How to run an RPG online
It’s been a while, fam. But renewing the URL today, I thought it might be time for a blog post. A lot has changed over the years, but one thing that hasnt changed is the need to play games when not everyone can travel to your location. If the pandemic taught us anything, it was that a virtual tabletop (VTT) is a handy thing to know your way around. I’ve been working on running games online since the Maptool days of yore, with portforwarding and the whole nine yards. I’d say I’m a pro at it, and I know its something a lot of people struggle with doing well. So, lets talk about it.
Types of Virtual Tabletops
There are a variet of VTT’s out there:
- Roll20: A very popular and widely used VTT with integrated voice, video, and text chat.
- FoundryVTT: A one-time purchase VTT that is known for its flexibility and extensive add-on modules.
- Tabletop Simulator: A physics-based program that lets users play a wide variety of games, including recreating physical board games.
- Fantasy Grounds: A VTT known for having a robust feature set for different rule systems.
- Owlbear Rodeo: A simpler and more lightweight VTT that focuses on core functionality like maps and tokens.
- TaleSpire: A VTT that focuses on creating 3D miniature-based environments for games.
I’ve been using Roll20 for a long while now, and will be discussing, in this post and a few more, how to get setup up and get things rolling for an online game. Each format is unique, so I’m going to try to direct you to common steps that you’d want to use as a fundamental for games of all stripes, but will admit that your mileage may vary with things like TaleSpire or Owlbear Rodeo which I don’t use much. Foundry looks great, but I haven’t waded far into it. Fantasy Grounds has been around a long time and I think is well articulated, but I found it a little confusing myself.
Admittedly, Roll20 has its own problems, but its familiar to me and I feel like they’ve been doing a good job lately adding funcitonality and much requested improvements. But, you do whats comfortable, affordable, and what you can get all your players to use.
Pick Your Campaign Chat Space
Scott, what the hell are you talking about? Roll20 has a message board right there native in the system? Well, it sucks, and no one wants to use that garbage. What you need to do is setup a (FREE) Discord channel and invite your friends to it. Create text channels like this:
- General Chat
- In-Character Chat
- Memes/Gifs/Reddits
- Character Generation
- NPCs
- Campaign Notes (or The Story So Far)
- avrae
You can mute channels that don’t interest you, and you can create separate private channels for things like:
- Thieves Cant
- Orcish
- Characters trapped in a room away from everyone else
- etc
That way if you want to quickly let only the relevant people know what’s up, you don’t have to think about it. Type what they said in that channel, and only people who you’ve added that know thieves cant or orcish, or are in a specific place, will be able to read it. You can also move old channels to another folder to get them out of your face when you’re done with them. Discord is searchable, so it’s great to put NPC’s in a bucket and let people find them with that search. Literally did this with a minor NPC my players met two years of actual time ago, and they were like “WTF, this guy?” Deep cuts, my friends.
Avrae is a dice rolling program that has its own nifty functionality. You can use that, D&D Beyond, Roll20 and discord to do some fairly sophistocated RP tricks, beyond the scope of what I’m getting into today. But here are some tutorials for those programs:
Make sure you’ve got Beyond20 set up with your browser.
Alright, have fun with that.
Now, we’ve got our chat space set up, you can jam out some chacacters online, create some chat space for talking about who is playing a drow wizard (AGAIN), and put some art in there showing who your character is. If your ethics allow, steal art from other folks online, pump out an AI characer sketch from Gemini or ChatGPT, use an ethical AI character creator that pays artists for sampling their work (like Mythweaver, which we need to blog about), commission it yourself, or draw shit with crayons, I don’t know, live your life man. You could do a channel that has PC’s listed in there, but you probably won’t need it. If you a have a D&D beyond campaign set up, you can place characters in the campaign and everyone should still be able to see them.
Oh, here’s how to make a D&D Beyond campaign. You’ll be wanting that if it’s D&D you’re playing.
Alright, now you’re ready to start work on the basics of the Roll20 campaign itself.
Setting up your Roll20 campaign
Go ahead and get yourself enough of a subscription to get started, whatever that means for you. You should get your money’s worth out of it. Click on Create New Game and name it something cool. Select your base character sheet (consider buying something cool from the game store if the type of game you’re running is not in the list). Then click the button to accept and get started.
Let me tell you. Spending $5 on tokens or art or charactersheets will save you HOURS. Just spend it. I spend $9 on a fish sandwich meal at McDonalds yesterday. Existence is pain. Just spend it or get another crunchwrap supreme and spend 6 hours making things by hand on Roll20. I’ll wait.
Next screen you can change the name, upload some art for the campaign, and add Game Add Ons to create specialty functionality like special token markers (for conditions, there are several out there), and other add ons. I wouldn’t mess with that though for your first time.
There’s a button here to invite players, which is self explanatory, but you will be able to copy the invite link and post it in your discord, which may save some folks a step. I’d wait until your campaign doesn’t look like an empty notebook however…. In any event….
CONGRATULATIONS
You’ve given birth a very squalid campaign! Part 2 will get into how to set up a landing page, token page, how to use your handouts, library and playlists. But this is the core of the overall setup you need to get going. I’d note that there are billions of how-to’s out there that will tell you how to do things on roll20, but not as many that tell you what to do on roll20. We’ll get into that and much more next time.
ONE D&D: What Changes Are Coming In The New Edition?
Today, Wizards of the Coast announced the inevitable: A new edition coming to our beloved Dungeons & Dragons. If you’re a grognard like me, this will be the fourth time this has happened to you, and it can be an unsettling experience for those who aren’t used to it. Even then, it always makes me nervous.
Dungeons and Dragons is more than a game I play. It is a part of my way of life. I’ve been playing since I was eight years old, and have loved it just as long. It’s at these times of transition that I realize that my way of life is essentially in the hands of people who are strangers to me. Sure, I can play an older edition, and sure I can and do play other games, but major changes to the primary system hold the potential to cause me great distress or joy depending on the quality of those changes. It’s an unusual situation to have a group of strangers who may not share my world view or motivations change up something very central to my recreation and my identity.
New editions are inevitable and always carry potential. Fifth Edition brought in a lot of new gamers, and the popularity of Dungeons and Dragons and role-playing in general has increased over the course of the past several years. The accessibility of Fifth Edition, ease of play, and low barriers to entry really brought a lot of new people to the table. This is great, as we should all love to share our hobby with a new generation, especially when the alternative is for the hobby to die out.
Game companies also have to make money. While supplements often can be profitable, core books are always the big money makers, hence Wizards decision to create the Open Game License with third edition, which benefits many of us to this day in the perumtations that have arisen from it (like our personal favorite, Dungeon Crawl Classics, which borrows heavily from the system with some amazing varitions). So, there is always a corporate incentive to justifying a new run of core books. I’m not sure this is necessarilly in the players best interest, but part of that will be determined over time.
What is often concerning is the lifespan of an edition. Original Edition D&D was created in 1974 in a few small books in a tiny box, and was published cleaned up as AD&D in 1977, which was the chief system until 1989, when 2nd Edition was published. 2nd Edition was modified in 1995 with what we alwasy called 2.5 or Skills and Powers, which gave a lot of optional versatility to the game. Third Edition was published in 2000, with a revised edition (3.5) in 2003. 4th Edition was published in 2008, and 5th published in 2014.
I would tend to group that more or less like this:
AD&D and variants – 15 years
2nd Edition – 11 years
3rd Edition and Variants – 8 years
4th Edition – 6 years
5th Edition – 8 years so far (and will be 10 years by the time the new edition publishes).
So, we’ve had a good run with 5th edition. With any new permutation, there will be some haters. Time will tell whether the changes coming are good and necessary ones, or if they are a misstep. Wizards promises that this process is one where feedback is involved, and the playtest rules are available for free on D&D Beyond.
We’ve looked at the changes proposed and will summarize them here. There may be more that we haven’t noticed, so make sure you let us know in the comments.
WHAT’S CHANGING?
Backwards Compatbile – First, we should point out (as Wizards was careful to) that all products are going to be backwards compatible, so that adventures purchased today can be played in the new edition with little to no modification. I expect powers might have to be added (like the dwarven ability to tremorsense, see below) but theres no need to throw your books in the garbage just yet.
Racial Changes – The design philosphy espoused in the promotional video has indicated that an emphasis on different sorts of characters acting as heroes should be more possible and more accesible to players. This telegraphs something indicated in the first playtest pdf, which is the first major change.
RACES DO NOT CONFER ABILITY SCORE BONUSES OR PENALTIES
Races do differ in a number of ways from their previous incarnations. The short list is as follows.
Humans – Can choose to be small or medium size (as short as 2 feet tall, apparently); gain inspiration after a long rest (standard rule is to lose it now after long rest); Extra skill proficiences; Gain the Skilled feat or a feat of your choice.
Ardling – This is a new PC race for the upper planes. These animal headed creatures have different forms, but share the ability to fly for limited periods of time, and gain some inherent spell casting abilities based on their type.
Dragonborn stay very similar.
Dwarves are similar to 5th edition, but gain the ability to tremorsense for short periods of time each day.
Elves – Are divided in to three subraces, drow, high and wood and are tied to different regions. Each subdivision gets their own bonus spells based on their region, and otherwise have very similar abilities to previous incarnations.
Gnomes similar to previous editions as well.
Orcs – Listed here as full orcs, not as half orcs, which is an interesting change. Orcs add the ability Adrenaline Surge which allows the granting of temporary hit points during the use of a dash action, which can be used a few times per long rest.
Tieflings – Perhaps the most extensive changes, tieflings now have three variations – abyssal, cthonic, or infernal. Each carries with it some inherent spellcasting abilities and resistences. They all get thaumaturgy.
BACKGROUNDS
There is a new emphasis on backgrounds, which have become more than just a skill and a minor power. These are the major changes:
Stat bumps – It is now your career, not your race, that conveys a stat bump. You get a +2 to one stat and +1 to another.
Tool Proficiency – Each background gains a tool proficiency specific to their type.
Language: You gain a language based on the Background. Sign language has entered the language group as well.
Skill Proficiencies: This has remained essentially the same.
Bonus 1st Level Feat: Each background carries with it a feat appropriate to the background.
Starting Equipment – Starting equipment is now determined by your job.
These are most of the visible changes. However thre are a few other tweaks.
DRUIDS – Now cast from the Primal spell list, which is still essentially the druid spell list of old, but not characterized as divine spells. Too early to tell if this has other implications.
GRAPPLING – Always has been a headache. Now, a successful grapple reduces the grappled parties speed to zero, and imposes disadvantage to attacking anyone but the grappeler.
INSPIRATION – goes away after a long rest (except or humans).. You can inspriation at the DM’s whim, or if you roll a Natural 20.
DIGITAL OFFERINGS – Last but not least, Wizards is once again threatening to create a digital table top, as well as digital copies of the books coming with the physical copies. Digital copes of books are great, though it’s not clear how it wil affect local retailers. The Virtual game table has been threatened for years, but I’ll believe it when I see it. In the end, this isn’t that big of a difference from the current arrangement as most have played online with services such as fantasy grounds or Roll20. It’s really almost embarassing how Wizards has failed to meet the need in the marketplace for something like this, but previous attempts have been utter disasters. The groundwork has been laid by many, now, so we’ll see this endeavor when it really gets going.
We’ll continue to update as playtest items roll out and ONE D&D moves forward.
Emerging from Darkness
When is it time to emerge from your cave and start playing in person?
Well, by now we’ve all been through it. Right when we started to think that we were going to get back in the saddle here at Skyland Games, the pandemic hit. And it persisted. And it persisted. In some ways, we had more time than we ever had before to write and reflect, and review ways to game more successfully online, but I’ll be damned if we just could not bring ourselves to do it.
Things were pretty dark. We all know that. Is it surprising to be unmotivated in all that? No. So please forgive us our long absence. We have slowly started to feel a little safer making our way out to game in person, and we’re currently running one online game and one in-person game for those who crave the in-person interaction and can handle the risk of possible infection, limited though it may be. We gathered in person as well at Free RPG Day which was this past weekend, all of us meeting at our FLGS The Wyvern’s Tale for some DCCRPG (you may be able to soon get a free PDF of Goodman Games’ offering Danger in the Air — click that for details). It was great to see things return to a semblance of normalcy from the before times.
It raises the question, when do you know you’re ready to return to in-person gaming? Here are some suggestions.
PARTY VOTE
Decide whether or not you’re going to require the vote to be unanimous, or majority rule. If you’re going with majority rule, you’ll want to discuss whether or not people voting against are going to honor the vote or have to abstain. If so, you might want to consider some of the other options below. But to run an anonymous poll among your friends is easy and can be accomplished with some free websites like Xoyondo. This can take the pressure off of some of your friends who might feel like they’re spoiling someone’s fun or pressuring others to do something their not ready to do.
STAY VIRTUAL AND CRY ABOUT IT
Until the virus is gone, which it looks like may be never, you can stay virtual. Yes, it may be a poor simulacrum, a shadow of real gaming, but you have to admit there are some advantages. You save gas money which as of this writing is hitting close to $5/gallon. You can use that huge catalog of virtual tokens you got from Forgotten Adventures, load up Roll20.net and start up DnDBeyond.com and you’re playing in minutes. And when you’re done, you can go upstairs and go right to sleep! You can still use all those great virtual resources you gathered during the pandemic, many of which are probably easier and faster than trying to unreliably do math in your head.
If there is one thing the pandemic did for us as gamers, it was making us figure out how to successfully game virtually. If you’re playing online, take the time to set it up right. We’ve never been fond of the in-app video chat with roll20, so we use a separate Discord server. It’s free, works fairly reliably, and accommodates good audio and passable video I’m told, though I’ve never used it that way.
I think video would probably enhance the online experience, but enough of us run these games on potatoes disguised as computers so we don’t push our luck.
It’s a good opportunity to get together with that old gaming group from college, or maybe hook up with some players that have moved away. And there is always the dark depths of various LFG pages you might wade into. Tread lightly.
HYBRID
I have recently accepted that some of our players may not ever want to play in person again. Also some players have moved away and are never coming back. Our player that moved to Canada really wants to stay in the game, or at least games that were going when he left. To accomplish this, I’ve actually found that it can be rewarding to have as many as are willing to play in-person get together in the same room, with a table mic for the distant player.
I recently required this rig to accomplish just that. Blue Yeti makes a powerful mic, this setup clamping to the table and hovering boom-style over the action so you don’t have to work your miniatures around it. If you couple that with a video table, the GM can use that to mark where players and monsters are and stream that same image to roll20, to which the player can log on and play.
I have a fairly serious setup. This may not be for everyone. But we played theater of the mind for decades! And failing that, a well positioned facetime shot or screen shot can get the same feats accomplished. There may be technical frustrations however, so get it set up before your players show if at all possible.
We did something like this during the pandemic lull of 2021 when a few of us were vaccinated and thought everything was fine, but others knew better. That mixed group was significantly more fun than just being straight virtual, where interrupting each other kept us from playing our characters and telling our jokes as timely as we would have liked. But hey, those days of virtual play were iron rations. They may not have been good, but they kept us alive, didn’t they?
In the end, do what you can to keep your people together. These guys might be more than just gaming buddies, they might be your Found Family, and no one wants to be left out. It didn’t occur to me how rushing back to the table might make some people feel left out until it was too late, and I regret not weighing it a little more before we sat back down. Best we can do now is accommodate those that need to play it safe, and hope we get to a point where we all can sit down at the table again and kill orcs in person, like the gods intended. Except Gruumsh, that still pisses him off.
Baby Yoda FFG build
I would like to see the baby. Fair enough. The surprise star of the first season of the Mandalorian brought many fans joy and made a lot of people curious about the show through some truly adorable memes.
“The Child” was one of the more interesting to try and stat up, since we don’t have any other examples of that species outside of Yoda. From Yoda’s stat block in Allies and Adversaries it looks like his career is Mystic Seer judging from his talents such as Natural Mystic. I decided to go the same way with the Child. I also started with 110 initial xp and 123123 as initial characteristics, which seems plausible as a starting point for Yoda as well.
Initial xp went to boosting characteristics: Intellect, Willpower, and Presence. I chose the few initial skills granted by his career and spent the rest on talents to up his force rating, and purchase a few Force powers: Bind, Heal/Harm and Protect/Unleash, all of which we see him use on screen in one form or another during the first season.
I did homebrew one talent that doesn’t exist in FFG Star Wars: Magic Hand Thingy. Named after what Greef Karga calls it when the heroes are pursued by Moff Gideon in his TIE fighter. Here is the description: Spend all remaining strain to roll double your force rating in dice and pass out. Pips may be spent to add range, strength, control, and/or magnitude.
This power is meant to represent the few scenes in which the Child performed some crazy force feat, then immediately passed out: levitating the mudhorn, healing Greef’s nearly fatal wounds, and shielding the heroes from a flamethrower.
I think it is a nice thematic way to bring that power to the table and gives the PC playing The Child a great opportunity to turn the tide when the chips are down. See what you think.
I’ll be running two sessions of my Mandalorian game at Mace West in Asheville, NC next week! Hope to see you there!
The Mandalorian – Mace West Preview
MACE West is less than a month away! The annual western addition of Mid-Atlantic Convention Expo returns a bit earlier than in previous years (February 28 – March 1), but in the same space at the DoubleTree in Asheville, just outside the Biltmore estate.
Registration is already open. Get your tickets, sign up for games, and I’ll see you there!
I’ll be running DCCL Acting Up in Lankhmar, as well as two slots of my FFG Star Wars adventure that picks up immediately where the Mandalorian TV season 1 ends (spoiler warning if for some reason you have failed to devour the first season of Mandalorian).
After watching the last few episodes a few more times, I would still like to stat out IG-11 and Kuill, but they are both pretty much irrefutably dead after the last episode. One could argue you could rebuild IG-11, but his self-destruct device was purpose-built to avoid capture and his design being copied. The only reason Kuill was able to rebuild him earlier in the show was thanks to Mando’s well-placed headshot.
The pre-gens for my table of Mandalorian Season 2 will be: Mando, Cara Dune, Greef Karga, The Armorer, Paz Vizla (Mandalorian heavy), and the Child. Today I’ll share my build for Carasynthia Dune of Alderaan.
I considered making her a Soldier Heavy from Age of Rebellion, but went with Soldier Commando instead. Especially considering the addition of Paz Vizla, who is most definitely a Hired Gun Heavy, Commando seemed like the best choice for her. Added to the core Solider skills of Athletics, Brawl, Knowledge (Warfare), Medicine, Melee, Ranged (Light) and Ranged (Heavy), Commando adds another Brawl, another Melee, Resilience and Survival. The skills alone do well to describe what we have seen on the screen so far. The talents only further support Commando as the best choice for Cara. As a human you can take two non-career skills, and I chose Gunnery and Cool. I’m building these pre-gens out with initial XP+200. I used her initial 110 as a human to increase her Brawn up to 4 and Agility up to 3. I eventually purchased the talents to get to Dedication and increase her Agility to 4.
As one may expect, there are plenty of ranks of Grit and Toughened in the Commando talent tree. I purchased a few of those, as well as Point Blank which adds damage to Ranged attacks at short and engaged range. Durable reduces crit results suffered by 10. Armor master increases soak by 1 when searing armor. Feral Strength adds 1 damage to Brawn and Melee attacks. Perhaps most thematically, Heroic Fortitude allows Cara to ignore effects of crits to Brawn and Agility until the end of the encounter. On balance, I think this build fits quite well for what we’ve seen from Cara on screen so far.
Her equipment posed a few interesting challenges. Most notably, her heavy rifle does not appear to have appeared in the Star Wars universe before. The power cell is similar to the RT-97C from Battlefront, but it is under the rifle which features two barrels and a carrying handle she uses to stabilize it while firing. To stat it out, I started with a Heavy Blaster Rifle and added an Augmented Spin Barrel, Forearm Grip, and Optimized Energy Cell. The one from the show doesn’t actually spin, but mechanically it just adds one base damage while providing an additional barrel. The Forearm Grip reduces the difficulty for engaged range heavy checks, and the Optimized Energy Cell accounts for the massive power cell and ensures she will rarely run out of ammo.
I gave her Rebel Heavy Battle Armor (Soak 2) which when you add her 4 Brawn and Armor Master gives her a very beefy 7 soak. Beyond that, I added a simple blaster and a vibroknife as backup weapons. In the show her pistol has a cool looking scope on it, but I didn’t find a weapon modification that described that well and fit on a pistol.
Once I stat out the rest of the PCs I’ll post them here. As of this writing, there are still a few slots left for the tables I’m running. There are a ton of great gaming events happening all weekend: board games, historical wargames, and even a greek pantheon themed LARP. See you at MACE West!
FFG Star Wars Mandalorian Stats
It is difficult to find a bad review of the flagship Disney+ original The Mandalorian. Most fans were cautiously optimistic, and even some critics of the recent movies were swayed by this return to a gritty, compelling mix of eastern (samurai) and western (cowboy) influences in a live action, episodic show.
SPOILER WARNING: If you haven’t seen the first season of The Mandalorian, just pony up for a month of Disney+ and devour all eight episodes. We’re going to be discussing characters and plot points, so again, you have been warned.
The first few episodes focus on the titular character, but by the end of the first season, there are several characters that could make excellent PCs for an Edge of the Empire game. This is the first post of a series that will eventually make a complete party of six characters: Din Djardin, Cara Dune, IG-11, Kuill, Greef Karga, and of course, The Child.
Let me walk you through my process for Mando. I looked at a lot of careers and specializations, but ultimately went the most obvious route of Bounty Hunter: Gadgeteer from the core Edge of the Empire book. This is actually a pretty tough talent tree due to diverse characteristics for core skills and not great for people looking for an optimized build, but I felt it fit the character to a T. I used the Mandalorian species from Friends Like These which provides all 2s for characteristics, 105 starting XP, and one rank in any combat skill or one rank in two knowledge skills. I chose Gunnery since that is missing from the core skill set of the Gadgeteer. For initial skills I chose Perception, Piloting (Space), Piloting (Planetary), Ranged (Heavy), Ranged (Light), and Brawl.
I choose to build him out with 200 earned XP to represent his experience as a hunter before we meet him in the show. I boosted Brawn, Agility and Willpower to 3 with the starting XP, leaving me 15, which I used to pick up a rank of Mechanics and Melee. Making a bee line down the talent tree (with a few detours) for 200 XP I chose two ranks of Toughened, Jury Rigged, Armor Master, Tinkerer, Dedication (Agility), Point Blank, Spare Clip, and Improved Armor Master. These talents are well represented on screen by the amount of abuse he can take, his versatile gear (more in on this in a moment), and how often his armor saves his bacon. This left 40 XP to buy up a few more ranks in Ranged skills, Piloting (Space), Vigilance, and Athletics.
Let’s talk gear. As one would expect, the Mandalorian has several tricks up (or on) his sleeve. Luckily, a few of these were already started up in Boba Fett’s gear in the Allies and Adversaries sourcebook. This provides the weapon stats for the wrist-mounted flame thrower and whipcord Mando uses in several of the episodes. There are also templates for novice and veteran Mandalorian armor (2 Soak, 1 Defense) in the excellent Gadgets and Gear sourcebook, which provided details for the integrated tracking system that mechanically provides another rank of Vigilance. We see this on screen when he is tracking the (warm?) footprints of Cara Dune outside the backwater tavern in which they first meet.
His rifle posed an interesting challenge. Astute fans will recognize both the rifle, pistol and even overall look is a nod to the Star Wars holiday special. There are no FFG stats for that crazy tuning-fork that I could find.
In episode 3, Cara refers to it as a Pulse rifle, which made me think of a Pulse Cannon which does have stats; stats that fit remarkably well. Apparently I wasn’t the only one confused, as the storyboards in the credits from that same episode make the rifle look like a pulse cannon, albeit with the shock fork at the end. To account for this, I provided the Pulse Cannon with a Shock Pulse Emitter that provides Stun 4, Disorient 1 in melee. The pulse cannon itself can be fired normally for a decent 9 damage shot, pierce two. It should be noted it is slow firing 1, which is not ideal, but pretty well represented on screen as he aims between shots at long range. The rifle can also be primed to use its entire energy cell to gain Breach 1, Vicious 3. While not exactly a disrupter, you have a much better chance of vaporizing some Jawas if you are adding 30% to crit rolls.
I just gave him a vanilla blaster pistol, mostly because I couldn’t find any pistols that really looked like his and he already has a ton of weapons. I also included the vibroknife we see on screen in the mudhorn fight.
The “whistling birds” threw me for a bit of a loop. While mini-rockets are detailed in No Disintegrations, none of those really fit what the armorer creates for him. I used the stat block for the armor-piercing rocket and made it limited ammo 6. It looks like the actual launcher from the show has 10, but that seems a bit overpowered to put in the hands of a PC. There also isn’t really a mechanic to take out 4 guys simultaneously like he did on the show, but I would house-rule an extra rocket could launch for every two advantage on the attack roll to try and simulate that.
So here is my build. I feel like it may not be mechanically optimized, but represents what I saw on the screen. What do you think? Suggestions?
I had this post planned before the tragic news of Fantasy Flight Games shutting down Fantasy Flight Interactive and gutting the RPG department. Those designers created one of my favorite RPGs of all time in the form of Edge/Age/FaD. I plan on playing this game for years to come, and hope all those excellent people land on their feet and keep creating great stuff.
Building Bad: Tips on Creating Memorable Villain NPC’s
It’s easy, relatively speaking, to run a villain in most campaigns. You’ve got technical application of the rules, some rudimentary tactics, and keeping track of stats, spells, and wounds, sure…. And sometimes that can be burdensome, but any GM worth their salt should be able to readily handle that aspect of the game, if not right away then early in their GMing career.
But how do you take a pile of stats and make it memorable? Make it truly villainous? here are a few tips to creating a bad guy that your players will love to hate.
Reputation / Infamy
You hear about a villain, or their actions, before you ever see them: You come across the scene of the murder. You hear the villagers talk about the tradgedy the villain has brought to bear (even if they don’t know that’s who is behind it). People talk in hushed tones about the warlord in the neighboring province. Villagers tell tale of the creature that lives in the woods.
This is best delievered as background noise, tavern rumors, or news reports. Better yet, it’s learned when the party is busy with another problem. It builds a richer world, one fraught with problems where the party can only do so much. The villain is a problem that the party has to work itself up to. Haunting scenes of death and destruction or chilling tales from victims or survivors build the villain’s reputation.
Villains use others to do their dirty work.
While some villains may be solitary, many villains that wield enough power will draw followers that seek to benefit from the riches or influence their dastardly patron. Others may see a chance for wanton violence in the company of someone who has mastered it.
This could be as minimal as a hobgoblin or bugbear that commands a small horde of semi-faithful goblins. It could be a petty crime lord that pays a biker gang to ferry his contraband and protect his holdings for a cut of the take. It could be an army. In this agency, there is power over the innocent. These perhaps not-so-powerful followers can affect change by virtue of their numbers. They can destroy a village, derail a train, and in big enough numbers, crush a nation.
Use these minions to exact the will of the Villain, spy on their enemies, and create confrontations that remind the party the villain is active without putting the villain himself at risk. Furthermore, these minions brag about their patron villain. They want people to know that they are to be feared and respected because of their patron’s power. Let your minions tell tales of their patron villain, threaten his wrath, and predict his retribution. You’re building a relationship between the villain and the party without the villain saying a word themselves.
Villains attack heroes where they’re most vulnerable.
Only so much force can be brought to bear agains the heroes themselves. They are, after all, the heroes! They were built to overcome adversity. When a villain cannot eliminate the heroes, they can make them pay. Often, they have friends, family and loved ones that don’t have the same capability to fight back. And there’s nothing to make a villain more hated than attacking or exploiting the innocent, especially if the heroes are close to the victims.
Villains live to fight another day.
There is no single thing that drives a party mad more readily than a villain slipping through their grasp. Villains should plan ways of making their escape so that the heroes cannot follow until it’s time to stop telling their story. Dedicated retreat can be difficult to counter, especially for a Villain applying a little forethought. Take note, however, that if you do this, there are two rules you have to follow: One, the escape must make sense in some form or fashion or the party will see the escape as a cheat. Make sure evidence of their escape plan is clear and reasonable. Two, you must eventually let the heroes catch the villain. The contract you have with the players as a GM is that you will give them the opportunity to be heroic. Give them that opportunity, if not right away.
Villains use their resources to make your misery their hobby.
Villiains have time and resources that allow them to do things that an average hero wouldn’t even consider. It might be having their goons ransack the heroes’ base, burn down a town, or spread nasty rumors about them. They can take their time or drop a little money into making the heroes miserable, including impersonating them while doing their worst. Fire is cheap. The watch and judges can be bribed. While the possibilities are endless, the goal is to anger the party, not to kill them. They are owed a confrontation, and their anger is the spice that will make that fight all the more satsifying.
Villains aren’t just cruel to the heroes.
If a villain is cruel, there are plenty of ways to show it. Sometimes, this involves slaying their own underlings for their own incompetence. For the chaotic evil out there, it could be slaying bystanders for almost no reason at all. In most cases, it’s going to be a villain taking the most direct route to solving a problem, even if that means a few people have to get hurt along the way. Show these victims to the players in your story so that they get the depth of what a jerk your bad guy really is. If possible, let your villain do this infront of them, but just out of their grasp. Use the innocent as human shields to cover the villains escape or distract the heroes from seeking their vengeance.
Villians love to hear themselves talk.
There’s nothing more disappointing than fighting your way through multiple floors of a dungeon or secret base and finally cornering the villian you’ve been hunting for weeks to only have him or her wordlessly wade into combat with you without uttering a word.
This is the easiest, cheapest way to make a villain 100% more satisfying. Call it a surprise round where the villain takes his whole action talking, or do what I do and say it’s a special “drama round” where you apply GM fiat to tell a cool story. However you make it happen, have your villain at least say a few lines:
“Miserable stinking imbeciles! You think you can defeat me? I am Lord Castigar! I have slain hundrends of so called heroes like yourselves. Come at me, if you wish to die!”
It doen’t take much to improv some witty (or not-so-witty) dialogue. But don’t stop there. Each round, on the villains action, give them some more lines. Goad the players, mock them, have them explain the cunning nature of their plan, or if things are turning agains tthe Villain, have them start to negotiate. And when they negotiate, see if there is a way to be reasonable. See if you can actually tempt the player into taking the deal. Don’t be surprised if your villain tells the heroes, “Wait! Stop!” and they actually do it, and hear him out (with hesitation). There’s something about our human natures that make us willing to hear reason, if its possible, and a villain can use that to his advantage. A real villain will always welch on the deal anyway, so its nothing to make a few promises and then try to get back to their position down the road. A good villain bides his time. And if they can’t, you have to remember the last thing…
Villains are people too.
Well, some of them are demons, or space monsters or whatever. But the best villain is a villain that can exist in reality. Sure, there are murdering psyhopaths that cut a swath of death a destruction through the universe for no reason, but the best villains are ones that could exist, that do exist. They’re usually greedy, money hungry or power hungry people who bend a few rules at first to get what they think they need or deserve. Soon, when this becomes easier, or if the reward is just too good, they make bolder moves and more people get hurt. Maybe life has taught them lessons that make empathy a sign of weakness, and they’ve moved beyond being concerned with how others are affected by their actions. But a complex villain, one that might yet be turned away from their path, or might show vengence another evil for reasons all their own, that’s a truly well developed villain. They have reasons for acting how they do, and don’t see themselves as evil so much as driven, regardless of the consequences.
In the end, every villain wants to live. If the choice is obvious death or the possibility of surviving, 9 times out of 10 a villain will choose life unless losing everything is too great of an insult to their vanity. And then, its up the heroes to show mercy, or perhaps begin the road towards villany themselves. Every villain has to start somewhere, and its a fine line between vengence and wrath.
DCC RPG Annual Vol. 1 Review
It has been almost a year since we have published anything on this blog. Life can get busy, but I have a particularly adorable excuse. My wife and I have wanted to adopt for years, and in October 2018 we got the call. We’ve spent the majority of this last year learning how to be parents. It has been amazing to see this little zero level gain new skills and bring such joy to so many people. Now that we have mastered parenting (ha!), we both wanted to get back to creative pursuits and hobbies.
While I may have not blogged about RPGs, I certainly haven’t stopped playing them or buying stuff! Just counting Goodman Games kickstarters that have shipped since I last posted we have had MCC, DCC Lankhmar, and most recently the DCC Annual Vol. 1. I’ve decided to try and catch up in reverse chronological order, so we’ll start with the Annual.
For those of us die hard DCC fans, the “Annual” had been talked about in hushed tones on the now defunct G+ (RIP) since at least 2013, if not earlier. The years went by and still no Annual. Was the gongfarmer’s almanac the annual? No, that was community-created content. The Annual would be from the core Goodman Games writers. It eventually became synonymous for things that would be nice to have, but would not likely see the light of day; the vaporware of RPGs.
Then in late October of 2018, the kickstarter for the Annual was launched. I backed at the foil level. Due to a shipping/fulfillment snafu, I only received my physical copy recently. I had skimmed the PDF version, but didn’t do a deep dive until recently. The tome weighs in at 208 pages.
The chapter numbers mirror the core book, which seems confusing and unnecessary. While the first section is a welcome addition expanding the official material on the pantheon of gods just mentioned by name in the core book, starting on Chapter 5 seems like on odd choice. It would be one thing if this was a direct expansion of the core book and you could plug these sections in to the original, but since they are two separate volumes it just makes navigating the Annual a bit weird.
That said, the contents of the strangely numbered chapters are pretty excellent. Chapter 5 provides background information for several of the gods mentioned in the cleric section of the core book such as Cadixtat, Justicia, Shul and Malotoch, however it does not detail all of them. It does provide some satisfying backstory for those included, as well as several Lay on Hands manifestations to add some more flavor to the next healing attempt. Most provide a few deity-specific divine favors and titles for the first five PC levels. Each entry also includes specific disapproval tables, and spells for levels 1, 3 and 5 called canticles.
Chapter 6 extends the Quests & Journeys chapter of the core book by quite a bit. Included is a fairly detailed table of 24 mini-adventures that could be run in between larger quests. This is followed by several pages detailing a lost utopian land of Mu. While not providing a specific adventure, it provides descriptions of the inhabitants, crystal technology, and interesting places upon which a judge could launch any number of quests.
Chapter 7 is labeled Judge’s Rules like the core book, but is a collection of more patrons for wizards and elves. Several of these I recognize from specific adventures, while others may be new or just unfamiliar to me. Each entry includes some background information, invoke patron results, patron taint, spellburn results and patron spells for level 1, 2 and 3.
As in the core book, Chapter 8 is dedicated to Magic Items. This includes a very detailed section on crafting magic rings with a vast number of tables to ensure each ring created would be unique. The next section describes patron weapons which is a process (and tables!) that describes imprisoning a PC in an item for angering their patron. This curse always has a condition upon which it may be lifted. It also has rules for wielding patron weapons, and a mechanic in which a patron weapon could exert its will on the wielder and dominate the bearer. There is also a table of magical books and a few that have detailed descriptions of magical effects from reading them. My favorite part of this chapter is the named swords section. It dedicates an entire page to each sword. Half of the page is a detailed illustration, the other half is a lengthy backstory and list of powers.
The last main chapter provides options for making monsters more memorable. There are several long entries of individual creatures, but also sections which include tables to make what could be mundane creatures into something unique. This includes tables for randomizing bugs, reptiles, constructs, giants, therianthropes (were-creatures) and general mutations. The chapter concludes with a section on monstrous patronage. This allows a judge to provide some supernatural aide for monsters similar to PCs invoking their patrons. This could be fun if used sparingly, and would be pretty terrifying on the player side of the table the first time it is used.
The book closes with Appendix M – Moustaches. This is a hilarious group of rules and tables about moustaches culminating in the moustache duel. “But sometimes things get ugly, and then folks with a ‘stache must have a clash.”
I think it is great this book finally went into production. It is an excellent collection of details and tables to expand DCC, without feeling like it is adding complicated sub-systems or dreaded rules-bloat. I would recommend it for fans of DCC who want to add a bit flavor and detail to their PCs, monsters, magic items and moustaches.
Dungeons and Donations: Encounter at Barrier Peaks
Dungeons and Donations starts this Friday at The Wyvern’s Tale in Asheville, NC and on twitch.tv for an amazing fifth year! This year will feature a slightly modified version of the classic adventure Expedition to the Barrier Peaks. Judging from the theme on the website and the staff shirts, it looks like an old school Star Trek aesthetic.
For those unfamiliar with previous years, Dungeons and Donations is a 24-hour D&D 5e marathon that benefits Extra Life, the gaming charity for Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals. In the past the graphics for the stream itself had a retro SSi-Gold Box type of feel that added to the nostalgia of playing through such classic adventures as Tomb of Horrors, Keep on the Borderlands, Shrine of Tamoachan, and White Plume Mountain.
If you are anywhere near the Asheville area, you can play and be on the stream! See how long your character can survive the deadly perils that await the party.
If you can’t make the trip, you can still affect the game! Donations can purchase boons (help the party) or banes (hurt the party). A $5 donation will buy a roll on either table. The peril level dictates what options are available based on how many people are in line waiting to play. The longer the player line, the more deadly the banes. If less players are waiting, the more beneficial the boons!
Can the heroes survive the alien ship and save the children? Join us this Friday for another year of incredible fun! For the children!
The Black Hack 2e Review
I had heard of the Black Hack in various Old School Renaissance (OSR) communities on the now doomed G+ RPG communities, but hadn’t looked in to it until recently. The publisher had a kickstarter over the summer that flew completely under my radar, but since the 126-page second edition PDF was only $6, I decided to take a gamble.
I
am so pleased that I did. I have no experience with the first edition of the Black Hack, but the amazing resources in the second edition provide an easy to learn system for players, and a wealth of creative tools for GMs. This is one of the few systems that I would *not* bring pre-gens for in a convention setting. The entire player section of the game is a scant 30 pages, and character generation is TWO. Each of the included classes (the classics: Warrior, Thief, Cleric, Wizard) has a simple character sheet and just enough options to give your character a few interesting bits of equipment and mechanics. Each of the four classes can be printed on a single sheet, front and back, and the player will have just about everything they need.
This system is a great example of the mechanics aiding creativity and story-telling, and not getting in the way with endless fiddly bits. For example: one of the core mechanics is the attribute test. Your attributes are generated via the classic 3d6 method. Roll under the attribute called for in the test, you pass. Roll over, you fail. Initiative is a great example of this: roll under your Dexterity. Pass? Go before the baddies. Fail? Go after the baddies. Quick. Easy to remember. Fun!
It also makes use of the popular advantage/disadvantage mechanic used in D&D 5e. Since you want to roll under your attribute, you would take the lower result for advantage, and the higher result for disadvantage.
Another nice mechanic it uses for item tracking is the usage die chain. This is used to track anything that has a number of uses like arrows, holy water, oil etc. When you use the thing, roll the associated usage die. If you roll a 1 or a 2 it goes down one step in the chain: D20 > D12 > D10 > D8 > D6 > D4 > expended. For ammo it is only rolled at the end of the encounter. This is a nice way to reflect a limited resource without the dreaded Dungeons & Accounting that can take up so much time or is completely ignored by players and GMs in other systems.
The art is very cool black and white pieces from Karl Stjernberg, David Black, Sean Poppe, and Jeff Call. A lot of the best work is reserved for the monster and opponents section.
But the best part is reserved for the GM. This system has incredible resources to generate just about anything you could need for a game session: NPCs, hex maps, wilderness, dungeons, settlements, taverns, quest hooks, whats on the body etc. Some are straight rolls of a d12 or d8, others use 2d6 on a matrix, others are drop tables that have different results based on where the die lands on the page. This is the most succinct, concentrated creativity toolkit I’ve seen in any system. Even the monsters and opponents section includes tables to make every encounter unique.
If you’re in a creative rut, this is about the best $6 you can spend. If you’d like to pre-order the printed version and missed out on the kickstarter (like I did), check out the pre-order page. See you around the table! I’ve got some adventures to generate!
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- The Black Hack 2e Review
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