Puzzling

Our last session was pretty combat intense. I try to balance campaigns out between story line and the amount of combat because I want my players to get caught up in a story not just smashing things. The way it worked out though, was that last night it was mostly combat. There were two breaks from combat and the first of them was in the ruins of a warlock’s tower. The warlock was still there and offered to play them at a game of Loki’s dice, a game I was inspired to come up with. I’ll dedicate a blog post just to the game when I get a chance. Both of the PCs played until they won magical items. 5e is written to be low in magical items but with just Tyr and Hal playing I felt they could use the boost. They are playing well but let’s face it, magic weapons and items are just freaking cool. Then the PC’s got to try out their new gear as they fought their way through a crypt of undead, where they found a mysterious amulet.

We moved back onto the main track of the quest as Tyr and Hal proceeded to a set of watery ruins. They are on an island but the ruins they must investigate have sunken into a small lake. It is here that the boys encountered a medusa and Hal became turned to stone just before Tyr could deliver the deathblow to the Medusa. With only two players I allowed Tyr to transform Hal back to himself with the death of the Medusa.

Their tribulations for the night didn’t end there. After defeating the medusa the next door they needed to get through was a puzzle. There is a mural around the room and a door with a strange locking mechanism. The mural is done in 10 frames. They depict in order; a boar, an elk, a bear, a snake, a fungus, a blink dog, a kobold, a kenku, a medusa, a hydra. The first of the three dials on the door has a snake, a fungus, a kobold, a kenku, a hydra. The second has a blink dog, a snake, a boar, an elk. The third and inner most has a hydra, a bear, a medusa. Answer: snake, blink dog, hydra. It is simply that the animals follow the order on the mural. So the first animal on the mural that is on the first dial is the snake. The nextt animal on the mural on the second dial is the blink dog and the next animal on the mural on the third dial is the hydra.

This puzzle is where we get into some principles of DMing. I’ve talked to a lot of DM’s who say, “When I make a puzzle that I think is easy my players find it incredibly difficult. When I make one that I think is hard, they solve it in seconds.” I thought the door would be easy, especially since I was emphasizing the words “in order” but my players found it too difficult. Granted it was after midnight when they were trying to solve this. Which leads me into one of the principles of DMing that I learned early on; always give your players an out. Never give them something that is impassable and quest ending. With this puzzle I gave the players an out. Tyr started to play with the door and discovered that when he landed on a certain animal there was a “click.” He played with the door until he got the right combo and thus it unlocked. Did I want things to work out that way? No, but everyone was tired and I felt the best thing for the quest was to give my players an out.

First Impressions of Roll20

Here are my first impressions on using roll20. First I have to say that my preference is always to play in person. I like the human interaction and my DM style with props etc. is just far more suited to playing in person. The situation we find ourselves in does not make in person play possible right now and our only option to continue playing was to find some way to play online. At first, we considered playing over Skype but that uses up a good bit of bandwidth and posed some sound problems. We decided to try out roll20.com and overall I think it worked well for having to play online. My overall review is positive but I’ll go through what I did and did not like.


Pros


~ I can add portraits in to set the mood, something I didn’t do in person.


~ I can import my handmade maps after scanning them onto my computer.


~ The whisper feature is great for passing DM notes.


~ 3d dice roll for those who prefer a dice roller to actual dice. I prefer real dice but Hal prefers a dice roller.


~ I control who has control of what tokens on the board.


~ The “ping” feature lets you draw someone’s attention to a specific point on the map.


~ The drawing feature makes it easy to mark the area of area effect spells. It also allows players to plot out their movements Madden style before actually making moves.


~ You can choose to use video & voice, just voice, or just chat to communicate with other players. You can enable the squares for video and have small or large screens or you can just show the nameplates of players. You can also mute a player, which comes in handy because Tyr and I are actually in the same room. This way I hear his actual voice and not his voice with a delayed computer echo.


~ I control what page players are on and I can view another page while they are on the page I assign them to.


~ Now I haven’t used this feature yet, I’ll be using it when we play next, but in theory, it seems good. It’s called fog of war and it lets you hide parts of the map and reveal sections to the PCs as you play. I had to watch a tutorial on how to use it because it’s not obvious what you need to do to make it work.


~ If we choose to in the future we can look for an additional player through roll20.


~ My players had a great experience.


Cons


~ We used voice only and it kept dropping out. We’d have to wait for it to come back, which held up game play. We’re going to download Teamspeak and give that a try. Which I find inconvenient, it just makes one more window I have to have open on my computer.


~ It takes a lot more time to set up a quest/campaign in roll20than it does to set one up for table top play.


~ Handmade maps don’t match up with the roll20 grid. There are ways to work around this but I still find it annoying.

~ Large maps are hard to use on this platform. You really need a small map that fits into the dimensions viewable on the map screen without having to scroll.


~ This is only an issue for the DM. You need too many windows open at one time and in order to see my word document where my quest is typed out I have to cover the chat box during battles or the whole screen when reading text.


~ It really is not designed for my style of DMing. If you’ve watched Chris Perkins at PAX he generally has his PCs on one map for the whole session and that works perfect with roll20. I on the other hand can go through ten maps in one session and that can be kind of cumbersome on roll20.


~ This goes along with the last con. This was a point Tyr brought up. He has to reenter his HP on every map. Time consuming and annoying. Now, technically as the DM there is a way I could make their HP carry over from one map to the next but then every time they level up I’ve got to go in and redo their token and then if I have maps already made up I’ve got to go in, delete their current tokens on those pages, and replace their tokens on those pages. I’ve got too much to handle as a DM as it is without adding that to it.


Again I have to say, nothing beats DMing in person. If you find yourself in a situation like us then roll20 is a great option.

Dwarven Party

Last night we had our first session sans Omar and it was fabulous! It was also our first night using Roll20.com. We started quest B of the campaign and Hal and Tyr both choose to be dwarves, Hal a tempest cleric and Tyr a wizard. Together they make a formidable dwarf party; splattering the blood of their foes on ruin walls.

For this campaign, I'm doing something that is totally different and my players are thoroughly intrigued at the thought of how it will all come together. In quest A of the campaign I gave them a NPC pacifist cleric, Omar wasted time and space as a supposed rouge, Hal played a human fighter, and Tyr was a drow ranger. For quest B of the campaign the boys are playing their dwarves. Here’s the twist; their part B characters are starting at the same point in time that their part A characters started. When they finish part B those characters will now be at the point in time where the characters from part A finished their quest. The thieves’ guild will then bring all of the characters together to finish off the campaign in quest C. My players have requested that when they start part C that I allow their PCs to kill Omar’s PC, and I intend to honor their request. They deserve it for all of the headaches Omar and his floundering rouge caused them.

I must say that the way Hal plays his dwarf makes a 5e cleric completely bad-ass. Tyr uses his wizard strategically and masterfully. The teamwork in the group is amazing without Omar holding them back. Tyr was a web-casting maestro, holding earth elementals to the ground while Hal skirted the web using his glaive to slash them to rubble. Last night was what D&D is supposed to be!

Dragon Turtle

Last night’s main boss battle was with a dragon turtle. It became an epic battle! The PCs entered a cave where they were distracted by the presence of three merrows, so they didn’t do any checks on the cave. It turned out that part of the floor of the cave was the shell of the dragon turtle. They were trying to reach a treasure chest on the back side of the cave that contained a special jewel, the object of their sea quest. Omar decided that his rogue would head straight for the chest, leaving Tyr and Hal to deal with the gargantuan creature on their own. Omar failed to pick the lock on the chest and even broke his thieves’ tools in the process of failing. In the end, Tyr and Hal managed to defeat the dragon turtle, though it was close. Both of them had HP in the single digits at the end, and Hal the bard had to use knock to get the chest open.

Ship Combat

One of my challenges for this quest was coming up with a sea battle between my PCs’ frigate and a pirate frigate. Sea battles are one of the areas where I wish WOTC would iron out and have a set of rules and stats for. Since there are no 5e rules, at least at this point, for running ships I had to come up with my own. I devised an AC and HP for each ship and came up with ballistas and their stats. My PC’s decided they didn’t like the ballistas because they had to roll a strength check to load them and then make an attack roll to try to hit anything. So when the pirate frigate approached they choose to lob spells until the ship was close enough for boarding. I felt the strength check was necessary because Omar’s PC was a halfling, who obviously did not have the strength to load the huge ballistas on her own.

Shipwreck Mimics

One of the fun things I did in our last session was to incorporate mimics. None of my players ever thought I'd use mimics so it was a real surprise to them. Instead of the usual treasure chest, had some floating debris in the sea. Some of it was sticking to the hull and the rudder of the ship they were on. When they lowered a dingy to remove the debris, SURPRISE!

Liar's Dice

I love using props in game; so last night I added a hands on game in the game. The Player’s Handbook offers proficiency with a gamer’s set for some of the backgrounds but I’ve never found instructions for how to play the D&D in game games that it lists. I didn’t want to use chess or have the PC’s play poker with the playing cards because I was afraid that using such everyday games would pull the players back into reality instead of enriching the role-playing. I decided to have the PC’s play Liars Dice in the tavern. Some of you may have seen Liars Dice before; it was featured in the Pirates of the Caribbean Dead Man’s Chest. I think this was very successful because it was something different and it fits in perfectly at the port city tavern.

Fae Forest

Last night’s session was so eventful that I’m going to do a couple of posts about it. Everyone, except Omar, had an absolute blast! The PC’s quickly discovered that the forest they entered was filled with fey which Hal, the bard, proceeded to splat against the trees with his Thunder Wave. Before they defeated the fey, a pixie used Polymorph to turn Omar into a mule. Now Omar, in mule form, could have fought the pixie and violet fungus attacking him or even moved away from the fungus, but he chose to wonder around his square eating grass until Tyr slain the pixie who cast the spell on Omar. In the next encounter, Tyr and Hal hacked and slashed away at a Treant until the mighty creature finally fell.

Room Markers and Tabletop

I got tired of my players using post-it notes on the table to mark the dimensions of rooms. My solution was to use stone spray paint on Duplo blocks to make D&D wall markers for our table. As a side note our playing table is upcycled from a coffee table I hated. I took the top off and wood burned in a grid. The squares are 1.5” by 1.5”, perfect for minis.

Dice Tray

So it was one fall that we started playing D&D and Omar keep complaining because the table we were using at the time was padded and he couldn’t hear the dice roll. Now I agree, it’s nice to hear the dice roll but it doesn’t ruin the game for me when someone uses a dice roller or when the table is padded. It was ruining the game for Omar which, because we had to hear about it on every dice roll, was ruining the game for the rest of us. I let them use a decorative autumn tray I had to roll their dice, with the stated expectation that Omar would come up with a permanent tray. That never happened and my decorative tray got ruined. So just yesterday I finally broke down and repainted my tray to make it an official dice-rolling tray. Why we still need it when they can roll on the new wooden table I don’t know but here it is and this is how I made it.

I started by repainting the tray black. Then I printed off the design on regular printer paper and cut it out. I applied a coat of mod podge to the back of the paper and placed it on the tray. Then I let that dry before applying a coat of mod podge over the top. Just a tip: when you print your design let it dry for a bit so the ink doesn’t smear when you do your top coat of mod podge.

Inspiration Tokens

I was inspired by another DM to make these. They are Inspiration tokens made from wood slices embellished by a wood burning tool. Now I have something physical to hand my players when they earn inspiration. I like having props that make the game more tangible.

D&D with Our Oldest

This weekend was our off weekend for our D&D group but we were not without some D&D. Tyr and I have two children and the oldest is six. When we play he watches us intently and has been asking to play for a while now. We let him pick out a dice set at the local shop and I designed a mini-quest suitable for such a young player. It’s a very simple straightforward quest designed mostly for hacking and slashing and it moves along quickly to keep him engaged. I’m actually quite impressed with my little Moon Elf Druid (his choices), he really is paying attention when he watches us play. In addition to the fun, it also reinforces reading and math skills.

NPC Cleric

Over the weekend we started our Ravensrest campaign. One of my favorite parts was unveiling my NPC Cleric to travel with the party. She’s a Moon Elf dedicated to Sehanine Moonbow and a pacifist. She has taken a vow that prevents her from causing any physical harm to another being. Her past is sordid and mostly a mystery but she is a powerful healer for the party. We’ve also decided to convert the campaign from 3.5 to 5e which gives her, even more, depth and mystery.

DIY Potion Bottles

These are super simple to make.

I used the jars from an old spice rack. Wash them out really good and fill them with water. Add a few drops of food coloring and stir with a chopstick. Keep adding water and stirring until you have the shade you desire, then cap with the bottle toppers or use a cork.

Preparing to Begin Ravensrest

I’m preparing to start my next adventure in DMing, which takes place in a realm that is my own creation called Ravensrest. Right now everyone is creating their characters. Tyr will be playing a ranger but I have no clue yet what Hal and Omar will be playing. I have limited each player to one character this time because I want to get everyone deeper into actually role-playing their character. Tyr and Hal should get into it but Omar is extremely rigid and not happy that I’m limiting him to one character. I'm going to be providing an NPC cleric to travel with the party. It should be interesting when they find out she's a pacifist. Right now we play every other week and I’m excited to get this quest underway in our next session.

Making Your Own Parchment Paper

I like using props when I DM and one of my staples is making maps and notes for the players that look like old parchment. Here's how I do it.

When making notes I use my computer to print them out in a font that I feel suits the tone, theme, and purpose of the quest. If you need to find some interesting fonts check out dafont.com for some great ones.

Maps I tend to hand draw on printer paper.

Either way, once you have your note or map you'll want to make the edges less perfect. There are two options that I use. First, you could just carefully tear down each edge of the paper. The second is to burn the edges with a lighter. *Be very careful when doing this both for safety and not to burn away a part of the map or note.

Now to make it look and feel more like parchment. Brew a batch of tea and let it cool to room temp. Once cooled I pour it into a glass baking dish that will fit the paper. Submerge your paper in the tea. Ideally, you want to let it soak over night and I don't recommend putting more than three pieces of paper in. If you don't have over night or just don't have the patience a couple of hours will get you a light version of the effect.

After it's soaked I carefully pull the paper out of the tea and set it on a crumpled up bath towel and use a blow dryer on it until the page is completely dry.

Viola, you've got parchment!

How I Became a DM

This is the tale of how I came to be DM and how our group got started. So in what seems like a far away time and place our hero Tyr, who was laid off, took a temp job and at this craptastic slave pit where he met Omar. Hours spent inside a sweltering box truck got the two to talking and they discovered that they both loved D&D but hadn't had a group to play with in forever. Their problem was that they both came across players from time to time but they almost never found someone willing to DM or that was any good at being a DM.

In the past, on more than one occasion, Tyr had tried to get me into playing D&D but I'd never really had a good experience. While the general rule is that you have to put in some serious time playing before you can think about being a DM, Tyr saw something in me. Over the course of a month or so he talked me into coming up with a quest and being a DM for him and Omar. During that time Omar got in touch with his cousin Hal who also wanted to play. They were both skeptical that a female who had barely any experience could be a competent DM but they were willing to give me a shot since they all wanted to play and didn't have a DM. Both Hal and Omar had played since D&D began and I quickly gained their approval. Hal has played in groups all over the U.S. and says that he's amazed by me. That even though I don't have a lot of player experience I'm one of the best DMs he's ever seen, which to me is some pretty high praise.

Dumb Dwarf came a long a little while later. An 18-year-old nube who we took in and taught the game, his girlfriend was our baby sitter.

And that's pretty much how our group came to be.