Today, I'm going to offer some tips to help you improve your roleplaying skills.
1. Create a character that sounds fun.
When making your character, you should examine the options available to you, and see what most appeals to you. If you've been playing for a while, it may be time to try something new. I almost always play magical characters, but a friend recently announced he wants to try running a 4th edition D&D game, so I made a barbarian. Honestly, I just wanted to try out the class, because 4th edition did something different with barbarians, and it looked interesting. Another friend of mine called me last night to ask my opinion on a character concept he wanted to try: a half-orc paladin. For a little perspective, paladins in 3.5 benefit from a high charisma, and half-orcs take a penalty to charisma. Why would he choose a race so obviously ill-suited for his class? He presented me the concept of a half-orc who joined the church as a paladin to try to atone for the atrocities of his people.
2. Establish at least a minor connection between your character and the rest of the party.
In the current 3.5 game I'm playing, my wizard, and the party rogue, decided that we were partners, traveling together, and we hired the rest of the party. We constantly reference a contract in game that we asked each character to sign. The rest of the players went along with it, because it worked for our party's origins, and the entire party didn't start the game at the same time, so when a new character joined, the other characters were already "employed" so when I offered them a contract, they agreed, perpetuating the concept of employment.
During the character creation process, it can be helpful to talk to the other players and find out what they're playing. You could pick out one or two of them and ask them if they'd like a shared background, giving part of the party a preexisting camaraderie. You could offer your services to the party as a mercenary, establishing yourself as someone who just goes where the money is.
Alternatively, you could be the outsider trying to prove yourself to the party. That's how my 4th edition characters started. The party already had three characters who had completed one adventure together, then I joined them with my warlord. Almost immediately I proved my worth to them as a team leader, earning their respect.
3. Establish at least a minor connection between your character and the world.
The previous point is about your relationship with the other players. This point is about your relationship with your gamemaster. You'll have to work with the GM to figure out how your player fits into the world. Sometimes this is as simple as "I'm playing a fighter, I want to be a former soldier in the king's army." Sometimes this is as complicated as "I'm playing a fighter, I want to be orphaned and not know who my parents were." This complicated origin is that of our 4th edition fighter. He was raised by a paladin of Kord, a leader in the church, and has now discovered that he's the heir to the throne of the Nerathi Empire.
Sometimes you'll go into character creation with a clear story in mind for your character. Sometimes you may want to see what your GM can come up with. Either way, it's always a good idea to discuss things with your GM before the game begins. You'll want to know where the game will begin within the campaign world, if there have been any major events just before the beginning, and if your GM is changing anything important from the default setting, or if the GM is using an alternate setting.
4. Give your character a name.
This one should be obvious, but I don't mean name your fighter Bob, the Strong and Fair, because then you're just the Big Stupid Fighter. Put a little thought into your name and pick something appropriate to the setting. I've had a player who was terrible at picking names. He would reuse names from other media, use celebrity names, or just not name his characters at all. However, he did get creative at one point when he had a pair of brothers, one a barbarian and the other a rogue. He had no name listed on either character sheet. The idea was that these two were in a bit of trouble, so he would give a different name every so often. He told me he did know what their real names were, and he divulged them later so I could use them when writing that campaign as a narrative.
There is a plethora of random name generators floating around the internet. They can produce names for various races and periods. Here are some of my recommendations to get you started.
www.nine.frenchboys.net
www.seventhsanctum.com
D&D Name Generator
Star Wars Name Generator
http://www.namegenerator.biz/
5. Define your character's beliefs.
This one is more important in a polytheistic fantasy world. Even if you aren't playing a cleric, paladin, or similar character, it can still be useful for you to decide which religion or religions your character practices, if any are more important to your character than others, and how devoted are you. In most fantasy worlds, unlike reality, the gods are not silent. Their divine servants constantly display their power. The gods themselves may send messages to their followers. It would be inconceivable for a character in such a world to be an atheist or agnostic. However, there is interesting roleplaying potential for a character who believes such displays of divine power were performed through arcane magic and trickery, allowing for that one-in-a-million atheist.
6. Ask yourself "why?"
While playing your character, you will be presented with many choices: Quests or missions your GM has prepared for you to undertake, people to save, villains to kill, etc. If you want a better roleplaying experience, before you agree to undertake such a venture, ask yourself "why would this character want to?" If you have followed steps 1-5 above, you should have a decent idea of your character's background and beliefs.
7. Respond in character.
By now, you should have figured out your character's motivations, and their relationships between some of the other characters in the game. During conversations, think about these things and how such a character should speak. A character with higher mental abilities should speak more eloquently than one with lower mental abilities. Try to avoid using modern vernacular in character dialogue. A character in medieval Europe wouldn't say "cool" or "dude." Likewise, neither would a character in the far future. Languages change over time. If you aren't sure what sort of slang your character would use, avoid it altogether.
Hopefully these tips will help you. Nobody is expecting you to be a professional actor at the game table, or write an introductory chapter to Lord of the Rings when coming up with your character's history. If you find one or more of these tips too difficult for you, that's ok. Nobody masters anything on their first attempt. Just like a character grows in levels, so too does a roleplayer grow from BSF towards Aragorn.
Friday, February 28, 2014
Saturday, February 22, 2014
How 4th Edition Didn't Kill Roleplaying
When D&D 4th edition was released, many veteran 3.5 players responded on message boards with "you can't roleplay in 4th."
In our last 4th edition game, our level 12 party was ready to storm the Trollhaunt. When we arrived, we spotted a lookout behind an arrow slit. Two of our characters unleashed ranged attacks on the poor guy. As the smoke cleared, he saw my warlord and the fighter just strolling towards him. We win initiative, and with one attack each, kill the poor troglodyte.
At this point, our druid shifts into a snake, slithers through the slits, then shifts into a troglodyte. Our hexblade teleports through the slits. The druid runs into the dungeon and warns three trolls that they're under attack. The trolls open the door to investigate and see our fighter making an intimidate check. He hits all three of their wills, provoking them to give chase. At which point, he turns the corner, and I teleport us both through the arrow slits as the druid closes and bars the door. Three trolls bypassed.
We later reach a prison area, and knowing that Skalmad, the troll leader, has hired mercenaries, our fighter and (trogolodyte-form) druid enter the prison and before the trolls can say anything, the fighter busts out another intimidate and starts barking orders like a sergeant. He has the trolls confused, thinking he's their new commander, and he promptly takes three lovely female prisoners from the cells back to the party. We escort them out of the dungeon and our druid calls pegacorns to carry them back to town. We then march back through the prison like we own the place. Two more trolls bypassed.
In the next area, we find a troll taskmaster, several grimlocks working anvils, and a fire belcher. Our hexblade decides he wants to tame the fire belcher and gets the druid to help him. Together, they kill about half the grimlocks and spend the rest of the fight taming the fire belcher. The fighter and I take out the troll and a few of the grimlocks, then our fighter runs right past the last grimlock and leaps onto the fire belcher's back. The last grimlock stands there in confusion as I walk past him and casually lop his head off. We tamed the fire belcher, and it accompanied us into the next encounter.
Who says you can't roleplay in 4th? Roleplaying isn't about what rules system you play with. Roleplaying is about how you portray your character. In a simplified system like 4th, where we don't have an entire page dedicated to grapple rules, roleplaying isn't discouraged. In fact, I would say that roleplaying is more important than ever.
In our last 4th edition game, our level 12 party was ready to storm the Trollhaunt. When we arrived, we spotted a lookout behind an arrow slit. Two of our characters unleashed ranged attacks on the poor guy. As the smoke cleared, he saw my warlord and the fighter just strolling towards him. We win initiative, and with one attack each, kill the poor troglodyte.
At this point, our druid shifts into a snake, slithers through the slits, then shifts into a troglodyte. Our hexblade teleports through the slits. The druid runs into the dungeon and warns three trolls that they're under attack. The trolls open the door to investigate and see our fighter making an intimidate check. He hits all three of their wills, provoking them to give chase. At which point, he turns the corner, and I teleport us both through the arrow slits as the druid closes and bars the door. Three trolls bypassed.
We later reach a prison area, and knowing that Skalmad, the troll leader, has hired mercenaries, our fighter and (trogolodyte-form) druid enter the prison and before the trolls can say anything, the fighter busts out another intimidate and starts barking orders like a sergeant. He has the trolls confused, thinking he's their new commander, and he promptly takes three lovely female prisoners from the cells back to the party. We escort them out of the dungeon and our druid calls pegacorns to carry them back to town. We then march back through the prison like we own the place. Two more trolls bypassed.
In the next area, we find a troll taskmaster, several grimlocks working anvils, and a fire belcher. Our hexblade decides he wants to tame the fire belcher and gets the druid to help him. Together, they kill about half the grimlocks and spend the rest of the fight taming the fire belcher. The fighter and I take out the troll and a few of the grimlocks, then our fighter runs right past the last grimlock and leaps onto the fire belcher's back. The last grimlock stands there in confusion as I walk past him and casually lop his head off. We tamed the fire belcher, and it accompanied us into the next encounter.
Who says you can't roleplay in 4th? Roleplaying isn't about what rules system you play with. Roleplaying is about how you portray your character. In a simplified system like 4th, where we don't have an entire page dedicated to grapple rules, roleplaying isn't discouraged. In fact, I would say that roleplaying is more important than ever.
Friday, February 14, 2014
Introducing New Players
During my time as a gamemaster, I have had to teach new players on more than one occasion, and I'm about to do it again. I always like to introduce D&D to new players, however, on this occasion, I'll be working with a group that will consist of four new players. I've never attempted to work with four newbies at once before, and it's made me alter my way of thinking.
In the past, when running an introductory game, I suggested the new player play a fighter, because fighters are very straightforward, simple to make, and simple to play. I would run a typical dungeon crawl with a few combat encounters, a trap or two, low light conditions, and hidden things to search for. I had thought that since combat is one of the most complex things in D&D, I needed to expose the new player to combat so they could learn the rules. Even with the skill checks and dungeon crawl, the entire adventure was designed to expose the player to the rules.
However, I have recently realized that this isn't the best way to introduce a new player. D&D has come a long way since its beginnings. There is so much more to the game than dungeons. This time around, I have decided to write an adventure that has almost no combat, focusing instead on trying to immerse the new players in the story instead of throwing rules at them. I figured, this is the real test of whether they'd want to play or not, since, after all, D&D is a roleplaying game, it's about characters in a story, the rules can come later.
While working with one of the new players to create their character, I first asked him what experience he had with fantasy gaming on PC and console, then asked him what was his favorite type of character to play in those games. He responded with wizard. I warned him that playing a wizard in D&D was one of the most complicated classes to play, but he wanted to try it anyway. It was then that I realized that this wasn't going to be about just teaching people the rules. This player wasn't concerned with how difficult it would be to play a complex class in his first game ever. He was going to enjoy the experience by playing his favorite type of character, rather than play something simple. Really, that's what D&D is about, the experience, not the rules.
In the past, when running an introductory game, I suggested the new player play a fighter, because fighters are very straightforward, simple to make, and simple to play. I would run a typical dungeon crawl with a few combat encounters, a trap or two, low light conditions, and hidden things to search for. I had thought that since combat is one of the most complex things in D&D, I needed to expose the new player to combat so they could learn the rules. Even with the skill checks and dungeon crawl, the entire adventure was designed to expose the player to the rules.
However, I have recently realized that this isn't the best way to introduce a new player. D&D has come a long way since its beginnings. There is so much more to the game than dungeons. This time around, I have decided to write an adventure that has almost no combat, focusing instead on trying to immerse the new players in the story instead of throwing rules at them. I figured, this is the real test of whether they'd want to play or not, since, after all, D&D is a roleplaying game, it's about characters in a story, the rules can come later.
While working with one of the new players to create their character, I first asked him what experience he had with fantasy gaming on PC and console, then asked him what was his favorite type of character to play in those games. He responded with wizard. I warned him that playing a wizard in D&D was one of the most complicated classes to play, but he wanted to try it anyway. It was then that I realized that this wasn't going to be about just teaching people the rules. This player wasn't concerned with how difficult it would be to play a complex class in his first game ever. He was going to enjoy the experience by playing his favorite type of character, rather than play something simple. Really, that's what D&D is about, the experience, not the rules.
Friday, February 7, 2014
A Look at D&D 4th Edition
For a while after 4th edition was published, I kept hearing about how stupid it was compared to 3.5. When a friend of mine joined the D&D Next playtest, he decided that we should try 4th edition so we could compare Next to the most recently published system. We ended up playing 4th for about six months, and we're still playing. After six months of game play, I can say... it's stupid.
In today's post, I'll be discussing some of the good things Wizards did with 4th edition, and the stupidity a veteran 3.5 player will feel when transitioning to 4th.
First of all, 4th edition is newbie friendly. It uses much simpler rules than 3.5. For example, you don't have a half of page of rules describing how to grapple an opponent. In this respect, new players can pick up 4th edition and pretty much know what they're doing in a relatively short time.
Secondly, 4th edition balanced the player classes. No longer is the wizard a low-level weakling who has to be careful not to even get bitten by a dire rat. However, the wizard is also no longer a walking arsenal of arcane might that can end fights with a single spell at higher levels. Every class has a certain role to fill, but some classes can fill more than one roll. Each class has a variety of abilities to pick from as the character gains new levels, instead of just receiving a set ability at each level like they do in 3.5.
Third, fortitude, reflex, and will are no longer rolled by the player, but are instead set defenses like AC. This was, to me, the most obvious step forward. Now, any action made against the player or enemy puts the roll in the attacker's hand. No longer do you have to figure out how your character can ward off a death spell by rolling a natural 20 on his fortitude save, only to succumb to the common cold with that natural 1 the next day. Your character has a set fortitude, a set reflex, and a set will, and it's up to the attack to try to be strong enough to overcome you.
Fourth, in 3.5 a DM designing an encounter would have to reference a chart telling him how many monsters and traps of a certain challenge rating could be added together to achieve a certain encounter level, and if you wanted mixed CRs, with some higher and some lower in the same encounter, well, the chart in the Dungeon Master's Guide only covers multiple enemies of the same level and has a single entry for two enemies of different levels, so I hope you didn't want more than two monsters in the encounter. In 4th, a DM need only consult one chart telling him how many points a specific encounter level is worth, then consult a second chart telling him how many points a monster or trap of a specific level is worth, then spend the points for the encounter level he wants on the monsters he wants. For example, if you're building an encounter for four players of level 4, the 4th edition DMG says to spend 700 points. Now, you'd just consult the chart on the previous page which tells you how many points a monster of a given level is worth, so you could include two level 3 monsters worth 150 each, and two level 5 monsters worth 200 each. Good luck telling me what encounter level two level 3s and two level 5s would be in 3.5.
Alright, now let's turn around and talk about the bad, beginning by taking three of my points above and telling you where they messed up from a veteran's perspective.
First, the game encourages munchkin play. In fact, it's impossible not to. If you try to build a balanced character, you will end up sub-par. Your fortitude, reflex, and will defenses each use the higher of a pair of attributes, instead of just constitution, dexterity, and wisdom. This means there is no real decision on the player's part to try to balance their offense and defense. In 3.5 you may ask yourself: do I want a higher strength so I can hit harder, higher constitution for a better save and hit points, or try to make them even? In 4th, you can just say screw that and max out your strength because if it's higher than your constitution, then it applies to your fortitude. Each class lists one to three attributes that the class cares about. You should put your highest attributes into those and say screw the rest, because all of your class abilities will use one of the listed attributes, either to attack, deal damage, heal, or provide a buff.
Second, the classes are balanced. I said this when talking about the good points of 4th, but it's also a negative, in a way. Speaking as someone who used to love playing wizards and sorcerers in 3.5, when I saw the 4th edition version of the classes, I asked myself "why would I ever play this?" and played a warlord instead. I later made a wizard and tried it out, but I didn't feel like a wizard. My wizard in 3.5 has a limited number of spells, but when I use them, things get real. In 4th, my wizard can use his powers a lot more often, but at the same time, he has to. If he doesn't, things get real, and not in our favor. The wizard no longer felt like a wielder of incredible arcane power, instead he felt like just another character with a set of powers, just like everybody else. In 3.5, I can use my spells to help the party fight better, get them out of a tight spot, or hold back a group of enemies so we can focus on a few at a time. In 4th, I can control enemies to an extent, making it easier for the party to deal with them, but you know what? So can our fighter. Our fighter has an ability that can draw enemies in close to him, and punish them for not attacking him. So, why do we need a controller anymore? We don't, the fighter can force enemies to focus on him so our weaker party members can exploit that.
Third, your defenses only determine how hard it is for a certain effect to begin to affect you, once it has, you need only roll a 10 or higher to save against it (a certain few effects may impose a penalty, but I haven't encountered one yet). So, while a character of 18 constitution will be harder to poison than one with a 10, once both are poisoned, both have a 55% chance of overcoming it. (The same applies to mental effects too!) The save system doesn't take your attributes into account at all. While the system is okay, it just feels flawed.
Now that I've listed a counter-point to my first three original points, I'll briefly discuss what else is wrong with 4th edition from a veteran's viewpoint.
1. You can only heal a limited number of times per day. Each class has a certain number of healing surges, which are based on your constitution. The fighter has more surges than the wizard, for example. While this is okay, it applies to almost every form of healing. Want to take a second wind? Spend a surge. Want the cleric or warlord to heal you? Spend a surge. Want to drink a potion? Spend a surge. There are only a handful of abilities that the "healing" classes can get that allow healing without spending a surge. Also, why should your limited number of surges affect how often magic can heal you? It makes magic less magical. The magic is no longer healing you at this point, but is instead just triggering your body to tap into its reserves, which is alright, if that's what you're going for, but healing is the only thing that works this way. For example, a buff spell actually makes a character stronger, it doesn't require the character have extra reserves of strength for it to work.
2. You can trip anything. For the most part, if a power has a certain effect, it works. There are many powers that can knock a target prone, and the only rule I've found since I started playing 4th is that a flying creature isn't always rendered prone. It depends on how high they're flying, or something, I forgot the exact rule, but needless to say, you can't knock a beholder prone. Spiders, on the other hand, sure! Eight legs? No problem, it's prone. How about a dragon? Yeah, it's only three times your size, go ahead, you can knock it down.
3. Fights take forever. My 4th edition party is up to level 12 now. We started to notice a few levels ago, that if we aren't fighting minions, our enemies have a lot of HP. On average, one encounter takes us about 2-3 hours to complete. Dang. We're lucky if we can get through more than two encounters in one night.
4. Buffing is pointless. In 3.5, passing out the right buff spells before a fight usually meant that you didn't need to heal as much after. In 4th, the buffs don't provide big enough boosts to make them worth it. Pretty much every character in my 4th party has around a +18 to +20 attack bonus, and an AC of 26-29. We get hit pretty much every round, and only rarely do we miss. The buff powers we have available to us can provide a +2 to our defenses, and up to a +5 to our attacks. Half the time we don't even bother mentioning our attack buffs, because they hardly matter. Do you know how much it helps to improve an AC 26 to 28 when the enemies are hitting our AC 29 fighter pretty much every turn? Not at all. In 4th, you're going to take damage. It's just a fact. 4th isn't about buffing to prevent damage, it's a matter of how much can you heal, and can you take down the enemy before you run out of heals?
5. You have limited-use powers instead of static abilities. In 3.5, as you gained levels, you gained new class abilities and those abilities were always active, always available. Once you got it, you added it to your sheet, learned what it did, and it just was there. In 4th, you gain new powers that you have to decide when to use. This means every turn, you have a list of up to 12 different options or so to pick from. Have you ever been playing 3.5 and in the middle of combat had to wait for the caster to go through their list of spells, pick out one to use, then wait for them to read over what it does, only to decide it's not the most effective option, then go through their list again to repeat the process? Imagine every player doing that now.
6. Your powers get replaced. In 4th edition, you are allowed to build up a list of 3 encounter powers and 3 daily powers, in addition to your paragon powers. When you gain a new encounter or daily after that, you have to choose an existing power to give up in order to gain it. I recently looked through upcoming options for my warlord to see what new powers would become available. I was very disappointed to find out that my level 1 and level 3 encounter powers were a better fit for our group's tactics than the upcoming level 13 powers. However, the higher level powers do more damage. So, now I'm forced to decide between keeping a tactically useful power that deals little damage, or swapping for a power that's not nearly as useful just because it hits harder. Finally, I get a meaningful decision, but instead of a decision between balancing attributes or focusing on offense vs defense, my decision is whether or not I fall behind the damage curve of my team in order to keep the usefulness of my old powers.
I could continue to go on with this list, because at least once per game during our first three months of play, I found something that made me say "4th is stupid!", but I've probably forgotten half of those moments, and this list is already getting long, so let me just summarize this by saying that 4th edition is a fun, simplified system that tried to make everyone feel relevant, but when everyone's special, nobody is. It's great for newbies, but probably horrid for veterans. However, if you try not to compare it to 3.5, but just think of it as a different game, it can be enjoyable.
In today's post, I'll be discussing some of the good things Wizards did with 4th edition, and the stupidity a veteran 3.5 player will feel when transitioning to 4th.
First of all, 4th edition is newbie friendly. It uses much simpler rules than 3.5. For example, you don't have a half of page of rules describing how to grapple an opponent. In this respect, new players can pick up 4th edition and pretty much know what they're doing in a relatively short time.
Secondly, 4th edition balanced the player classes. No longer is the wizard a low-level weakling who has to be careful not to even get bitten by a dire rat. However, the wizard is also no longer a walking arsenal of arcane might that can end fights with a single spell at higher levels. Every class has a certain role to fill, but some classes can fill more than one roll. Each class has a variety of abilities to pick from as the character gains new levels, instead of just receiving a set ability at each level like they do in 3.5.
Third, fortitude, reflex, and will are no longer rolled by the player, but are instead set defenses like AC. This was, to me, the most obvious step forward. Now, any action made against the player or enemy puts the roll in the attacker's hand. No longer do you have to figure out how your character can ward off a death spell by rolling a natural 20 on his fortitude save, only to succumb to the common cold with that natural 1 the next day. Your character has a set fortitude, a set reflex, and a set will, and it's up to the attack to try to be strong enough to overcome you.
Fourth, in 3.5 a DM designing an encounter would have to reference a chart telling him how many monsters and traps of a certain challenge rating could be added together to achieve a certain encounter level, and if you wanted mixed CRs, with some higher and some lower in the same encounter, well, the chart in the Dungeon Master's Guide only covers multiple enemies of the same level and has a single entry for two enemies of different levels, so I hope you didn't want more than two monsters in the encounter. In 4th, a DM need only consult one chart telling him how many points a specific encounter level is worth, then consult a second chart telling him how many points a monster or trap of a specific level is worth, then spend the points for the encounter level he wants on the monsters he wants. For example, if you're building an encounter for four players of level 4, the 4th edition DMG says to spend 700 points. Now, you'd just consult the chart on the previous page which tells you how many points a monster of a given level is worth, so you could include two level 3 monsters worth 150 each, and two level 5 monsters worth 200 each. Good luck telling me what encounter level two level 3s and two level 5s would be in 3.5.
Alright, now let's turn around and talk about the bad, beginning by taking three of my points above and telling you where they messed up from a veteran's perspective.
First, the game encourages munchkin play. In fact, it's impossible not to. If you try to build a balanced character, you will end up sub-par. Your fortitude, reflex, and will defenses each use the higher of a pair of attributes, instead of just constitution, dexterity, and wisdom. This means there is no real decision on the player's part to try to balance their offense and defense. In 3.5 you may ask yourself: do I want a higher strength so I can hit harder, higher constitution for a better save and hit points, or try to make them even? In 4th, you can just say screw that and max out your strength because if it's higher than your constitution, then it applies to your fortitude. Each class lists one to three attributes that the class cares about. You should put your highest attributes into those and say screw the rest, because all of your class abilities will use one of the listed attributes, either to attack, deal damage, heal, or provide a buff.
Second, the classes are balanced. I said this when talking about the good points of 4th, but it's also a negative, in a way. Speaking as someone who used to love playing wizards and sorcerers in 3.5, when I saw the 4th edition version of the classes, I asked myself "why would I ever play this?" and played a warlord instead. I later made a wizard and tried it out, but I didn't feel like a wizard. My wizard in 3.5 has a limited number of spells, but when I use them, things get real. In 4th, my wizard can use his powers a lot more often, but at the same time, he has to. If he doesn't, things get real, and not in our favor. The wizard no longer felt like a wielder of incredible arcane power, instead he felt like just another character with a set of powers, just like everybody else. In 3.5, I can use my spells to help the party fight better, get them out of a tight spot, or hold back a group of enemies so we can focus on a few at a time. In 4th, I can control enemies to an extent, making it easier for the party to deal with them, but you know what? So can our fighter. Our fighter has an ability that can draw enemies in close to him, and punish them for not attacking him. So, why do we need a controller anymore? We don't, the fighter can force enemies to focus on him so our weaker party members can exploit that.
Third, your defenses only determine how hard it is for a certain effect to begin to affect you, once it has, you need only roll a 10 or higher to save against it (a certain few effects may impose a penalty, but I haven't encountered one yet). So, while a character of 18 constitution will be harder to poison than one with a 10, once both are poisoned, both have a 55% chance of overcoming it. (The same applies to mental effects too!) The save system doesn't take your attributes into account at all. While the system is okay, it just feels flawed.
Now that I've listed a counter-point to my first three original points, I'll briefly discuss what else is wrong with 4th edition from a veteran's viewpoint.
1. You can only heal a limited number of times per day. Each class has a certain number of healing surges, which are based on your constitution. The fighter has more surges than the wizard, for example. While this is okay, it applies to almost every form of healing. Want to take a second wind? Spend a surge. Want the cleric or warlord to heal you? Spend a surge. Want to drink a potion? Spend a surge. There are only a handful of abilities that the "healing" classes can get that allow healing without spending a surge. Also, why should your limited number of surges affect how often magic can heal you? It makes magic less magical. The magic is no longer healing you at this point, but is instead just triggering your body to tap into its reserves, which is alright, if that's what you're going for, but healing is the only thing that works this way. For example, a buff spell actually makes a character stronger, it doesn't require the character have extra reserves of strength for it to work.
2. You can trip anything. For the most part, if a power has a certain effect, it works. There are many powers that can knock a target prone, and the only rule I've found since I started playing 4th is that a flying creature isn't always rendered prone. It depends on how high they're flying, or something, I forgot the exact rule, but needless to say, you can't knock a beholder prone. Spiders, on the other hand, sure! Eight legs? No problem, it's prone. How about a dragon? Yeah, it's only three times your size, go ahead, you can knock it down.
3. Fights take forever. My 4th edition party is up to level 12 now. We started to notice a few levels ago, that if we aren't fighting minions, our enemies have a lot of HP. On average, one encounter takes us about 2-3 hours to complete. Dang. We're lucky if we can get through more than two encounters in one night.
4. Buffing is pointless. In 3.5, passing out the right buff spells before a fight usually meant that you didn't need to heal as much after. In 4th, the buffs don't provide big enough boosts to make them worth it. Pretty much every character in my 4th party has around a +18 to +20 attack bonus, and an AC of 26-29. We get hit pretty much every round, and only rarely do we miss. The buff powers we have available to us can provide a +2 to our defenses, and up to a +5 to our attacks. Half the time we don't even bother mentioning our attack buffs, because they hardly matter. Do you know how much it helps to improve an AC 26 to 28 when the enemies are hitting our AC 29 fighter pretty much every turn? Not at all. In 4th, you're going to take damage. It's just a fact. 4th isn't about buffing to prevent damage, it's a matter of how much can you heal, and can you take down the enemy before you run out of heals?
5. You have limited-use powers instead of static abilities. In 3.5, as you gained levels, you gained new class abilities and those abilities were always active, always available. Once you got it, you added it to your sheet, learned what it did, and it just was there. In 4th, you gain new powers that you have to decide when to use. This means every turn, you have a list of up to 12 different options or so to pick from. Have you ever been playing 3.5 and in the middle of combat had to wait for the caster to go through their list of spells, pick out one to use, then wait for them to read over what it does, only to decide it's not the most effective option, then go through their list again to repeat the process? Imagine every player doing that now.
6. Your powers get replaced. In 4th edition, you are allowed to build up a list of 3 encounter powers and 3 daily powers, in addition to your paragon powers. When you gain a new encounter or daily after that, you have to choose an existing power to give up in order to gain it. I recently looked through upcoming options for my warlord to see what new powers would become available. I was very disappointed to find out that my level 1 and level 3 encounter powers were a better fit for our group's tactics than the upcoming level 13 powers. However, the higher level powers do more damage. So, now I'm forced to decide between keeping a tactically useful power that deals little damage, or swapping for a power that's not nearly as useful just because it hits harder. Finally, I get a meaningful decision, but instead of a decision between balancing attributes or focusing on offense vs defense, my decision is whether or not I fall behind the damage curve of my team in order to keep the usefulness of my old powers.
I could continue to go on with this list, because at least once per game during our first three months of play, I found something that made me say "4th is stupid!", but I've probably forgotten half of those moments, and this list is already getting long, so let me just summarize this by saying that 4th edition is a fun, simplified system that tried to make everyone feel relevant, but when everyone's special, nobody is. It's great for newbies, but probably horrid for veterans. However, if you try not to compare it to 3.5, but just think of it as a different game, it can be enjoyable.
Friday, January 31, 2014
Playing Your Best (D&D) Lesson 4: Initiative
Among my playgroup, improved initiative is a popular choice for a 1st or 3rd level feat, but why?
The most obvious reason for taking improved initiative is for a better chance of going first in combat. However, this is really pointless for most characters. Let's look at an example:
A party of four characters (fighter, rogue, cleric, and wizard) vs four opponents appropriate to their level.
Scenario 1, the fighter goes first: You've rolled initiative, and the fighter gets to go first. Good, right? Well, it depends. If the enemies are in a hallway and the fighter can block the path to the rest of the party, then yes, otherwise, what is the fighter going to do? Charge the nearest opponent? If the fighter rushes into melee with an opponent, he attacks, maybe he drops an opponent, but most likely not if you're level 3 or higher. This leaves the fighter in a position to get ganged on by four opponents. It also means that if the rogue wants to get into melee in order to sneak attack, the rogue now has to go to the enemy. If the cleric or wizard wants to buff the fighter, they also need to expose themselves to the enemy. If the wizard wants to use an area spell, the fighter is now in the way.
Good: You've drawn aggro away from the team
Bad: You've put yourself in a position that makes it harder for the team to support you
Scenario 2, the cleric or wizard goes first: So, what happens when a caster goes first? Lots, actually. If the enemy is in a hallway, the wizard could use a wall spell to block off the enemies, enabling the party to fight them one at a time, or engage them with ranged attacks while they're trapped behind a spell. If the enemies aren't in a hallway, the wizard or cleric can pass out helpful buffs to the team before the enemy gets to act, thereby making it harder for the enemy to hurt the team.
Good: The team is still together to support each other, plus a buff before enemy attacks can often reduce the number of hits the enemy scores on the party or reduce the damage dealt
Bad: Nobody has drawn aggro away from the casters, but if the enemy rushes the casters, they're now up close to the fighter and rogue, still a win
Scenario 3, the rogue goes first: Sneak attack. If the rogue goes before the enemy, the enemy is flat-footed, so the rogue's attack is a sneak attack without needing to set up flanking positions.
Good: Automatic sneak attack
Bad: Not much, because the rogue can use a ranged sneak attack and doesn't have to expose himself to the enemy
In the above scenarios, the party is in a better position if the cleric, rogue, or wizard acts before the enemy, but when the fighter acts before the enemy, it doesn't really matter except when the fighter can block the enemy's access to the party, and honestly, the right spell from the wizard could accomplish that.
But, when the fighter goes first, he deals damage before the enemy! So? In D&D 3.5, dealing damage that doesn't drop an enemy to 0 HP doesn't make them any less effective in combat. Plus, after the first round, the initiative order isn't very important anymore, because you're just alternating turns at that point.
Now, the best scenario is that the entire party acts before the enemy, however, the GM isn't required to tell the players what the enemy's initiative is. So, in scenario 1 above, should the fighter delay, not knowing if the rest of the party acts before the enemy or not? I would say the best option is to take a readied action. The fighter should either position himself in front of the party, or near the weakest character (probably the wizard, maybe rogue, depending on positions) and declare a readied action to attack the first opponent to get within reach. The benefit of this is that he stays close to the party for support, he doesn't risk getting caught in the casters' area spells if they end up acting before the enemy, plus melee-based enemies have to either attack him and get hit by a readied attack, or try to get past him and take the readied attack plus an attack of opportunity.
Should a fighter take improved initiative? Eh, probably not. A fighter should spend more time worrying about his combat feats. That's not to say he should never take improved initiative, but there are plenty of other feats that are more important for a fighter.
Should the cleric or wizard take improved initiative? Definitely. Casting the right spell before the enemy even acts can make a huge difference in the upcoming fight.
Should the rogue take improved initiative? Probably. Getting in a sneak attack just because the target hasn't acted yet is nice, but other than that, the rogue doesn't benefit any more from improved initiative than the fighter.
What about the classes I haven't mentioned? Well, if your primary role is to cast spells, and you have either area effects, buffs, debuffs, or a way to alter the battlefield, then you'll want improved initiative. If your primary role is to swing a big stick at the enemy, you could care less in the long run.
The most obvious reason for taking improved initiative is for a better chance of going first in combat. However, this is really pointless for most characters. Let's look at an example:
A party of four characters (fighter, rogue, cleric, and wizard) vs four opponents appropriate to their level.
Scenario 1, the fighter goes first: You've rolled initiative, and the fighter gets to go first. Good, right? Well, it depends. If the enemies are in a hallway and the fighter can block the path to the rest of the party, then yes, otherwise, what is the fighter going to do? Charge the nearest opponent? If the fighter rushes into melee with an opponent, he attacks, maybe he drops an opponent, but most likely not if you're level 3 or higher. This leaves the fighter in a position to get ganged on by four opponents. It also means that if the rogue wants to get into melee in order to sneak attack, the rogue now has to go to the enemy. If the cleric or wizard wants to buff the fighter, they also need to expose themselves to the enemy. If the wizard wants to use an area spell, the fighter is now in the way.
Good: You've drawn aggro away from the team
Bad: You've put yourself in a position that makes it harder for the team to support you
Scenario 2, the cleric or wizard goes first: So, what happens when a caster goes first? Lots, actually. If the enemy is in a hallway, the wizard could use a wall spell to block off the enemies, enabling the party to fight them one at a time, or engage them with ranged attacks while they're trapped behind a spell. If the enemies aren't in a hallway, the wizard or cleric can pass out helpful buffs to the team before the enemy gets to act, thereby making it harder for the enemy to hurt the team.
Good: The team is still together to support each other, plus a buff before enemy attacks can often reduce the number of hits the enemy scores on the party or reduce the damage dealt
Bad: Nobody has drawn aggro away from the casters, but if the enemy rushes the casters, they're now up close to the fighter and rogue, still a win
Scenario 3, the rogue goes first: Sneak attack. If the rogue goes before the enemy, the enemy is flat-footed, so the rogue's attack is a sneak attack without needing to set up flanking positions.
Good: Automatic sneak attack
Bad: Not much, because the rogue can use a ranged sneak attack and doesn't have to expose himself to the enemy
In the above scenarios, the party is in a better position if the cleric, rogue, or wizard acts before the enemy, but when the fighter acts before the enemy, it doesn't really matter except when the fighter can block the enemy's access to the party, and honestly, the right spell from the wizard could accomplish that.
But, when the fighter goes first, he deals damage before the enemy! So? In D&D 3.5, dealing damage that doesn't drop an enemy to 0 HP doesn't make them any less effective in combat. Plus, after the first round, the initiative order isn't very important anymore, because you're just alternating turns at that point.
Now, the best scenario is that the entire party acts before the enemy, however, the GM isn't required to tell the players what the enemy's initiative is. So, in scenario 1 above, should the fighter delay, not knowing if the rest of the party acts before the enemy or not? I would say the best option is to take a readied action. The fighter should either position himself in front of the party, or near the weakest character (probably the wizard, maybe rogue, depending on positions) and declare a readied action to attack the first opponent to get within reach. The benefit of this is that he stays close to the party for support, he doesn't risk getting caught in the casters' area spells if they end up acting before the enemy, plus melee-based enemies have to either attack him and get hit by a readied attack, or try to get past him and take the readied attack plus an attack of opportunity.
Should a fighter take improved initiative? Eh, probably not. A fighter should spend more time worrying about his combat feats. That's not to say he should never take improved initiative, but there are plenty of other feats that are more important for a fighter.
Should the cleric or wizard take improved initiative? Definitely. Casting the right spell before the enemy even acts can make a huge difference in the upcoming fight.
Should the rogue take improved initiative? Probably. Getting in a sneak attack just because the target hasn't acted yet is nice, but other than that, the rogue doesn't benefit any more from improved initiative than the fighter.
What about the classes I haven't mentioned? Well, if your primary role is to cast spells, and you have either area effects, buffs, debuffs, or a way to alter the battlefield, then you'll want improved initiative. If your primary role is to swing a big stick at the enemy, you could care less in the long run.
Thursday, January 23, 2014
How to be a Better Gamemaster Part 2
In this post I'll continue my tips on improving your gamemastering skills.
3. Calling an Audible
No matter how much prep work you do, no matter what you plan, sometimes your players are going to do something to screw it up. When that happens, you've got to start changing the plan. Here are a couple of examples.
In a game I played in, the player characters came upon a murder scene. The victim was a non-player character we had never met or even heard of before. We were then sent a message saying to meet someone for information on the murder. From our point of view, we had no reason to want to investigate. We had no connection to the victim, so investigating the murder wasn't our top priority, so when we voiced that to our GM, he decided that if we weren't going to follow the plot, he'd drop in some "encouragement" in the form of a lot of really tough enemies.
In a game I just recently GMed, I needed the player characters to follow an investigation and eventually find the villain. The PCs were having a bit of trouble figuring out how to find the clues they needed. One of the players suggested that having a supernatural background, he might know someone who also dabbled in the supernatural. So, to put the PCs back on track, I decided to make the villain his contact, and soon the PCs started sniffing around the only guy in town who knew about the supernatural when they discovered the crime they were investigating was done with magic.
In the first example, the players feel like they're being punished for not following the plot. However, you can use the technique of using "encouragement" to get the players on track, but you have to do it carefully. First, the players have to have at least some clue about where you want them to go. Second, you have to make it feel like your "encouragement" isn't a punishment, but is a logical follow-up. If, for example, your "encouragement" is also investigating the same thing the PCs are, or if they were the cause and are tying up loose ends, then it feels more like it's part of the plot and not just a random encounter to force the PCs back on track. In the second example, the players were going nowhere, but one came up with a logical idea and was rewarded for it. Both examples got the PCs on track. The first, however, was a negative experience for the players, the second was positive.
When your players aren't going where you want, and you need them to find something important, often, the easiest thing to do is to move whatever you need them to find to wherever they're going.
4. Making things up/Making things Interesting
When you play with a group who has been playing the game long enough, eventually they memorize the monsters. When you play with veteran players, sometimes making up some new threats can freshen up a stale game. In one of my recent games, I took a red dragon, mixed in some black dragon stats, and gave it two extra heads. Suddenly, the PCs were too afraid to even try to fight this monster. They no longer knew what to expect, and it led to a great chase scene and a spectacular death.
If you're feeling ambitious, you could try creating your own campaign world. Creating your own world takes time and effort. I would know. I've created dozens of them. The great thing, though, is that you don't have to do all the work right away. You can start small, creating the area your game will begin in and then spread out as the campaign progresses. In a later post, I'll cover things such as writing your own adventures, campaigns, and even creating your own world.
5. Acting
Every good GM wants their players to get involved with their characters and the story. In my post on being a better player, I talked about the Actor. The Actor plays a role, which is what rpgs are about. The Actor doesn't just throw together a set of numbers and call it a character. The Actor creates a character, then comes up with a set of numbers that fits the character. If you want your players to play their characters, then you have to play yours as well, and when you consider that GMs have control of every NPC, that's a lot of roles to play. Fortunately, most NPCs are only going to interact with the players for a few minutes, then will probably never come up again. You really only need to worry about NPCs that are important to the plot. For these NPCs, give them a little personality, even if it's just as simple as a peculiar way of speaking, or an unusual mannerism. Players are more likely to remember the nervous, stuttering contact they met in the bar moreso than just another NPC they met in the bar, even if the NPC gave them important information.
This concludes my basic tips on improving yourself as a gamemaster. In future posts, I will expand upon some of these. My next post will will return to the "Playing You Best" lessons.
3. Calling an Audible
No matter how much prep work you do, no matter what you plan, sometimes your players are going to do something to screw it up. When that happens, you've got to start changing the plan. Here are a couple of examples.
In a game I played in, the player characters came upon a murder scene. The victim was a non-player character we had never met or even heard of before. We were then sent a message saying to meet someone for information on the murder. From our point of view, we had no reason to want to investigate. We had no connection to the victim, so investigating the murder wasn't our top priority, so when we voiced that to our GM, he decided that if we weren't going to follow the plot, he'd drop in some "encouragement" in the form of a lot of really tough enemies.
In a game I just recently GMed, I needed the player characters to follow an investigation and eventually find the villain. The PCs were having a bit of trouble figuring out how to find the clues they needed. One of the players suggested that having a supernatural background, he might know someone who also dabbled in the supernatural. So, to put the PCs back on track, I decided to make the villain his contact, and soon the PCs started sniffing around the only guy in town who knew about the supernatural when they discovered the crime they were investigating was done with magic.
In the first example, the players feel like they're being punished for not following the plot. However, you can use the technique of using "encouragement" to get the players on track, but you have to do it carefully. First, the players have to have at least some clue about where you want them to go. Second, you have to make it feel like your "encouragement" isn't a punishment, but is a logical follow-up. If, for example, your "encouragement" is also investigating the same thing the PCs are, or if they were the cause and are tying up loose ends, then it feels more like it's part of the plot and not just a random encounter to force the PCs back on track. In the second example, the players were going nowhere, but one came up with a logical idea and was rewarded for it. Both examples got the PCs on track. The first, however, was a negative experience for the players, the second was positive.
When your players aren't going where you want, and you need them to find something important, often, the easiest thing to do is to move whatever you need them to find to wherever they're going.
4. Making things up/Making things Interesting
When you play with a group who has been playing the game long enough, eventually they memorize the monsters. When you play with veteran players, sometimes making up some new threats can freshen up a stale game. In one of my recent games, I took a red dragon, mixed in some black dragon stats, and gave it two extra heads. Suddenly, the PCs were too afraid to even try to fight this monster. They no longer knew what to expect, and it led to a great chase scene and a spectacular death.
If you're feeling ambitious, you could try creating your own campaign world. Creating your own world takes time and effort. I would know. I've created dozens of them. The great thing, though, is that you don't have to do all the work right away. You can start small, creating the area your game will begin in and then spread out as the campaign progresses. In a later post, I'll cover things such as writing your own adventures, campaigns, and even creating your own world.
5. Acting
Every good GM wants their players to get involved with their characters and the story. In my post on being a better player, I talked about the Actor. The Actor plays a role, which is what rpgs are about. The Actor doesn't just throw together a set of numbers and call it a character. The Actor creates a character, then comes up with a set of numbers that fits the character. If you want your players to play their characters, then you have to play yours as well, and when you consider that GMs have control of every NPC, that's a lot of roles to play. Fortunately, most NPCs are only going to interact with the players for a few minutes, then will probably never come up again. You really only need to worry about NPCs that are important to the plot. For these NPCs, give them a little personality, even if it's just as simple as a peculiar way of speaking, or an unusual mannerism. Players are more likely to remember the nervous, stuttering contact they met in the bar moreso than just another NPC they met in the bar, even if the NPC gave them important information.
This concludes my basic tips on improving yourself as a gamemaster. In future posts, I will expand upon some of these. My next post will will return to the "Playing You Best" lessons.
Sunday, January 5, 2014
How to be a Better Gamemaster
In my last post, I talked about what a gamemaster is, and what it takes to be a gamemaster. In my next few posts, I'll talk about how to be a better gamemaster.
1. Know the Rules
If you've never played a single game in a system you want to run as a gamemaster, then read the system's rule book. Read the entire thing, front to back. When you're done, read the section on creating characters again, then read the section on combat again (most game systems involve some sort of combat). Some game systems have some complicated rules for situations that don't happen in every game. You don't need to have these memorized for your first game. For example, if you're about to play D&D 3.5, or just about any game system based on that version of the d20 rules, you probably won't have to know the grapple, sunder, and disarm rules off the top of your head. You should, however, know how to begin a combat encounter, a general idea of what a character can do on their turn, when movement provokes attacks of opportunity, and the critical hit rules. The rest of the combat rules you can look up as needed.
Now, that's what you need to be a gamemaster. What about being a better gamemaster? Well, nothing kills the pace of the game like having to stop and look up an obscure rule. Whenever I want to use an opponent that specializes in something obscure, say I want him to try to destroy the players' weapons, for example, I read the rules on sundering before I decide if I want to include the opponent at all, to be sure this tactic isn't going to be so overly complicated that it slows down the game too much. Once I'm confident that I want to use that tactic, I create the opponent and write it into my notes. During the week leading up to game day, I review the rules that opponent will be using. On game day, about an hour before the players arrive, I read the rules again. Usually, by this point, I have the rule memorized and no longer have to look it up at the table, thus avoiding putting the game on pause while I look through a rule book. The biggest advantage of this is that you don't try to memorize an entire rule book in one sitting, and slowly memorize one new rule each time you want to throw something new at your players. This keeps your encounters from becoming stale with every opponent just trying to attack for damage.
2. Preparation
Depending on your preferences, and whether you are writing your own adventures or running published modules, your prep time could be as little as an hour or two per game or as much as ten or more per game. Because the amount of preparation needed changes depending on your play style and whether you're running custom adventures or not, I'll give you some notes for a couple of scenarios.
Running published modules requires the least amount of preparation, and is recommended if you work long hours, or are new to gamemastering, or if you're just not confident in your writing skills. The beauty of a module is that you have a written adventure, usually spanning multiple game days, and usually have some maps included. You pretty much have nothing do before the game. However, if you want to be a better gamemaster, you should read through the entire adventure at least once before you begin the first game. This way, you at least have an idea of how events in one part of the adventure lead to other parts. Before each game, you should read the portion of the adventure you plan to run that day, and if there are any obvious choices or detours the players might be able to make that would take the game in a different direction and read that as well. There are modules that offer players more than one goal that could be completed in any order they choose, so you should be ready for whichever choice your players want to take. If you want to make it easy on yourself, you could gather your players together ahead of time and introduce the adventure to them, present the choices, and have them decide on a course of action before your game session. This way, you can familiarize yourself with the player's choice and when the game begins, you won't have to take up time with a group discussion on which course of action to take, because they've already chosen. When running a module, one thing you should always do is review the stats for the enemies the players will face during the upcoming game session. If any enemies use an ability you aren't familiar with, you should spend a few minutes in the rule book getting to know this new ability. Total prep time per session when using a module should be around an hour. You could get by with less if you're pressed for time, but I highly advise against it. I would recommend up to two hours if you can spare it.
Writing your own adventures can be fun before you even get to the game table. Trying to anticipate how the players will react to your devious plans and diabolical villains, and visualizing them falling victim to your heinous traps are all fun moments you can get caught up in while writing. Well, don't. Unless you've been playing with this group for years, you can never be sure how your players will react. That's okay, though. You can't possibly take the time to try to come up with every eventuality while writing your adventures. So don't. I will likely write a post sometime in the near future focusing just on writing good adventures for your games, but for now, let's just focus on some general guidelines. I started gamemastering by writing my own adventurers. I've never run a module, and didn't even read one for my first few years of gamemastering. When I finally did, I saw that modules went into much more detail than my own adventures. When writing your own adventures, you know how much detail you need. If you need only a few pages, then write a few pages. If you need every meticulous detail written down, go for it. I ran a game for Halloween a few months ago, with only one night to prepare. I wrote only a page and a half of notes. The game lasted for ten hours, and my players claimed it was one of the best games they ever played and had them scared stiff. Sometimes all you need is some ideas floating around in your head and a few notes to help you keep track of them. It's hard for me to nail down just how much prep time you need with custom games. It's really up to you. Obviously, it's going to take some more work than just reading a module. I'd suggest around two to four hours per game. You could get by with less, and you could certainly use more, but try not to get bogged down in details. If it isn't important to the plot, you can always make it up at the table.
1. Know the Rules
If you've never played a single game in a system you want to run as a gamemaster, then read the system's rule book. Read the entire thing, front to back. When you're done, read the section on creating characters again, then read the section on combat again (most game systems involve some sort of combat). Some game systems have some complicated rules for situations that don't happen in every game. You don't need to have these memorized for your first game. For example, if you're about to play D&D 3.5, or just about any game system based on that version of the d20 rules, you probably won't have to know the grapple, sunder, and disarm rules off the top of your head. You should, however, know how to begin a combat encounter, a general idea of what a character can do on their turn, when movement provokes attacks of opportunity, and the critical hit rules. The rest of the combat rules you can look up as needed.
Now, that's what you need to be a gamemaster. What about being a better gamemaster? Well, nothing kills the pace of the game like having to stop and look up an obscure rule. Whenever I want to use an opponent that specializes in something obscure, say I want him to try to destroy the players' weapons, for example, I read the rules on sundering before I decide if I want to include the opponent at all, to be sure this tactic isn't going to be so overly complicated that it slows down the game too much. Once I'm confident that I want to use that tactic, I create the opponent and write it into my notes. During the week leading up to game day, I review the rules that opponent will be using. On game day, about an hour before the players arrive, I read the rules again. Usually, by this point, I have the rule memorized and no longer have to look it up at the table, thus avoiding putting the game on pause while I look through a rule book. The biggest advantage of this is that you don't try to memorize an entire rule book in one sitting, and slowly memorize one new rule each time you want to throw something new at your players. This keeps your encounters from becoming stale with every opponent just trying to attack for damage.
2. Preparation
Depending on your preferences, and whether you are writing your own adventures or running published modules, your prep time could be as little as an hour or two per game or as much as ten or more per game. Because the amount of preparation needed changes depending on your play style and whether you're running custom adventures or not, I'll give you some notes for a couple of scenarios.
Running published modules requires the least amount of preparation, and is recommended if you work long hours, or are new to gamemastering, or if you're just not confident in your writing skills. The beauty of a module is that you have a written adventure, usually spanning multiple game days, and usually have some maps included. You pretty much have nothing do before the game. However, if you want to be a better gamemaster, you should read through the entire adventure at least once before you begin the first game. This way, you at least have an idea of how events in one part of the adventure lead to other parts. Before each game, you should read the portion of the adventure you plan to run that day, and if there are any obvious choices or detours the players might be able to make that would take the game in a different direction and read that as well. There are modules that offer players more than one goal that could be completed in any order they choose, so you should be ready for whichever choice your players want to take. If you want to make it easy on yourself, you could gather your players together ahead of time and introduce the adventure to them, present the choices, and have them decide on a course of action before your game session. This way, you can familiarize yourself with the player's choice and when the game begins, you won't have to take up time with a group discussion on which course of action to take, because they've already chosen. When running a module, one thing you should always do is review the stats for the enemies the players will face during the upcoming game session. If any enemies use an ability you aren't familiar with, you should spend a few minutes in the rule book getting to know this new ability. Total prep time per session when using a module should be around an hour. You could get by with less if you're pressed for time, but I highly advise against it. I would recommend up to two hours if you can spare it.
Writing your own adventures can be fun before you even get to the game table. Trying to anticipate how the players will react to your devious plans and diabolical villains, and visualizing them falling victim to your heinous traps are all fun moments you can get caught up in while writing. Well, don't. Unless you've been playing with this group for years, you can never be sure how your players will react. That's okay, though. You can't possibly take the time to try to come up with every eventuality while writing your adventures. So don't. I will likely write a post sometime in the near future focusing just on writing good adventures for your games, but for now, let's just focus on some general guidelines. I started gamemastering by writing my own adventurers. I've never run a module, and didn't even read one for my first few years of gamemastering. When I finally did, I saw that modules went into much more detail than my own adventures. When writing your own adventures, you know how much detail you need. If you need only a few pages, then write a few pages. If you need every meticulous detail written down, go for it. I ran a game for Halloween a few months ago, with only one night to prepare. I wrote only a page and a half of notes. The game lasted for ten hours, and my players claimed it was one of the best games they ever played and had them scared stiff. Sometimes all you need is some ideas floating around in your head and a few notes to help you keep track of them. It's hard for me to nail down just how much prep time you need with custom games. It's really up to you. Obviously, it's going to take some more work than just reading a module. I'd suggest around two to four hours per game. You could get by with less, and you could certainly use more, but try not to get bogged down in details. If it isn't important to the plot, you can always make it up at the table.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)