Dungeon Master Tools – The Campaign

Let’s start out with the big thing, the campaign. This is what you’re going to be playing for weeks, months, or even years of time. My current campaign started in 2020, I believe, and it’ll probably be wrapping up late spring/early summer. That is a long time so the question is how do you create a campaign that goes that long?

The Scary Part

That is the scary part. And the intimidating part that I want to help people get past when being a Dungeon Master. There is this idea that you need to know your campaign before going into it. You pick what you want to run, you spend time studying up, if it’s homebrew, you create the setting, you create towns, and you come up with NPC’s and once you do all of that, you are ready to start your campaign. But I think it’s way simpler than that. So let’s talk about how it is easier to implement.

How To Break It Down

There are two things that you need to start your campaign. One is going to be for you as the Dungeon Master, and one is going to be for your group or prospective players.

• An Elevator Pitch
• An Idea of the End

Let’s start with the Elevator Pitch. This is going to be that get the players interested in your idea pitch. It is going to give them a little bit of an idea of how the campaign is going to start. And some elements of the setting, mainly, is this high fantasy or low fantasy, a lot of magic, or a little magic. It’s not going to explain the whole setting to them or anything like that. It’s just going to be that one paragraph of three or four sentences and that’s it. It could even be as simple as a movie tagline to get them interested.

The other thing that you want to know is loosely how the story is going to end. Why, because you want to keep that in you mind as you plan out the sessions. And we will cover planning out your first game play session in an article soon. But I do want to emphasize to hold onto it loosely. Players might get creative and take the plot in a different way. Or you might come up with a better idea. So don’t hold onto it too tightly.

Examples

So, let’s look at what this can look like, and I’ll give you a couple of examples for it.

Example 1

Elevator Pitch

The party is facing off against the final boss, a terrible Lich who has caused destruction and been a scourge on the lands. You are unprepared for the bosses power and then you wake up. You find yourself back in your home town but you remember the Lich and all the destruction that he caused upon the land. Can you stop it this time around?

Ending

Defeat the Lich.

Example 2

Elevator Pitch

Mysterious towers appeared across the lands. They brought forth monsters into the world but also gave the average person powers to defeat those monsters. Now they are just a part of life, but something seems to be stirring. And there are rumors that if you make it to the top, you find out why these towers appeared. But is that true or is it just a legend?

Ending

Find out what is at the top of the tower.

Dungeon Master Tools Final Thoughts

So let’s wrap up this creating a campaign. Why not put more effort into it? You could, but always first get that buy-in from the players. And we’ll be talking about working with the players in a future article. When you come up with an idea, it’s as simple as starting out with those two things, and they will get built upon as you go.

So what are going to be the next Dungeon Master Tools?

• Session 0
• Session 1
• Story Arcs
• World Building
• Combat
• Exploration
• NPCs/Social Interactions
• Meta Game and Players at the Table

And let me know if there are other things to cover as well that you want to know more about, or help with. I think that there are a ton of different things that new Dungeon Masters are curious about or that feel intimidating. So I hope that I can help make them clearer and simpler for you. And this one is really that first step that you can take before you even start to think about the other elements.

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Problems With Alignment

The problem that stems from the Dungeons and Dragons alignment system, besides some races being inherently evil, is mainly on the player side of things. And this is not a problem that is inherent in every player. And it is something that the Dungeon (Game) Master needs to be on the lookout for as well. But I haven’t said what the problem is yet.

The problem with alignment is when it is used as the only rule for how your player reacts. If you are a lawful good cleric and the party does something technically against the law, you report it. Because that is what your character would do. If you are a chaotic neutral rogue who loves the steal, you steal from your party. Because that is what your character would do.

It’s the idea that your character is only going to make decisions based off of their alignment. Everything else, that is out the window. And alignment is used to justify things when it hurts the fun of everyone at the table. I’m a chaotic neutral rogue, so of course I steal. Well, the lawful good cleric just reported you to the town guard.

Alignment Is A Guideline

So what good is alignment then? If you don’t use it to make your decisions does it really matter that much? I argue that alignment is a great guideline. And by that I mean that it doesn’t count for everything, but it does a little bit.

In terms of actual at the table play, the best use of alignment is when you as a player don’t know what to do. So instead of slowing down the game trying to figure out what the perfect decision is, use your alignment. Through the filter of being chaotic neutral or lawful good, what option would you most likely pick.

It is also a good guideline for simple things. In real life, basic decisions we generally don’t spend as much time on. For example, I don’t spend 40 minutes picking out an outfit for a relaxing Friday evening, which t-shirt doesn’t matter, I just grab and go. And what that is might be different for you, but we all have some we don’t think about much. The same is true for your Dungeons and Dragons character. Alignment might not influence that basic a decision much, but it’s a good lens.

Finally, it’s a good guideline to potentially eliminate some responses. While lawful good Cleric is unlikely ever to drop into chaotic evil behavior, or even lawful evil, they might dip into lawful neutral, or neutral good. Maybe, if the situation is right, chaotic good. But really the few directly around them. So someone who is chaotic will make neutral decisions but probably never decisions because of a purely lawful reasoning.

But It’s What My Character Would Do

That is going to be the pushback with players who lean heavily into their alignment at all times. And it is something, for the gaming group, and the fun at the table, that needs to be addressed. Every once and a while doing something detrimental because “it’s what my character would do” is acceptable, but barely.

So why don’t you want to do that? The big reason is that it impacts the fun at the table. When you turn the rogue in for stealing from a manner because you are lawful good, that hurts the fun. When you steal from your party and they don’t catch you, that hurts the party’s fun.

And how is this behavior improved? Firstly, I think talk with the player. If it is the only way that they end up playing, they might not be a good fit for your table. But they might not realize it. If they can’t change or won’t, that is another conversation, and a tougher one to have. But they might not be right for your table.

If they are willing to work to improve, come up with ways that they can that won’t change the character too much. The example of something like this would be, rogue, don’t steal from your party, steal, but not from the party. The party are theoretically your friends, or you need them for something. They should kick you out or turn you over to the authorities if you steal from them. Or the lawful good cleric, what reason would you have to not notice when the rogue steals from the noble?

Final Thoughts

I do think that most players for Dungeons and Dragons, or any RPG, play with alignment as a guideline. But I also believe it is a topic that needs to be talked about. Because, when it goes bad, it can ruin a game, and more so, it can ruin a game group. What we want, even if you play with alignments more as a rule, I would guess you want more people to play.

So using alignment as a guideline helps make sure that everyone has more fun. And if your rogue really needs to steal that painting off the wall, work with the player so that they have a reason their character doesn’t know. You steal the painting, your fun, and now they don’t feel conflicted about their character not reporting yours to the authorities.

How do you use alignment? Have you had any horror stories where it went wrong? Or any great stories about how players worked it out?

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The Session

There was a little bit of shopping as the players headed out of Castleveinea. Barrai picked up a few tinkered little toys, including a spider that jumped and a bird that toddled around as it walked. And Kip bought studded leather armor. Things were uneventful on the way back to the school, city, and tower, as they didn’t run into any more goblins. But Bokken did pick up some nice whiskey for sipping in the evenings.

Back in the town they picked up on the last lead that they had. They knew the address of Nahzir, the wizard whom Addruss had been working with. After spending a little bit of time looking around and asking about him, they end up at Moody’s Bar, where Barrai finds out some disturbing information, in the week they have been gone, Zaphir, who hates Barrai and Thrain has undergone a transformation of sorts, and still really hates them.

They do get a better idea of the location of Nahzir’s place of residence. It is a long term stay hotel sort of location. Barrai and Kip scope out one side of it from a restaurant just down the street, and Bokken disguises himself as part of a display at a florists. Kip uses his familiar Kraig to fly up to what they surmise to be Nahzir’s rooms window and Kraig doesn’t see anything inside, but sense that there might be something there. Bokken spots that there is a side entrance that some of the residence seem to be using.

As it gets dark outside, the group decides to break into the building through that side entrance. The lock is normal and they are careful, so Kip is able to pop the lock no problem and get inside. It is just a normal hotel and they make their way to Nahzir’s room on the third floor. They check the door for magical traps, but there aren’t any. Opening it up, Barrai lets his little bird toddle through and nothing happens. Bokken goes in first.

There is a flash and a bang as some explosive concussion is triggered. A figured wearing a cloak that obscures all of his body in shadow leaps out at Bokken nailing him with a couple of slashes. A fight ensues and Bokken has a rough go of it after taking a lot of damage to start and then missing on a number of attacks. Kip, unfortunately for him, casts a spell drawing the attention and ire of the cloaked figure who changes his target taking down Kip. Barrai and Bokken are able to do enough damage to taken down the being and they revive Kip as well.

They figure out that the creature is from the Fey Wilds and is an Arcane Stalker, more about them later. Getting the corpse into Nahzir’s room, they ransack it. Kip finds another coded book as well as two books on the Fey Wilds and one notebook full of notes on that subject as well. They also don’t find any clothes that would fit the Arcane Stalker, they just find clothing for Nahzir in there. The most interesting find, though, comes when Barrai opens up a dresser drawer, and in there, there is a scarab.

And that is where we ended.

Behind the DM’s Screen

So the main thing to talk about here is using supplemental materials. I picked up through Drive Thru RPG and Cawood Publishing a book of monsters and in particular Fey monsters, this came when I was reading a ton of Dresden Files and was thinking about a Fey based campaign, that is still on the table. That is where the Arcane Stalker came from. It was fun to use a different monster. I built them up with their movements and their description to make them feel more unique.

The Arcane Stalker is an elite warrior from the Winter Courts who is basically used to kill magic users. They have some magical abilities of their own, such a teleporting or dispelling magic. So I got to play around with that, I knew that they were there waiting on Nahzir for some reason, TBD for the players, but also they were going to be after any magic user first. Even though the tank Bokken is a big threat, the Arcane Stalker is all about taking out magic users. It gave it a logical priority that the players could figure out.

So grab some supplements from other companies. While I do have mainly Dungeons and Dragons books, I am also a big fan of looking for new things, and from some of the established 3rd party creators, like Cawood Publishing and others, you can find a lot of other cool things to use.

As always, does the session and campaign sound interesting as one to run or play in? If you use third party published stuff, do you have a favorite?

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Listen To The Players

The first step is really simple, listen to the players. You’re listening to what they are interested in doing, what storylines they are going after, what they are looking for and then building upon that. If they want to know what is happening at the mill, doesn’t matter if nothing was happening there, now something should be happening there. If the player guesses what is going to happen, for example, removing part of a ritual and the ritual explodes, let that happen as a call back to that thought later. This doesn’t mean you give the players everything they want, having the big bad be at the mill because the players want them there when it doesn’t fit into the story, that doesn’t work, but something odd happening at the mill that adds to the story, that’ll be memorable.

Give Up Control

I’ve touched on this some already, but you can just see where the players are going to take you as well. You don’t need to know everything that is going to happen to create memorable moment. In fact, for them to be most memorable to you, it helps when you don’t know what’s going to happen. An example of this actually came up just a week ago in Tower of the Gods. I had an idea for the session as to where it might go, and it ended up in a bank heist with a gnome wearing stilts and a Tiefling riding a cart of cabbages into the middle of the bank and exploding them with the Thunderwave spell. With that cart, the player asked, is there are cart or anything like that around outside, the answer to that was simply, what do you need? Give it to them even if in your minds scene it wasn’t there, because you never know what wacky thing might happen because you gave them that or epic moment might happen because you let them do something that was hard.

Describe Big

This is one that’s a bit hard for me at times. I fall into the habit of saying at the bad guy attacked and missed or hit. But that could be described in a bigger more epic way. And this is another area when you can entrust the story into the hands of the players. In the series Critical Role, Matt Mercer always asks the question of how the players want to kill a monster when they deal the final blow, and they narrate it out. Well, I play theater of the mind, so that can be done even more. When my attack misses, I can entrust the story to the player to describe how they dodge it, especially on an important attack. But describing big is something that the Dungeon Master can set the tone for. I have 3-4 bad guys in a fight, I am describing more than everyone else. And this doesn’t have to be a fight, when there is a puzzle or an important room, I can build out more of that to help the players get a clear idea of the area, but all while holding loosely so as the players interact with it more, they can get what they need from it, which is known as the “There’s Always a Chandelier” rule or Rule of Cool. Basically, if it sounds cool, let them do it, let them have their chandelier.

You Can’t Plan Them

Finally, you really can’t plan them. My tips might foster more of those memorable moments, but those are just tips. The truly memorable moments happen when the players do something that interacts with your ideas in an unexpected and cool way. Whether that’s by a great roll, or some great role play, you’ll not know until it happens. It’s hard to give up that control at times, but when it feels like something big might be about to happen, let it happen. Now, you can help foster more of these potential situations by giving a wide variety of challenges or interactions, but you never really know which one is going to have that moment that players will remember, but also that you will remember as well.

What are some of your most memorable Dungeons and Dragons or really any RPG moments?

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Last time, if you remember, our Bokken player was missing because he was feeling under the weather, so Assendial had tasked them all with figuring out who had stolen the scarab amulet/relic/thing from Tormin’s desk. He wasn’t supposed to have it there, but he’d been studying it. The group, minus Bokken, searched Tormin’s office finding the secret spot where he most likely would have stored it, but they didn’t really find any clues and were instead attacked by a mimic that was in one of the drawers to be security. They also created a list of suspects in the 2nd year students who were also around the school at the time as well as Parrag and Addruss having been seen there.

In this session they continued that investigation. They waited for all of the 2nd year students to leave as they filled Bokken in on everything that was happening and what they’d been tasked to do. Once the 2nd years left, they went to the second year barracks. Unlike there which are open communal sleeping areas, the 2nd year students have their own rooms. Barrai, who last time decided to see what second years stood out, starts them down the path of looking for a few rooms, one that looks like it has Flink the Tabaxi in it, rooms for the twin dwarves Snickle and Fritz, a room where the giant Nafitl is using, and the room of the half-orc Lisanial.

They push open a few doors and find one that has bunk beds in it, which they decide must be the room of Snickle and Fritz. Going through that room, they find that it does appear to be their room and that either Snickle or Fritz has a girlfriend and the other one doesn’t. Besides that everything in the room, for either Snickle or Fritz is a mirror image of the other, so if one has their shirts going from left to right dark to light, the other is flipped so the room is very symmetrical. Barrai finds the picture that seems out of place and then a pile of letter held together with a ribbon which he takes two of the letters at random. Thrain moves around two pairs of shoes so that the room is no longer symmetrical, but there’s nothing else of interest.

Next they find Flink’s room, they can tell where she’s been sharpening her claws. While her bed and dresser also fail to lead any interesting clues, they do check on the three suitcases that Flink has set by her dresser. The top one appears to have several brown paper packages tied up with string that have a smoky and salty smell to them. They guess that it is a smoked/preserved fish, and don’t bother opening them. The next one is full of climbing gear and the bottom one is empty. Not that interested in the suitcases, Barrai looks for loose floor boards and finds one that is slightly loose. He pulls on it, but nothing happens, Thrain gives it a go, nothing happens. Bokken steps in and has no problem breaking the board to get it up, but reveals just a solid floor beneath it, not even enough room to hide any of the fish. Bokken puts the board back and Thrain casts mending on it.

They next come across Lisanial the Half-Orcs room. This room is a mess, but it is jam packed with tossed down piles of weapons, a lot of them, multiple suits of armor, boxes, a dresser, and a bed. Barrai starts going around the room, putting in a little effort, sorting stuff as he looks through it to see if there are any clues. Bokken finds a pile of shortswords which Lisanial has labeled “throwing sword” and one longsword, “throwing longsword”, and takes one of the short swords. Thrain decides to grab one of the breastplates to get it to a black smith to get turned into his size. And then he goes through the drawers of the dresser. He finds a lot of messy clothes in there, and six bags with money in them. He grabs a couple of coins from all of them but stops at the sixth one because he can tell there is only a thin layer of coins on top, inside it is a scarab.

Bokken takes a moment and inspects the scarab and realizes that while similar, the metal looks a different color and the body of the scarab is different. Then Kip grabs it and looks it over to see if it looks magical. He thinks it might be magical so Barrai casts detect magic on it, he can tell that it’s magical and some sort beacon or something, but doesn’t fully understand the spell. Bokken grabs it back and takes off running with a siren noise and lights blinking that Kip has cast on him. Thrain takes this moment to grab five of the six money bags and another set of armor. Barrai and Kip rush over to the window and try and get the best vantage point possible to see if a dragon is coming from the tower. Barrai is pushed out of the way by Kip who sees what looks like a dragon. And Thrain using Thaumaturgy, amplifies his voice so Bokken can hear him over the siren noise that Bokken needs to ditch the scarab because a dragon is coming.

Bokken instead, being extremely obvious, rushes towards the watch tower where Sanphire is on watch, and passes him the scarab. Linken the one remaining teacher on campus comes out of the teachers quarters and is passed the scarab as well. No one knows what to do after Linken tries to dispel magic on the scarab and it doesn’t work, he does turn off the siren and lights on Bokken. Bokken grabs the scarab back again and throws it as far back towards the dragon as possible, which causes it to land and clink nicely onto the top of the barracks that Barrai, Kip and Thrain are coming out of. They book it towards the watch tower and towards the mess hall grabbing Bokken who is assuming that the dragon will deal with the scarab and then leave like last time. Turns out that Bokken is basically right, but doesn’t count in how long a stream of acid the dragon is letting out, and Kip, Thrain, and Bokken get caught in it.

They take a rest in the cellar with the other first year students before, as always, getting curious again. Linken comes and gives them all the update that the dragon has in fact left after one pass over the second years barracks but that the students should stay in the cellar until he comes back to get them. For Barrai that wasn’t soon enough, so he goes over to Dorin who looks like he’s in the midst of a panic attack, and causes him to panic even more, using an ability to seed doubt and fear into Dorin’s mind so that he turns against and is afraid of Cordin, the Dragonborn for an hour. Dorin screams about how Cordin is in league with the dragons and takes off running up the stairs. Thrain casts darkness over the rest of the students causing in more panic, and they all head out, Barrai, Thrain, and Kip through the secret tunnel and Bokken through the main entrance with him saying he was going to get Dorin back.

Once outside they go and find the scarab and go back to Lisanial’s room. Grabbing the scarab with mage hand Barrai and Kip determine it is likely not active anymore, though they do almost lose it to Kip’s squirrel Karl thinking the scarab was food when Barrai tossed it to kip. Back down in the room, they start going through everything, but it’s hard to keep track of it all because of the mess, so once they start to clear an area, Bokken dumps the stuff out of the window, and they continue to tear apart the room.

That’s where we ended the session. Normally we’d play in two weeks, but that’s on the 24th of December, so that’s not happening, and one of the players is gone leading up to Christmas, so another longer break.

So as always a little behind the DM’s screen.

I think it’s important with an investigation to try and not lock people into too much of what they have to do. This was a light planning session for me because of that. I knew that they’d find something in one of the rooms, hadn’t decided on what it was until in the moment. And I also hadn’t decided on whose room it was going to be. I actually used the dice to help decide that, not how well the players rolled, but some random roll behind the screen.

That’s it, that’s about all for the session, I hope it offers some interesting ideas.

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What is Kickstarter?
Starting out with the basics here, but Kickstarter is a crowdfunding website. What’s a crowdfunding website, it’s a site where someone asks for money to help fund a project, that could be something like Go Fund Me with helping someone with medical expenses or whatever need they might have, but on Kickstarter, you’re almost always Kickstarting a project that is going to create some sort of end product. It might be a play, it might be a comic, a chair, a video game, or, as I’m going to be talking about board game or an RPG. Normally, when you help fund something, the company or creator gives you something in return for helping them.

How Does a Project Work?
I’m going to be tackling this from the consumer side, I’ve never run my own kickstarter, and I doubt I ever would or will. But, the creator makes their project, so they create a video (ideally), and write up information on the game, showing images of prototypes or of what they are planning on the components looking like. They explain how the game works, what sort of game it is, and why you should help them fund it. They also talk about what shipping costs might be and what they could see as risks for their campaign so the people who fund them know what they are getting into.

The final big thing they create though is the reward levels and funding level. These are how much they are asking people and how much money they need for it to actually happen. For example, if they think they can make the game that the whole cost of production is $20 but they need to 2,000 people to back them to get that production cost, they can make their funding goal $40,000. And there would be a reward level of $20 where people can back them and get a copy of the game as a reward. But what is more likely to happen is that production costs $20, so they offer a reward level of $30 for the game, because they need to pay themselves and kickstarter takes some of it, and they set their funding goal at $30,000. The reason for that is that while they want to hit 2,000 people, they can go over their funding goal, and if they do, more people are apt to back it, because they know the project is happening, and that’ll help them get to 2,000 people.

Then, with the Kickstarter up and running at kickstarter.com, they wait through their campaign, however many days it is, and that’s where we step in as the consumer. I look at the page, decide if it’s a game that I find interesting, and then if I do, I can back it. Now, maybe I just like the idea, but I don’t want the game myself or I know the creator of the game or like their company, whatever it might be. I can back it for however much I want without a reward, or I can select the option to back for $30, in our example, and get the game. So I back it, but I don’t get the game right away, this isn’t a store, they don’t have the games yet (most of the time, future Kickstarter lesson), they are getting the funding to then make the games. So they’ll send out updates to everyone who has backed them thanking them for backing and letting us know what their plans are and most often, letting us know about stretch goals. Stretch goals are extra things added to the game if it reaches a certain funding level. So in our cast, they really need the level to hit $40,000, but let’s say it’s doing well, and the game hits $50,000 or $60,000, they might add in some extra cards, a cool first player maker, an extra scenario, an extra character class (for an RPG), whatever it might be at certain points in the campaign based on how much they’ve made, because now they can afford to do that. This helps encourage people to back it because some of these things might be exclusive to Kickstarter (future lesson).

So, they’ve funded their campaign, now they get the money, but not all the money, Kickstarter is going to take some as well, because Kickstarter is a business and they need to make money as well. So even though they Kickstarter made, let’s say $80,000, the creator maybe sees around $72, 000 to $76,000. Now that it’s funded, they’ll send you the game, right? Not quite yet, they need to still get it made, so they get the money from Kickstarter, now they need to schedule with factories to get the game made, and most of the time, they also will be sending out a backer survey, this might be done through Kickstarter, but most often through another company, because $30 pledge for the game didn’t cover shipping. So you’ll have to pay a bit more to cover shipping, but the good thing is that this should basically just be the shipping cost because Kickstarter isn’t taking money from them for it. Though, the other site might be. Now you’ve paid shipping, let’s say $10, and for the game $30, it’ll get shipped soon. Almost, first, it gets into a production queue for some factory somewhere that is probably making a lot more and different board games throughout the year as well. So it might be 6-12 months before production begins, if not more. So production has happened, now it gets shipped, literally shipped on a boat, around the world, this can take a few weeks and up to a couple of months if there are delays at customs. From the ships it goes to a fulfillment company or to the creator to fulfill. They’ll be the ones sending you the actual game. So probably around a year after you Kickstarted it, you’ll get the game.

And that’s the general life cycle of a Kickstarer, it can take longer than a year, and it can be shorter than a year. But the cool part is that you can help small companies (or buy more of a sure thing from a big company) get their games out to the market.

I’m going to be talking about various things, such as what happens when a Kickstarter fails, what happens if it doesn’t deliver, what makes a good Kickstarter, what to watch out for, what stretch goals are, and how to avoid Kickstarter FOMO (if it’s even possible).

What are some of your best experiences with Kickstarter? Have you had any that have failed or not ever come? Are there any other topics I should cover around Kickstarter? Let me know in the comments below.

(All the images are of games that were brought to life on Kickstarter)

Share questions, ideas for articles, or comments with us!

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Now, there are plenty of things that we can start as a new nerdy hobby, maybe you want to start playing Dungeons and Dragons, get into board games, or read more Sci-Fi books. But where you jump into them can be pretty tricky for some of them. So how do you pick that starting point of joining into a hobby that already has a lot of people in it?

Let’s use, what I know well, board games, as an example. In 2019 there were thousands of board games that were published, and that’s just last year. And in that, there were thousands of bad board games published, so if you are getting into the hobby, what should you be looking for? Is there some proper starting place?

It is going to be overwhelming to jump in, but thankfully, there are a lot of articles out there about good starting places for board games. So to start with board games or any hobby, I’d use Google and simply research, “Introductory…” and it’ll give you some good options. Now, that might seem off, because you want to play the best board games, so maybe you would go to somewhere like Board Game Geek, which will probably come up in search results, and just buy games in the top 10, but a lot of those are much bigger and heavier games, and the same with picking the most popular Sci-Fi or anything, it is going to lean more into what those who are already steeped in the hobby like.

The other reason that you want introductory is that while the games aren’t always cheaper, they are going to be teach you about the hobby. So something like Carcassone teaches you tile placement, how games can have various ways to score, and generally gets you to a point where you can understand board games better, and the different introductory games are going to be good at teaching different things. Catan can teach you about probability and resource management. Ticket to Ride is about set collection, route building, and there are so many other intro games that teach other things.

But, maybe you won’t like all of the introductory games, so should you really go out and get all of these games? You will probably find some that you don’t love, so did you just waste money? Thankfully, if you’re in a larger town/city, you might have a couple of options. A lot of larger cities are going to have gaming stores. These places often has games that you can just try or the employees should be willing to open up a game and teach you how it’s played a little bit so you have an idea before you purchase the game. Also there are other spots that you can try and game. A lot of breweries are going to have some games, and while you might mainly find Cribbage and Cards Against Humanity, I’ve seen Catan at a lot of them as well. And who knows what gems you might find there. Also, you can look on Facebook or other places used to schedule Meetups (again Board Game Geek could help) and you can find a public one in your area that you can join. I’m in a city, so there are more options, but in more rural areas, you might be able to at least connect with people who are already in the hobby. But use these ways to start playing the introductory games and then when you have a better idea of what you like, you can get some.

Now, that section seems fairly specific for board games, but it works well for D&D as well. For something like Sci-Fi, this would be the library. Get a library card and check out books that are different types of Sci-Fi to see what sort you want, maybe you want the hard core scientific Sci-Fi, or maybe you prefer one that focuses like on the science aspect and is more a grand space adventure. Who knows, maybe your library even has a Sci-Fi book club or would have up a poster for one. There are always groups around for various nerdy things, whether it’s in person or an online forum that you can join as well and ask questions. Now, it’s the internet so there will be people who get annoyed because you aren’t already into the hobby like they are so you’re stepping on their turf and wasting time by asking questions, and while it’ll seem like they stick out more than anyone, it is really less people than those who want to grow the hobby, so ignore the trolls.

This is all a good way that you can start and it helps get rid of some of the chafe that might be less than ideal stuff to dive into to start. But any hobby, unless it’s something with technology that is brand new, is going to have a lot to dive into. So it’ll seem intimidating when you’re jumping. And you’re going to run across games or books or DM’s or whatever it is that you don’t like. Don’t let that drive you off and don’t let those people who feel like it’s their hobby and because you’re just joining keep you from joining the hobby. It might take you time to find the area of it that you like, so the last piece of advice is patience. And with that, if you don’t like part of it, move on and try another part of it, if you don’t love heavy Sci-Fi, go and try some more adventure type Sci-Fi, if you don’t like deckbuilding, try area control games, if you don’t like playing a wizard try playing a fighter. Experiment until you find something that you like more. And maybe the hobby won’t be for you, but there is so much diversity in all of these hobbies now in different types of things that hopefully there will be something for you.

I could talk more about this topic, but I don’t want to overwhelm someone who wants to get into a new hobby. To summarize, try and find an existing local community that can help you or a good online community. Try a wide range from the hobby you want to join, and while everything might not be for you, find what is for you.

If you’ve already gone through this process, what other simple tips do you recommend?

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Back with some D&D streaming, this is because I have a D&D game coming up this weekend, so I’m getting ready to generate some characters.

This time, I’m looking at the rest of the character sheet, the spell and background pages, but also the traits, alignment, weapons, and everything else that comes along with being a character with a class in Dungeons and Dragons.

Today, at 7:30 (November 21st, 2019), I’m going to be streaming that character creation to show how different race as class combos can create an interesting character. You can find that on http://twitch.com/maltsandmeeples. The time is central time for those wondering. If you want to get alerted to when I’m streaming, you can follow me on twitch, or to watch as your own leisure, subscribe to Malts and Meeples over on Youtube.

My drink last night was just one of my favorites, Fresh Squeezed by Deschutes. It’s a good crisp and nice IPA, even though it’s getting cold outside, I don’t mind drinking a good IPA.

Bottoms up!

This is a topic that I believe that I’ve touched on before, but I wanted to revisit it, because it’s been a while, and I think I wrote about it a bit more generally. Like I did with Greenfang and building out a town in Dungeons and Dragons, I want to go through the process of building out an NPC when I do it on my best days.

So let’s start out with, what is an NPC? An NPC is a non-player character. The players at the table are playing the PCs (player characters), and the DM is controlling the rest of the characters whom they interact with, whether it’s a shop keep, a quest giver, a priestess, or the BBEG (big bad evil guy/gal) of the campaign. Anyone whom the players are going to interact with and hear what they have to say is an NPC.

What do you have NPCs in your game? I touched on this some already, but the big reason is that it helps flesh out your world. If you have interesting NPCs in your game, you are going to have a world that feels more real and it’ll make the stakes of the story seem like they have more meaningful consequences. If the BBEG kidnaps the daughter of the shop keeper who the players always shop with and have gotten to know his family, that has weight for the PC’s.

Do you need to flesh out all of your NPCs? Yes, and no. You never know who the players are going to decide to follow and make important, so it’s smart to have some idea, but it takes work to make a fully fleshed out NPC. So, no, not everyone needs to have a full backstory, only the ones who are important. And that might mean that you have to come up with some of it on the fly, but when you see who the players are interested and interacting with, you can flesh out that NPC between sessions. And if there is an NPC that is going to be important to the story, you can flesh them out ahead of time as well. It would be too much work to flesh out an NPC every time.

What do you need to plan for a fleshed out NPC in the moment? Alright, so your players decided that the shop keeper Weasel Bob was going to be important and their main spot to do business, because he seemed like he was cool. They start asking you what Weasel Bob looks like and if there’s anything interesting about him. The important things to get started in developing your fleshed out NPC in the moment are going to be something about their look and something that they do or is unique about them. And you don’t even have to do all of this.

You don’t? No, you can ask the players to help flesh out an NPC in the moment. If they make the decisions for that NPC, it’s going to create more of a connection to that NPC as well. If you even have a generic shop keep who runs a generic shop and the players ask what the NPC is named, you can ask them to give you a name and what they look like and probably end up with a pretty good Weasel Bob. That also helps you know when fleshing out the character, based off of what the players said in the session, how to create a Weasel Bob that they are going to enjoy.

This technique works well in the moment when you want to have a bar with a number of people in it or to create a few important people in the bar. Have every player at the table go around and tell you about one person or one table full in the bar. Soon you’ll have a lot of characters that you can bring back into the game later and use again to create that richer and more vibrant world. And it means that you don’t have to generate as much content on the fly, because the players are helping to populate your world with NPCs.

So, now we’ve created a bit of a character on the fly in Weasel Bob, he, like I did with Greenfang is going to be the character that I spend some time fleshing out in future articles so demonstrate how you can spend some time and build out interesting and more fulfilling NPC’s in your game. Hopefully there’s been some useful information to grab from the article thus far on why we use NPC’s in D&D and how you can start to generate more meaningful NPC’s on the fly.

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