You Need a Thick Skin

The act of DMing is rewarding but it also comes with challenges.  Being a DM requires one to develop a thick skin.  You’re going to have problem players and you’re going to take criticism.  Dealing with these situations can be quite difficult if you’re a sensitive person.  One needs a certain level of detachment and the ability not to take things personally.  This can be quite hard, especially when you pour your heart and soul into a campaign.

Taking Criticism

At one point or another you’re going to receive criticism from your players and it can be hard to take.  Take a step back and look at the criticism.  Is this constructive criticism?  Is the player bringing up a valid point that you need to address?  Some criticism is a good thing and it can help you improve your game.  When players bring up a valid point learn from it and adapt what you’re doing to make the game more enjoyable.  Ultimately, you want your players to be happy with what you’re doing, if for example your players want more role playing and less combat in the campaign the only way they can communicate that to you is through constructive criticism.  

While your player may have a valid point, they may not be able to present it in a non-confrontational manner.  It is your job as DM not to let yourself get defensive and become confrontational back.  In this case it is even more important to take a step back and analyze what the player is telling you.  Though the presentation may be less than palatable the player may still be giving you valuable criticism.  Don’t let their pour presentation hurt your feelings, not everyone is good at communication and may not know how to present their feelings in an appropriate manner.

On the other hand not all criticism is constructive and it is hard not to take this kind of criticism personally.  This leads us into the next topic, problem players.

Problem Players

Some people just want to watch the world burn and you can’t take it personally.  At some point in your DM career you are most likely going to run in to a problem player, someone who just has to stir the pot.  They’re disruptive and can even be hurtful.  It can feel like they are personally attacking you.  Realize that it’s really not about you but about their need for attention and control.  Remember, you are the DM and it’s your show not theirs.  What you say goes no matter what kind of tantrum they throw.  Pull players like this aside out of game time and discuss their behavior with them.  Many times this will resolve the problem.  If this fails you have two options.  Ignore their behavior and work around them or ask them to leave the game.  Anyway it goes down remember that their behavior is their problem and not yours.  You are not responsible for the behavior of others even if they try to blame their behavior on something you have said or done.

The main thing is to learn not to take things personally.    Learn to detach and see things from an objective point of view.  Decide if the player is actually presenting something helpful that you can use to improve your performance.  You’ve got to develop a thick skin to DM.

Potions All Around

Last night was the conclusion of the drow war and it was pretty harrowing for my players.  They began the night as we left off last week where they were facing two giant spiders, two minotaur, two drow fighters, and a drow wizard.  The intrepid heros’ situation quickly went from bad to worse.  A fireball from the lady drow general took most of the party’s hp down quickly.  Fortunately for them it didn’t take much to finish of the minotaur.  Then the general trapped the halfling barbarian in a web, leaving him out of commission for the rest of the battle because he just couldn’t roll a strength check high enough to break free.  In a couple of rounds after that she took out the goliath cleric with poison spray, knocking him down to zero hit points.  The party really couldn’t handle much more from her and luckily the monk rogue, or mogue as I like to call him, took her out with a couple of well-placed arrows and the remaining spider she had summoned disappeared with her.  This left a two on two battle between the ranger, the mogue, and the two drow fighters.  The fighters dealt a little more damage, but were taken out fairly quickly by Carter’s ranger.  At the end of the battle Tyr’s mogue moved to revive the cleric.  Carter’s ranger moved to free Hal’s barbarian from the web, but the halfling had his pride and refused the help.  Hal rolled strength checks until the halfling finally freed himself.

After the battle they ventured back to the surface drow town and collected their earnings.  They shopped for supplies including hitting the newly added to the campaign potion shop.  I think I talked about this in one of my other blog posts but I’m tweeking 5e to allow a lot more magic and one of the ways I’m doing that is making potions much more available.  I combed through the DMG and made a list of every potion or potion like substance.  This one and only time the potion shop had at least one of everything so that they could get an idea of what all is available.  From now on when they come across someone offering potions I will control what potions are available and how many are in stock.

After shopping they had a nice meal together where Carter’s character revealed that his real motive for going on the mission into the Underdark was to retrieve a magic chalice, which he found when they raided the map room in the tower when they were in the Underdark.  He explained to them that he needed to return it to his home so that he could be allowed to marry his love Amara.  A full elf that he had been forbidden to continue seeing because he is only a half elf.  He asked the rest of the party if they would accompany him back to his town with the chalice.  They agreed though Argon, Tyr’s goliath cleric, made no bones about the fact that he was going only because it might further his own quest for a magic item lost to his people.

As they made their way to Tannis’s home they came across an interesting set of ruins.  When they sat under a stone the stone would speak a riddle.  Upon correctly answering a riddle the stone would ring and a stone in the center of the circle would turn.  They got a little hung up on the fourth riddle but they did eventually solve it, at which point the center stone began to hover above the ground revealing a beautiful mithral wand.  Argon succeeded on an arcana check, which meant that he identified the wand as one he remembered reading about.  It was created by the faery folk and casts the spell Conjure Fae.

Next on their interesting journey they came across a cat standing on its hind legs with its paws up on a stone.  It was looking at them with an intelligence in its eyes.  Hal’s halfling started to work a ritual for speaking with animals but Carter’s ranger said heck with that and just started talking to the cat who answered him in common.  Turns out she had lost an item down a well and asked them if they would retrieve it for her.  Argon, the cleric, cast augury to see what the outcome of helping her would be and was reassured that it was the right thing to do.  Both Carter and Tyr were very suspicious of her.  After they returned her item to her she offered to give each one of them a potion of their choice.  Shortly thereafter the party arrived at Tannis’ town.

Raining Dead

This week’s blog covers last night’s session and some changes I’ve made to how I DM.

Last night’s session was definitely a memorable one.  The players are still in the thick of the battle fighting waves of drow.  It took the whole night to get through the wave I put them against.  I was a mean DM and put the three PC’s up against four drow fighters, one drow wizard, one drow psionic, and two drow barbarians on riding lizards. A trebuchet was manned by the four drow fighters.   Starting out the evening the heroes were at level five, but after working so hard to defeat their foes the rose to level six after the encounter. 

Tyr was still in griffon form when we began but quickly decided that this battle required him in his natural form.  He dove down for a landing knocking three of the fighters on the trebuchet prone as he landed.  Hal’s barbarian raged hard but he was pummeled by the two lizard riding barbarians and the psionic, bringing him near death several times during the fight.  As the party started to worry that they wouldn’t all survive this encounter a goliath in black armor and a ram companion came charging at Gaut’s (Hal’s halfling barbarian) back wielding a great hammer.  Before the party could determine if this goliath was an ally or an enemy the goliath brought his mighty hammer down over Gaunt’s diminutive head……striking the barbarian that was trying to kill Gaunt.  Immediately after striking the barbarian the goliath patted Gaunt on the back, healing him.

The stranger’s presence gave the party a second wind.  They rallied, defeating the last of the wave.  I started a new mechanic last night.   When it gets to the last enemy and a player makes a roll that will be the death blow of that last enemy I ask them “So how do you want to do this?”  They then describe the manner in which they kill the last opponent.  Carter had the pleasure last night, he took out the last fighter by shooting him in the foot with an arrow then dragging him over and loading him into the trebuchet.  The party turned it around so that it would fire back into the enemy’s lines and fired the drow back at his own.  They then proceeded to loot the bodies, taking what was of value and then loading the rest into the trebuchet and firing it.  They also loaded the rest of the dead drow in so that they could send the dead raining down on the advancing army.

The goliath introduced himself as Argon a cleric (played by Tyr).  They know little about him but they can use any ally they can get.

We’ve been playing 5e since it came out last year, and something that my players have whined about is that 5e is a very low magic world and they just don’t like it.  I’ve decided to make it more like 3.5 where magic played a heavy roll.  To do this I’m making scrolls and wands more available.  I’ve also gone through the DMG and made a complete list of all of the potions and they will be available in varying degrees throughout the realm.  Everything is much more common that 5e intends.  They will also be finding magic items more often. 

High magic doesn’t work well with the way 5e is written it makes the PC’s too overpowered so I’m compensating for it by tweeking the monster stats and providing potions and magic items to their enemies as well.  My players are ecstatic that I’m going back to my 3.5 handling of magic items.  Time will tell if this will work but I think I can pull it off.

We will finish the battle next week and I hope it turns out to be worth the build up.

5 Tips to Help the DM Play Adversaries

Part of being a quality DM is creating memorable encounters and in order to do that a DM must be able to bring creatures and villains to life. We spend time creating memorable NPC’s but it can be easy to forget about role playing and make combat nothing more than a numbers game. The following are some tips for the DM to bring the creatures and villains in your encounters to life.

1.Read the description in the monster manual. This is a role playing game and it’s not just the players who role play; the DM has the daunting task of role playing all NPC’s and all of the opponents that the party will face. It’s easy to get caught up in the combat and forget that it’s not just as simple as slashing with a sword and casting spells. Playing the advisory is more than just a numbers game, and it is the DM’s responsibility to make encounters richer by role playing each creature and villain the party encounters. When you choose an opponent for your players to face the first thing I recommend you do is read the description in the Monster Manual. It is not just fluff, the description about each creature contains valuable information to help you play the opponent you’ve chosen.

2.Do they fight alone or with friends? This ties in with tip number one. Some creatures fight alone, some fight as a pack, some are usually found alongside other creatures. Reading the description in the Monster manual will give you insight into this question. By following the advice found there you can construct more fulfilling encounters. Fighting an ogre that has crossed the party’s path is fine, but knowing that ogre bands are frequently found with goblinoids, orcs, or trolls makes an encounter much more exciting.

3.Play up or down to their intelligence. It’s easy to have the creatures just fight as you deem would be the best course of action, but remember this is role playing. You have to think about how intelligent your creature or villain is. Ask yourself, “How smart is this creature or person? Would it have the sense to take out the biggest threat first or would it just target whoever is closest to it?” An ogre is not going to have the same tactical knowledge that a half-elf barbarian has. As the DM you need to look at things through the intelligence level of the creature you are playing and be sure to play true to that creature's abilities.

4.Find their motivation. Being a DM is a lot like being an actor. Good actors always know why their characters are doing what they do. Role playing a creature or a villain is no different. Why the creature is doing something affects how they do it. A halfling forced to steal an artifact or have his family killed is going to have a different fighting style than a human warlock bent on world domination. Always know the back story of why your villains and creatures are doing what they do even if the motives will never be revealed to your players.

5.Understand their tactics. This is where you need to have at least a little knowledge about how animals hunt and military strategy. You don’t have to be an expert but having some knowledge will help you out. Watch some documentaries on predatory animals. Knowing that a wolf and a shark hunt in different ways will help you to bring life to your creatures by making your encounters more fleshed out. Watch some history documentaries, how was the Huns’ fighting style different from the Romans or the Celts? By looking into these real world examples you can make your villains more three dimensional and realistic. Have different villains or creatures use these different tactics and you will create memorable encounters.

Take to the Skies

My players are always full of surprises and creativity, that’s what I love about being their DM. Here was last night’s situation with a bit of background. Their party has been hired to aid a town of surface Drow who is under threat of attack from a group of Underdark Drow. Our intrepid heroes were first tasked to infiltrate the Underdark Drow city to discover when they were planning their attack for. They managed to steal some parchments from the war room which contained two plans for routes of attack but none of the parchments said when they would attack. The priestess in charge of the above ground Drow asked them upon return if they would stay and aid in the fight against the Underdark Drow. There was quite a bit of debate about whether or not to stay but after a long discussion, they all agreed that they would stay and aid in the town’s defense. They had two days about town before the Underdark invasion began, the army of Underdark drow coming at them from three sides.

The party decided that they would aid the side with the least defense. Their plan of attack was not something I expected. Tyr is playing a shape-shifter (a race that we homebrewed) and their plain was to used aerial combat by having him shift into a griffin. Here’s the mechanics of how I ran the all-out war. The surface Drow have an army comprised of themselves and the aid of a dwarvish division and a deep gnome division. The other side is composed of Drow and slaves of varying races. Everyone is technically fighting all at the same time, our party is engaged with one small group of bad guys at a time. When that group falls they engage the next group of combatants. There is no time for rest or even to down a healing potion in-between encounters.

Hal and Carter’s PC’s jumped on Tyr’s Griffin took to the skies circling over their prey. Carter’s PC is an excellent archer so he was doing some amazing damage from the back of the griffin. Hal, to the contrary, is not designed for ranged combat so after a couple of rounds of him not even giving the evil Drow a sting he waited until one of the times Tyr dove down for an attack and jumped off of Tyr’s back in order to engage the enemy on the ground where he was more effective. Now this is one of those times where you have to not be a slave to the rules. If you want to be technical for Hal to dismount Tyr would have had to land and stay standing on the ground until Hal’s next turn for Hal to take the action to dismount. That would mean that Tyr and Carter would have to stay vulnerable on the ground until it got back around to Tyr’s turn again when he could use his movement to take back to the skies. It doesn’t make for very entertaining game play. However a griffin screeching on an attack dive with a raging halfling barbarian leaping from his back and landing soundly on the ground beside an opponent, now that is interesting game play. For the rest of the night this is how they battled; with Hal on the ground raging connecting with flail and shield bash (aiming specifically for the Drow’s groin region), Carter sniping them from the sky with his bow, and Tyr ripping them to ribbons with his griffin talons and beak. It was pretty epic.

They are only two encounters into the war. There are waves to come and a few other surprises up my sleeves. The guys enjoyed themselves and hopefully they will continue to have fun with what lays in store for them. It will probably take two if not three more sessions to get through the war. I’m know I’m looking forward to it, and I hope my players are too.

5 Tips for the New DM

I remember the overwhelming feelings I had the first time I DM’d. It seemed like a most daunting and perhaps even an insurmountable task had been laid before me. I didn’t know any other DM’s at the time, I had no one to ask for advice or to guide me through the process. Below you’ll find a few things that I’ve learned that can help out those new to DMing.

1.Make the game more important than the rules. Yes, we need agreed upon rules in order to play the game but don’t become a slave to them. No rules lawyers need apply. What is most important, first and foremost, is providing a great game for the players. Sometimes the best way to do that is to fudge the rules or in some cases make your own rules. What playing D&D is about is telling an engaging interactive story. Never forget that your most important job as a DM is to tell a great story for the players. Everything with DMing is a judgment call. Trust your judgment, if a player wants to do something and it doesn’t quite fit with the rules but it would make for a great part of the story always feed the story, not the rules.

2.Don’t be afraid to really role play NPC’s. It can be difficult not to feel self-conscious but as a DM you need to have multiple personalities and act them out. One of the things that is often talked about among DM’s is how to get their players to better role play their PC’s. The DM sets the stage. Play your NPC’s to the hilt. Firstly, because it makes the game more alive and memorable. Secondly, because the DM sets the tone. It may take some time but if you as the DM throw yourself into role playing NPC’s it will set the example and create an atmosphere where players are more comfortable with role playing themselves. They don’t have to feel so self-conscious because you’ve created an environment where role playing is normal not, weird and they aren’t alone in role playing. One thing players have told me as to why they shy away from role playing is because they feel weird about it. They don’t want to be the only one at the table doing it. If as a DM you are putting your heart into role playing then the players no longer feel weird about it because they aren’t the only one trying to role play.

3.Appeal to the senses. None of it is real but a good DM tries to make it feel real to the players. Immerse your players in the game through their senses. Don’t overload them but whenever they are in a situation try to appeal to at least two of the five senses. Do they smell pies cooling in a window or maybe the stench of sweaty mud covered orcs? It’s easy to focus on what the players see but be sure to include other senses to make the encounter more complete.

4.All creatures are not created equal. Your players will encounter many creatures and villains through your campaigns and they do not all used the same fighting styles and tactics. An abolith doesn’t fight the same way as a kobold or an acolyte. Part of roleplaying is making sure that you make things challenging and interesting by basing your creatures’ actions on their own intelligence level and what tactics they would naturally use. The monster manual can help with this, read the description of each creature you will be using. Take some time to think about what that creature’s natural behavior would be. Does it make knee jerk reactions or is it more calculating? Is it usually found alone, in a pack, or with specific other creatures? Answering these kinds of questions will give you a better understanding of what makes the creature tick and using this information will make your encounters richer and more memorable.

5.Don’t be afraid to wing it. Whether running a mod or a campaign of your own design you must keep in mind what I call the law of DMing, “Your players will always find a way to mess up your best laid plans.” At some point they, are going to deviate from what you expect or want them to do. Don’t let this send you into the wall. Wing it. Always be ready and willing to wing it. One of the things I do is think about what some of the different choices my players might make when presented with a situation. Thinking about this ahead of time helps me to be more prepared but even then I still have to wing it at some point in almost every session. Have no fear and remember that your campaign isn’t written in stone; it’s okay to just fly by the seat of your pants. The main thing you have to remember in pulling this off is not to let your players know that you’re making it up as you go. If you’ve ever seen a cat fall off of a chair and get up and walk away like, “I meant to do that,” that’s the attitude you need to take. If you act like you meant to do that all along your players will never be the wiser and the game will go on without a hitch.

Lack of Maps and Enthusiasm

I thought last night was a particularly good session, at least from my perspective.  The party is still making their way through the caves. Their first obstacle last night was an underground lake. Tyr shifted into a crocodile, Hal road on his back, and Carter waded through the water a ways until they discovered a boat where the water started to get deeper. Hal is still in possession of the demon dagger and so the demon Agiel tried to have him stab Tyr while riding on his back but Hal was able to overcome its influence. Tyr remained a crocodile and when a boat of drow came their way he flipped the boat of them and drowned the two who didn’t sink under the weight of their armor.

The dagger is an extremely fun tool to me. You see Hal’s not happy about my not using maps and using theater of the mind instead and he’s just not engaging in the quest like the others. Having the dagger forces him to participate more, though not necessarily in the manner the others would like him to participate. Later as they worked their way into a cobwebbed part of the cave the dagger compelled Hal to let out a wolf-like howl, alerting three driders to their presence. The battle was pretty intense and Hal was one failed death saving throw away from the character grave yard. They narrowly defeated the driders and made it to the entrance of the drow town they are searching for.

I’m at a loss though for how to really handle Hal. He never takes the lead in any situation and usually, when he does weigh in on a scenario it’s just to shoot down ideas without proposing an alternate course of action. How do I get him into the game? I understand he’s a combat, combat, combat kind of guy and I try to split my quests into part combat and part roleplaying so it’s not always his favorite style. It seems like since I’ve taken away the maps from combat that I’ve ruined his favorite part of the game. The thing is I hate using maps and they really aren’t doable for the situations/terrain they are playing in. Things are climbing on walls and ceilings and the terrain isn’t a level flat plane. There are too many objects around for me to portray them in a map. I just can’t make maps work for this and honestly I just don’t want to. By not using them I’ve discovered just how deep my loathing is for them. Tyr has said flat out that he is preferring the theater of the mind. Carter has said he’s enjoying the game. I sent him a text this morning asking him directly how he feels about the map situation. If he would prefer maps then I may have to consider going back to them later. Honestly I think Hal is out voted because I know that Carter is enjoying not having to deal with the whole moving his token problem. Carter is frustrated with Hal and I’m afraid that if I don’t find a way to get Hal more involved then Carter will get to the point where he just doesn’t want to play. I’ve got to give this some thought.

Demonic DM

Last night we had the joy of all of us being able to play in person instead of over Roll20. Carter was home, as he is once a year, so we made the drive to pick up Hal and we all got together to play. It was the first time Carter and Hal got to meet in person. It was definitely a memorable night full of complex decisions and DM treachery.

Normally I’m pretty straight forward with encounters. I put a baddie before them and they engage it, but last night I was more devious. Several times during the night they had to decide if they would engage what lay before them or find some other way to handle the situation. They managed to navigate things well. Instead of attacking the deep gnomes they bartered with them to pass through their territory. Instead of taking on waves of duergar they snuck through the outskirts of their underground town. Narrowly escaping detection.

One of the more interesting battles was against a group of drunken orcs fighting each other over water skins. First, from behind cover, they took out the alpha orc. Then I treated the remaining orcs, now fighting amongst themselves in complete chaos without their leader, as a swarm. Not technically how one should play it but these were untrained orcs, with little more sentience than a dog, who were more concerned with fighting each other over the water skins than the outside threat. After defeating the orc swarm the group discovered that three of the water skins actually contained healing potions.

Most memorable of the night is e magic items they found in a chest. Judgeing from the tracks two duergar had dropped the chest and ran back towards the duergar town. After looting the chest the party discovered the likely reason the duergar abandoned the chest; an umber hulk. For those interested here is a list of the magical items they discovered.

Amulet of Guen ~ an amulet containing the eye of a displacer beast. It allows the wearer to use the beast’s displacement ability as a reaction once per encounter.

Winged Boots ~ these were for my halfling who was having a little trouble keeping up with the party. They are a set of boots with small hawk wings on the side that allow the player to move as per the Fly spell once per encounter.

Mage Bane Armor ~ this is a set of studded leather armor. The wearer has resistance to any spell that requires an attack roll. The wearer has disadvantage on casting any spell that requires an attack roll.

Short Bow of Bestow Curse ~ this was for my monk who uses his bow as a melee weapon in close quarters combat. When the player uses the bow for a melee hit on a target the target becomes cursed and takes an extra 1d8 damage anytime it is hit with an attack.

Hand Axe of Ensnaring Strike ~ twice per day when a target is hit with this weapon it suffers the effects of Ensnaring Strike as per the spell. It regains this ability after a long rest.

Dagger of Agiel ~ this was my favorite one. Taken by Hal, when he picked it up all he knew was that it gave him a +3 to atk and dmg rolls. Turns out the dagger houses the soul of the demon Agiel who now can control Hal’s halfling. When the demon wants to take control of Hal’s character Hal must roll a wisdom saving throw with a DC 17. If he succeeds he fights off Agiel’s influence but if he fails he must do whatever the demon commands. The dagger cannot be destroyed, put down, or be given away. The only way to get rid of it is for someone to cast remove curse.

My players were dumb struck that I would give one of them a cursed item. They are on their way into the underdark, none of them can cast remove curse and they’re moving into hostile territory where there is no one who would be willing to help them. They are on a covert mission, which just got infinitely harder since the demon can take control of their barbarian at any time.

It was so much fun to play in person and I wish we had that option every week. There’s just something about playing in person and rolling real dice that makes the game so much more interesting. I’ll be sad to go back to Roll20 but at least it’s a way for us to play with all of us being in different areas.

More on Roll20

We didn’t play last night because Carter was traveling, instead, when he’s in town this week we are going to try to all get-together and play on a real table top. Since I don’t have any fumbling halfling stories to share today I thought I’d talk a bit about how things are going on Roll20.

Over the last month or more we’ve been encountering problems as we play on roll20. Roll20 crashes mine and Tyr’s browser at least once a night forcing us to restart our computers. No clue why it’s doing it. Our connection is fast and reliable so the net’s not dropping out and we’ve tried using different browsers. Hal, our resident techie, can’t figure it out either.

Dice rolling issues, we’ve had a couple. There have been a couple of nights where the site won’t roll weapon damage right, but it was only doing it for me. Tyr, Hal, and Carter’s characters were all rolling their damage fine but for some reason every single roll I made resulted in 10 after 10. I had to break out my real dice and roll with them for my NPC’s. The most infuriating dice rolling problem is the initiative. Hal is a supporter of roll20 and the rest of us have free accounts. Over a month ago we realized that the initiative roller wasn’t working. It gives just a straight die roll and doesn’t add the initiative mod. All four of us were having this problem. Hal wasn’t feeling well so one Monday I decided I would report the problem instead of asking him to deal with it. I spent over an hour and a half going back and forth with one of the mentors. He started off telling me I was crazy and that we couldn’t possibly have that problem. I wound up sending him about five screen shots showing him that it wasn’t adding the mod. All I got from him was attitude. In the end, another mentor came on and said that the character sheets had been upgraded to fix that problem but only the mentors had the fix at that point and everyone else would get it in a couple of days. Sure enough, a couple of days later the character sheet was updated. Now Hal can roll initiative because he’s a supporter but we on the free accounts still can’t roll initiative. Since my first experience reporting the problem was so bad I won’t waste my time going round with them again. I’ll just roll actual dice.

Carter plays from an iPad using the roll20 app. It’s glitchy, he gets kicked out a bit but no more than Tyr and I. His main problem is that it very often won’t let him move his token. There’s usually some cursing and then I just move his token for him. It’s not a big deal but I really dislike anything that takes us out of the moment and forces us to focus on the real world.

Speaking of tokens I’ve also had problems getting tokens to tie to character sheets. I’ve gone through and set the token all up tied it to the sheet and when we go to play every time I change to a new map I’m constantly having to go in and adjust who’s allowed to move the token. It only takes a moment but it breaks the flow of things and I hate things that waste time and break the flow of the game.

We’ll keep using roll20, it’s free and easy enough to use. I’ve looked at Fantasy Grounds and Steam but those options can get pretty expensive. Since we’re in different states we’ve got to use some online method and overall roll20 gets the job done. I find that abandoning encounter maps and just using theater of the mind helps to eliminate some of the bumpy parts. Without them no o, e has to move tokens and without tokens the initiative feature can’t be used anyhow. I like my games to be smooth so that my players get immersed and reality is suspended.

I also want games to be smooth because at some point I may try to turn our sessions into a podcast. I’m going to research what all I need to do that and maybe when we start our next campaign if everyone is agreeable I’ll try to do that. I haven’t run the idea past Hal or Carter yet.

Changes to my Style

The Underdark is the main backdrop of my next quest, but the setting isn't all that's different. I'm approaching things in a couple of new ways. Normally I compose a quest by coming up with a plot skeleton and then I write out certain scenes that I plan to occur during the quest. Now, I've been fortunate in that this has worked out for me. I've never had to force my players into a situation. Thankfully they've always taken the hints and got themselves to where I planned them to be. I've been lucky because goodness knows they've thrown me a lot of twists and curves and polygons over the years. This time I just have the skeleton of the plot planned out, I don't have any prepared NPC dialogues or scenes. I normally DM 80% improv, 20% planned out in advance. For this quest, it's 1% plan and 99% by the seat of my pants. I generally do well at improv so I'm expecting that things should go well since I'm pretty good at coming up with things on the fly.

The bigger change this time has to do with mapping, I'm not using any. This is a pretty bold move given that we are playing on Roll20.net. Instead of maps players will have to use the theater of the mind. I've combed the net for tons of artwork and as they move through the quest I'll take them to different slides that will set the mood, the rest is up to their imaginations. I consider this to be a big positive because I don't really like using encounter maps on Roll20 for a fair few reasons.

Here are some reasons why I don't like them. A decent sized map takes up too much room on the grid, you can't see the map all at once without giving up tons of detail, and it's too hard to find the part of the grid you're working on when you actually have the map at a size where you can see all of the details. I've been using small maps so that the whole map fits on the screen but then I feel like I'm limiting the players' range of movement too much.

Tokens have proven to be a problem and I don't like to take time out of the quest to try to fix them. One of the problems we have is that Carter plays on an iPad and the app very often doesn't let him move his token. We waste time with him trying to move it and then I wind up just having to move it for him. All of which takes us out of the moment. The other problem I have is that tokens don't always reliably connect with character sheets. I've had so many occasions where I've tied a token to a character sheet and it works fine on one map but when we move to the next map I've got to retie the token to the sheet. I feel that tokens also take away from the players' imaginations. Rarely can you find a token that exactly or even closely resembles how a player envisions their character and I feel that that mismatch visual cue takes them out of the fantasy and makes it harder for them to role play their characters. In my last campaign I had a token that was very disruptive. The guys decided she looked like a stripper and there was no end to the pole and glitter thong jokes. Funny stuff, but what was supposed to be an intense wizards battle was way too light hearted. Don't get me wrong the guys had fun but my goal is always to get them deeper into their characters. Things in the quest can be funny, and I encourage that, but when the jokes bring us out of the reality I've created it's a problem in my book and that's why I'm going theater of the mind on this next quest.

My other problem is that I use Dundjinni to make the maps. First off something is wrong with mine, making me very limited in my map making choices. Making things worse than usual because I feel the program can't keep up with my creativity on a good day. I can't make maps that match what I imagine in my mind. For one thing it's a square system and my mind works on curves. When in nature do you find things that are a 90 degree angle? Now I know that there are curved walls you can use and there's always the pencil tool that allows you to draw but I still just can't get things close enough to my imagination. I think it's better to give good descriptions and let the players draw their own scene in their minds rather than throw a sub par map at them which gives them a visual cue that takes away from their imagination.

Tyr is game for this change and I think Carter will be just fine with it once he plays an encounter or two this way. Hall on the other-hand is not going to be happy about this change. Hopefully I'll be providing an exciting enough quest that by the end he will forgive me for not using his beloved maps. I hope this new quest with these changes will be as exciting as I feel it has the potential to be. I know I'm excited to dive into it.