rests. An interesting note, the default rules state that a character only regains half their maximum hit dice on a single long rest. That often gets omitted in play. The section is worth reviewing but offers no guidance for DMs on how best to offer or control such rests. Also worth noting is that a character can only benefit from one long rest in 24 hours.

Chapter 3 of the Dungeon Master's Guide describes the expectation that characters receive two short rests per adventuring day. Xanathar's Guide to Everything offers optional exhaustion rules should characters choose to forgo a long rest during a 24 hour period of time.

An oft-described and, in my opinion, misinterpreted description in the Dungeon Master's Guide states the following:

"Assuming typical adventuring conditions and average luck, most adventuring parties can handle about six to eight medium or hard encounters in a day."

This is often interpreted that characters should face six to eight encounters in an adventuring day. I disagree. Instead, characters should face as many encounters as makes sense given the situation and circumstances. More on this in a moment.

With all of their descriptions, the Dungeon Master's Guide and Xanathar's Guide don't offer much guidance on how best to handle rests in our D&D games to maintain the right pacing. Let's fix that now.

Rests and Combat Challenge

How well rested the characters are is a major factor in how challenging they find combat encounters. Well-rested characters, particularly at high levels, have many more resources at their disposal and can often succeed in very difficult battles, sometimes with ease. Characters that have faced a significant number of foes and expended many of their daily resources will have a much harder time when facing difficult encounters.

Ensuring the characters don't face a final battle fully prepared is one of the top suggested ways to ensure the characters don't destroy boss monsters too easily.

When designing a combat encounter intended to be challenging, it helps to burn down the characters' resources with previous battles and little chance to rest. This is why waves of monsters works particularly well in boss fights. Two waves of monsters before a final boss is a great way to ensure the boss doesn't face fully-rested characters ready to nuke them from orbit.

When to Offer Rests

The easiest way to manage rests is to let the story dictate when and where rests can take place. If the characters are on a long journey on a well-traveled road or exploring a safe city, it's likely they'll be able to take long rests without difficulty. If they're deep in a dungeon filled with terrible monsters and few safe rooms, it's unlikely the characters can stop in the middle of a four-way hallway and rest for eight hours undisturbed. Much of the time we can let the story dictate how often the characters can take short or long rests. Even then, we may need to be explicit in describing these opportunities to the players.

Explicitly Describe Opportunities for Rests or the Lack Thereof

Players don't understand what's going on about half the time. This is a common rule of mine to help me recognize that while the story and situation may be perfectly clear in my mind, it isn't necessarily as clear to my players. This is equally true with rests. It may not be clear to the players that their characters can take the opportunity for a short or long rest or what might happen if they do.

For this reason it's best to be explicit in describing the opportunities and risks for taking rests. If you know they've reached a chamber in a dungeon monsters avoid, you might mention to the players that they can take this opportunity for a short rest without risk. If they've cleared out a chamber likely safe for eight hours or more, you can mention that they have the opportunity for a long rest without risk.

Likewise, when they enter dangerous locations for the first time, mention to them that their opportunities for rests will be rare, or even non-existent, and that they should plan accordingly. Mention this up front so players know they must manage their resources accordingly. You may go a step further and mention that they may have only one or two opportunities for a short rest in such a place.

Managing Rests with Time Sensitive Quests

While dangerous locations ensure characters can't take a lot of rests, spells like Leomund's Tiny Hut can make even the most dangerous locations safe. The best way to threaten the characters here isn't with wandering monsters or random encounters but with time-sensitive quests. If the characters are trying to stop a villain from completing a ritual, you can mention that the villains will certainly be done with the ritual before the characters can complete a long rest. Likewise, if they're chasing a particular villain, that villain may escape or move on if the characters wait too long. As the DM you can keep your hand on this dial, informing the players that they do not have time for a long rest if they want to successfully complete their quest but may have time for a short rest.

Running time-sensitive quests is one of the most effective ways to manage rests in your D&D games.

Rest Interrupters

If rests come too quickly and easily, you may need to inject environmental effects or situations that prevent the characters from resting too often. Here are ten examples of effects or situations that prevent the characters from taking either a short or long rest (your choice).

1. Spectral wailing
2. A character's disease will overtake them
3. Planar instability
4. Hostile environments (too cold, too hot)
5. Psychic resonance
6. Tectonic shifts
7. The drive of an intelligent item
8. A lifedraining effect
9. Horrible nightmares
10. Continual loud noises

Characters can only take rests in areas conducive to such rests. Many circumstances may continually interrupt the characters in ways they cannot control. Spells like Leomand's Tiny Hut, however, will likely bypass such difficulties.

If you need to better control the rests the characters can take, tailor one or more of the effects above to prevent the characters from taking short or long rests too easily.

Restful Opportunities

The flip side of this is dropping opportunities for rests, short or long, when it may not seem like such an opportunity would be available. Here are ten ways to drop opportunities to rest in the middle of hostile locations, like dungeons. Many of these can restore the characters as though they had taken a short or long rest without actually requiring the time. This helps offer rests even when time is tight.

1. A secret door leads to a lost healing font
2. The characters find potions that offer the equivalent of a rest
3. The villain's plans have been set back, offering time for a rest
4. A trapped celestial entity offers to restore the characters
5. A forgotten passage leads to a hidden room safe for rests
6. The characters find a magic item with a single use of Leomund's tiny hut
7. The characters enter a dream state that offers them a rest in shorter time
8. A divine caster's god or patron bestows a restful blessing upon the party
9. Infighting between hostile factions draws attention away from the characters
10. Invigorated by their recent victories, the characters earn the equivalent of a short rest

Control Rests and Control the Pacing of your Games

By taking an active hand in managing how and when short and long rests become available, you have a better hand in controlling the pacing of your game. Players feel powerful and optimistic when rested, and vulnerable and cautious when they haven't rested in some time. Most of the time you can let the story dictate when the characters can rest. Other times, however, you'll want to carefully plan how and when the characters can take rests, both short and long, and describe this to your players so they know how to manage their resources up front. Use rests as a dial to manage the upward beats, downward beats, and pacing of your D&D games.

New to Sly Flourish? Start here, subscribe to the weekly newsletter, watch Sly Flourish videos on Youtube, join the Sly Flourish Discord server, or support Sly Flourish on Patreon!

Check out Mike's books including Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master, the Lazy DM's Workbook, Fantastic Adventures, and Fantastic Adventures: Ruins of the Grendleroot.

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This article is copyright 2020 by Mike Shea of Sly Flourish.

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I read a fantastic Reddit post called How to Create Pay-Per-View Worthy Adventures or How to Stop Worrying and Start DMing Like Vince McMahon I wanted to ponder and share with you. I recommend reading the whole post if you can. The premise of the article is that there's a big overlap between the storytelling of pro wrestling and how we run our D&D games.

Not being into pro wrestling, it took me some work to dissect the ideas in the article and turn them into ones I could understand and embrace.

Gross Storytelling

From my understanding, pro-wrestling is about gross storytelling. There's not much subtlety in the story. Not much nuance. It's about big bold moves, big actions, big events. Everything is over the top. Look how Vince McMahon walks. It's like Japanese theater where the warriors have to throw their knees out when they walk to show how big and powerful they are.

This same lack of subtlety can help us in our D&D games. Players aren't grasping half of what we DMs throw out during a game. Subtlety gets easily lost. Big gross moves get attention. Most of the specific ideas in the original post come from this idea. Big moves matter.

Give Villains Nicknames

Good villains are known many ways. It isn't just "Leto Skalle". It's Leto Skalle; the Scourge of Xen-drik, Slayer of Nartholex the Depraved, Platinum Hand of the Aurum, and the Black Blade of Sora Ketra. Good villains are known across the land for various deeds and the more of those deeds the characters hear about, the more they'll be intrigued by that villain. Give your villain lots of nicknames.

Give the Villains a Sidekick

Good villains have great sidekicks, the sidekicks players hate nearly as much as the villains. The sidekicks do their dirty work. The sidekicks announce their presence. The sidekicks are the annoying voices and worshipers of the villains. With a good sidekick, your players now have two villains to hate.

Give Villains a Gimmick

Maybe your villain always has a cup of tea in their hand, regardless of where they are or what they're doing. Maybe they have a pet flying snake. Give your villains a gimmick. Maybe they hide their identity with a toothpick. Think Blofeld and the white cat in James Bond. Players will dig this. They'll remember it. Give your villains a gimmick.

Leave Mysterious Blanks in Your Villain's Origin

No one knows where Leto Skalle came from. He seemed to be in the upper ranks of the Droaam for as long as anyone knew him. Suddenly he's a platinum ringer in the Aurum or off for a multi-year expedition in Xen'drik. He went into the tomb of Narthotex with forty soldiers and came out alone with one eye turned bright blue. He comes from "parts unknown". Leave mysterious gaps in your villain's history.

Recast Your Villains

If your villain dies early, bring them back. Give them a new origin, an new nickname. Leto Skalle may die early on but once resurrected by the Dreaming Dark, he now speaks with the voice of the Quori within him and has a stable of new powers. We DMs have an unlimited stable of villains but when the players are invested in one of them, we can recast them even when defeated; bringing them back as something worse than they were before. This works well with lichs and vampires in particular. Recast villains when defeated.

Build a Stable of Villains

Build a stable of villains. Leto Skalle is bad but not nearly as bad as Leto Skalle, his sister Cavellah, and the three Daughters of Sora Kell working together to build the new Weapon of Mourning. Build an evil Justice League working against the characters. Build your own Deadly Viper Assassination Squad. A stable of villains is much harder to defeat than one villain alone.

Villains Don't Fight Fair

Villains always fight when they have the upper hand. They cheat. They'll punch you in your injured shoulder. It's important, however, to watch those beats. While it's good fun for a villain to fight when the environment supports them, you don't want the battle to feel hopeless. Fight dirty until the characters get the upper hand. More on this in a moment.

Exploit the Villain's Weakness

Likely, in an evolving game, the characters themselves may find a way to exploit the villain's gimmick. Maybe we poison his tea. Maybe we steal the Xanathar's goldfish. Let the characters find a way to use a villain's own gimmick against them.

Stick it to the Metagamers

In the wrestling world you have "smarts", "marks", and "smarks". Smarts see the theater for what it is — theater. Marks like to believe every moment of it. They're in the story. Smarks known the story is theater but go with it anyway. In our game, metagamers are the smarts. They know how beholders work. They know how many hit points a dragon roughly has. Change things up. Give mages spells from Deep Magic that none of the players have heard of. Give the Lord of Blades a stable of warforged horrors from Arcana of the Ancients and Beasts of Flesh and Steel Change things up, shock them, surprise them.

Inject the "Swerve"

Let the story take unexpected twists and turns. Villains become bad guys. Good guys become villains. Villains try to ally with the characters against more dangerous foes. Often our games take strange turns all on their own but if things feel too straight, give them a shock. This is fine to do in the middle of a game but don't do it at the end of a game or you end up with Game of Thrones. Swerving is fine but at the end, give them what they want.

Let Players Get the Upper Hand

Vince McMahon may walk like a theatrical Japanese warrior but even he knows when it's time to get beat up with his own bedpan in his underwear. Your bosses may be complete dicks but your player almost certainly find ways to get the upper hand and, when they do, let them. Ham it up. Let the villain beg for forgiveness or scream about how unfair it all is. Let them fall into their own traps and burn in their own pyres.

Good Tips for an Evolving Game

One thing I love about these tips is that they don't assume what the characters will do. We can use all of these ideas without requiring that the characters go in one direction or another. When we focus on our villains, fill them out with gimmicks and sidekicks and stables of other villains, that work serves us whatever direction the game goes. This makes it a great tool for us lazy dungeon masters. Our effort is well spent because we know that, no matter what direction things go, our efforts will bear fruit.

New to Sly Flourish? Start here, subscribe to the weekly newsletter, watch Sly Flourish videos on Youtube, join the Sly Flourish Discord server, or support Sly Flourish on Patreon!

Check out Mike's books including Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master, the Lazy DM's Workbook, Fantastic Adventures, and Fantastic Adventures: Ruins of the Grendleroot.

Send feedback to mike@mikeshea.net.

This article is copyright 2020 by Mike Shea of Sly Flourish.

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This article offers tips and tricks for running Chapters 4 and 5 of Descent into Avernus and includes my thoughts and recommendations for the adventure overall. Note that this article contains spoilers.

This article is one in a series of article covering Descent into Avernus including:

• Running Descent into Avernus: The Fall of Elturel
• Running Descent into Avernus Chapter 1
• Running Descent into Avernus Chapter 2
• Running Descent into Avernus Chapter 3
• Running Descent into Avernus Chapter 4 & 5

If you'd rather watch videos, you can watch my entire Descent into Avernus Youtube Playlist.

Chapter 4 of Descent into Avernus begins the conclusion of the adventure, drawing things in from the wide-open sandbox portion in chapter 3. Unlike Chapter 3, we don't have to do a lot of work to wrangle this chapter into something usable. It's a straight-forward story of the characters infiltrating the Bleeding Citadel, dropping into some dream sequences, and acquiring the Sword of Zariel.

We can, if we want, throw more gnolls around the outside of the Bleeding Citadel to turn it into more of a situation to navigate. An army of a few hundred gnolls, some Fangs of Yeenoghu, and maybe a couple of flind leaders can be fun. The characters have to figure out how to get into one of the rifts in the side of the giant hell-boil that surrounds the citadel.

Once they're inside, you can run Chapter 3 as a typical dungeon crawl. Drop in one or two gnolls the characters can interact with, squeezing them for information or trailing them to see what's going on in the cyst-tunnels.

When the characters make it inside the citadel, they're treated to a series of dream encounters that reveal the moment Zariel realized she'd have to ride into hell to stop the demonic hordes. This is the beginning of her eventual transformation to the arch devil of Avernus.

We can use these dreams to reveal the other Hellrider generals who rode beside her before they transformed into her twisted servants. These include Yael, Olanthius, Harumon, Jandar, and Gideon.

These dream sequences let us pour on the secrets and clues; revealing the full story of Zariel's fall from grace and the one thing that can bring her back — taking hold of the Sword of Zariel.

Advice from the Author

I had a chance to talk to one of the authors of Descent into Avernus, James Introcaso, who offered up his own advice for running this chapter. James's advice is included in the thoughts below.

Dial in the Gore

This chapter, with its huge hill-sized wound in the surface of hell, can be as gory as you want it to be. Know how much gore your players want and dial it in appropriately. You can simply describe it as caverns cut into the stone surface of Avernus or as a squirming organic material covered in slime and stuff if you and your players are into it. Know the level of comfort your players desire and have an X Card or other safety tool ready if it goes beyond someone's level of comfort.

Do More with the Crokek'toeck

James Introcaso wrote up a series of encounters for Descent into Avernus called Abyssal Incursions that includes a whole dungeon crawl through the insides of the enormous Crokek'toeck. You can use it as inspiration or take it as-is and drop it into the Crokek'toeck section of the Scab. Personally, I ran it as a Jonas and the Whale type situation with a gnoll who preferred not to be vomited up into war spending his days comfortably in the creature's gullet. Giving the Crokek'toeck a purple-worm-like swallow attack meant a swallowed character could meet this pacifist gnoll and learn more about what lay ahead.

Scale the Dreams

Not everyone digs dream sequences in D&D. They can feel like a waste of time since they rarely have an effect on the real world. There are seven events in the Idyllglen dream sequence and you don't need to run them all. A skirmish with a bunch of gnolls followed by a confrontation with Yeenoghu and Zariel's arrival can work just fine. Don't overdo it if it doesn't seem enjoyable.

Regarding Gargauth

Once the characters come back out of the dream, one of them can take hold of the Sword of Zariel. This may be Gargauth's chance for escape, either by manipulating the character holding the shield or simply asking them to shatter the shield with the sword. Doing so releases Gargauth, the arch-devil, who may offer to help dethrone Zariel for his own chance to take it. Gargauth may clear a path through any remaining gnolls so the characters can make their final ride back to Elturel where Zariel and her floating fortress reside before dragging Elturel through the River Styx and turning all of its remaining citizens into devils.

Chapter 5

Chapter 5 largely deals with the wide range of endings this adventure can have but gives little guidance on how to run them. Before you get to this point you'll want to decide how things play out. In my own game, I assumed Zariel flew her flying fortress to Elturel as the characters got the sword and the characters would confront her there; convincing her to grasp the blade and breaking her pact with Asmodeus.

Give Them What They Want

Since we're closing in on the end of the adventure, now is a good time to give the players what they want. We may have an idea for a strange twist at the end but since we're here and the campaign is about to close, it's a good time to let the story end in the way most satisfying for the players. Hold back your temptation for a big twist on the end and give them what they want.

The Final Ride

With the sword in hand, the characters can use their infernal war machine to roar across Avernus once again, arriving at Elturel in time to see it being slowly submerged into the river Styx. Along the way they may run into Mahadi's Wandering Emporium for a final rest or face Zariel's remaining generals if they haven't already in what may be the big final encounter before facing Zariel herself.

In my own game, the characters faced Olanthus, Harumon, and Gideon all riding in on nightmares. One of Harumon's hellfire lances destroyed the characters' war machine but, when the characters defeated the generals, they received three figurines of wondrous power able to summon nightmares. These nightmares let the characters fly to Zariel's fortress disguised as her returning generals.

Confrontation with Zariel

When the characters confront Zariel we have a chance to bring Thavius Kreeg back into the picture. This is an example of a great D&D tip I heard: whenever possible, reintroduce NPCs the characters already know. It's far more meaningful to run into a villain they've already seen than to introduce a new villain right at the end. Kreeg may send in the final wave of devils after the characters before they can parlay with Zariel herself and convince her to take the blade.

Our instinct is to ask the characters to make a persuasion check for such convincing but while that might steer the nature of the conversation, in the end, we want Zariel to take the sword as much as the players do. Poor rolls may result in a tense conversation but don't let the whole balance of the game hang on a single die roll.

Return to Faerun

Assuming Zariel takes the blade, she returns to her angelic self. Her remaining devils flee and her flying fortress collapses. She teleports the characters back to Elturel where they can meet Reya Mantlemourn, Uldar Ravengard, and Grace Lyn; the young girl they rescued in The Fall of Elturel. Since we're at the end of the adventure, now is a great time to reintroduce all the NPCs we can.

With the characters back in Elturel, Zariel severs the chains and sends the city back to Faerun. The city is saved.

This is a great chance to jump forward one year and ask each of the players where they find their characters. What did they do after Elturel returned to Faerun? Did they become members of a new uncorrupted Hellriders? Did they return to Avernus to become one of Mahadi's prized musicians? Did they return to Candlekeep to become a sage? Ask the players and find out! These final stories can often be the best and most memorable stories in the campaign.

Final Overall Thoughts on Descent into Avernus

Here are some of my thoughts on Baldur's Gate: Descent into Avernus overall.

Running Descent into Avernus took more work than I like from a published adventure. The artwork, design, and editing is wonderful and the general idea of the story is cool and unique. The story as written, though, is a mess. If you're running the adventure, hopefully these articles helped you wrangle it into an epic tale of high adventure in the depths of hell.

I will leave you with my seven big tips for running Descent into Avernus.

1. Understand the theme you want for the campaign and steer your game towards that theme. Make sure your players are on board with that theme.
2. In your session zero, tie the characters to the Hellriders, Reya Mantlemorn, and Elturel.
3. Build your own path through chapter 3 by choosing the locations you want to run and tying them together with a network of quests that takes them from Elturel to the Bleeding Citadel.
4. Let the characters fuel infernal war machines with demonic ichor instead of soul coins.
5. Choose how gory you want the details of the adventure and make sure your players are comfortable with it.
6. Choose which waves to run in the dream sequences in Idyllglen; you don't have to run them all.
7. Give the players what they want in the end. Let them save Elturel and perhaps save Zariel if they played their cards right.

Hopefully these tips and guides have helped you run this adventure. When steered right, Descent into Avernus can be wrangled into a grand adventure of good and evil in the wastelands of hell.

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This article contains a reading list of some of my favorite books and articles DMs can use to better run D&D games. Obviously it would be crass of me to include my own book, Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master, so I omitted it from the list...

In a previous article I've talked about Paths of DM Expertise. A big part of getting better as a DM is digging into all of the knowledge other DMs and game creators can share with us. There's a lot of great material out there we can read, cull, and harvest to give us great ideas while running our games. This list represents some of this material.

The Core Books

Spend time reading and re-reading the core books. There's a lot of great stuff in them easily missed like monster environments in the Monster Manual and tons of stuff in the Dungeon Master's Guide easily forgotten. Review them all every few months to remind yourself what's in them.

Top Five

If I could only pick five books to help DMs get a better grip on D&D, these would be them.

• Complete Kobold Guide to Game Design (2nd Edition)
• Hamlet's Hit Points
• How to Write Adventures that Don't Suck (original version)
• The Monster's Know What They're Doing
• Dungeon World

RPG Design Books

These are a handful of books I found very useful. Many of these ended up in the bibilography of Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master as well. I'm particularly fond of the books capturing the ideas of many of the top RPG designers in the past few decades. Kobold Press's guides often include such essays. It's a rare thing to get into the minds of such titans in the industry.

• Kobold Guide to Gamemastering
• How to Write Adventure Modules That Don't Suck (extended version)
• Anatomy of an Adventure
• All of the Kobold Guides
• Old School Primer
• Robin's Laws of Good Game Mastering - (Audible)
• Never Unprepared - (Audible)

Books on Writing

Stepping out to books on writing and creativity in general, here are three I've always enjoyed.

• On Writing, a Memoir of the Craft
• The War of Art
• Zen and the Art of Writing

Articles

A full list of the best articles is impossible but here are a few articles I find myself returning to over and over again.

• Crawling Without Hexes - The Pointcrawl
• Jaquaying the Dungeon
• Jaquays's Techniques
• The False Hydra

Other Game Systems

One of the best ways to improve as a dungeon master is to try out other systems. Here are some of my favorites. Even if you don't get a chance to run them, being able to read through them will give you lots of good ideas.

• Dungeon World
• Fate Condensed
• Numenera Discovery
• Weird Discoveries
• 13th Age
• Shadow of the Demon Lord
• Ironsworn
• Mork Borg
• 5e Hardcore Mode

MT Black's Reading List

My friend MT Black, a prolific and popular DM Guild creator, wrote up an excellent list of books he recommended for adventure writers likely just as useful to dungeon masters. Here they are.

• Tome of Adventure Design
• Castle Oldskull - Classic Dungeon Design Guide
• The Dungeon Alphabet
• Eureka, 501 Adventure Plots to Inspire Game Masters
• The Mother of All Treasure Tables
• Writing with Style, an Editor's Advice for RPG Writers
• 650 Fantasy City Encounter Seeds and Hooks
• Masks, 1,000 Memorable NPCs for Any Roleplaying Game
• Tricks, Empty Rooms, and Basic Trap Design
• 100 Oddities for a Wizard's Library
• GM's Miscellany & Dungeon Dressing
• GM Gems
• Ultimate Toolbox
• The Dungeon Dozen
• Stonehell Dungeon: Down Night-Haunted Halls
• Ruins of Undermountain 2e

Adventure Models I Dig

When I think about the types of adventures I've enjoyed the most, they follow a common model I call the "yam-shaped design". These adventures have a narrow focus in the beginning, expand out into a sandbox adventure in the middle, and then focus back down again at the end. This makes adventures feel more like campaigns but still have a clear overall story thread.

• Dragon of Icespire Peak
• Lost Mine of Phandelver
• Curse of Strahd
• Tomb of Annihilation

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Pointcrawls provide a valuable model for overland travel focusing on fantastic locations and the in-world paths connecting them.

A pointcrawl is a DM tool for handling overland travel in D&D. Much like building a dungeon from rooms and hallways, pointcrawls are built from meaningful locations connected by in-world pathways. Since they're built like dungeons, we can use good dungeon design characteristics (see the Alexandrian's Jaquaying the Dungeon) to make our pointcrawls interesting and give players meaningful options while traveling. These characteristics include multiple paths, loopbacks, shortcuts, and secret paths. Pointcrawls offer a flexible structure for overland, wilderness, and city-based adventures.

For a video on this topic, you can watch my Pointcrawls for Overland Travel in D&D Youtube video.

Here's an example of a pointcrawl for the Glass Plateau in Eberron.

Pointcrawls from the Dungeon Master's Guide

The Dungeon Master's Guide describes pointcrawls without actually defining them as such. Here's a quote from chapter 5 of the DMG when discussing overland travel:

One solution is to think of an outdoor setting in the same way you think about a dungeon. Even the most wide-open terrain presents clear pathways. Roads seldom run straight
 because they follow the contours of the land, finding
 the most level or otherwise easiest routes across uneven ground. Valleys and ridges channel travel in 
certain directions. Mountain ranges present forbidding barriers traversed only by remote passes. Even the most trackless desert reveals favored routes, where explorers and caravan drivers have discovered areas of wind-blasted rock that are easier to traverse than shifting sand.

Thinking about building overland travel the same way we build dungeons is a helpful model. It gives us a usable but flexible structure when thinking about above-ground areas.

The idea of pointcrawls grew from hexcrawls, the typical way D&D has handled overland travel for the past 40 years. Chris Kutalik described the original concept of pointcrawls in the article Crawling Without Hexes: the Pointcrawl back in 2012.

Quick Pointcrawl Construction

Here's one way to build a pointcrawl intended to support both improvisational play and lazy dungeon mastering.

1. Write down ten interesting locations and landmarks the characters might visit while traveling through the area.
2. Connect these locations with in-game routes such as rivers, paths, game trails, roads, portals, mountain passes or any other in-world pathway between two locations.
3. Build in multiple paths, loopbacks, shortcuts, and secret paths between locations.

Our goal is to make overland travel interesting, fun to explore, and offer meaningful choices to the characters along the way. We can drop encounters in at locations, the paths between locations, or both. Such encounters might involve meeting NPCs, exploring strange signs, learning something of the history of the area, getting into a fight, or all of the above.

Tools for Building Pointcrawl Charts

The easiest tools for documenting a pointcrawl are likely a pencil and a piece of paper. We can easily draw out a pointcrawl in a few minutes, take a picture with our phone, and we can take it wherever we need. Sticky notes might be a good way to document locations and reorganize them depending on the path. Mind mapping software can also do the trick if it's something you already use.

There's a digital solution I stumbled across called GraphViz.it. It takes in a particular text-based format for the pointcrawl (actually a network) and renders that network out.

Example: The City of Making

Here's another example pointcrawl using GraphViz.it for the city of Making in Eberron.

and here's the input generating this pointcrawl:

# http://graphviz.it/#/new
graph{
"Entry - Gates of Making" -- "The Impaled" [label="Road of Triumph"]
"The Impaled" -- "Fallen Colossus" [label="Massive Footsteps"]
"Fallen Colossus" -- "Fortress of Blades" [label="Road of Fallen Blades"]
"Fortress of Blades" -- "Skydancer Wreck" [label="Scorched Trench"]
"Skydancer Wreck" -- "Entry - The Runoff" [label="Blackwater Way"]
"Fortress of Blades" -- "Clawrift" [label="Road of Dead Machines"]
"The Impaled" -- "Clawrift" [label="Road of Triumph"]
"The Impaled" -- "Daughters' Earthmote" [label="The Slaughterfield"]
"Silver Flame Spire" -- "Clawrift" [label="Cracked Road"]
"Silver Flame Spire" -- "Shattered Laboratory" [label="Old Tunnel"]
"Shattered Laboratory" -- "Clawrift" [label="Teleporter"]
"The Impaled" -- "Living Weird" [label="Dreamwalk"]
"Living Weird" -- "Silver Flame Spire" [label="Twisting Black Thread"]
"Daughters' Earthmote" -- "Clawrift" [label="Trollhaunt Road"]
}

I tried to add some Jaquay-style designs to the map including multiple entrances, loops, and secret paths (like the path between the Shattered Laboratory and Clawrift). I also labeled the paths here to identify what connects these locations. The evocative names help me improvise what the characters might run into while going along that path.

This is an extensive pointcrawl for a big city, not exactly what one might call lazy, but it didn't take terribly long and it may be useful for many sessions so I don't see the effort wasted. Many of these locations may end up as their own dungeons to crawl, such as the Shattered Laboratory, the Daughters' Earthmote, the Fallen Colossus, the Skydancer Wreck, the Fortress of Blades, and, of course, Clawrift itself which ends up as a multi-level dungeon all on its own.

Another Tool for Lazy Dungeon Masters

Pointcrawls aren't the end-all-be-all of our D&D games but they're a good structure when planning out overland travel, one backed by decades of use. Build pointcrawls by outlining interesting locations, the paths between them, ad interesting encounters they might engage with while there. Such pointcrawls give us a nice model and yet help us build a world that feels open and exciting to the players.

Further Reading

In researching this topic, I found numerous helpful articles on the topic pointcrawls and their parent hex crawls. Here's a list of the ones I found most useful:

• Detect Magic: Pathcrawl
• Hill Cantons: Crawling Without Hexes: The Pointcrawl
• Hill Cantons: Pointcrawl Series Index
• Hill Cantons: Hexcrawls vs Pointcrawls
• Spriggan's Den: Wilderness Travel with a Pointcrawl System
• DIY & Dragons: Sub-Hex Crawling Mechanics - Part 1, Pointcrawling
• DIY & Dragons: Sub-Hex Crawling 1.5 - More Pointcrawl Maps
• The Alexandrian: Hexcrawl
• The Alexandrian: Thinking About Wilderness Travel
• The Alexandrian: Thinking About Wilderness Travel Part 2
• The Alexandrian: Remixing Avernus Part 5C: A Pointcrawl in Elturel
• Tribality: A Guide to Hexcrawling Part 1

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Instead of using the optional flanking rule, offer deals to players to trade ability checks using in-world features to gain advantage on their next attack.

Chapter 8 of the Dungeon Master's Guide offers an optional rule for flanking in which creatures gain advantage against an enemy if an ally is on the opposite side of the enemy. It's a popular rule, used by about half of nearly 1,200 DMs polled on Twitter. I'm not a fan of it. First, it only works when playing with a 5 foot per square grid. It's not easy to use in combat using the theater of the mind. It also offers a major bonus for little risk. It's not hard to get around the other side of an enemy. Previous versions of D&D used to offer a +2 bonus for flanking while advantage results in something closer to +4 or +5. It also removes the value of many other features offering advantage in certain circumstances such as hiding, pack tactics, and others.

Instead of offering flanking for positioning, why not offer advantage for big risky cinematic actions the characters take. Characters can get advantage for scaling a steep wall to gain the high ground. They can leap off of balconies, swing from chandeliers, or leap up onto a monster's back. There are so many cool cinematic ways we might offer advantage to a character beyond "I'm on the other side of it".

Offering Deals

Injecting cinematic advantage into your game is all about offering deals; trading in-world fiction and a skill check from players for advantage on their next attack. This helps draw players out of the mechanics of their characters and into the story of the situation itself.

Most of the time the transactions of cinematic advantage comes down to the following:

• While describing the situation, the DM describes interesting features in the area.
• The player describes how they want to use a feature to get a cinematic advantage.
• The DM determines what attribute and skill (or skills) might be used to accomplish the feat and how difficult it is on a scale of DC 10 to 20. Tell the player what the DC is and what penalty they face if they fail so they can make an informed choice.
• The player rolls the check as part of their move or action. On a success, they get advantage on their next attack. On a failure something bad happens depending on what they tried, often falling prone.

When you describe the situation during combat, clarify what features can be used. Write them down on a 3x5 card and stick them on the table if you want. This is an old trick from Fate in which we write down aspects of the scenes characters invoke to gain a bonus on their action. When each character is about to take their turn, remind them what options they have to gain a cinematic advantage. Offer them deals. Let them know what the DC is and what happens if they fail. Sometimes players riff off of these ideas and come up with something new — go for it!

The goal of cinematic advantage to draw the players into the fiction and get the characters to take fun risks to get a boost. Offer good deals. Work with your players, not against them, to take the deal.

Benefits of the Cinematic Advantage

Cinematic advantage trades the pure mechanical aspects of flanking with cool action-packed in-world storytelling. It doesn't require miniatures or a grid, you can do it with any type of combat you run whether it's deep tactical play or free-wheeling theater of the mind. It draws the players into the fiction but still offers a clear mechanical boost for their creative effort. It lets players show off the capabilities of their characters, grabbing cinematic advantages with skills their characters are clearly good at.

Don't set the DCs based on the characters, however. That chandelier doesn't get more awkward just because the character who wants to swing from it happens to be proficient in acrobatics and has a dexterity bonus of +5. Set the difficulty independently from the characters attempting the check. You want players to take these deals.

Twenty Examples of Cinematic Advantage

Here are twenty examples of ways characters might get advantage on an enemy. Most of these ways involve a succeeding on a skill check as part of their attack action to gain the advantage.

• Leaping off of a balcony
• Climbing onto the back of a larger foe
• Sliding underneath a big foe and slashing at its vitals
• Banking a shot off of a reflective wall
• Leaping over dangerous terrain
• Swinging from a chandelier or rope
• Smashing something an adversary is standing on
• Pocket sand!
• Climbing and leaping off a big statue
• Drawing arcane energy from a shattered crystal
• Climbing to get the high ground
• Drawing energy from a magical monument
• Letting the anger of a desecrated altar flow over you
• Drawing holy energy from an ancient elven fountain
• Vaulting off of a crumbling wall
• Pulling power from an unstable summoning circle
• Balancing on a precarious perch
• Smashing through a door to surprise your foes
• Leaping off of a moving vehicle
• Calling the troubled spirits of the fallen for aid

Trading Mechanics for Fiction

Take any opportunity you can to draw players into the fiction of the game. Instead of offering a purely mechanical benefit like flanking, consider offering cinematic opportunities for the characters to gain advantage. Work with them to tell action-packed stories of high adventure and take risks to gain the upper hand on their foes. Such techniques work across any combat style whether you play on a gridded battle map or using pure theater of the mind combat and can help your stories come alive at the table.

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Creatures with darkvision in darkness have disadvantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks and -5 to their passive perception. Light up those torches, dungeon explorers!

In many D&D games, any sort of light such as torches, lanterns, use of the light cantrip, or other forms of illumination are shunned in favor of character races possessing darkvision. Darkvision is treated as a perfect way to navigate the darkest corridors, tunnels, and dungeons in our D&D games.

Except it doesn't work that way.

This is actually the combination of three rules so it's easy for players and DMs to miss it. Here's the description of darkvision from chapter 8 of the Player's Handbook:

Darkvision. Many creatures in fantasy gaming worlds, especially those that dwell underground, have darkvision. Within a specified range, a creature with darkvision can see in darkness as if the darkness were dim light, so areas of darkness are only lightly obscured as far as that creature is concerned. However, the creature can't discern color in darkness, only shades of gray.

Here's what happens when you're in dim light also in chapter 8 of the Player's Handbook:

A given area might be lightly or heavily obscured. In a lightly obscured area, such as dim light, patchy fog, or moderate foliage, creatures have disadvantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks that rely on sight.

And finally under "Passive Checks" in chapter 7 of the Player's Handbook:

If the character has advantage on the check, add 5. For disadvantage, subtract 5.

Joining these three rules together we come to this:

A character with darkvision has -5 to passive Perception checks while within darkness.

Light Those Torches

Most of the time, characters in dangerous areas won't want -5 to their passive Perception checks or to have disadvantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks. They'll want to light the area up if they want to be careful. Darkvision is no longer Superman's see-everything vision. If the group decides they want to be sneaky, they're going to miss those traps. If they light up those torches, they might give themselves away to lurking enemies.

Of course, the same thing is true for our enemies. Monsters with darkvision are just as likely to miss that stealthy rogue if they don't have lights of their own. Will they risk it? Only creatures with blindsense have no need to worry.

Choosing whether to light up or not is one of those fun in-world decisions that makes D&D fun. Instead of having a cure-all to the problem ("I have darkvision, we're fine), the players have to make hard choices with consequences. Sure, you can rely on darkvision, but you may step into a spiked pit trap you might otherwise see.

The next time the characters enter an old crypt, best to remind them of the dangers of relying completely on darkvisioon.

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Note: This article has been updated since the original written in February 2015.

The following tools are intended to make it easier to improvise situations in your D&D games. These numbers are designed to be simple and straight forward enough to keep in your head. You can, of course, write them out on a 3x5 card or sticky note and paste it in the inside of your DM screen as well. These numbers help you create challenges, traps, encounters, environmental effects, and horde battles without needing to look anything up in a complicated chart.

Most of these numbers are based on a challenge rating for the sitiuation. This challenge rating is roughly equivalant to the average character level of a group of adventures between 1 (1st level characters) and 20 (20th level characters). This challenge rating is based on the situation, however, not the actual level of the characters in the game. The world does not conform to the level of the characters.

For more tools like these, check out the Lazy DM's Workbook.

Here's a summary of D&D numbers you can keep in your head:

• DC, AC, Saving Throw DC: 10 (easy) to 20 (hard)
• Attack Bonuses, Trained Skills, Primary Saves: +3 (easy) to +12 (hard)
• Single Target Damage: 5 (1d10) per challenge level.
• Multi-target Damage: 3 (1d6) per challenge level.
• Hit Points: 20 per challenge level.
• Deadly Encounter Benchmark: 1/2 or 1/4 of total character levels. An encounter may be deadly if the sum total of monster challenge ratings is greater than half the sum total of character levels, or one quarter if the characters are below 5th level.
• Fighting a Horde of Weaker Monsters. 1/4th succeed. About one quarter of the horde succeed on attacks or saving throws; adjust up or down depending on the situation.

Difficulty Check, Armor Class, Saving Throw DC: 10 to 20

When a situation comes up requiring a difficulty check, choose a number between 10 (easy) and 20 (hard) as the target. The harder the challenge, the higher the number. A 10 is considered relatively easy yet still challenging enough to warrant a roll. A 20 is considered nearly impossible for most common folk.

This number also works for an improvised armor class and saving throw DCs if needed. If you happen to improvise a trap or an effect of some sort, or the characters start attacking a stone statue, you can use this range to set the AC of the statue or the DC of the trap's saving throw.

Example: The Icebolt Trap

Say you've decided a particular room has an icebolt trap in it. How tough was the wizard who planted the trap? Was he an apprentice or an archmage? Choose a number between 10 and 20 to determine the difficulty of finding and disarming the trap. For this example, let's say this icebolt trap has a DC of 14 to detect and disarm.

Note, we're not setting the trap based on the level of the characters. The world is a dynamic place and the characters are just living there. The world does not change it's DCs based on the characters who face it.

Attack Bonus: +3 to +12

If we ever need to improvise an attack score, choose a number between +3 (not particularly accurate) and +12 (very accurate). Anything lower is going to be unlikely to hit and not worth rolling. There are some situations where the attack is lower or higher than this but this range is likely for most situations. When you have an improvised attack, choose a bonus based on the accuracy of the attack.

Example: The Icebolt's Attack

Going back to our example from before, let's look again our icebolt trap. If a character fails to detect it or disarm it, it fires an icebolt at the one who triggered the trap with a +6 to attack.

5 (1d10) Damage Per Challenge Level

If you need to inflict some improvised damage, 5 (1d10) damage per challenge level is a good rule of thumb. It's roughly the challenge faced by four characters so a challenge 6 is the equivalent of four level 6 characters. If this damage would affect more than one creature, reduce it to 3 (1d6) per challenge level. As mentioned before, this challenge rating isn't necessarily based on the level of the PCs but instead the level of the challenge they face.

Note, for the examples below I'm using the average of a die to determine the static damage, rounded down. Thus, 5 is the average of 1d10 but 11 is the average for 2d10 (5.5 x 2).

Example: The Icebolt's Damage

Returning to our icebolt trap example, we'll have to decide how dangerous this icebolt is and choose 6 damage per challenge level. Assuming the goblin wizard was a challenge rating of 3, the ice bolt inflicts 16 (3d10) cold damage. If this ice bolt had been placed by the lich Xathron, a challenge 16 monster, the bolt might inflict 90 (16d10) cold damage instead. The challenge rating of the villain setting up the trap gives you the idea how much damage to dish out.

20 Hit Points Per Level

If you need to improvise hit points for an object, use 20 hit points per challenge level. This doesn't match up perfectly to the hit points of monsters in the Monster Manual or the Monster Statistics by Challenge Rating chart on page 274 of the Dungeon Master's Guide, but it's close enough.

Example: Xathron's Icy Automaton

Let's say the PCs have invaded the lich Xathron's treasure vault and inside is Xathron's Icy Automaton. This isn't Xathron's best guardian, but it's pretty solid. We'll consider it a level 5 challenge.

The PCs fail to notice the Automaton's danger (failed on a DC 15 perception) and it begins to fire icebolts at random PCs (two attacks, +7 to attack, 15 damage). The PCs can't seem to get it disarmed (failed on three potential DC 15 Arcana or Athletics checks) and now they want to bash it down (AC 15, 100 hps). After inflicting 100 damage to it, the automaton falls apart.

Not Intended for Monster Building

Looking at these number ranges, you may be tempted to use them to build a monster. Instead, consider reskinning existing monsters from the Monster Manual rather than building a monster from scratch with these numbers. While you might be able to build a reasonable monster with these scores, the asymmetrical nature of the stats in the Monster Manual makes creatures much more fun to fight than a static box of perfectly aligned scores.

Deadly Encounter Benchmark: 1/2 or 1/4 of total character levels

When building combat encounters, you can skip the complicated math outlined in the Dungeon Master's Guide and instead use this simple encounter building benchmark:

First, build encounters based on what makes sense for the story and the situation. Let the story drive the number and types of monsters.

Then, if needed, check to see if the encounter may be deadly. An encounter may be deadly if the sum total of monster challenge ratings is greater than one half the sum total of character levels, or one quarter of character levels if the characters are below 5th level.

This isn't perfect and lots of variable can change up how difficult a battle is but it's a good rough benchmark that, I'd argue, is as good as any of the fancier methods for benchmarking encounter difficultly found in the Dungeon Master's Guide, Xanathar's Guide, Kobold Fight Club, or any other encounter calculator.

Here's a Youtube video on the Deadly Encounter Benchmark.

Running Hordes of Monsters: One Quarter Succeed

Sometimes the stories of our games lead to the characters facing large hordes of monsters. Rolling tons of attacks and saving throws can suck the energy out of what would otherwise be a really exciting fight. The Dungeon Master's Guide includes rules for adjudicating a lot of attacks from a large number of monsters. So does the [Lazy DM's Workbook]Lazy DM's Workbook.

For an easier method requiring no table, we can start with a baseline assumption that when a large force of weaker monsters attacks the characters about one quarter of them hit. Likewise, when a character hits a large number of monsters with a big area-of-effect ability, about one quarter of them make their saving throw.

For example, our party of 8th level characters gets attacked by fifty skeletons. Many of the skeletons slash with swords or fire splintered recurve bows. Split the attacks evenly across the five characters so each character gets attacked ten times. Instead of doing a bunch of comparisons of attacks to AC, we can assume one quarter of them hit. If the character is particularly well armored we round down. If they're wearing lighter armor, we round up. Thus each character takes between 10 and 15 damage when attacked.

Now the cleric casts Turn Undead. We can likewise assume one quarter of the skeletons succeed on their saving throws and three quarters fail and are destroyed as a huge wave of radiant energy blasts them to dust. Now only twelve of the skeletons remain.

We can do a lot of math to figure all of this out but the result is essentially the same after we round it out.

Instead we can just remember a simple rule: when a large number of weaker monsters faces the characters, about one quarter of them succeed on attacks or saving throws..

A Quick Summary

In summary, here are some numbers to keep in your head:

• DC / AC / Save DC: 10 to 20
• Attacks, Trained Skills, Primary Saves: +3 to +12
• Single Target Damage: 6 (1d10) per Challenge Rating
• Multi-target Damage: 3 (1d6) per Challenge Rating
• Hit Points: 20 per Challenge Rating
• Building Encounters: 1/2 or 1/4 of total character levels. An encounter may be deadly if the sum total of monster challenge ratings is greater than half the sum total of character levels, or one quarter if they're below 5th level.
• Fighting a Horde of Weaker Monsters. 1/4 succeed. About one quarter of the horde succeed on attacks and saving throws.

With those numbers in mind, you have a simple toolbox for running all sorts of challenges for your D&D 5e group.

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This article is copyright 2020 by Mike Shea of Sly Flourish.