by W. Eric Martin

by W. Eric Martin

The Pumafiosi (Puma Mafiosi) operate in a strict hierarchy from the family's boss down to the lowest Picciotti. Everyone wants to reach the top, and no one wants to end up at the bottom — or even beneath the soil. Amongst these aspiring Pumafiosi, it is wise to keep your head out of the firing line. Stand out too much, and you'll soon find yourself in prison, if not murdered by the rival families.

Pumafiosi is a refreshingly unique blend of simple trick-taking and precarious press-your-luck. Each trick, the person who plays the second-highest card wins the round, and they decide where to place that winning card in the hierarchy. You can even choose to place your measly card at the top of the hierarchy to stake your claim on the big boss points. The catch is that these cards can be knocked down one or more steps on the hierarchy by higher-valued cards, and whoever owns a falling card is penalized!

Pumafiosi differs from the older title Rooster Booster thanks to designer Reiner Knizia:

—Increasing the strategy by narrowing the deck to a range of 1-55
—Crafting a satisfying two-player experience
—Raising the stakes by tweaking the hierarchy values and penalties
—Tailoring a theme that gives context to the rules
—Enhancing the drama by including physical penalty points
—Layering decisions with further depth and tension via one-time-use items

Lead the undercover investigation against five criminal groups to gather enough evidence to convict them. However, if you investigate too aggressively, the criminals will smell a rat and go dark!

In each round of Hot Lead, criminal cards are displayed in a column equal to the number of players. Players then make their bid by simultaneously revealing an investigator card from their hand. The highest investigator bid takes the criminal card closest to the deck, the second highest takes the second closest, and so on. These cards are worth points equal to their face value (0-5).

Gather enough evidence on one criminal organization to convict them when the game concludes after ten rounds; in game terms, by having exactly three of a suit, you earn 10 bonus points. Ten bonus points are also awarded to those who acquire criminal cards of all five suits. If you investigate too aggressively and grab the fourth card of a suit, those criminals will sense a rat and you'll scare them underground, thereby losing all of those cards. The player with the most points at the end of the game wins.

"Social grooming" is a communal ritual most elegantly performed by majestic beasts known as primates. It is the act of removing dirt, insects, and debris from the difficult-to-reach and difficult-to-see places of each other’s fur. Reciprocation is expected and awarded in this kind of monkey business! The player who acquires the most diverse and exotic collection of groomed goods will earn the respect of their fellow primates and be awarded the golden banana of victory.

Non-final card designs — start interpreting the symbols!
In the game Social Grooming, players are primates who start out with a personal deck of face-down cards. Without looking at the card(s) in their hand, players simultaneously trade or keep their hand, one or two cards at a time, to form a personal collection. Once all cards have been traded or kept, players tally their collections and the highest score wins — but pairs can cancel out and special cards are not always helpful, so trade carefully!

Similar to the popular game Hanabi, in Social Grooming players hold their cards facing away from themselves...but instead of being a co-operative memory game, this is a competitive negotiation and bluffing game. Things get even more interesting once players realize that every card can either be very good or very bad for one's collection, depending on the context. You'll have to convince your opponents to keep bad cards for themselves and give great cards to you if you want to swing away with the win...

Who would you rob a bank with? Who would be the right partner for a small betting fraud? And who would you choose to get the pesky nightclub bouncer out of the way?

The world is full of criminal challenges, and there are plenty of prominent candidates for your next coup: politicians, artists, athletes, actors, scholars, musicians. In Komplize gesucht!, you get to name who your accomplices would be for these crimes and more.

by W. Eric Martin

by W. Eric Martin

Eleven — the number of players you have on the pitch at any given time, with those players making all the difference between being the best team and the worst. But every team knows that to be the best in the league it takes a lot more than players; it also takes an incredible manager.

Eleven: Football Manager Board Game is an economic strategy game set in a world of sport. Your task is to manage and grow your own football club over the course of a season. During the game, you hire staff members, including trainers, physical therapists, PR specialists, and directors. You acquire sponsors, expand the stadium infrastructure, and take care of your club's position in social media. Among the many tasks on the list are transferring new players and choosing the right tactics for each of the upcoming matches.

Eleven is a scenario-driven game. It includes six different scenarios that challenge players with different starting situations and goals for the season. In the beginning, the task is simple: You have to climb the steps of the football leagues and achieve the appropriate experience. You may have to manage the club in a crisis, and at other times you will have to rejuvenate a football team of players that are not so young anymore. You may also have to fight against time to try to complete the stadium before the deadline!

No longer do you anxiously await the arrival of the wicked — for they have just arrived! In the dead of night, the gloom rolls in. Melodies whisper in slow rhythms as children wake from their slumber. Leaping from their beds, they rush to their parents and startle them awake. The mix of fear and excitement fills the room. The lure of exotic sweets wafts in on the warm summer wind. The lives of this dull, small town are revitalized with the anticipation of this dreadful circus.

Dreadful Circus is a set-collection game in which players try to create the most successful circus! The game comes with an unique twist: Over the course of the game, players buy cards that have special final scoring rules. As the game progresses and more cards are gained, each player develops their very own final scoring rules. No game is the same, and no player at the table scores the same way.

by W. Eric Martin

Divinus is a competitive, legacy, tile-laying, digital hybrid game in which you play as a demigod seeking to gain the favor of the Gods and ascend to a new pantheon. Players embark on a twelve-scenario campaign that will see them exploring lands, completing quests, interacting with Gods, and impacting the outcome of the epic clash between Greek and Norse pantheons.

Non-final cover
At the beginning of each campaign scenario, players open a sealed box of new quests, components, stickers, Gods, gameplay mechanisms, and more. The Divinus app provides a narrative for players and sets the stakes for what is to come. Each turn, players spend dice from their pool to explore new tiles from the world board. Laying tiles into their demigod map, they must place tiles adjacent to one another and with matching features while working towards overall quest and God goals.

Throughout the campaign, players make permanent changes to their demigods by collecting powerful artifacts, forging their dice by altering their faces, and earning titles for the feats they achieve. Players will also permanently change the game world by altering tiles and placing new locations, heroes, and monsters onto the map tiles. When players complete quests or other significant goals, they can make pivotal decisions through the app.

Players will decide the outcome of dilemmas such as choosing which side is victorious in battle, building or destroying a holy site, and choosing whether a God lives or dies. Whichever outcome the player chooses, the game components may be changed and the app will remember and present contextual options in the future that are impacted by the decision. Returning to a fort that you helped the Norse Gods build could see you praised, while demigods favored by the Greek pantheon could be shunned.

The Divinus campaign is ideally played over several game sessions due to the persistent and changing world. The rulebook grows with each scenario as new rules and content are unlocked. Once the campaign is complete, players can replay their unique copy of Divinus with a post-campaign Infinite Replayability mode.

Kids' Chronicles: Quest for the Moon Stones is a family, co-operative game of adventure and mystery investigation, mixing a board game and app.

As magicians' apprentices, players dive into the fairy tale lands of the Kingdom of Summer and the Winter Empire. Accompanied by the faithful familiar, Nills The Moon Cat, they embark on a quest to find four magical Moon Stones. To achieve their goal, young magicians have to solve numerous mysteries and help inhabitants of both Kingdoms overcome their problems.

Using the Scan&Play technology, each component — locations, characters, items, etc. — has a unique QR code, which depending on the scenario selected will activate and trigger different clues and stories. Experiencing the 3D scenes requires only a mobile phone or a tablet. Players simply hold their mobile device in front of their eyes to immerse themselves in the game's universe and search for clues in a virtual world.

The game comes with one tutorial and five unique stories. Each game session lasts around 30 to 45 minutes.

by W. Eric Martin

In 1646 BC, the island of Thera (present day Santorini) was the site of a volcanic eruption one hundred times more powerful than Pompeii. This eruption coincided with the decline of the Minoan civilization and the rise of the Mycenaean civilization. Due to Thera's strategic location, the Mycanaean wanax (king) has decided that it is time to rebuild Thera and has tasked you, one of his koreters (governors) with this responsibility. The koreter who best rebuilds Thera to its prior glory will be victorious.

In the role-selection and resource-management game Thera, each player has a map of the island where they will engage in trade, clear ash, generate resources, move those resources to building sites across the island, and construct economic and luxury buildings. On a player's turn, they select one of five roles from the rondel. Every player can benefit from this role, and the one who chose it gets benefits that scale with the amount of favor on the role. Favor accumulates on roles over the course of the game and is redistributed every time a role is chosen. Here's an overview of the five roles:

—The Priestess prays for rain, bringing the life-giving resource to the island.
—The Worker consumes that water and produces resources.
—The Planner moves those resources around Thera so that they can be used for construction or trade.
—The Builder uses those resources to construct buildings on undeveloped sites across the island.
—The Trader buys and sells resources at the port.

Players earn points by constructing buildings. You must get the needed resources to the desired building site, then acquire the building plans (which are available to all from a common building tableau). Should you build another quarry (a resource-generating building), or are you worried one of your competitors will take that temple (a luxury building) that aligns with your strategy? Time is of the essence in Thera, so efficient planning and resource management are important in winning the day.

As the top executive of an oil corporation, you are sent to a war-torn nation that's got a lot of oil — and no one who can help sell it! That's where you come in: Your task is to make the most cash before corruption ruins the land.

This card-driven tactical game features area control, simultaneous action selection, and a healthy dose of player interaction. Progressing in rounds, players improve their workforce by investing in powerful consultants and vie for influence over the nation's three warring factions. As control of the oil fields passes between the hands of the so-called "government", the "National Liberation Front", and the noble "Guerilla Militia" you have to ensure you're in the right place at the right time with the right faction leader in your pocket.

Double guess your competitors, blackmail politicians, and sell weapons to whoever needs them to ensure you keep the oil — and money — flowing in your direction. Remember, your sole goal is to make the most profit before corruption destroys this sorry region.

by W. Eric Martin

by W. Eric Martin

by W. Eric Martin

« El-Djem, tortueuses sont tes ruelles, et tortueuses tes âmes aussi... »

Bienvenue dans l'univers des Ombres d’El-Djem. Vous y incarnez un jeune voleur, apprenti au sein d’une organisation occulte appelée la Fraternité. Un grand jour s’annonce pour vous : c’est le début de votre épreuve d’initiation, à l’issue de laquelle vous deviendrez, peut-être, un membre de l’organisation à part entière.

Dans l’immense cité d’El-Djem, aux parfums orientaux, les opportunités sont nombreuses ; les dangers également. Bien vite, vous allez vous retrouver mêlé à une intrigue aux implications géopolitiques qui pourraient vous broyer si vous manquez de perspicacité.

Cette aventure aux enjeux multiples, et dont vous et vous seul écrirez l’issue, est adaptée au D6 System.

Everybody loves a fortress fight!

Maybe some thieves that invaded the street fair and want to steal the merchants? Maybe some enemies got the stronghold and now they want to fight and you need to protect the people out there?

So what about a battle next to a stronghold, right in front of the caos from some little shops lying around? Do you need to protect the building or the people? Do you need acess to the fortress or do you want to keep it sealed?

This is a map where you and your players can take cover from the tents or use them to help gain advantage against your foes! Also, you can take advantage of the levels inside the building to build a incredible fight!

And you know what is better? You can change the gate according to players decisions and make a more memorable fight! 😀

Those large (30" x 30") battle maps are rendered in JPG images for online players - already a 30" x 30" with 70 DPI for Roll20 plataform. 

It comes with EIGHT options (wow!):

1) Daylight battle map with gate OPEN.

1.1) with grid.

1.2) without grid.

2) Daylight battle map with gate CLOSED.

2.1)with grid.

2.2) Without grid.

3) Nighttime battle map with gate OPEN.

3.1) with grid.

3.2) without grid.

4) Nighttime battle map with gate CLOSED.

4.1)with grid.

4.2) Without grid.

You may use it as you like! The important thing is to have fun! 🙂

*Product description in English in the files 

''The mountains south of Fort Konuck are full of mysteries. One of them is the mysterious crystal dungeon. No one knows from where and even less when this enigmatic growth of crystals invaded these tunnels under the mountain. One thing is for sure though, crystal  expansion appears to be progressing as crystals can now be seen outside, appearing to affect vegetation to the point of killing it. 

Originally a simple tomb, what could be the mystery of this crystal growth? No one has entered it for several decades. Information is therefore unreliable about what might still be inside.''

For personnal use.

If you are interested in a commercial use of this product, feel free to contact me.

Digital download include: 1 10-pages PDF file / 3 JPG files / 1 Universal VTT file from Dungeondraft

Sewer Losers

Arnyn, a merfolk mercenary, has been hired to clean out the sewers below a thriving port city. Unfortunately, she jumped at the payday before truly understanding what she was being asked to do. Now she's looking for someone to take over her contract.

Includes

• A short adventure for 4-5 characters of 2nd to 4th level
• A map of the sewers
• Stat blocks for all monsters
• Jumping off points for potential future adventures

Когда-то мы хотели написать небольшое дополнение для Index Card RPG про пиратов. Мы начали и сделали часть контента, но потом дело как-то заглохло. Возможно, потому, что мы так и не придумали крутого названия для материала – не допускайте наших ошибок 🙂 Но так как мы успели сгенерить какое-то количество контента разной степени готовности, то выложим его часть в виде небольшого PDF.

Здесь ты найдёшь описания пиратских локаций, архетипов сцен и небольшую таблицу трофеев.

Правила быстрого старта ICRPG бесплатны, их можно прочесть здесь.

베일이 얇아졌다.

타락이 파고든다.

전쟁이 아직도 걱정되는가?

베일의 괴수 24 종류

어드벤쳐 3개

전장은 많다.

정글전, 고지전, 영혼전.

무슨 문제 있나?

영원히 살 줄 알았나?

어드벤쳐 21개

Have you ever known something to be true about your character, but you never had a chance to share it at the table? Worse yet, have you ever known something to be true about your character, and had other players assume something contradictory? Just like in real life, it can be hard to shake off the expectations that other people put on you.

It may even be harder if you are used to being a game facilitator because it is often seen as a positive thing to modify NPCs to fit the player’s understanding of that character, so that they can relate to them better. If you transition from facilitating a game, to running a single character, that desire to tailor a setting element to the expectation of other characters can be strong.

A Tale of Three PCs

I was in a Pathfinder 1e game where my character was a cleric of Besmara, the queen of pirates. While it wasn’t the most nuanced concept that I could have come up with, she was the daughter of an Andoran privateer who hated pirates, and who also didn’t think his daughter should serve in the navy. She often drank too much between adventures and was grudgingly participating with a “heroic” mission because she had lost her ship and her crew.

I was also in a Star Wars Force and Destiny game where my character was an Ithorian padawan who specialized in healing. He was a naturally peaceful character that tended the plants that he kept on the ship. He was traumatized by Order 66 and had become extremely attached to his crewmates. He eventually “fell” to the Dark Side when he used his healing abilities to harm a mutant rancor attacking the party, because no one was going to take away his adopted family ever again.

As a final example, I was playing a character in a Werewolf: The Forsaken game. I patterned his speaking patterns on Mitch Hedberg. He was living on the streets when he was found by the rest of the pack, but he used to be a software developer. He had the ability to see the spirits of people that had died, but he never liked to use this power.

Goals

• My cleric of Besmara wanted to become a hero. She wanted to prove that serving in the navy wasn’t beyond her, and that being a hero didn’t mean serving the nation of Andoran, and I wanted to perform something suitably heroic so that I could have that homecoming where she returned to her father to confront him with who she was.
• My Ithorian wanted to have a traditional Star Wars redemption arc. I didn’t want his fall to be too terrible, so it wouldn’t be too hard to reconcile his return to the light, but I also wanted to emphasize how easy it was for him to use the Force to directly harm others now that he had fallen. I just wanted some friends to offer to help.
• My Werewolf character had lost his wife around the same time that he became a werewolf, and he was afraid that he would see her spirit, and she would see what he had become. I wanted him to have that confrontation with his wife’s spirit so that he could learn that he was good enough regardless of what troubles life had thrown his way.

What Actually Happened

The group, especially one player, assumed that my cleric of Besmara was a dedicated pirate, and that all the cynicism and drinking was the core of who she was. The assumption wasn’t that she was a hero that wanted to know it was okay to define who she was, it was that there was nothing more to her than being a greedy, hedonistic anti-hero.

As soon as the group knew that I had fallen to the Dark Side in the Star Wars game, one member of the group constantly stunned me whenever I would do something that seemed too “bad.” Another member of the group would use their Force abilities to take away my ability to act on my darker impulses. Instead of anyone espousing the light side or telling me that there was good in me, I literally got other players trying to take away my ability to do anything “Dark Side.”

Because all of the other members of the werewolf pack in our game had important “day jobs,” and because I was the last one they found, my werewolf was treated as a burden. I wouldn’t use my powers, and I didn’t have a social standing in my human life, so I was the butt of jokes from all of the other members of the pack.

External Factors

The first thing that I think is important in any of these instances is to realize that you may have a concept for your character, but others also have a concept for theirs. If you don’t want anyone assigning traits to your character or defining them in ways that you don’t want, make sure you are giving others the same consideration.

It can be fun to mention a recurring issue to show that you and another character have a connection. It is a little too easy to assume that you “know” everything about that character because you have identified patterns. If you find yourself referencing things that character does over time, try to find a way to work in an understanding of each other in game.

Ask a character why they always carry a certain item with them. Ask them why they make the same choice in every situation when that choice may not have worked out well in the past. Most importantly, don’t be afraid to ask the player what they are doing with their character. One of the biggest mistakes we make around the game table is trying to do too much “in game.”

All kinds of media have ways of communicating motivation that aren’t limited to character-to-character interactions. Sometimes a character will narrate their own story, and sometimes there are other outside narrators. Don’t look at asking a “meta” question as breaking the storytelling side of things, look at it as understanding the character in context of the story.

Internal Factors

Make sure you have communicated what you want to do with your character to your group. It has been said many times before, but until something happens at the table, it isn’t really “true” for the campaign. This goes beyond just backstory elements, and encompasses personality traits, attitudes, motivations, and goals.

Don’t dictate your complete story arc to the game facilitator but do collaborate with them by letting them know you would like to hit certain story beats. Communicate to other players to clarify “you, as the player character, don’t know this yet, but you, the audience member enjoying the story of our game, should have this context.”

In my case, when playing in that Pathfinder campaign, this was well before I started thinking more deeply about collaborations in games. Discussions about what kind of game we wanted to have were usually limited to when games started to go off the rails. If we had a session zero, I could have clearly elaborated to the whole party what I wanted to do with the character.

In the case of the Ithorian character, I did, repeatedly, tell the group that I wanted to play out a redemption arc for the character, but we had a difference of opinion on what that meant. They felt that my arc was mine to tell, so if I was going to be redeemed, I should, without input from the other characters, realize that arc. They felt that their characters were doing nothing wrong.

While I think our game facilitator should have stepped in when we were effectively descending into player versus player activities, we also didn’t have a session zero to confirm what was and wasn’t on the table for that kind of behavior. Now, I would have left the table, because my playstyle didn’t mesh well with the table assumptions, but at the time, I had the Ithorian character leave and made another character that wasn’t looking for validation from other player characters.

I had communicated my thoughts for my Werewolf character to my game facilitator, and expressed that I, as a person, wasn’t comfortable with everyone treating my character as a burden. The facilitator gave me an important purpose where I had to use my ability to speak with the dead to solve a crisis, and I appreciated her response to my concerns.

What If I Don’t Know What I Want to Be?

It’s perfectly fine not to have a deep, well developed story arc in your head for your character. In fact, it’s probably much better to not get much deeper than having some story beats you would like to hit. But even if you don’t have those, you may have an idea of what feels right for the character and what feels wrong.

In these cases, you may not be able to tell your facilitator that you want certain things, but you should be able to tell everyone when they have made an assumption about your character that doesn’t feel correct. People will sometimes say “so is this like when character X did that thing in movie Y?” and that may feel correct or incorrect. Don’t be afraid to say that, no, it’s not quite the same situation.

Meta-Character Concepts and Safety Tools

Adding formality to your discussion of things sometimes reinforces that the discussion means something important to you. While we usually talk about using safety tools to move past harmful material, losing sight of the character you want to portray can be detrimental to your enjoyment and comfort in the long term.

It’s easy for a conversation about your character’s motivation to have a casual tone and to feel like two people disagreeing over how a superhero is portrayed in a movie. But this isn’t a situation where everyone’s input is equally valid. This is your creation, and your means of interacting with the game.

If you feel strongly that you are losing the narrative of your own character, don’t be afraid to use safety tools to emphasize this. If you are using a consent revoking tool, feel free to use it to point out that you are not okay with the assumptions other players are making of your character. If you are using tools that allow you to pause the game or rewind it, use those tools to explain what your character is thinking and why, so that the group doesn’t just fill in the gaps themselves.

It’s Not You, It’s Me

One thing to give serious thought to when your character does seem to be redefined by the rest of the table–make sure you made a character that works in this campaign. Sometimes people are projecting their own biases onto your character, but other times, they may be hoping that your character has a reason to be on the same page with everyone else.

Think about your goals, and if those goals will force the entire party to do something they may not be inclined to do. Think about your motivations, and if those motivations would make it unlikely that they would work with this group to attain their goals. Talk to the game facilitator about what you want to see but make it clear that you want to work with them. It may turn out that you drifted into a character that just doesn’t fit the current campaign.

In that case, you need to decide if you enjoy the campaign, and want a character that is a better fit, or if you need to wait for a campaign that is more aligned with your interests.

Players, Not Player Characters

It’s also important to understand that other people may understand something different than their characters on the “meta” level. Just because a player character constantly assumes something wrong about the character, that doesn’t mean the player doesn’t understand what your character’s motivations are.

Make sure whenever situations like this come up, you have a discussion with other players about this situation. In fact, it can be too easy for a situation like this to turn into a snowball effect, with you assuming another player thinks something about your character, and that makes you ascribe consents to their character.

Sometimes it’s fun to know that someone in the party doesn’t get your character, while they player completely understands what you are trying to do with your character.

When It’s Time to Change . . .

I talked about how you may not have a strong concept, but you know what feels right or wrong. You may also have already had a concept, but the assumptions that others have made about your character actually sound like more fun than what you came up with. If you honestly like the character details that other players or the game facilitator are providing to you, and you want to pivot in that direction, feel free to do so.

It’s not wrong to change your idea of who you want to play, it’s only wrong when you change because there is pressure to deviate from a character that you want to play, when that character fits with the campaign structure.

The Biggest Disclaimer

We’ve already touched on making a character that fits the campaign, but the other thing I cannot stress enough is that none of your character’s motivations or goals should be an excuse to be a jerk at the table. Don’t be that person that says, “it’s what my character would do.”

In fact, you can be proactive in situations like this. Pause the game and say, “I think my character would do this thing, but I also know that will screw up our ongoing plans. What does everyone think?”

Other players may help you think of ways to be true to your character or they may be okay with your proposed derailment. The important part is not just to unilaterally act in a way that torpedoes the fun of everyone at the table. If you think it will impact the group and the game, bring it up before you commit.

Summary

Pause the game and say, “I think my character would do this thing, but I also know that will screw up our ongoing plans. What does everyone think?”

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• If the group agrees, session zero a campaign or have discussions in the run up to the game about who everyone is and what they want out of the game
• If you have a clear concept of your character, make sure to share it with the group
• If the group makes assumptions about your character that you don’t agree with, let them know where you think they are mistaken
• Tell the game facilitator if there are issues with how the group is relating to your character
• Don’t be afraid to have meta-discussions about motivation and goals
• Don’t be afraid to correct people about what feels right and wrong about assumptions made about your character even if you don’t have a clear picture of them yet
• Don’t be afraid to use safety tools to emphasize the importance of communicating your control over your own character’s story arc
• It’s okay to change your mind and take direction from others, if you really like the concepts presented to you better than your own starting point

Have you ever had a character that was viewed much differently by the table than how you viewed them? Did you ever change a character based on the assumptions that the table made about your character? How often have you changed a character’s motivation and goals from when you first conceived them, to when those desires were addressed in the campaign? Tell us about your characters in the comments below!

In the world of tabletop RPGs, few practices are as divisive as the fudging of dice rolls. Most people have strong opinions on the subject either way, and it’s often difficult to find a middle ground. This article attempts to take a balanced, neutral approach to fudging. While at times, it may be necessary to fudge the odd roll, it’s often better to simply avoid putting yourself in a position where you need to fudge.

The Problem With Fudging

Don’t be naïve. Players will catch on to your fudging! And when they realise all decisions rest in your hands, their sense of danger and adventure will be gone. Sure, they may have slain a dragon. But did they really win that fight? Or did the ‘fudging GM’ just let them win? No matter what you say, they’ll never feel like they truly earned that victory. And what if the characters get captured, maimed, or even killed? Will the players blame the dice or the fudging GM? At the very least, it’s a little of both…

Fudging is a pernicious poison. While the practice promises a quick and easy fix, its dangers lie in overindulgence. Certainly, the occasional tweak behind the screen will do no harm. But the habit may become difficult to shake. And once you’ve gained a reputation for fudging, every call you make will be questioned by the players, either subconsciously or out loud. “Once a fudger, always a fudger”, they’ll say…

A Necessary Evil

So why fudge the dice at all? Because, sometimes, not fudging the dice ruins the fun. And that’s actually an excellent reason (perhaps the only one) to fudge things!

The truth of the matter is that dice-fudging is just another tool in the GM’s grand arsenal. I like to think of this ‘fudging tool’ as a roll of duct tape sitting in a plumber’s toolbox. The plumber in this analogy, of course, represents the GM. And a GM who fudges too often is a lot like a plumber who overly relies on duct tape to fix leaks. Sure: they can fix everything quickly and on the cheap, leaving a trail of happy customers in their wake!  Yet at the same time, our plumber is setting the table for a massive avalanche of trouble down the road, when those taped-up pipes inevitably burst.

But just like that roll of duct tape, fudging remains a valuable a tool in the GM’s toolbox, albeit a tool of last resort. When the proverbial dragon turd hits the blade barrier, it’s almost always better to fudge than do nothing at all! Ultimately, the urge to fudge arises from the need to fix a problem during play. So why don’t we examine some of the most common reasons to fudge the dice and see if we can prevent those problems from arising in the first place?

1. Avoiding Character Death

If you’re not prepared to accept an encounter ending in the death of a player character, why did you make it about trying to kill them in the first place? It’s a rare monster that just wants to kill people. Some want food, others seek treasure. Most just want to be left alone. Factor those motives into your encounters! Not only will it breathe life into your game, but ‘boring old death’ is no longer the outcome of every single combat. The frightened goblins hoist a white flag, requesting safe passage. The starved owlbear goes after your rations pouch. And don’t forget about morale! Creatures, in general, dislike being maimed or killed, and will beat a hasty retreat if the tide turns against them. Remind the players that their characters, too, can (usually) hide, flee, surrender, or otherwise avoid combat if they choose to do so.

Of course, it’s not all up to the GM. Sometimes it’s the players who decide the encounter will result in a fight to the death. Well, if that’s a choice they’ve made, I say: “Let the dice fall where they may!” I’ll still take motives and morale into account, but if a character dies, that’s too bad. The reason we want to avoid forcing the player characters into random life-or-death situations is because losing your character to such an encounter feels unfair, since the player had no choice in the matter. If they choose and lose, however, those are the breaks.

Does this mean your monsters should never go for the kill? Of course not! But by making life-or-death encounters less common, as well as the result of the players’ choices, you won’t feel the need to fudge things as much.

2. Single Point of Failure

Let’s say the characters are investigating a murder. The killer hastily buried a bloodied glove at the scene of the crime; the one mistake which could lead to their arrest! The characters search the site and… roll a 2. “Nothing here, I guess!” End of scenario? Or do you fudge the roll?

Of course you should fudge the roll in this case! Had you given more thought to preparing the adventure, however, that would not have been necessary. If finding that glove was the only way to advance the scenario, you’ve created yourself a Single Point of Failure (SPOF).

SPOFs are problematic because they almost invariably force the GM to fudge, leading to awkward conversations at the table. “Yeah, I know you rolled a 2, but it turns out it was really poorly hidden…” Uh huh. Sure.

The good news is that if SPOFs are your problem, the fix is easy! When prepping your game, first identify any potential SPOFs. For every SPOF you find, devise one or two additional solutions the characters can uncover to keep the game flowing! In our example, the bloodied glove should not be your only clue. You’ll need a few others to ensure the characters don’t get stuck due to a failed roll. It goes without saying you should spread out these additional clues as much as possible and avoid making them all dependent on the same type of check. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket!

3. Pointless Rolls

While reading about SPOFs, you may have been thinking: “Well, in my games I’d have them find that glove without even rolling!” That’s also an excellent solution! And it brings us straight to the concept of pointless rolls, which, broadly speaking, come in two flavours:

The first type of pointless roll is cousin to the SPOF: rolling the dice when you’ve already decided the result. When the dice don’t support the GM’s preconceived outcome, their bumbling attempt at fudging is revealed. So why bother rolling the dice in this case? Just tell the player what happens: “A careful search reveals a bloodied glove buried in the sand.” Clever readers will now throw back their heads, exclaiming: “Whoa! GM fiat! Isn’t that just next-level fudging?!” Well, ‘potayto – potahto’ – at least you‘re sending the message you’re not screwing with the dice. GM fiat, by the way, isn’t always a bad thing. While this is food for a whole new article, GM fiat also comes in two flavours: enabling and negating.

The second type of pointless roll is when failure has no meaningful impact. Lockpicking is a common example. A character wants to pick a lock. They roll the dice. They fail. They try again. They fail … Urgh. There’s two ways to handle this. One is to consider the best possible check result, compare that to the target number, and tell the player their character eventually succeeds – or realises they never will – after a certain amount of time. Veteran D&D 3.5 players may recognise this solution as the ‘take 20’ rule.

Another technique is to fail forward and have a failed roll still result in the character achieving their goal, albeit with undesirable consequences. Instead of calling for endless repeat attempts or – God forbid – fudging the roll, add a layer of meaning by asking a different question. Revisiting our lockpicking example, you might decide that the check result will not answer the question of whether or not the rogue can open the door (they’re capable enough), but rather if they can open it before the guards turn the corner! If you choose to reframe the question like this, you should tell the players what’s at stake before they choose to go ahead with their action. Perhaps the players really don’t want to risk running into the guards and they want to swiftly kick in that door instead. Note that any consequences you choose to introduce should further enable player choice (“You hear the guards approaching – what do you do?”) instead of negating it (“The guards are here – roll initiative!”).

In summary, there’s really no excuse for fudging a pointless roll. Either make a roll meaningful, or don’t roll at all.

4. Random Tables

Here’s where things get a little philosophical. Say you’re rolling on some table to select a random monster and decide to alter the result. Did you even fudge?

If you ask me, this is pretty much a grey area. On the one hand: if I’m using a random dungeon room table to design my next adventure, and I alter any results I don’t like, am I being a dirty little fudger? No, of course not! If, on the other hand, I’m altering a roll on the Wild Magic Surge or Reincarnation tables, it does begin to look a lot like fudging. Random encounter tables? I guess it depends. Let’s see if we can elocute the differences between these three cases and hash out some guidelines.

Broadly speaking, you might say there are two kinds of random tables: ‘creative tables’, which aid the GM in bringing the world to life, and ‘mechanical tables’, which support certain game mechanics.

When you’re using creative tables, you’re actually delegating your GM fiat to the result of a dice roll. And as previously mentioned, GM fiat (provided it’s the choice-enabling kind) isn’t considered fudging! If our random dungeon room table suggests we place a dark corridor beyond the entrance, the choice is: “Here’s a dark corridor. Do you want to go down it, or not?” Had I chosen to alter the result to a different area (say, a guard room), the same choice would still be there: “Do you go in, or not?”

While mechanical tables might also enable choices (being reincarnated as a gnome does force one to make some interesting new choices indeed!), they are at the same time the result of a player’s choice. When you choose to cast wild magic, for instance, all the potential results on that table factor into making that decision. So, yes, I’d probably consider it fudging if the GM altered such a result.

But it all starts to become fuzzy when considering things like a wandering monster table, which includes both creative and mechanical elements. And this is where I believe the GM should check their motives and decide for themselves if it’s okay to fudge.

If you want to alter the result because it would better serve the story (either for reasons of verisimilitude or enabling choice), go for it! If, on the other hand, you want to change things for purely mechanical reasons (such as increasing or decreasing the challenge during play), consider not doing it.

In any event, before altering the roll, I like to give myself a few seconds to come up with an idea to make the result work anyway – purely as an exercise in creativity. Maybe there’s a reason this white dragon is scouring the desert? Or perhaps there really is an enclave of goblins in the fifth circle of Hell?

Whenever you feel inclined to mess with random tables: “Search thy feelings, and thou shalt know when thou fudgeth!” But don’t sweat it. Remember, the key is to get creative and have fun!

5. Rubber-banding Challenges

‘Rubber-banding’ is a term borrowed from poor racing videogames, where the AI cars behave as if they were connected to the player’s car by invisible rubber bands. If you do well and pull ahead of the pack, the bands will tighten as the AI cars suddenly begin closing the distance with astounding speed and skill. If, however, you drive poorly (like I do), those same AI cars will linger, idle, slip, or drive into walls like bumbling idiots, allowing you to catch up. So, does rubber-banding AI increase the challenge of the race? Absolutely! And is it fun for the player? Not in the least! Once you realise that’s the way the game works, skill and strategy cease to have meaning – except maybe in those final yards of the very last lap.

The same goes for GMs who ‘rubber-band’ challenges by fudging dice rolls, hit points, and spell slots on the fly. It’s all great fun until the players start recognising the pattern. And please don’t kid yourself: they absolutely will! All battles suddenly become boring; each victory resounds hollow and every defeat turns suspicious.

But what of the opposite scenario, where you rubber-band the challenge to make things easier on the characters? Well, why would you? You’re no longer forcing them into potentially lethal situations, right?

Reaping Honesty’s Rewards

When it comes to toting GM advice, my policy is: “Tools, not Rules”. This means that although I stand by these techniques, I do not recommend you start blindly applying them to your own campaign, because that may not work. Rather, my advice is to gently ease into any new approaches and adding them to your GM toolbox one by one at a pace you’re comfortable with (perhaps with a few tweaks of your own). Before long, you’ll find the need to fudge will decrease as a result, and you can start reaping honesty’s rich rewards: trust and participation!

But perhaps it’s the GM who has the most to gain! By letting the dice decide, they are free to participate in the game to a much greater extent. When the GM, too, must roll to see what happens in the game, that’s so much more exciting than slavishly adhering to some preconceived plot. The burden of ensuring everyone’s having fun no longer rests squarely on their shoulders – the players and the dice are making all the decisions. The GM is just there to provide the context and interpret the results. And, of course, to enjoy the story unfolding at the table!

This, more than anything else, is why I love being a GM! I simply set the scene, prep some NPCs, agendas, and locations. But do I know where the adventure is going? Absolutely not. And that’s fantastic! It also allows me to be a true fan of the characters, and I can actively root for them without showing any favouritism.

The only way to get there, however, is to roll all (or at least most) of your dice in the open, in full view of the players. Resist the urge to fudge – you don’t need to put yourself in those situations anymore! Make the roll work and move the game forward. But don’t take my word for it – give it a go!

Conclusion

Time to fess up! Do you find yourself fudging the dice too often? If so, have we managed to convince you to try and mend your wicked, wicked ways? And just how did you implement these guidelines at your own table? Let us know in the comments!

Join Ang, J.T., and Tomas for a discussion about drawing inspiration for games and applying it when you don’t have a lot of time to prepare. Can these gnomes draw enough instant inspiration to keep out of the stew?

Way back in 2005, a product came out that caught my eye. That product was the Monsternomicon, a collection of monsters from the Iron Kingdoms setting, converted to the D&D 3.5 SRD. I knew absolutely nothing about the Warmachine tabletop game. I was fascinated by the world being described in the entries. Not unlike some of my favorite RPG materials of days gone by, many of the monster entries were narrated by an in-world expert, in this case, Professor Viktor Pendrake.

Years later, a friend of mine got me a few Hordes models as a Christmas gift, and from there I invested a whole lot in an Everblight army. Eventually I would play two different characters in campaigns using the Iron Kingdoms RPG released in 2012.

Nine years later (wow) and Privateer Press has released a new Iron Kingdoms RPG setting, this one relying on the 5e OGL – Iron Kingdoms Requiem. This era of the setting is marked by a catastrophic event, marking it as a jumping-on point for engaging with the setting. I know there is a lot of discussion about what games should and shouldn’t use the 5e OGL as a base, but I was especially interested in this one, because my first engagement with the setting was through a d20 product in the 3.5 era.

Content Warning: Colonial Themes

The section of the Iron Kingdoms detailed in the Iron Kingdoms Requiem Core Rulebook is Western Immoren. Because this is an RPG based on a wargame, a lot of the narrative has been about nations fighting one another for territory, but another narrative that emerges is a repeated history of colonialism.

The Orgoth are one of the greatest threats detailed in Iron Kingdoms’ history, and they arrived in Immoren from elsewhere on the planet to conquer others. However, nearly every major nation detailed in the setting is described as having multiple people that make up that nation. An unfortunate theme is that the people that end up being the culture that was subsumed by a modern nation are almost all people that present as people of color. This happens particularly in Cygnar, The Protectorate of Menoth, and Khador. Those people of color are not described as being discriminated against, but it is enough of a theme to be noticeable.

Additionally, some of the stories of the non-human species native to the setting have colonial themes associated with them. The Trollkin are often portrayed as being “savage” except where they have assimilated into one of the established nations, and the Trollkin clans in Cygnar have clashed with the government over Cygnar’s expansion into their territory, although the conflict is largely overshadowed now by the Claiming. 

Scholarly Folio

This review is based on the PDF version of the rulebook. This is a 270-page document, in full color. The page count includes a credits page, a table of contents, four pages of character sheets, an eight-page index, and an OGL statement. The chapters are bordered by full-page illustrations.

There are lots of illustrations from the setting. If you have ever seen any Iron Kingdoms/Warmachine/Hordes products, you know the artwork is impressive and imaginative, with lots of glowing runes, steam belching armor and automatons, and swords, pistols, and rifles adorned with clockwork apparatus. 

Chapter 1: The Iron Kingdoms

This section covers a lot of ground in under fifty pages. It touches on the cosmology of the setting, ancient history, the ascension of gods, invasions, warfare, and most recently, The Claiming, the event from which the setting is currently recovering.

If you aren’t familiar with the Iron Kingdoms, the present day of the setting is a magical industrial setting. Magic items are powered with capacitors that mimic science, alchemists make firearms and grenades possible, and steam-powered automatons called steamjacks do heavy labor and lots of fighting.

The Orgoth have always been an ancient threat from the past alluded to in many Iron Kingdoms resources, but what has recently been revealed is that a deal was made with the Orgoth’s masters, the Infernals, to get the Orgoth to withdraw in ancient time, and the Infernals recently returned to claim the souls they were promised in the distant past. The Infernals are (mostly) gone, but due to the upheaval, lots of the ongoing open warfare in the setting has ended, with a lot of localized issues exacerbated by the magical invasion. Honestly, it’s a pretty good transition from a tabletop wargame version of a setting to an RPG version of that same setting.

The following kingdoms are then detailed:

• Cygnar (Probably the “safest” of the Iron Kingdoms)
• Khador (A kingdom with strong Russian influences, in the cold north)
• Llael (A kingdom that until recently was occupied by two other nations)
• Ord (A neutral state that’s a haven for mercenaries and criminals)
• Protectorate of Menoth (A strict theocracy that likes fire)
• Cryx (Pirates corrupted by a dragon, with lots of necromancy and undead)
• Rhul (A primarily dwarven kingdom of mercenaries)
• Ios (An elven realm where the people are disappearing, losing their souls, and their gods)

Each of these nations is given a bit more detail, including how the Claiming specifically affected them, and what recent events are still influencing them. One thing that I especially like is that after each region is detailed, there is an adventure hook provided. Not only does it break things up so that different locations don’t run together, but it also reminds you that this setting exists for you to use, and gives you examples of how to do that.

The history and fine details of a lot of settings can get bogged down with details of the past, without relating them to the present. Having read the similar section in the 2012 Iron Kingdoms RPG, I feel like this one does just the right amount of world-building, with a nice helping of table-ready sidebars. While many settings have major upheavals, especially when getting ready to introduce a new product line, this one feels like it has been seeded into the setting for a long time, and instead of cutting off past adventure hooks, this feels like it transitions from problems solved with armies to problems solved with adventurers.

Chapter 2: Character Options

This chapter is where we get to see how this book will implement the concepts of the setting with the 5e OGL. There are several subsections, including:

• Essences (An optional element of character creation)
• Races (Yes, I wish they had used more modern terminology)
• Classes and Subclasses
• Multiclassing
• Backgrounds (For the most part, what you are thinking of, but with a slight twist)
• Adventuring Companies (An overall theme for an adventuring group with some mechanical benefits and the ability to progress over time)
  

Essences may be familiar to anyone that played the previous Iron Kingdoms RPG, although this game expands them, in part to accommodate the wider range of character classes and statistics in 5e. Essence is an optional rule, and it is a broad explanation of how your character does what they do. If you use Essence, you don’t get your ability score boost for your race (hooray for less determinism), and you get access to feats connected to that essence. The essences detailed are Intellectual, Mighty, Agile, Gifted, and Pious. In the terminology of the Iron Kingdoms, the Gift is the term used for people that can use magic. I don’t remember the exact wording in previous volumes, but I like that the Gift is framed as something all people have, but only some have awakened.

Races include the following:

• Gobber (Goblin like tinkerers)
• Human (With subraces based on national origin, instead of just being “flexible”)
• Iosan (Withdrawn forest elves increasingly being born without souls)
• Nyss (Cold dwelling elves who have lost their homeland)
• Ogrun (Big and loyal beings with a structured society)
• Rhulic Dwarf (Not a big departure, but with some twists)
• Trollkin (Big, sometimes supernaturally loud, nature attuned beings)
  

If you are familiar with the setting, and are saying “wait, what about X,” yes, there are other sapient species, but if this product line follows a similar pattern to the 2012 release, some of the playable species are considered more “Hordes” than “Warmachine,” meaning that those species will be detailed with a supplement more concerned with the less settled spaces of the setting.

There are several brand new classes introduced in this section, most of which have a strong connection to the story elements of the world. These include:

• Alchemist
• Gun Mage (You do magic tricks with your gun and ammo)
• Gunfighter (You do non-magic tricks with your gun and ammo)
• Mechanik (You can make and fix items, and there is a spellcasting subclass)
• Warcaster (You can cast spells, as well as imbuing your spellcasting resource to boost arms, armor, and warjacks to which you are attuned)

Alchemists get a list of quick items they can make in combat, and formulas for more involved items. Those items can be created by combining various simplified components, or by using the (more expensive) field alchemy kit. The subclasses include the combat alchemist (throw grenades well and dodge explosions), synthesist (make potions do more than their base versions), and rogue alchemist (you don’t belong to an order and learn things on the fly).

Gun Mages use special magelock pistols or rifles that can handle the power of the rune imbued ammunition that they use. These are spellcasters with a progression kind of like a warlock, in that they have a set number of spell slots and a maximum spell level, and you get these back on a short rest. Gun Mages get a fighting style and have about 15 different types of magical ammunition to choose from over time. The subclasses include The Order of the Arcane Tempest (compatible with boosting warjacks), The Order of the Thorn (former revolutionary freedom fighters with stealth and ambush abilities), and The Order of the Lone Gun (mercenaries with more extra attacks and improvised effects).

Gunfighters learn a fighting style, and several trick shots, which have secondary effects when they hit a target. They eventually get multiple attacks regardless of subclass. The subclasses include gunslinger (use pistols in melee, quickdraw), sharpshooter (get extra damage from studying a target, learn more debilitating trick shots), and commando (use guns and melee together in combat).

Mechaniks get a tinkering die as one of their main mechanics, which can be applied to gear to give it a bonus, applied to crafting to lessen the time for building things, or used to repair items. The subclasses are combat mechanik (extra hit points and a bonus to armor class when making repairs or modifications), ironhead (add special modifications to existing items), and arcane mechanik (the spellcasting variant of the class, not unlike Eldritch Knight or Arcane Trickster).

Warcasters are kind of the signature heroes of the setting, especially when it comes to the Warmachine side of things. They are spellcasters that specifically use spell points instead of slots. These points of focus can be assigned to do different things to weapons, armor, and warjacks. While they use a point system, like the gun mage, warcasters have a casting mechanic like warlocks, where they get a maximum spell level known, and they regain all their focus points on a short or long rest. The subclasses are controller (you start with a basic steamjack), arcanist (spend focus points to enhance spell effects), and soldier (extra attacks, and more options to boost weapon damage by spending focus).

There are also several subclasses for existing classes from the core D&D 5e rules, including the following:

• Bard
  • Fell Caller (Trollkin only subclass that has a voice-based thunder attack)
• Cleric
  • Benefaction (Morrowan focused)
  • Guile (Thammarite focused)
  • Obedience (Menoth focused)
• Fighter
  • Battle Chaplain (The cleric version of the eldritch knight)
  • Man-at-Arms (A bodyguard)
  • Storm Knight (Skilled with Cygnar’s lightning weapons)
• Monk
  • Way of Deception (Thamar based order)
  • Way of the Fist (Menoth based order)
• Paladin
  • Oath of Radiance (Morrow focused oath)
  • Oath of the Wall (Menoth focused oath)
• Ranger
  • Bounty Hunter
  • Mage Hunter
  • Vigilant
• Rogue
  • Cutthroat
  • Duelist
    

Backgrounds are interesting in that if you are using the optional essence rules, each one provides a +1 bonus to an ability score. While all the backgrounds presented in this book have a listed ability score bonus, it is noted that you can assign a reasonable +1 for a background used from other sources. One thing I did notice about these backgrounds is there are fewer “situational story benefits,” like the core rule backgrounds, and more “you get this mechanical benefit under these circumstances” active abilities, which I appreciate. In addition to skills, tools, and languages, some of these backgrounds also provide armor and weapon proficiencies, which can impact a starting character.

Recent D&D products have introduced patrons as a means of quantifying how a group was drawn together and to help direct what they do in the campaign. This book introduces adventuring companies, which do something similar. Unlike the simple mechanics of patrons, however, adventuring companies have advancement mechanics, providing more mechanical effects over time. The ones introduced in this book include:

• Arcane Order
• Cult Assembly
• Intrepid Investigators
• Law Dogs
• Mercenary Charter
• Outlaws
• Pirate Crew
• Spy Ring

Adventuring companies earn prestige for different actions, including gaining levels. There are four tiers of prestige, and there is a minimum level to gain a prestige level (you can only get so famous before you must prove you can do what people think you can do). Adventuring companies give you access to new downtime activities, like boast (increasing prestige), prison break, and recruitment drive.

Each entry includes the benefits for different tiers of prestige, as well as a unique list of activities that gain the company prestige. An arcane order may get prestige for finding an ancient magical tome, but a cult assembly is only getting that prestige if the tome is related to their religion.

In addition to the above, each style of adventuring company has a random chart of quirks that the adventuring company might have, relating to how or when your company formed, its age, and its traditions.

I really like the adventuring company rules. Not only do they present a theme for the campaign, but they also reinforce activities that are connected to that theme. It’s also one of the most portable subsystems from this book. I like the idea of the ability score bonuses shifting to essence and background, and I like more “active” background abilities. I’m not as sure about moving weapon and armor proficiencies into the background arena.

Some of the mechanics in this section feel, well, bodged together. For example, the duelist subclass gets an ability that triggers three separate actions in a sequence, which feels clunky and introduces rules questions about what happens if one of those actions is interrupted. That feature feels like it could have been better explained without chaining actions together.

The Challenge of Challenge Ratings

Dungeons & Dragons 5th edition is not written assuming that characters will have any specific gear that boosts their abilities. That’s not usually how things play out, but it is the assumed standard. Despite intentions, challenge rating has also felt a little tricky, especially at the higher end of the level scale.

This is going to be even trickier with this material. Mechanika effectively replaces magic items but is an assumed part of the economy. That means that characters are regularly going to be able to turn gold into combat effectiveness. Additionally, the fact that some characters can command warjacks, and may even be assumed to acquire one as part of level advancement, is going to throw off a lot of standard challenge rating determinations.

At best, you may want to consider warjacks as additional party members, but that doesn’t fully address that multiple classes have abilities that are keyed towards boosting this extra party member.

Chapter 3: Magic

This section starts with a bit of a primer on how magic manifests in the Iron Kingdoms. Since spells naturally manifest with a halo of glowing runes, there is a chance to identify the spell based on the runes. There are also some notes on how stealth and subterfuge might interact with that manifestation.

Many of the spells introduced revolve around the concepts of the setting. Some damaging spells have additional effects that might shut down machinery or warjacks. Due to emulating the magic evident in the wargame, many effects deal with pushing or repositioning another character in addition to other effects. There are lots of fire, shadow, and radiance spells due to the primary divinities of the setting.

Magic items that appear are ancient, usually associated with the gods or Infernals. Most “arcane” magic items fall under the mechanika category, which brings us to our next section.

Chapter 4: Equipment & Mechanika

There is a lot in this section that you would assume, such as armor and weapons native to the setting. But several of those items interact with the rules for mechanika, the alchemical/magical/semi-scientific method used in the setting for creating reliable machinery.

Capacitors and runeplate take up a lot of room in this section. Runeplates are sheets of metal affixed to an item that determines what magical effects the item has. Capacitors are the magical “batteries” that run magic items. Some items just draw charges based on how long they function, but some specific effects pull additional charges per activation. Some capacitors can’t be recharged, and many of them degrade over time, so that their maximum charge diminishes.

I know there needs to be some kind of capacitor-based rule to match the feel of the setting, but I wish it were a cleaner, X number of charges, replace after X amount of time, rather than having some items that degrade slowly. There are also some requirements for steam-powered items that I’ll look at when we get to steamjacks in the next section.

All of that said, I like that the trinkets section from the core rules is repurposed in this section as mementos, reinforcing that there is a sense of loss from recent events.

Chapter 5: Steamjacks

Steamjacks are one of the most recognizable aspects of the setting – bipedal constructs powered by coal and steam, with a cortex that allows them to function to different degrees of autonomy. These are used for heavy labor or combat and are divided into heavy and light jacks.

Depending on what cortex is installed, the steamjack has a different proficiency bonus. More sophisticated cortex can be issued drives (bonuses to performing specific actions until they receive new orders) and can develop imprints (aspects of a warcaster’s personality that may provide benefits or penalties based on if the warjack is following the imprint that has developed).

Steam-powered armor and steamjacks both have vulnerabilities if their internal systems are damaged, which happen when a critical hit is scored, or under other circumstances as determined by the GM. This section has lots of extra gear for steamjacks, including weapons, shields, and arc nodes (devices that let the steamjack serve as the point of origin for a warcaster’s spells).

There are different fuel requirements for in combat use and out of combat operation, although the GM is encouraged to work with the players so as not to limit their access to a resource if they have a steamjack. Honestly, for as short as D&D combats are, I’m not sure the combat consumption rates for fuel are really warranted in a non-wartime game.

If you want stats for steamjacks outside of the one provided with the controller warcaster, you’ll need to jump ahead to the Creature Statistics section.

Chapter 6: Game Master’s Guide

A lot is going on in this chapter, including rules on what magic from core D&D 5e does and doesn’t work in the setting, variant spellcasting and injury rules, and ways to incorporate D&D content not evident in this book. There is a discussion of thematic campaigns, which gives about five or six plot points to use over the course of the game. It then wraps up with creature statistics.

If you are looking for magic that allows you to travel distances instantaneously, or that returns the dead to life, you’re out of luck. Even the entry-level get-out-of-death-free card, revivify, isn’t available in the default setting. This section also mentions that healing is more painful and exacting, without game rules, as well as mentioning that summoning has a danger of attracting Infernals, but again, without game rules. I would have liked some mechanical guidance on reinforcing these concepts.

The variant spellcasting rules may be familiar to you if you are used to the spell point rules from the DMG, but with two differences. In the setting “story,” spellcasters generally cast until they have exhausted themselves, so the spell points are exhaustion points that count “up” instead of down. In addition to this, there is an optional rule on pushing out one more spell even when you are too exhausted to add to your total.

The example creatures feature gangs, cultists, mercenaries, some signature units from different nations, and several models of steamjacks. Most of the fantastical creatures are saved for the 5e version of the Monsternomicon.

High Ground

This rulebook is a great jumping-on point to engage with the setting. While this product doesn’t touch on the “Hordes” side of the Iron Kingdoms setting, it does introduce a lot of what makes the setting special, and it introduces the setting and its history in a succinct but evocative manner.

The rules for different adventuring companies do a good job of communicating different possible campaigns. In fact, between the plot hooks in the history section, the adventuring companies, and the thematic campaigns outlined in the back, this is one of the most text to campaign ready settings I’ve seen in a while. The rules for essences and adding more concrete abilities and ability bonuses to backgrounds makes more aspects of the character feel important, beyond “races” and classes.

Obscurement

It really feels like characters that can interact with warjacks are going to dominate a game with any amount of combat unless the GM comes up with reasons they can’t access warjacks that they own. That just feels like GM fiat taking away what the characters want to interact with, and is explicitly discouraged by the book’s own advice.

Many of the rules do a good job of capturing the lore of the setting, but the additional bookkeeping feels more numbers intensive than most D&D 5e settings. Given some of the optional rules, as well as some of the implied, but not mechanically enforced, story elements for magic, it almost feels like having native spellcasting rules instead of imported D&D 5e assumptions would have been truer to the setting’s feel. While it’s assumed you can use standard D&D classes, with the focus on settled regions and nations, druids and barbarians might feel like they have slim setting elements to interact with.

Tenuous Recommendation–The product has positive aspects, but buyers may want to make sure the positive aspects align with their tastes before moving this up their list of what to purchase next.

Between the plot hooks in the history section, the adventuring companies, and the thematic campaigns outlined in the back, this is one of the most text to campaign ready settings I’ve seen in a while.

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The Iron Kingdoms are a unique setting with a ton of imagination. These rules will help you to explore them. That said, these rules have many quirks native to the setting, and they come with a lot of bookkeeping. Some concepts may not “drift” as well to general D&D 5e use, if that’s what you want from your 5e OGL content.

I know that for maximum appeal, it helps to market your 5e product as having material useful outside of the campaign setting you promote, but I almost wonder if this wouldn’t have been better throwing out all assumptions of outside sources, like Adventures in Middle-earth or Beowulf Age of Heroes. Using the core rules, but with entirely native classes and a native magic system may have smoothed over some gaps.

This timeframe in the Iron Kingdoms is a great one to explore for tabletop adventurers, but for fans of the setting that aren’t familiar with D&D 5e or aren’t fans of the D&D 5e rules, this may not be their favorite way to explore the setting. This may be especially true of fans that enjoyed the RPG rules that were more directly derived from the tabletop game’s mechanics.

Do you have a favorite property that started as a different type of game? What did the game rules add that helped the game feel like the source material? We want to hear from you in the comments below.

We here at Gnome Stew have written a great number of words offering advice and guidance for game masters, but advice directly to players is a bit more of a byproduct of our articles. Even beyond our site, it is relatively easy to find advice for GMs, especially when almost every published game has a section explaining how to run it, some better than others. But when it comes to explaining to players how to play the game, the focus is usually on the mechanics rather than some of the softer, more nuanced aspects of being a good player.

So, let’s talk about some ways to be a better player. Now, I am not a perfect player and some of my articles have even talked about my own foibles as a player, but I can talk about the types of things that myself and other GMs look forward to in the players that sit down at our table.

Play the Game at the Table

First up, play the game being brought to the table by the GM. This seems like it should be a no brainer, but Gnome Stew’s archives are full of advice to GMs on how to handle the game when the players are playing a completely different game. Whether they’re ignoring plot hooks or not respecting the tone of the game or just not engaging with the other characters or NPCs, it can be incredibly frustrating to have players ignore what the GM and other players are bringing to the table.

When you take a seat in a game, you need to acknowledge that roleplaying games are a cooperative affair and your willing participation is as important as the GM’s efforts to include and engage everyone at the table.

Buy into the Game

When the GM pitches the game to you and it’s time to make a character, don’t ignore everything that’s already been discussed about the game. In other words, don’t make a character that’s going to struggle to fit into that game. Pay attention to the intended tone of the game as well as the setting. It is the GM’s jobs to set the expectations of the game, but it’s your job as a player to make a character that will work in that game.

For example, if the GM and group have discussed playing in a dark, urban fantasy campaign, making a goofy, nature loving hippie druid who hates the city is unlikely to be fun for either you or the GM no matter how much you wanted to play a druid. Right there, the tone of the game has been ignored as well as the setting.

For one shots and con games, you may not be making the character you’ll be playing, but many of the same concepts still apply. You chose to take a seat the table, so at least try and play the game the GM is bringing to the table. While I know there’s a wide range of quality in the GMs that run games at cons, you should at least give the GM the benefit of the doubt and try and play the game they’ve prepared. Many of my ‘bad player at a con’ stories are players who were screwing with the game just because they thought they could.

Take the Plot Bait on the Hook

When the GM dangles a plot hook in front of you and the other players, try and take the bait and engage with it. Now, I’m not saying you have to bend over backwards to let yourself be railroaded into the plot, because there are definitely times where GMs don’t create an engaging enough hook to draw the players’ attention, but more than likely, the GM has put a plot hook in front of you because they have prepared content around that hook. Most GMs are incredibly accommodating at letting players take their own path through a game, but even the best will get frustrated if the players refuse to engage with the plot that’s been brought to the table.

Find reasons for your character to care about the game world. In addition to taking the plot hook bait that the GM is putting out there, it also means engaging with the world and the NPCs, and especially engaging with the other PCs. While a lone wolf concept might seem like a fun idea, they are the bane of almost every GM out there. We love the players that know how to get their characters involved in the world around them and connect with the characters of the other players at the table. They help make the game easier to run and more interesting.

Trust the GM

It takes a fair amount of effort to GM. There is the comfort level of rules mastery that a GM needs to run a game, the prep time to put the game together, and then the mental energy to put yourself in the GM’s seat in the first place. These things vary from GM to GM, but even the most confident, light prep GM still is putting effort to bring that game to the table. Give them the benefit of the doubt that they are trying to bring something fun and entertaining to their players.

Now, as a caveat to all of this, you do not have to put up with a bad game just because someone put the effort into bringing it to the table. Your intention should be to do all of these things when you sit down to play, but you have no obligation to sit through or continue a game that is just not good. When a GM has proven they’re not really putting the effort in or they’re doing things that are making the game not fun for the players, it’s okay to leave. If they’re a friend, maybe you should try and work on the issues with some constructive criticism, but ultimately one of the worst things you could do is to continue playing a game you’re not enjoying.

Good players are a treasure that GMs love to have in their game. What I’ve discussed above is just one aspect of what you can do to be a better player, so I hope to bring some other aspects in future articles. What are your thoughts? How do you engage with the game that the GM is bringing to the table?

Join Ang, Jared, and Senda for a discussion about things that push people off-track at the table and what GMs can do about it. Can these gnomes stay on topic long enough to keep out of the stew?

It probably isn’t a stretch to say that the point of view of most roleplaying games comes from the perspective of characters that the players create. Those RPGs that allow for more player input into the setting often frame this as a “break” in the expected action, and the players decide to fill in the gaps of a campaign that haven’t already been established, then return to the point of view of their characters. It is probably also not a stretch to say that most RPGs don’t focus on “troupe” play, where players don’t have a single perspective character that they play, but rather, they have multiple characters through which to view the game world.

Kingdom 2nd Edition is a game that does not conform to these general RPG expectations. Rising out of a focus on a single organization and span of time within the larger setting creation game of Microscope, Kingdom is as much about collaborating to create the challenges facing an organization as it is about playing the characters that comprise that entity.

Political Borders

This review is based on the PDF version of Kingdom 2nd Edition, which is 99 pages in length. The PDF includes a page of legal publication material, a dedication, a table of contents, a single page afterward, a playtesters page, sample character and role sheets, and a cheat sheet for game resolution. The beginning of each chapter has a full title page to introduce it, and the book is in a single column layout.

Kingdom doesn’t have much in the way of artwork, although illustrations are showing how to fill in the various sheets and the assumed arrangement of the play space. In addition to having topic headers and sub-headers, as well as various bullet-pointed explanations, there are also indicators on certain pages for read-aloud text, to facilitate a “no-prep” game.

What Is a Kingdom?

The first section of the book generally describes what the game is, and what constitutes a “kingdom” for this game. It could be a literal kingdom, but it can also be just about any concept for a general community that you can conceptualize, from fan clubs to schools, to corporations.

There is also a list of materials needed to play for a face-to-face game (with more notes later in the game for online play), as well as an explanation of the play cycle. Players will frame problems for their community, and then take turns framing scenes and determining how well the community is resolving or weathering these developments.

This section also recommends that when playing the game, one player acting as the facilitator reads the “read aloud” pages as written, to help make this a “no-prep” experience that is easy to learn.

Your Kingdom

The next section of the book details how to set up for the game. The steps for creating the kingdom itself come first, and include the following:

• What is Your Kingdom (the big picture concept of the community you are detailing)?
• Threats (three ongoing threats that can be engaged and resolved)
• Locations (player-driven locations that can serve as locations for individual scenes)
• People (the wider range of people in the setting of the game that indicate the “types” of people the player characters will interact with)
  

Once you establish this setting, the next step is to detail your characters. The steps to character creation include the following:

• What is Your Role (Power, Perspective, and Touchstone each have unique roles in the process of resolving threats)?
• Who Are You (the literal details of who you are and your position within the established community)?
• Your Locations (which locations of the ones previously established are common locations for your character to be found)
• Your Bonds (connections to other characters)
• Minor Characters (secondary characters that don’t have a role, but can exist to help in roleplaying scenes with more points of view)
  

Much of this setup is to make sure you are creating characters invested in the community’s fate and invested in interacting with the other characters. 

Your Story

The process of resolving the game is to create a crossroads sheet for a threat. Boxes are added to this sheet, which can be regular boxes or crisis boxes. Whenever all the boxes of one type are filled in, the decision presented on the card must be resolved and is framed in a yes or no manner.

The roles provide the following in this process:

• Power: This player gets to determine what the kingdom officially does
• Perspective: This player gets to determine what happens if either of the two decision points is resolved
• Touchstone: This player gets to determine what the consensus of the people in the kingdom think about the situation
  

Resolving a crossroads is a big change for the setting, but if all the boxes for “crisis” are filled in, that’s a cue that the crossroads might be an event that ends the kingdom. On each player’s turn, they frame a scene with their character, and they note if the scene checks off the regular boxes or the crisis box.

Characters can challenge other roles or attempt to mitigate the absolutes established by other players, but in that case, you may end up with a crisis checkbox, or you may have another character adding terms to what just happened.

Kingdom Legacy

This section discusses how to play a longer game of Kingdom, with a broader view of how the kingdom has developed. In this case, you add a step at the end of kingdom creation, defining additional eras. When you finish this step, you determine which era you want to look at in play.

This section discusses several different topics, like how much time to skip between eras, and how connected different “versions” of the same kingdom are across eras. 

Kingdom Seeds

This is one of my favorite parts of the book. It presents 18 different example kingdoms. These range from a local high school fan club to a neutral space station situated between contentious powers, to a pantheon of gods, to a hospital operating during a zombie apocalypse, and many more.

Each example kingdom has a section that helps further define the concept, another section that explores the context of the world where the kingdom exists, example threats, and example crossroads. Each of these kingdoms is summarized on its own page. The chapter wraps up with almost 20 more example kingdoms, although all of these are summarized in a paragraph-long pitch.

This is a great section for illustrating the wide range of concepts you can explore with this game, and I think anyone that didn’t quite picture how the game explores topics will get a lot out of the full-page examples provided for many of these kingdoms.

Discussion and Advice

This is broad advice for the game, ranging from creating your own kingdom ideas outside of the examples, how to limit options to keep everyone on the same page, playing online or with only two players, and how to teach the game. In addition to these topics, it addresses the importance of table safety and the comfort of everyone at the table, as well as how to address players that aren’t staying within the bounds of their character roles.

I’m not sure that I agree that “read aloud” is the best approach to having everyone learn the game, and I am glad that the safety section is so emphatic, though it leaves a lot of modern safety discussion by the wayside. I like that it spends a good deal of time talking about how to constructively make sure everyone is doing what they need to do for their role, especially since the game doesn’t have a dedicated game facilitator to hard frame a situation that might be getting out of hand.

Rise

 This is a strong game to use on its own merits and a game useful as a supplemental tool in other games. 

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There is so much you can do with this concept, and it works very well both as a game on its own, and as a means of adjudicating the history of a nation, corporation, or other organization within a larger game. I really appreciate the summaries and play materials included with this game to clearly illustrate the process of resolution.

Fall?

I know I don’t have the data to back up this feeling, but whenever I’ve read-aloud text to a group, I think that it may have communicated the process and rules to the group, but my brain doesn’t engage in the material. I always feel like I have to go back through and “personalize” the message for my own brain after the reading. I am glad there is a safety discussion in the book, but it feels odd that it is focused on the X-Card and “safe word” mechanics and seems to indicate that there isn’t much out there in terms of safety tools. That’s missing out on a lot that has been developed in the years since the X-Card came about.

Qualified Recommendation–A product with lots of positive aspects, but buyers may want to understand the context of the product and what it contains before moving it ahead of other purchases.

As I mentioned above, this is a strong game to use on its own merits and a game useful as a supplemental tool in other games. It is also a great “one-shot” game to introduce for game sessions where other regular games can’t go off as planned. That said, my main hesitancy in a wider recommendation just comes from the number of people I know that would rather have some kind of randomizer or currency when it comes to resolution, rather than consensus-building techniques.

Do you have a game that is your “go-to” for nights when your usual game falls through? Do you have a game that you use as “supplemental” to another game, for resolving special aspects of the campaign? We want to hear about your experiences in the comments below!

Two weeks ago, on the Zoom call for my Forbidden Lands game, we did a quick check of who was vaccinated and when, and realized that we would all be fully vaccinated (including the 2 weeks post shot), for our next session. So, I asked if everyone was comfortable returning our game to being in-person, and we all agreed. At the end of the session, it started to occur to me that there were things that we would need to do, to transition back to a face-to-face game. That got me thinking, that perhaps we need a checklist for how to go back. So here we go…

Face to Face Gaming Is Back

According to the CDC (note- this could change over time, but is true in May of 2021), fully vaccinated people can gather indoors without masks. So, if you and your gaming group have completed your vaccinations, the CDC says you can break out your battlemats, minis, and dice, and get together. That is a sweeping statement, but there are caveats, and if you are immunocompromised, or in other high-risk groups that cannot get vaccinated, you will need to further review the CDC guidelines and talk to your doctor. 

Much like safety in your games, you should have a safety discussion among your group to see if everyone is comfortable going back to face-to-face games, with or without masks, etc. It is important to remember that each person’s response to the pandemic is personal, and their response to the gradual lifting of guidelines is also going to be personal. Have that discussion. 

For my group, we have all been vaccinated, and for most of us, we have been pretty locked down, with the exception of one of our group who is a healthcare worker who has a moderate level of risk, that we were all comfortable with. We all agreed that we would be good with a return to face-to-face gaming, without masks. 

Your Return To Face To Face Checklist

For the rest of the article I am going to assume that during the pandemic, you moved to a virtual tabletop solution like Roll20. If you just stopped playing, then some of this advice may not be applicable. Use what you can.

I am going to also assume that you are going back face-to-face and not running your VTT at the table. Some people are going to take that hybrid approach. Again, use what you can from below.

At the point you are ready to return to face-to-face gaming, you are going to need to do a few things to transition out of your VTT. 

Transfer Characters Out of the VTT

Your players will need to move their characters from the VTT and back onto a medium they can use at the table. Here are a few ways that can be done:

• Update your old character sheet from before the pandemic.
• Transfer the character to a new character sheet.
• Print out the character sheet from the VTT.
• Access the VTT character sheet from a tablet or other device. 

Transfer Other Assets out of the VTT

If you put notes, rumors, legends, etc. into the VTT, then you will also need to be able to get them out or access them in-game. In my Forbidden Lands game, there are a number of legends that would have been PDF handouts to the players. In Roll20 I put them in as handouts. I will likely need to print them out and give them to the players in some kind of folder. 

Update Campaign Artifacts

Depending on the game you were running, you might have other artifacts that were once used at the table that were digitally converted, that once again need to be updated to use at the table. Perhaps your game had resource sheets, relationship maps, a map of the known world, etc. If you did not keep the physical versions of those updated before the pandemic, they will now need to be updated before you return to the table.

Again in my Forbidden Lands game, there is a physical campaign map that you mark any hex that you have successfully traveled through so that you do not have to make a future pathfinder check when you go through that hex again. At the start of the pandemic, I made a digital copy of the map and loaded it into Roll20, and then for the next 15 months updated every hex that was explored on the digital copy only. Now I need to go back to the physical copy and mark all those hexes so that it is current. 

Find Physical Components For Your Game

VTTs often have dice, cards, tokens, and other components for your game, eliminating the need to open up your dice pouch to run the game online. It is now time to find all those components and make sure you not only know where they are, but that they get packed in your bag, or moved to your table. 

For Forbidden Lands, I have custom dice and cards for the game. I kept rolling my dice even though we were playing virtually, but the cards are up on a shelf and need to get back into my GMing kit. 

Find Your GMing Supplies

Along those lines, have you seen the rest of your GMing supplies, since the pandemic started? This is a good time to inventory and update your GMing Kit. If you are GM who travels to a game, do you have your bag packed? Do you remember what goes into your GMing bag? 

It has also been a year, you may have changed games, your style may have changed, etc. This is a good time to take your GMing kit out and give it an overhaul. Perhaps you don’t need tokens for that game you don’t run anymore, or perhaps you need to add tokens because of the new game you just started.

Review Your Mise-en-Place

If you have been running via VTT for the past year, you should take some time to consider how to arrange your tablespace again. Chefs use the French phrase mise-en-place to talk about how one arranges their workspace, and many years ago I talked about it here. If you have not sat down at the table in over a year, switched games, etc, you may not know how you want to arrange that space. Now is a good time to take out your materials and take a look at how you want to set them up. 

For me, one of the hardest things I have to adjust to going back to face-to-face is the lack of screens. For my VTT game, I run it with two 24” monitors and in that, I have the VTT, Zoom, my game notes, PDFs of the rules, and a browser with several other resources we have in Google Sheets. I now have to figure out how to arrange all that in a physical space, and with my iPad as the only screen I will have at the table. 

Update Your Social Contract

For many of us, we have not been in contact with people in over a year. It is worth having a discussion about how to people again when you return. Are people comfortable with hugging? Do people want a little more space around the table? What about in the future, if someone has a cold? Do you want to have people wear masks or do you switch to a virtual instance for that session? The world has changed, and while it’s nice to go back to something pre-pandemic, it is naïve to treat it like nothing has changed. 

My group will be having this discussion. For sure, we have all agreed that hugging is totally happening. But we do need to talk about what to do if someone is or has just been sick. In the past, I know we have had people show up to games that have been getting or recovering from colds. I don’t think I am fine with that, without masks, and that is a discussion we, as a group, are going to have. 

Back To the Table

The pandemic did teach me how to improve my online play, and that is something that I will also continue to do so that I can game with my friends who are not local to me. That will be one of my silver linings from surviving the pandemic.

That said, I am beyond thrilled about the idea of going back to the table and playing face-to-face again. I am a pretty old gamer and started gaming around a table, and gaming for me will always be its most natural face-to-face. I am looking forward to this coming session, where we will gather around the table, roll dice, and share in each other’s company.

How about you? Is your game group returning to in-person gaming? Have you had to start converting your VTT game back to the table? Are there parts of the VTT you want to keep? 

How was your first face-to-face game? 

ALSO: Post your table selfies as you return to the table! If you are on Twitter, feel free to tag, me (@dnaphil) or Gnome Stew (@gnomestew) and use the hashtag #tableselfie. 

Looking to do something different every once in a while from my usual Monster Combo articles, I came up with a new idea. I would grab D&D monsters, detail them, give them a complex backstory, and put them here in the open for you to grab and easily use in your game. Even if some parts of the article don’t suit you, you can always use the backstory for some other monster, just use the modified stat block I give you or use it as inspiration for something else.

Vakrom, The Green Metal

This is actually a monster I took a big time in creating as I used it for my home game, so it has a special place in my heart. Vakrom is a green dragon with metallic pieces that traveled between planes, so pretty much a planewalking cyborg dragon. Cool, huh? Particularly, this one inhabits the Feywild. Why is it that this dragon became such a weird creature in this fantastic location? Let’s find out!

Backstory

Previously part of the Council of Dragons, a group of intelligent dragons that governed and terrorized an entire region, looking to be left alone, Vakrom found the hate of the rest of the group. He did it by finding a great friendship in a captured dragonborn named Kargus. With his incredible cunning and manipulative schemes, Vakrom managed to free Kargus from prison and find him a home in a near forest. In there, Vakrom could hide his dragonborn friend with illusions and keep visiting him.

Years passed and the friendship between Vakrom and Kargus did nothing but grow. The dragonborn had a great deal of knowledge in the artifice and created his own workshop in the forest. Vakrom was later confronted by the rest of the council, who didn’t believe his lies when asked what happened with the prisoner. The green dragon was scratched, bitten and had part of his face incinerated on his escape, but he managed to make it to the forest, where he could lay low and hide. There, Kargus patched his wings and broken torso with metal pieces, and created half of a metallic mask, as well as a robotic eye to put over his burned side of the face.

Yaregosz, a blue dragon from the Council who had an ongoing rivalry with Vakrom was the one who found out his hideout and went to give him chase. Breaking the illusions by dispelling the magic, Yaregosz entered the forest and annihilated Kargus the dragonborn. Vakrom, in an act of fear, grabbed from his treasure hoard a horn of capturing and trapped the blue dragon inside it in an extradimensional space.

Location

In his escape from the Council, Vakrom used an entrance to the Feywild he knew about in the forest and disappeared into it. Vakrom would never set foot again in that world, not until he had built a big enough army to confront the entire council.

The Feywild is geographically similar to the Material Plane with some alterations. Knowing that, Vakrom went to the tallest mountain that has an entire forest on its top and laid there, making it his lair. With time, the lair started to change due to his presence combined with the magic from the Fey realm, granting the dragon some wild new abilities and opening portals to different worlds. The mountain has several portals that connect both to strategic sections from his lair and to other worlds, making them excellent to battle tactically.

Just like it gave weird new abilities to Vakrom, the Fey magic caused the whole area around the mountain to be filled with the green dragon’s mist, which has all creatures that cast a spell roll a d20. On a 20, roll on the wild magic surge table from the PHB. Additionally, all creatures with an intelligence of 6 or lower are forced to obey the green dragon’s will while in the mist, allowing Vakrom to see through their eyes.

Allies and enemies

• Minions: The portals to other worlds allowed Vakrom to bring minions from several locations. Through politics, negotiation, and intimidation several monsters and species now work for or with him. These vary from kobolds and goblins to cultists that find Vakrom’s ire as a great tool they can use to their advantage. Even humanoid races such as humans and elves have decided to cooperate to find some mutual benefit, or are forced to bring him treasures if they are to survive.
• Archfey and the courts: The archfey think of Vakrom as a menace that will at any point put them in danger. Vakrom has made sure not to create any rivalry with the archfey, but maintains a neutral position with all of them. However, Vakrom is continually scared he might receive a surprise attack from the different inhabitants of the Fey realm, and has become paranoid. He plans to have his army continually grow so as not to become an easy target, but may coerce or confront the court or archfey if necessary.
• Council of dragons: The council has not only lost Vakrom as one of his members but also Yaregosz, who remains captive in the magic item. They believe they are in a weak position at the moment but yearn for revenge against the green dragon.
• Inhabitants of the different worlds: Vakrom used his army to make itself stronger by taking prisoners. Numerous cities secretly work with the green dragon asking for help in war when needed in exchange for power and resources. There is a limit, however, to how much Vakrom can pay attention to all those he is in talks with, and one or two may be looking to put an end to the drake’s life.

Stat block & Strategies

Vakrom has always been a patient and cowardly creature that prefers to manipulate other monsters into doing his dirty work rather than going full into combat. If his enemies get close to him, he will try to convince the other party into allying with him to take over someone else of higher power or that he is scared of in exchange of a great deal, if not all of the treasures they have. If he thinks there is something to be won by killing the player party off, he will contact the enemies they plan to battle against so Vakrom can cooperate with them to kill the party off.

If Vakrom sees a great opportunity to kill the PCs in his lair though, he will use his mislead spell to trick the PCs into talking with him while he finds an advantageous position and breathes poison or a stinking cloud from behind. His ring of invisibility is great to get into a better position or to escape if needed.

Despite his eternal fear of being beaten, Vakrom doesn’t find many things to live for after Kargus’ death. If he sees no chance of success, he will attempt to take the PCs life with him by destroying part of the mountain over them or by grabbing a player character and diving from the mountain to its base.

Treasure Hoard

Vakrom has all sorts of treasures in his hoard he collected throughout the centuries. However, there are some specific things within his loot that are particularly special to him:

• Little emerald statuette of a green dragon: The little statue was made by Kargus to resemble Vakrom, worth 7500gp. He adores the statue and will protect it with his life.
• Metallic black dragon head: Being about 1ft in size, this face was made by Kargus as a replica of his own face to give as a present to Vakrom. When asked a question, the head replies with “Yes”, “No” or “I don’t know”. The reply is completely random, but Vakrom doesn’t know that. When in doubt, the green dragon asks the little head what to do. He considers it the closest thing he has to his dead friend and thus might kill and torture those who even dare to touch it.
• Horn of Capturing: Once an item that when used could capture a creature, it now holds “Yaregosz, the Cristal from the Skies”. If blown, the item releases the blue dragon within 10 feet, but an identify spell can’t indicate what creature is inside the item. If freed, Yaregosz will start a life-long vengeance to destroy Vakrom and everything he loves.

Adventure hooks

• The party is contacted by a noble to investigate the city government as he/she believes there is something going on behind the curtain (or for some ulterior motive). Vakrom is the one pulling the strings and may be enslaving people or having them do rituals/offerings in his name.
• The Court of Summer convinces the player party to take the dragon in exchange for Vakrom’s many treasures (which the court shows through a magic mirror), as well as an alliance with the court.
• One of Vakrom’s minions escapes from his sight and pleads for help freeing their family that is being mind-controlled by the mist created by the dragon.
• The council of dragons find Vakrom’s location and intimidates a king to send someone to take care of Vakrom if he doesn’t want his territory invaded by multiple dragons. The council of dragons fear what may lie in the Feywild. The king orders the player characters to take care of this.

Did you enjoy this format? Are you looking forward to more NPCs and/or enemies that can inspire you or you can easily plug and play in your games? What did you make of this monster I gave you? Be sure to let me know in the comments below! I love to hear your stories.

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As DMs, our drive and creativity often lead us to build big, complex adventures. Yet often the best stories come from simple adventures bursting with unique results as we play them at our table. Don't shy away from simple adventures with straight forward hooks and typical fantasy locations. Let the characters' actions complicate the situation.

For more on this topic, see my three-minute YouTube video on Running Simple Adventures.

Dragon of Icespire Peak, the adventure in the D&D Essentials Boxed Set, is noteworthy in many ways. It may be my favorite D&D adventure, up there with Curse of Strahd and Lost Mine of Phandelver. One of its great strengths is it's simplicity. Characters pick up jobs from a local job board, go on quests, complete them, and return home for a new one. It seems almost too simple, and for some groups it may be, but many enjoy this adventure not because of what it has in it but how it plays out at the table.

The most interesting events in our game occur at the table, not when we plan our adventure. Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master is built on this idea. We prepare what we need to let the game travel in interesting directions at the table. This is why we don't tie secrets and clues to specific locations, NPCs, or objects. We improvise their discovery during the game.

We can plan deep and rich adventures with lots of details, intrigue, and complications; or we can run a simple classic adventure and let the complications happen at the table.

Examples of Simple Adventures

What do simple adventures look like? Here are ten example straight-forward quests you might use or that might inspire your own:

• Collect the holy bell at the fallen monastery.
• Rescue the old cobbler lost in forgotten sewers.
• Defeat the elven warlord camping out at the ruined keep.
• Route the bandits threatening the village from the old dwarven mines.
• End the Black Sun cultist's ritual at the unhallowed megaliths.
• Find the sword of Kavan buried in the decrepit crypts outside of town.
• Root out the rat queen infesting the local inn with giant rats in the old cellars.
• Hunt down the murderous beast lairing in the caves along the southern foothills.
• Put the spirit of the red king to rest in the catacombs beneath the old church.
• Slay the Lord of Pigs in the infested warrens deep in the western forest.

Grab a Dyson Logos map, write down ten secrets and clues the characters might uncover in the location, throw in some monsters and treasure, and you have yourself a D&D game.

Shaking Up the Cliche

Sometimes a straight forward quest and adventure are all we need. Other times its worth shaking things up a little bit to make it unique. Here are ten ways we might shake up our otherwise common adventure:

• Why are the villains right to do what they do?
• Shake up the ancestries and origins of the quest givers and the enemies.
• Add fantastic features: something huge, something old, something otherworldly.
• A villain or henchman is related to one of the characters.
• The antagonists are righteous to a fault.
• Add a new theme to the monsters: fiery, cold, acidic, necrotic, radiant, electric, poisonous, etc.
• Mix monster types: undead hellhounds, shadowy orcs, celestial werewolves.
• Add factions to the monsters and villains. Can the characters pit one side against another?
• Layer threats. Perhaps the villains are trying to escape something even worse.
• Escalation. The whole event was far worse than it seems.

Many times, however, we need not shake things up like this. A straight forward adventure will shake itself up as our mind runs off during the game.

Hanging On to Classic D&D

"Classic" D&D had adventurers delving deep into dungeons to find lost treasure and face terrible monsters. There's no reason we can't keep that purity in heart. While many have taken the game into tremendous depths of character and story, sometimes we just want to stab a giant rat with a sword. Run simple adventures.

Related Articles

• West Marches Campaigns in Grendleroot
• A Guide to Official D&D 5th Edition Published Adventures
• Running Dragon of Icespire Peak from the D&D Essentials Kit
• Combining the D&D Starter Set and Essentials Kit
• Dungeons & Dragons Starter Set: Running Phandelver

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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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Secrets and clues are the powerhouse step in Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master. They're the glue that ties our games together. They're the reward for exploration and discovery. They're the interface between the characters and the world.

Secrets can be tricky, though, when you're just starting out. It's easy to over-think them. It may be easier to think about the types of secrets we can write up and go through these types when we're writing up the ten secrets for our next session. Some of these secret types include:

• Character secrets
• Location secrets
• Historical secrets
• NPC or villain secrets
• Plot-revealing secrets
• Adventure hooks

Let's take a look.

Character Secrets

Review the characters is the first step from Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master for a few reasons. Most importantly, it helps us remember that the characters are the center of the game and thus the rest of our prep circles around them. Secrets are no different. Character-driven secrets are a powerful way to draw the character (and the player) into the game. Here are a few character-driven secrets:

• Atrabe's cousin became a high-ranking member of the Cult of the Dragon.
• Arwin's medallion secretly contains the soul of her father.
• Shift's brother, Lord Krash, became a prominent leader of the Emerald Claw.
• Banner's swordsiblings from the Last War have become members of the Lord of Blades.
• The illithid parasite within Shadow Hawk grows stronger and only the illithids can remove it.

Character-driven secrets can tie characters to historical facts, NPCs, villains, items, or be self-contained.

Location Secrets

What information might the characters learn about the locations around them? These secrets can capture and reveal the history of the world by the physical locations the characters explore. Here are some example location-based secrets.

• The Mournland is a twisted hellscape formed at the end of the Last War when a weapon of terrible power destroyed the entire nation of Cyre.
• Clawrift once served as a vast artificers' laboratory in the city of Making until a terrible explosion bored a hole through its center.
• Myre's End once served as retreat for the fey prince Blackhorn but now serves as his mausoleum.
• The once mighty citadel of the Besilmer dwarves, Harrowholme has become a twisted temple to the demon prince Zuggtmoy.
• The academy of Eberron, a magical academy of Cyre, now serves as the headquarters to the Night's Kiss assassins.

Use secrets to give the characters and players insight into the locations in which they delve.

Historical Secrets

Vast histories of our campaign worlds usually don't stick in the minds of our players and no one wants to hear us read a history book for two hours. Secrets and clues help the characters (and players) learn the history of the world around them while they engage in their adventures. History and location-based secrets often overlap.

• The Reghed tribes sometimes warred with and sometimes allied with the people of Ten Towns. One can never say how the tribes will react to their neighbors in Icewind Dale.
• The goblin empire of the Dhakaani once wielded arcane power surpassing even the modern day magic of Khorvaire.
• Once the Cult of the Dragon served ancient dragons by aiding their transformation into powerful dracolichs. Now the Cult of the Dragon seeks to draw Tiamat from Avernus.
• Lord Degault Neverember once served as the Open Lord of Waterdeep but left Waterdeep in disgrace after failing to deal with the Dragon Cult threat and returned to his home city of Neverwinter.
• Centuries ago, four heroes of the Desserin Valley built four citadels atop the dungeons they had explored, intending to defend against the evil that lay below.

Add historical secrets to expose the world of the campaign to your players one sentence at a time.

NPC and Villain Secrets

In our dynamic D&D games, our NPCs and villains are living and (sometimes) breathing beings. They're doing things. They came from somewhere. NPC and villain secrets show their movement in the world otherwise invisible to the players. Here are some examples.

• The Daughters of Sora Kell never leave their ziggurats in the depths of Droaam and yet they've been sighted in the city of Making within the Mournland.
• Iymrith protects herself with a tribe of desert dwellers who worshiped her as a god for centuries.
• The Xanathar sent his best hunters and assassins into the streets of Waterdeep seeking an artifact said to be the key to a half-million gold dragons (the coin, not the beasts).
• Acererak the archlich found the dead husk of an unborn god in the darkest reaches of the astral sea and now hopes to bring it back to live with the sacrifice of million souls.
• House Xorlarrin never forgets a slight. They have sent the Night's Kiss assassins to Ten Towns to hunt down Shadow Hawk and bring his head back to Menzorberranzan.

Use NPC and villain secrets to show players the history and movement of the NPCs in the world.

Adventure Hooks

The eight steps from Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master don't include adventure hooks. Secrets and clues are one great place to add adventure hooks into our prep notes. These might take the place of rumors the characters hear or plots driven by their enemies. Here are some examples.

• Within the ruined city of Eston lies a half-machine half-god able to make the journey across the Mournland to the city of Making.
• The Daughters of Sora Kell, the armies of the Lord of Blades, and a powerful wizard of the Aurum all seek the weapon lost and buried in the center of Making.
• An old woman is the lone survivor of a village atop a bluff in eastern Chult. This wise woman is one of the few in Chult who know the location of the lost city of Omu.
• Two adventurers went to the mansion outside of Saltmarsh, the body of one of them washed ashore, her hands bound and armaments removed.
• Only Madame Eva of the Vistani knows how the devil Strahd might one day be destroyed.

Use secrets and clues to drop adventure hooks in front of the characters.

And Many More

These are but a few of the most popular types of secrets and clues. Above all, remember that secrets and clues serve you. Use them however you will to give you the lore you need when the opportunity arises in your next game.

Related Articles

• Secrets and Clues, the Secret Weapon of the Lazy Dungeon Master
• Revealing Secrets
• Throwing Away Secrets
• Thinking Two Horizons Out
• Adventure Hooks

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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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In the Edition Wars podcast covering the 5th edition Dungeon Master's Guide, the hosts and guests of the show discussed the importance of talking to your players, and how hard that can be sometimes. Saying "just talk to your players" puts a lot of weight on the word "just", stated Brandes Stoddard.

How do we talk to our players? How do we get feedback for our game? How do we make sure the game we're running is the kind of game our players want to play?

Running a Session Zero

Session zeros, now mentioned in many books and articles, including my own book, Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master and Wizards of the Coast's Tasha's Cauldron of Everything, help ensure you and your players are on the same page about the campaign you're about to run. Any campaign can benefit from running a session zero. Here's my article on session zeros for details.

Adding New Members to the Group

When adding new members to our group, take the time to really talk to them about what they want from a game and what sort of game you plan to run. You're goal isn't to sell your game but to make sure it's a good fit for them and that they will be a good fit for the group. What type of game do you run? What sorts of things do you do in your games that some players may not like? For me, I make it clear that I run lots of battles in the theater of the mind, with less of a focus on tactical combat than the evolving story. That's not for all players. Read more in my article in finding and maintaining a D&D group for more.

Incorporating Safety Tools

Before your game begins and during the game itself, it's important to have safety tools in place. I prefer a mix of "lines and veils" and some sort of verbal X card. These tools help ensure that the content you and your players bring to the game has clear boundaries up front but also has a way to pause the game and take stock out of character to make sure everyone's having fun. Read more in my article on safety tools.

Getting Feedback on your Game

It can be particularly hard to get direct feedback on your game once you're in the middle of a campaign. If you ask players general questions like "how do you like the game?" you're likely to get shrugs and "great!" or the like. Most of the time players are happy playing and aren't thinking about it too hard. That's fine, but it doesn't give us much for feedback.

If we want good feedback we have to ask specific questions.

Stars and Wishes

Stars and wishes comes from Lu Quade and is described in this article on the Gauntlet. Stars and wishes are designed to draw out positive feedback on a session, adventure, or campaign by asking each player two questions:

Stars. What are the things you liked best in our adventures so far? What did you love?

Wishes. What are you looking forward to in our future games?

Because you're asking each player these questions, you'll get insights into what they loved and likely what they did not, at least by omission if they don't bring it up themselves. You'll also hear what they want to see in future sessions, very valuable information for planning things out in the future.

What Happened in the Last Game?

I always like to start off the beginning of the session by asking the players to describe what happened in our last game. Often it takes them a bit to re-sync with what happened but I get good insight into what parts of the game they remember, what mattered to them, and what might safely fade into the shadows. This technique isn't for everyone. You may be more comfortable with your own recap or perhaps start the recap and let them fill in the blanks.

What Does Your Character Think About This?

In Your Best Game Ever, Monte Cook brings up another question we might add to the mix to learn more about the characters in our games. After a significant milestone in our game we can ask each player to describe how their character feels about the current situation. How does their character feel in the world right now? Like stars and wishes, this gives us a great deal of information we can file away for future sessions and gives us a peek into the mind of the player driving that character, showing us what they're paying attention to.

What Does Your Character Want?

Another good question to ask is what the players want for their characters. This probably works best one-on-one and isn't so critical that it can't be done over email or in Discord. Ask for just a few sentences in case the player wants to come back with six pages of backstory and ideas unless you're not bothered by that. Take note of what they want and try to give it to them if you can.

Be Specific

Whatever questions you use to get feedback from your players, be specific about it and focus it on them and their experiences. Here are some example questions you might ask:

• How do you feel about the whole storyline with the cult of Auril?
• How do you feel about the balance of combat to roleplaying in our last session?
• What's your hope and dream for the storyline
• How do you feel about the mysterious affliction that lets you read minds?
• Do you like easier battles? Hard battles? A mix?
• How did you feel about the challenge of that big fight with the demon? Too easy? Too hard?
• Where would you like to see your character's relationship with your estranged parents end up?
• What's your ideal outcome dealing with the Xanathar assassins who are hunting you?
• Where do you want to see your character's business end up and how can you keep that going while still going on adventures with the rest of the group?
• How do you like the Temple of the Moon that you guys acquired? What else do you want to do with it?

Specific questions are a key to great feedback.

The Magic Item Wish List

An easy question to ask, one reinforced in Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master, is the loose magic item wish list. Ask your players to describe the kinds of items their characters are interested in rather than specific magic items. You can mix in loot from this wish list along with randomly generated loot sure to surprise them as they adventure.

A Continuing Effort

Getting good feedback from our players is critical to running a great game and it isn't easy. You're more likely to get a shrug and a nod than a good detailed analysis of your game. That's ok. Asking the right questions can help you get useful feedback to help drive the game continually towards the enjoyment of everyone at the table.

Related Articles

• Running Session Zeros
• 2016 D&D 5th Edition Dungeon Master Questionnaire
• Safety Tools
• Asking the Wrong Questions
• Finding and Maintaining a D&D Group

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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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Here's a one-line encounter building rule for you:

Choose the number and type of monsters that make sense for the story, the situation, and the world.

Many DMs build encounters by looking at the characters, their levels, and their overall power and then select monsters to challenge those characters. I argue this takes things backwards. The world doesn't conform to the level of the characters. The world is the world and it has exactly as many monsters of various types as it is supposed to, including monsters far weaker than the characters and a few far stronger.

This idea joins two other topics together: building situations and the lazy encounter benchmark. If you haven't read those articles, you may want to when you're done with this one.

Instead of balancing combat encounters around the characters, focus instead on running adventures appropriate for the station and power of those characters. We've talked about this before in tier-appropriate adventure locations. 1st level characters shouldn't likely be knocking on the door of a fire giant citadel and 18th level characters aren't likely hired to clean out a warren of kobolds. The quests fit the characters. The world does not.

Once the characters choose a quest appropriate to their capabilities, let go of worrying about encounter balance and instead focus on what makes sense for the location.

What would that location look like if the characters never showed up?

There's some diametrical thinking with D&D around this idea. When we're preparing our games we put the characters first in our mind. This is step one of the eight steps from Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master — intended to put the characters into our minds as we build out the rest of our adventure.

However, we also want to let go of the characters when we're filling out a location full of monsters. The lair is the lair regardless of the characters. How does it work on its own?

Too often DMs focus on how powerful the characters are and ignore everything else. When we review the characters, we're looking for backstories, hooks, plots, and desires we can tie into our adventure — not whether a character is level 8 with great weapon master. Many DMs ignore the backstory and focus on developing carefully calculated encounters for each room in a dungeon intended to challenge the party. Instead, focus on the story for both the characters and the monsters they might face.

Upward and Downward Beats with a Loose List of Inhabitants

In step seven of the eight steps (Chapter 9 in Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master), we list the monsters that might show up in our session. There's a reason we don't tie monsters to locations most of the time. The situation is dynamic. It can change based on what's happening in the world and how the pacing of our game feels. Have the characters had a lot of great luck sneaking around the hobgoblin fortress? Maybe the next room is filled with veterans practicing their phalanx maneuvers. Have the characters been having a hard go of it with a lot of bad rolls? Maybe they find two hobgoblins passed out over a table full of cards. The situation is dynamic in these locations and we can decide during the game what sort of pacing will be the most fun for the moment.

Is it Deadly?

The only time we need to worry about the difficulty of an encounter is if it might be inadvertently deadly. We can check this quickly with the following guideline:

An encounter may be deadly if the sum total of monster challenge levels is greater than one quarter of the sum total of character levels, or half of character levels if the characters are above 4th level.

This is close enough to the standard encounter building guidelines to serve us without needing an online tool or a bunch of reference tables. Of course, many factors change the difficulty of a battle beyond just level and challenge rating including the situation of the fight, environmental effects, magic items, player skill, character synergy, and others; but the benchmark is still a handy gauge to let you know if things are edging towards deadly. This is a loose guideline, not a hard rule, intended to be used after you've already built the encounter from the situation in the world. No encounter building system is accurate anyway so this is as good as any.

If they are walking into a deadly encounter, warn them. Their characters can probably tell things are dire even if the players can't. Give them a fair warning that "this foe is beyond you" so they can make an informed choice.

Always Consider the Story

The urge to focus on mechanics is strong but it's the story that matters. Just as our D&D games start and end in the fiction, so should our prep. What's happening in the world? What makes sense? What creatures would be lurking around here? Think about things from inside the world first and then examine the mechanics to bring it alive at the table.

Related Articles

• The Lazy Encounter Benchmark, a Simple Measure for D&D Encounter Deadliness
• A New Dungeon Master's Guide For Building Encounters
• Building Encounters in Fifth Edition Dungeons & Dragons
• D&D 5e Numbers to Keep In Your Head
• Thoughts on Unearthed Arcana's Encounter Building Guidelines

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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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Johnn Four from Roleplaying Tips and I partnered up to do a series of four YouTube videos to help GMs run awesome RPGs! You can get the first video on "Situations and the Five Room Dungeon", no strings attached, at the following URL:

https://youtu.be/L0xYZZoxVY0

You can get the next video in the series on the topic of "RPG Map Designs" by signing up on the following page:

https://www.roleplayingtips.com/lazy-gms/

This subscribes you to both my weekly newsletter and Johnn Four's weekly newsletter. Don't worry if you've already subscribed to one or both, you will still get the video and won't be subscribed twice.

The third video in the series is on "Running Heists and Capers" and is available to patrons of Sly Flourish's Patreon page which you can find here:

https://www.patreon.com/slyflourish

And the four video on "Running Mysteries" is available to patrons of Johnn Four's Patreon which you can find at:

https://www.patreon.com/johnnfour/

Johnn and I hope you love these videos as much as we loved putting them together! Thanks for checking them out!

Related Articles

• Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master Video Series
• What D&D Looks Like
• A Year with D&D 5e Video
• Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master
• Rime of the Frostmaiden Session Zero

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

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I had a wonderful chat with Johnn Four of Roleplaying Tips recently and he said something that crystalized a thought swimming around my head for a while.

The world is the game.

More and more, when I look at various aspects of D&D, I come back to the same general advice: stay in the fiction. Instead, of asking how the game mechanics work for something, ask how that thing works in the world and then let the mechanics represent that. What monsters should you use in a given scene? What monsters make sense for the situation.

We sometimes forget that the mechanics represent what's happening in the world. They don't stand alone. When a DM is asked to judge a given situation, they can start by trying to understand what makes sense in the game world first and then judging the situation based on that understanding.

When you're thinking about an NPC, ask yourself how that NPC would act in the world. What do they want? Where did they come from? Do that before you start assigning DCs.

When you're trying to figure out how to fill up a dungeon, ask yourself what the dungeon used to be and what monsters or traps make sense. Think about the ecology.

When you pick up the monster manual, read the story of a monster before reading the stat block. Before you choose a monster of a given challenge rating because it fits the level of the characters, first look for monsters that make sense for the environment.

Want to keep combat interseting? Start and end with the fiction. Describe the situation based on what the characters see, ask for their actions, and then describe what happens. Did they get a killing blow? Ask them to describe what it looks like in the world.

Afraid every ogre looks or runs like every other ogre? Change up their in-world details before worrying about changing their mechanics. Maybe one has tattoos all up one half of his body while the other carries a club made out of the femur of a dragon.

Do you want a big complicated set of ability checks in a final battle? First, think about the ritual taking place in that final battle and how it works in the world. Let the choices of the players drive which mechanics you need to arbitrate the situation.

When it's time to wrap a situation in the world with mechanics, most of the time we can do so by assigning a DC and choosing an appropriate ability score and skill to attempt it. The simple ability check answers most of what we need most of the time.

Stay in the fiction. Bathe in the world. Think about what's happening in the story before choosing the mechanics to represent it.

The world is the game.

Related Articles

• The Story Focus of D&D
• Our Ability Check Toolbox
• Choose Monsters Based on the Story
• Instant NPCs for Fifth Edition D&D
• A New Dungeon Master's Guide For Building Encounters

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

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This article outlines a twenty level campaign centering around the sinister plots of the demon prince Demorgorgon. Like The Hunger and Harvester of Worlds, this outline describes location-based adventures for each tier of play following a central arc. It's intended to inspire your own campaign outlines, offer subplots you can weave into your own campaigns, or even inspire your own Demogorgon-based campaign. Enjoy!

Campaign Elevator Pitch

Demogorgon begins a war...against themselves! Aameul, the charismatic and calculating head of the twin-headed demon prince plants the seed of a plot to finally split from their brutal chaotic other half, Hethradiah. All that must be done is to die. Unfortunately, such a feat will destroy much of the world along with it and birth a new chaotic demon prince in the process. The characters must untangle this thread, protect the world from the demon prince's war, and perhaps destroy the demon prince forever.

The Six Truths of Demogorgon Must Die

• Cults are on the rise in the region.
• Mutated livestock have been born with two heads.
• Twisted nightmares pushed orc and goblinoid raiders back deep into their caves.
• Strange shadows and ghouls rise from fetid swamps attacking local villages.
• Strange symbols appear in ancient swampy caves, black myres, and forgotten grottos.
• Local lords and regional kings began conscripting and mobilizing armies for a coming war.

1st Level: A Missing Mind

The campaign begins with the characters conscripted by an elderly mother whose son has gone missing in the nearby woods. Nightmares told the old woman that something unfathomable and sinister grips her son's body, lifts him, and pierces into his skull with a black tentacle.

The characters find the poor lad, comatose, with no visible wounds. A strange glyph has been burned into the grass surrounding the young man. Shadows (one for every two characters) slide out of the woods speaking in the abyssal tongue of the Deep Father as the lad rises up as a ghoul. The characters return to the woman with their grim news and reach 2nd level.

2nd to 4th Level: Rise of the Sibilant Beast

The characters uncover signs of not one but two cults vying for power in the region, each seeking to draw their own demon prince into the world and build it's throne.

Ruins of the Hungering Maw. The characters follow the signs of a nearby cult to ancient ruins of a dark keep. There they discover cultists pulling a demon out of the Gaping Maw.

Monastery of the Still Mind. Following the leads of those whose minds have been shattered, the characters travel to a nearby monastery supposedly helping those victims. Instead they discover an entirely different cult devouring the consciousness of their victims.

Altar of Spiraling Depths. Following clues from both cults, the characters travel to an underground temple where the Cult of Aameul and the Cult of Hethradiah wage war against one another only to find that both cults follow the same being — Demogorgon!

5th to 10th Level: The War of Spiraling Depths

The cults of Aameul and Hethradiah wage war across the land, corrupting kings and murdering hundreds as they crash together. The characters begin to unweave the plot of the twin-headed demon prince.

The Sundered Village. The characters travel to a village overtaken by festering ghouls and cultists of Hethradiah.

Pits of the Black Mire. The characters learn of a festering pit hidden away in the Black Mire where the Cult of Hethradiah spawns terrible psionic-empowered ghouls attacking neighboring villages.

Library of the Imprisoned One. In order to understand the true depths of the twin cults and the horror they worship, the characters travel to the library of Helm. There in the forbidden stacks, they discover that a sect of Helm's priests and paladins have supported Aameul for centuries.

Horror from the Gaping Maw. Vithriax, a two-headed troll priest, uses the power of both cults to call horrible demons out of the ancient gateway of Ix. The characters must travel to the gateway, face its demonic hordes, and close the portal to end the infestation.

Palace of Shattered Minds. The characters learn that the Cult of Aameul have dominated the minds of the rulers of Wyndgard palace, the city surrounding it, and the armies that protect it. The characters must make their way into the palace and break the Sphere of Aameul dominating the lords.

Warlocks of the Twisting Serpents. The characters travel to the spire of Twisted Serpents to face the yuan-ti warlocks of Demogorgon; the only followers who understand Demogorgon's duality. Only they know the true drive of both Aameul and Hethradiah.

11th to 16th Level: Discordia

The character learn that in order to save the world they must slay the avatar of Demogorgon in the world, acquire the only weapon capable of killing Demogorgon in their home world of the Gaping Maw, and travel to that accursed world to end Demogorgon's reign of destruction.

Return to Darklake. Years ago the kuo-toa summoned Demogorgon to the underdark through sheer force of will. How they did so remains a mystery sunken in the depths of Darklake. The characters must make their way to the ruined kuo-toa city and face the horrors they have manifested through their own mad callings before reaching the ruins beneath the black water and discovering the prophecy speaking secrets of the twin-headed demon prince.

The Bloodfields. Twisted by the influence of both Aameul and Hethradiah, war rages in the land. Deformed giants and demons led by the twin-headed ancient black dragon Selivis Twintongue fight the mind-twisted armies of the city of Wyndgard in league with Aamuel. The characters must find a way to stop both armies before they destroy every town and village stuck between them.

Hall of Secrets. Far in the frozen north lives a lich sage trapped in his own unhallowed halls. Having long-since given his soul to extend his life, the lich, Xorrus, is the only being who has discovered the true secret of Aameul's plot, the location of the weapon capable of destroying Demogorgon, and the yawning gateway that leads from this world to Demogorgon's own world, the Gaping Maw.

City of Shattered Mines. The avatar of Demogorgon destroys the city of Wyndgard, shredding bodies with its twisted tentacles and minds with its psionic attacks. The characters must return to the broken city, face, and defeat the avatar before it continues its reign of destruction.

Castle Discordia. The characters track back the trail of the avatar of Demogorgon to the legendary Castle Discordia, an ancient keep once thought to be pure myth. In its twisted halls and endless chambers the characters must find the portal to the Gaping Maw and the weapon capable of slaying the demon prince forever, guarded by Demogorgon's most powerful cultists and guardians.

The Gaping Maw. In the depths beneath Castle Discordia, beings of pure nightmare lurk in the darkness, never having seen the sun of the world above. The most loyal cultists, priests, and archmages in service to the cult of the Deep Father guard the portal between the world and the Gaping Maw. If the characters wish to save the world above they must enter the portal and close it from the other side.

17th to 20th Level: Death and Birth in the Gaping Maw

The characters step into the Gaping Maw, the abyssal layer of Demogorgon where the demon prince's war has shattered the plane. There they must make their choice to follow through with Aameul's plot, betray Aameul to Hethradiah, attempt to kill Demogorgon, or slay the resulting new demon prince rising from Aaemul's treachery.

The Brine Flats. The characters traverse an endless shore of white bones along the acidic oceans of the Gaping Maw. They come across the ruins of cities and temples fallen from other worlds and torn apart by the rampages of twisted undead and mutated demons before making their way to the gates of the Endless Jungle.

The Endless Jungle. The characters navigate the swamps and jungle stretching from the Brine Flats to the tower of Abysm. They find themselves hunted by the broken fomorian hunters of the jungle who serve the twin dracolichs who sired Selivis Twintongue.

The Towers of Abysm. The characters crawl through the catacombs beneath the twin twisted towers of Abysm seeking an entrance through the maddening labyrinth. Climbing within they face their own worst memories, torn from their minds and manifested. Along the way the final plots and seeds of both Aamuel and Hethradiah slide through the minds of the characters, offering them eternal glory should they side the right way.

Death and Rebirth. In the highest reaches of the Towers of Abysm the characters face Demogorgon's final guardians and uncover Aameul's sarcophagus containing their new body. In the final chamber the characters must defeat Demogorgon and their protectors before siding with one head over the other or choosing to destroy both and create a vacuum for something new. The decisions they choose change the face of the multiverse forever.

An Outline for Inspiration

The goal for an outline like this is to inspire your own campaign ideas and show one approach for outlining an entire campaign without writing a novel's worth of situations that may never come to pass. Campaign outlines give us the freedom to fill out an entire 1st to 20th level campaign arc without creating material that never hit the table. Hopefully this arc inspires your own campaign seeds and the adventures you share around the table with your friends and family.

Related Articles

• The Hunger: A Level 1 to 20 Gnoll Campaign
• Lazy DM Cheat Sheet Text
• Scaling the Story to the Level of the Characters
• Tier Appropriate Adventure Locations
• Types of Secrets

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.

New to Sly Flourish? Start Here!

Consider a quest where the door to the infamous Black Vault requires five gemstone keys and an evil wizard seeks these five keys to open it. In this scenario, the characters need only acquire one key to end the entire quest for the villain. Grab a key, throw it into the ocean, and the villain's whole quest is over.

Flip the situation around and we still have the same problem. If the characters seek to open the door and the Cult of the Black Vault seeks to keep it closed, all the cult must do is destroy one key and the characters can't succeed.

This is the problem with all-or-nothing collection quests. Any one item falling into the wrong hands can break the entire quest. These quest models are fragile.

Instead, a slight change to this quest design makes the quest more flexible and provides a robust framework for stronger confrontations between villains and characters.

What if the vault door required only three of five keys to open instead of all of them? Now, instead of needing to find only one key to stop the evil wizard, the characters have to find three of them. The chase is on as the characters and the Cult of the Black Vault hunt for keys all over the land.

If you prefer a video on this topic, see my Three of Five Keys Youtube Video.

Requiring the Majority of Keys

We can fix collection quests like this by ensuring that the quest requires only the majority of items to complete the quest, not all of them. Maybe it's four of seven keys. Maybe it's five of nine. The more keys required, the longer the quest will take. Instead of an easy victory, characters may be traveling all over the world to acquire the majority of keys before the villains get them.

Often such collection quests include a moment where either the villains or the characters need to steal keys from the other. Instead of this being a requirement (when all keys are needed), now the results of such a heist can go either way and the whole quest isn't over should one side or the other succeed.

Requiring the majority of keys, instead of all of them, makes collection quests more robust and flexible. It gives us room for fun improvisation. Our carefully designed campaign won't fall apart when the characters get crafty and acquire a key we didn't expect. It gives us room to let the game go where it goes. We know that, whether a character or a villain acquires an item, more keys are needed to stop one side or the other.

When running quests where a number of items are required to complete the quest, ensure only the majority of items (three of five keys, four of seven keys, etc) are needed so the quest isn't over if one key falls into the wrong hands. This powerful quest design pattern gives you a durable quest model with great flexibility and lots of opportunities for a fun chase across a fantastic land.

Related Articles

• Adventure Keys
• Quests for Villains
• The Danger of All-Or-Nothing Collection Quests
• Running Dragon of Icespire Peak from the D&D Essentials Kit
• Adding Depth to Storm King's Thunder

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.

New to Sly Flourish? Start Here!

When running Dungeons & Dragons we DMs have a number of dials we can turn to change the difficulty and challenge of any monster. Some dials work best when we turn them before the battle begins, others we can turn while combat is already underway. We can use these dials to change up the pacing of our game, making things more or less challenging depending on what works for the moment. These monster dials include:

• The number of monsters
• Each monster's hit points
• The monster's number of attacks
• The amount of damage a monster inflicts

Turning these dials changes monsters significantly, giving us a lot of control over how dangerous any given monster is.

Best of all, we don't have to spend a lot of time turning these dials. We can turn them up or down in our head, making them awesome tools for improvisational play.

Let's look at each of these dials and see what effects it can have on our game.

Tune the Number of Monsters

Before a battle begins, we can decide how many monsters might be in that battle. We can start by asking ourselves what makes sense for the situation. Is it likely to be twenty hobgoblins in the mess hall or just four? Like many of our decisions in D&D, we start by asking ourselves what makes sense for the situation in-world. That isn't the final answer, though. We have another question to ask:

What will make the game more fun right now? Sometimes the answer to this question is "more monsters". Othertimes it's "less monsters". If the characters have already recently fought in a big knock-down drag-out fight, maybe we want to go with less monsters. Not every battle needs to be a challenge. Run easy battles from time to time. They can offer a lot of interest and a lot more fun than you may realize.

Start by asking what makes sense and then tune the number up or down to fit the pacing and energy of the game. If you need to, use the lazy encounter benchmark to see if the battle might be deadly.

A battle may be deadly if the sum total of monster challenge ratings is greater than one quarter of the sum total of character levels, or one half if the characters are above fourth level.

You can also turn this dial during combat if the in-world circumstances make sense. Another wave of monsters might follow the first, for example, or another group may stray off or get distracted. It's harder to turn this dial without the players seeing it though, and they'll know if you're adding monsters just to make things harder if it's too ham-fisted.

Turn the Hit Point Dial

As written, the hit points of a monster can fluctuate between the minimum and maximum allowed by the monster's hit dice. An ogre's stat block reads 59 (7d10 + 21). 59 is the average. An ogre can have anywhere from 28 to 91 and still be within range of its hit points. We can decide, during the game, how many hit points an ogre has within this range based on how we feel the battle is going. Will it help if the ogres present more of a threat? Turn the dial up and give them up to 91. Is it time for those ogres to go down? Turn the dial down to 21.

If we're willing to break the rules even more, and I give you full permission to do so for the fun of your game, you can safely double a monster's hit point if you feel it works for the story and the pacing of the current situation or drop them down to 1 if it's time for the monsters to go away. While the hit point dial is safely turned within the range of a monster's hit dice, I think it's perfectly fine to turn the dial outside of the margins and increase a monster's hit points up to double their average or down to 1 when it suits the situation.

Being willing to double a monster's hit points or reduce them to 1 is also much easier math than figuring out the minimum and maximum values of a monster's hit dice. When in doubt, be lazy.

Change a monster's hit points up to double its average or down to 1 hit point based on what fits the story, pacing, and current situation.

Turn the Number of Attacks Dial

Sometimes it isn't just the hit points or damage that pushes monsters into the danger zone. Sometimes they need to do more stuff. Many monsters have a multiattack action. If we want to turn up the threat, we can give monsters an additional attack in that multi-attack action. If we overcalculated and things are too deadly, we can remove attacks, maybe knocking it down to just one.

Sometimes monsters with additional abilities never have a chance to use those abilities if it's simply better for them to attack. The ankheg, for example, has a bite and web attack but can only choose one. This might be completely appropriate but if we want to get nasty, turn up the attack dial and let the ankheg do both in one turn. If we have a monster that can both multiattack and cast spells, let the monster drop one of its attacks from multiattack and cast a spell in its place.

Increase or decrease the number of attacks or actions a monster can take to fit the situation, and pacing of the scene.

Turn the Damage Dial

Just like the hit point dial, the damage dial can follow the minimum or maximum amount of damage listed by the damage dice equation. If an ogre can hit for 2d8+4 it could hit for as little as 6 or as much as 20. It's rare that we want to turn this dial down, unless things got out of control, but we may want to turn it up if a monster just isn't posing much of a threat and such a threat is warranted for the situation.

If we're using static monster damage, something I recommend, it's easy to turn the dial up and down on damage. Just change the amount. Maybe the ogre's doing 18 damage on a hit instead of the 13 average it normally does. Often adding 50% more damage works well. If, like most DMs, you use dice for damage, you can add 50% more dice to the attack when it's time to turn the damage dial up. Most of the time this means dropping in an extra weapon die; two at the most.

Turning the damage dial can be tricky. We don't want our players to know we're turning the dials. If we use static damage, our players will know when we're changing it. If we use dice, we can throw in an extra die or two and likely never tip our hand.

If we're using static damage, we can, instead, come up with a story-based reason that the damage goes up. Say the characters are fighting a helmed horror and having a hell of a time getting past it's 20 AC, we can describe how the fires within the horror start to burn hotter and hotter; beams of white light coming out of its eyes; as its blade blazes with white fire. Now it inflicts an extra d8 of fire damage on its attack); maybe even 2d8 if we really want to get nasty. At the same time, its armor begins to melt, dropping its AC down to 18 or even 16.

If we know that a monster is hitting lower than we think is right for the situation, we can jam that damage dial into the red right from the beginning, maximizing its damage from the first hit or doubling the damage dice of the hit. This essentially gives the monster free critical hits all the time — obviously very nasty — but sometime's that's what fits the story.

Turn up the damage dial by increasing the amount of static damage a monster inflicts on its attacks or adding one or more dice to it's damage dice.

Grant Circumstantial Advantage

When we have weak monsters attacking stronger characters, we might come up with a way to grant the monsters circumstantial advantage. Perhaps a monument nearby fills them with violent power. Perhaps cultists drank demonic blood and can now attack with advantage until they explode into demons. Perhaps the monsters have the high ground and are able to attack with advantage from their perfect angle.

Use in-story circumstances to grant weaker monsters advantage on their attacks.

Tweaking Attributes

You can also, of course, take the path of tweaking attributes or giving monsters different armor to increase their AC. A particularly strong monster might have +2 to attack and damage. A heavily armored one might have an increase to AC based on its armor. There are lots of ways to change up monsters with just a few tweaks to its flavor.

Giving Yourself Flexibility to Run a Fun Game

We don't turn these dials to stick it to the characters (or the players). These dials give us the ability to change the pacing of the game so it's always the most fun. Perhaps we turn the dials to make things harder. Perhaps, instead, we turn the dials to give the characters a break after a long slog of battles. The tools that help us control pacing are vital for running a fun game and the ones we can use easily, like these monster dials, give us the improvisational aids we need to do so.

Related Articles

• Customizing Monsters
• Tweaking Monster Hit Points
• The Lazy Approach to Stronger Encounters
• 13 Tips to Speed Up D&D Combat
• D&D's Nastier Specials

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.