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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Over the past year, I’ve had to do both of them. In my Tower of the Gods campaign we just had a player leave and a half a year ago, or so, we had a new player join. So it’s something that I’ve done recently, and I think it’s something that for a Dungeon Master it’s good think about how you want to do.

Dropping a Player

Dropping a player can be tricky to do because of how involved the player might be in the story line. If it focuses on that player, you now need to shift the focus or figure a way to wrap up that part of the story. But even that is doable.

You have a few ways to deal with a player focused storyline. You can either let it sit there, if that player comes back or another player takes over that character. Or you can shift how the story goes, you can make something happen to that character that takes them out of the picture, maybe permanently. That is a better idea if you are completely sure if that character will not return to the story.

If they aren’t involved in the story, just fade them into the background. For example, Thrain, while part of the main story, it wasn’t that he was the main player in it. All of the characters were playing levels of importance at different times. When it just became too tricky for the Thrain player to schedule and he was missing sessions he decided to drop. I could send Thrain off somewhere, if he wanted to guest play again, but it was easy enough to drop him from the story.

Adding a Player

Adding a player is a little bit different because it requires less on the Dungeon Masters behalf. When adding a player it more comes down to the other players at the table. They need to be willing to come up with a reason why this new party member immediately fits into the group.

Yes, the Dungeon Master still needs to do some work. You need to work with the player before they come in. They need to know a number of things about your game before they can really settle into the game thus far. I like to give the backstory blurb, and then work with the player on how their character would work with that.

One trick is that they don’t need to know everything when they get started. They need to know about the world. The story of what is going on in the campaign, with the exception of a few big moments, maybe, the players should be filling in for the new player. There are several reasons, one in character, that character wouldn’t know all the details. So they should get it from the people most invested in it.

The other reason is it gives you a chance as the Dungeon Master to see what the players remember, and what story points they are really highlighting. Adding a new character really gives you a chance to adjust your story in a way to lean into what the players are really liking.

Is It Beneficial For Either To Happen?

Yeah, there can be reasons why adding a player or losing a player from your Dungeons and Dragons story is useful. The more glaring would be if you have a toxic player at the table. Lose them if they aren’t willing to try to improve. My rule is give someone a chance if you can, but don’t feel like you need to keep that player or character around.

But I do think that there are times it makes sense to add players. I’ve been very fortunate with a bye-weekly Thursday night schedule. It works well for me and all the players. But with three players, if one person can’t make it, we’re now down a fairly large percentage of the group. With four players, there’s still more people for the players to play off of.

If you’ve been a Dungeon Master, have you had to add or remove players from a game before? And as a player have you come in part way through a game? Let me know in the comments below?

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What’s the Difference?

So the concept that I’m going here for Dungeons and Dragons or any role playing game is one between dice and how you play a character at a table. If I’m focused on roll play, I’m focused on the mechanics of the game and how combat works. If I am focused on role play, that means I am putting more focus onto the character, character traits, and how you play your character in social interactions with NPC’s and other characters.

Which is Better?

You need a balance of both in your gaming. But I do think for a lot of new players the roll play is what they focus on. Learning the mechanics of the game seems daunting. There, however, needs to be a balance between the two. You need to know how your character works but also how you’ll play them. If you focus too much one role play, you can slow down combat. On the flip side, too much on roll play, you’ll not enjoy a large chunk of the game.

The Pitfalls of Both

Firstly, let’s start with role playing. If you focus too much on that, what is the issue that can occur? The big one is during combat. You don’t know what to do and your turns take a long time. This slows down combat and the game as a whole. Knowing your characters mechanics means that you are ready for those situations where you do roll the dice. You don’t need to look up spells as much, and you know what you’ll do when it’s your turn in combat.

Secondly, we have roll playing. This one is the more common of the two that new players really focus on. Why, because most games are about winning or losing. The role play aspect is abstracted from the mechanics of a game a lot. But playing in combat, it feels like something a player should be able to win. The downfalls of this, are different though. You might just enjoy the game less. If it’s not focused on combat and rolling the dice, you don’t have an interesting character to fall back onto. You will also step on other players toes when you do get to dice rolling.

Let me explain that other one a bit more. I know I’ve brought it up before, but every character and player at the table should have something they are best at. If that means you are the best at fighting, that’s great. But for new players you often want to be the best at everything. If you are the wizard, you shouldn’t be the best at acrobatics. That is something that the rogue should be doing.

How Would I Balance It?

• Pick a concept
• Learn your character sheet and default attack
• Develop a personality

Pick A Character Concept

I’d start by coming up with a character concept. A character concept that isn’t being Batman, Batman is good at everything and an evil character. I don’t let evil aligned characters into parties that often, but ignoring that joke, Batman breaks the rule. He is good at everything so he steps on everyone’s toes.

Instead, pick a concept for a character and what you want to be good at. If you want to be the drunken tank, that’s a great concept. Why because it gives you two things to work with. It gives you a role playing piece, how do you play being a drunkard and why are they that way? Plus you now know the character is a tank, that gives you direction when picking classes. You’ll likely go with a fighter, barbarian, or paladin in that case.

Learn the Basics Of Your Class

Next, learn your character class, kind of. This is where players can go too far. They try and optimize what they are going to do with their character before they start playing. You have a general ideal, not the final plan, and at level 1, your tank isn’t going to be that much of a tank. But the point is that you’ll build towards that. What you are trying to learn are the basics of the your class and what your default is going to be. By default, I mean default in combat, what attack will you do if you don’t have a special plan? Have that ready so you are ready to go on your turn.

Develop Your Characters Personality

Then spend time with the personality traits, flaws, bonds, and ideals. Make them make sense and give yourself a real flaw. These can help inform your role playing. What you want to do is create a character who has a reason to be part of the group. And you want those four things to be role playing defaults. This is slightly different than combat. These aren’t ones to be wielded as justification for how your character is. These are meant when you, as the player, can’t decide what your character would do, a way to give an answer.

That’s really it, come up with that character concept. Something that gives you an interesting backstory and a direction towards what you’re good at. Then it’s about learning your character, on the paper and how they act from there. And just play around with that as you go. You will find that it develops and grows over time both on the paper with roll play and personality wise with role play.

Why Does This Matter So Much?

Now, I’m clearly harping on this topic a lot. I’ve written about mistakes new players make. I’ve written about homebrewing a campaign or starting up a new character. Why do I talk about it as much as I do?

Well, because Dungeons and Dragons and other role playing games are cooperative games. It is a game where you want everyone at the table to be having fun. I know I keep on going back to this, The RPG Academy says it well, if you’re having fun you’re doing it right. And that is for the whole group at the table, not just you. Play to have fun as a group. If you build a character who is pointless in combat so you are always running away from a fight, that’s not going to be fun for everyone. On the flip side, only good in combat, when there isn’t combat you’ll not be having fun.

I think another way to describe it would be that new players often want to have the most fun. Doing so reduces the overall fun at the table if not done well. And being that Batman character who is good at everything, in my opinion, isn’t how most players will have the most fun. Memorable moments and fun moments come from doing well but also from role playing your 7 charisma barbarian.

So, I don’t want to take away your fun, but also consider how you can have fun without it always needing to be Batman. And make those weaknesses fun for you as you play. I’ll plan on writing about weaknesses in Dungeons and Dragons an other role playing games and how those make things more interesting and fun.

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I thought about doing a list for the Dungeon Master and one for the Players, but I am putting them all together, because, well, there is a lot of overlap. So let’s dive into the first one.

Players Versus Dungeon Master

The first thing new players (and Dungeon Masters0 do is they try and win Dungeons and Dragons. Dungeons and Dragons is not a game that can be won. It is a cooperative story telling game. The Dungeon Master guides the story and the players fill in the details of the story through their actions.

But, for a lot of new players and Dungeon Masters, they see Dungeons and Dragons as any other game. In chess there is a winner and a loser, in most games there are. So people think that is the same for Dungeons and Dragons. If as a player you try and win or break what the Dungeon Master is doing. The game will lose it’s fun for the Dungeon Master. For the Dungeon Master, an ancient black dragon on level 1 characters isn’t a fair fight.

The RPG Academy, a podcast on D&D that I recommend highly, puts it something like this. No matter what rules you get right or get wrong, if you are having fun, you are doing it right. And for a cooperative game that means that there are no losers to the game and that everyone at the table is having a good time. No one is trying to win Dungeons and Dragons.

Knowing Too Little or Too Much

This one might seem confusing. It makes sense that you don’t want to know too little. You need to know how to play your character. For a Dungeon Master, you need to know how to create an encounter. Plus you want to know what the other characters are doing as well.

But you also don’t want to know too much. That one sounds a whole lot weirder because it’s good to know a lot. Except that there is a ton of information. If you’ve been reading my tips for creating NPC’s, building out your first homebrew campaign, and more, you know I am always going to tell you to keep it simple. As the Dungeon Masters, know the players classes but don’t know all of them. As a player, know your class, but you don’t need to know all the other players perfectly or all the monsters.

Knowing too much can at times be worse because it means you don’t get to the table. There is always more to learn, review, and read in Dungeons and Dragons. So just know what you need to know. Oh, and if you are spell caster, know your spells. You don’t need to write them down in detail, but when you add a spell, add the page number so that you know how to find them fast.

Hogging the Spotlight

Now, this one isn’t as universal, but it does affect all players at the table and happens more in games with mainly new players. The Dungeon Master will spend 15 minutes talking without the players interacting. A player will jump in before anyone else at the table every time. This goes back to everyone at the table having fun and that it’s job of everyone at the table to police this.

The Dungeon Master helps guide the story, they don’t tell the whole story. And as tempting as it might be, they don’t have an NPC in the party to be a character they play. And players, give other players chances, in character ask other characters for advice. If someone isn’t getting a word in, pause, or ask them what they were going to say. Make it so that everyone feels engaged when what is going on.

This isn’t an Exhaustive List

That should be pretty obvious that there are more things that can trip people up. I keep on going back to that RPG Academy motto, if you’re having fun you’re doing it right. For a lot of players and Dungeon Masters, you need to make sure everyone at the table, including yourself is having fun.

What have you found that has tripped you up in Dungeons and Dragons? Was there something, if you’re a more experienced player, that you wish you knew when you started?

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Making Simple NPC’s

When I started out my first big homebrew campaign, I wanted to create a big world. You can see from my article last Monday that I don’t do that anymore. Instead, I really focus on trying to keep my preparation as simple as I can. Why, because there is a lot that can be prepared and only so much time to do it. And I think a lot of preparation could be done on the fly. The same goes with NPC’s, you can make them simply.

• Name
• Looks
• Quirk

That is it that you need for making an NPC. Now, that might seem a little bit simple, and it is really simple, but I’m going to give you a reason why I keep it so simple. It’s because you don’t know which NPC’s your PC’s will latch onto. Nerdarchy, for example, use an example where there is a bakery with a “good bread”. That is something that set that apart and made it important to the PC’s even though it wasn’t something that was planned. So when that bakery with the “good bread” ran into issues, the PC’s cared about it. Again, this throw away thing became important.

So Why Only Three Things?

I actually started with a fourth thing on there, their occupation, but now I don’t have it there anymore. There is a reason for that, because not all NPC’s will have a job. A backstory is very likely, but a job not so much. That is fine, some NPC’s give quests, others run shops, some become rivals and some make good bread.

But you don’t need to know who does that right away. Create simple characters that can be used anywhere. You then have starts to characters that you can insert into your story on the fly or before the start of a session. If John the burly human with a grey beard and is missing a finger matches what I need for a blacksmith, I can put him into my story. But John could also be a city guard, or a gardener, or a mercenary. I don’t need to know his job right away because I don’t know what I’ll need him for, for the players.

How Many Do I Need?

This is up to you, but really, you don’t need that many. But for some people, it’ll be nice to keep a bunch around. In fact, you can just create list of them on your phone or in a notebook, or stored on index cards just to pull out. I haven’t done this yet, but it isn’t a bad idea. I create a bunch of index cards and put them in a recipe case with dividers by types of NPC’s and just be able to pull one out right away. And turning out those three things, that is simple and you can make a lot of them.

But to start, make them on demand. Maybe make them before a session and put them into the recipe box when you use them. That way you start building up a collection of NPC’s. Then next campaign you have a seeded base of NPC’s who you can pull back out, you might need to give them another name though. Just update the names and you can keep a history of all the NPC’s who you’ve made.

Another Option

This is why I don’t have the index cards done yet, there is another option. And that is, don’t make them up ahead of time. Players walk into a tavern in my game, I ask them, what is the name of the tavern, who is running it, who is all there. Now they are helping me create a nice roster of NPC’s that they use.

Why do it this way? Two reasons, firstly it takes pressure off of myself as the DM. I don’t always know how much story I’ll get through. And that is just fine, but that means I might not know if I go to a tavern when I start the night. The other reason is now the players have more connection to the NPC’s. They are their NPC’s, the ones they create, and they will care more about what they do.

This is a bit more advanced. Now because it is that much harder, but because you need to trust your players and improvisation. You don’t know if they will make a gnome named Tilda to run the tavern or a half-orc named Tilda. Can you handle the difference between those two characters? Now they don’t need to be fleshed out, but it is trickier.

The Best NPC’s

So, is this the only way create NPC’s, no, these two ways aren’t. In fact, for a one shot, I will go into more detail. Why, because there aren’t as many. The main point of this is to give you ideas of how you can make NPC’s without exhausting yourself. Even as a more experienced Dungeon Master, I want to put the best game together that I can. But how do you balance real life and the understanding that it won’t be perfect to get playing fast. Because, the best game is the one you play, not the one you plan out perfectly, and that’s the same with NPC’s.

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What is Homebrew?

The question that some people might have is what is Homebrew? I know it in two contexts, the first is beer, the second is content for Dungeons and Dragons that isn’t official. So this is something that a person has created for their own character. It can be a whole new class, and you can find some of those on the DM’s Guild or Drive Thru RPG. Or it could be as simple as changing Fireball into Lightning Ball and doing lightning damage versus fire damage. So, it is simple as something that isn’t official from Wizards of the Coast or one of their partners.

For Dungeon Masters Should You Allow It?

Let’s start with this from the Dungeon Master side of things as that is in the title. And I am going to say, maybe. There are two reasons why players want to use homebrew. One is that they wan it to be thematic. Maybe they want to theme their whole character around lightning, but there aren’t enough lightning spells. The other is to power game. Maybe they know that lightning is less common for monsters to be resistant to.

The first I’d consider letting someone use homebrew content for. It is for a gaming and thematic reasons. Theoretically it won’t break everything and if something is flat out immune to lightning damage, I can always bring that in if need be. The second way, I am going to say no, or if I think that it might break the campaign even if it’s not intentional I’ll say no.

The same goes for bigger things like a custom class. I have a whole bunch of different rune magic classes that I got from Drive Thru RPG and DM’s Guild. I’d like to present them as an option for my players, but to do that, I need to spend time going through them myself. I need to know that they won’t be broken, either being too strong, or too weak. Because neither are fun for players.

For Players Should You Want It?

Honestly, I’m going to go with no. Unless you have a hyper specific build that makes 100% sense for the campaign, I don’t think you need it. Dungeons and Dragons gives the players a ton of options out there. And that is great and gives you plenty to play around with already. And there are more that are coming. I have five or so official books that give different class options. Now it might not give exactly what you want, and that is okay, you can tweak what you want slightly.

I think as a player, sometimes it can be tempting to create this precise vision of a character. But most of the times that won’t match up precisely with what you can do in Dungeons and Dragons. And really, that is fine. You can get close enough. I think like how a Dungeon Master needs to hold onto the story loosely and just guide it, the same is true with how you develop and build your character.

If there is a new class that someone has created that you really want, it probably is broken. If you need more lightning spells, maybe look for more support spells. There are ways to build your character still while being focused on a specific element. It just takes more work than changing how Dungeons and Dragons is set-up to work.

So Homebrew is Bad?

No, it isn’t. It can be a blast in some campaigns. Like I said, I have a whole stack of rune casters that I need to go through because the concept to me is really cool. I would love to play one some day. Why, because I think the concept of them is cool, not because I want to create an overpowered and broken combo. I want people to have fun around the table, and me creating a broken combo isn’t fun.

So there is a balance. It is something that, especially for new players and Dungeon Masters, I don’t recommend doing. I think that there is a lot of temptation to do that because you don’t know how to make Dungeons and Dragons work for you. The best advice I can give when you feel like you can’t do exactly what you want is to hold on loosely. It is a cooperative story telling game when it comes down to it, so don’t hold on too tightly to your perfect vision.

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This has also come up in a Discord server that I’m on lately. And I think it’s a good time to talk about how much or how little work you need to do. As a semi-seasoned Dungeon Master, I’m hoping that my experience can help get more people into running Dungeons and Dragons. But also save the effort that so many people put into it.

KISS

Keep it Simple Stupid. We’ve all seen this before, but doing something like creating a campaign can be tricky. And for a lot of gamers and people, there is an idea that you can get it “right”. This is not something that anyone can do. In fact, that is some of the charm of Dungeons and Dragons or an RPG, there isn’t a perfect way to do it. There isn’t a most ideal campaign to run that everyone is going to love. Dungeons and Dragons is a matter of taste.

With that said, don’t over prepare, don’t plan out everything. Your players will not do what you think they will. You want them to go right out of a town to a dungeon, they will go left. You want them to talk to a shop keeper for a clue, they will punch them. They shouldn’t attack an ancient black dragon at level 3, they will. In fact, you can be confident your players will do what they shouldn’t or what you least expect. So don’t over plan.

Three Things For Your First Campaign

While I could give you a lot of things to think about when it comes to a campaign. I want to make my advice follow the KISS methodology as well. So build your world small and out as you go. Know where you want to end the campaign. And only craft situations and scenarios that you need.

Start Small

This is really trap #1 when creating a campaign. I even fall into it at times. I create a whole world and think that I need to flesh out everything. But that is way more than is needed. Firstly, your players won’t go to the whole world. Secondly, you don’t need to know it all now.

In fact, let’s make it even simpler. If you want some rules for creating the world. Draw out a map, mark down 10 things on it, 5 cities, and 5 features. There is your world. Then pick one of those cities, that is where you are starting. Create 5 things of importance in it. One needs to be a tavern and one needs to be a shop. The other three are points of interest. Right down what makes those places interesting. And write down 3-4 NPC (non-player characters) the PC’s (player characters) can find there.

Then with four other points of interest on the map. Write down what makes them interesting and NPC’s who can be found there, again only 3-4. You won’t name shops, or anything like that at those other locations, you are just fleshing out a very little bit. And you have enough to start your campaign at that point.

Know The End

Well, enough world building it is. You do need one more thing. You need to know the end goal. In my Tower of the Gods campaign, that is to make it to the top of the tower. In another campaign I ran, it was to defeat a beholder. Know the end goal, it seems obvious, but a lot of campaigns don’t know the end. Or they come up with the idea of running 20 level campaign and don’t think about how to get there. But knowing the end is important so you have a goal.

Create Situations

Because that goal is what you then use to shape your campaign encounters, both social and combat. It is the lens that you filter the campaign through in such a way that everything, or most everything drives towards that end. But when creating these situations, don’t create them with a specific result in mind. Like I said, building out a dungeon that is to the left when you leave the city and the players head right, that’ll always happen. Attacking a monster they were supposed to talk to, they’ll do that, and then they’ll do the flip. Threating the King instead of making a deal with him, for sure that’ll happen.

In the end, you want the situations and scenarios you create to always move stuff forward. And you want them to feel varied and different. It might be killing the monster, but why are you killing the monster. And monsters will do different things. Social encounters you want some of them to be shaking down someone and some might be at a fancy dinner. But they should all move the story towards the end, or at least the majority should.

And you don’t plan these at the beginning. You shouldn’t need to know every session that far in advance. This is what you plan before each game. This means that you do work for a long time, but it also means that you don’t do so much work that you burn out at the start. It’s doing the work just when you need it.

What Else?

There is a whole lot more that you can do. But the point is that you don’t need to do it. I am trying to give you a simple way to getting your first campaign. Could you build out a world and create every important NPC that you players might run into. Sure, you could. But that isn’t going to be help for getting a game started. In fact, if you try and do that you will never get the game started. There will always be another NPC, another town, another scenario to think of. Instead, KISS and just do what you need, when you need it.

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Recap

After getting their first level and class by doing the test of the tower, or group joined up to a school to get more training and more access to the tower where they can level up. In the school there were two spies they were supposed to try and find, but it turned out one, Addruss was actually just a spy.

They managed to find both of them but then when Addruss’s cover was blown things went sideways. Since that happened the group has been tasked to try and figure out what is going on with these scarabs that attracts dragons and Addruss. They found his contact Nahzir and stumbled across an Arcane Stalker who was waiting for Nahzir to show back up.

This is the point where they then found the person who was keeping on eye on Nahzir’s apartment who led them down into the tunnel beneath the city that runs oddly enough from the Tower to a bar at the end of town.

The Session

The group decided to follow the person into the tunnel finding a few stops along the way. One was a bathhouse which they took note of, one was between two outhouses near Nahzir’s apartment and one led into the courtyard where they went after going into the tower. But there was another option as to where to go, they could go back into the tower.

What they found there was a way to shortcut into the training level of the tower. That is the level that when you go through it, you end up leaving with a class, or at least that is what it did before. They realized that this maybe wasn’t the best plan as they had to go through everything again. Now, at a higher level with their gear this level of the tower was nowhere near difficult. It was built to be a challenge for level 0 characters and they were level 5.

However, what was interesting, is at the end, they had to drink from one of six chalices again. And these chalices were something that influenced what class they went into. Now, the tower took into consideration what the players want to play, but also added in some randomness. And this time, with the players having levels, it begged the question, did the players remember what they had to drink from before.

One of the tricks of the tower is that you kind of forget what is going on. And that was the case, the players forgot that there had been a a fourth, named Steve, with them the first time. And then there was a question as to how to get past the monster in the last room which had them drinking tea or fighting. Could they have taken this monster in a fight, maybe, but tea was a safer bet.

I think that two of the players did end up drinking from the chalice that they did before, but this time, the chalice only went based off what was in the chalice. It didn’t take into consideration what they had gone into before. So Bokken drank from one that was white and fizzy and ended up getting a level of Paladin. Thrain drank from the same one as the first time, so just got another level of Warlock. Kip, whom hadn’t as a player gone through this process since he joined part way through drank the red smoky one and got a level of Sorcerer. And finally, Barrai drank from a clear and calm one and got a level of Cleric.

They got out of the tower, found themselves in the courtyard, and decided to head back to the school with their new abilities. Also to take a long rest. They find Castillia just waking up in their barracks and Bokken talks with her. He fills her in on some of the details because they’ve always been able to trust her before. So he doesn’t think it’s likely to have changed, and that’s where we ended the session for the night.

Behind the DM’s Screen

They had a couple of options here. Firstly, a bit of investigating would have told them that the person didn’t go into the tower. While the courtyard wasn’t obviously the route that he went, because there were tracks, recent, still leading into the tower, they could have checked it out more.

In the tower, I wasn’t completely sure what I wanted to do. So I decided to do a callback to what had happened the first time. There were opportunities for things to be different. There were rooms they hadn’t seen before they could have gone to. They also could have gone into different areas than before, but they don’t know how to do that yet, or what might be different with skipping the whole first room.

Then, I thought it’d be fun to give them the option to multiclass. Now, I say option, if they picked wrong they were going to multiclass. And three of them did, though Kips player correctly guessed what the two classes were for one of them, so he knew to avoid it.

So it was a weird session, but is it one that you’d want to play in?

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The Session

At the end of last session the group had just killed off the Arcane Stalker, found another scarab, and found that someone was keeping an eye on Nahzir’s hotel room. So, they had a lot of things to take care of. They started out by heading out and taking the scarab, in a nightstand drawer, and the Arcane Stalker, in a trunk with them. Kip sent Kraig, his raven familiar, to follow the guy.

Thrain catches up with them as they have ditched the hotel and are trying to figure out their next move. They decide to split up with Barrai and Kip following after the person keeping an eye on Nahzir’s hotel room. Bokken and Thrain would take the drawer and the trunk to the school and Assendial.

Barrai and Kip track the mysterious figure to the bazaar where he seems to be meeting up with random people. They sneak up close enough so that Barrai can cast read thoughts. He basically finds out two people whom the guy is interested in finding and that this person, while they seem to be working with Nazhir is also frustrated with Nazhir. Things go really well for them and they are able to snag a couple of notes of the guy before spooking him. Kraig follows but loses him in a dark alley way, but the guy never comes out.

They light up the alley way in just enough time to see some dust settling. They find a trapdoor that reminds them of the one on the school. They fail to pry it open so they send for Bokken, being the strongest by sending Kraig to find them at the school.

Meanwhile, at the school, Bokken and Thrain see Tormin and Daedelous talking to a familiar looking figure to the one Bokken had seen in a flower shop, in fact, the same wispy and pale looking elf dressed in finery who had tried to buy him. Bokken goes and talks to them for a moment. She is a bit confused and they make some connection to the flower shop though Bokken denies being the display. It ends with him asking where Assendial is, and Tormin lets them know and to send her out to join them.

They show Assendial everything and she is more interested in going through everything in the drawer and studying the scarab than going out to meet someone She sends them to find out who it is and it turns out that the woman is a member of the Unseelie Courts which rule over Autumn and Winter. And the Arcane Stalker was part of the Winter court. So now they have another issue.

Assendial has them take Nazhir’s trunk to their barracks in order to avoid suspicion or make it obvious they’d murdered a member of the winter court. Kraig catches up to them there and gives them directions to the alley way where Kip and Barrai are. Bokken doesn’t have to pry open the trapdoor like Kip and Barrai were trying to do, but finds the spot that releases the trapdoor. They realize that the tunnel they are about to go down into leads from the school to the tower. But towards the school no one has gone recently. The tower on the other hand, there is definitely more traffic that way.

Behind the DM’s Screen

Not much to talk about behind the DM’s screen. There was some made up on the fly and some that I had been planning. The person the roof was always going to work with Nahzir, not be Nahzir himself. And the Lady of the Winter Court, that was something I decided to add. Some of it is because I don’t know all the answers to everything myself, so this allowed me to add in more things I can use.

Players also are now level 5, so the fighter has his extra attack, we’ll see how combats go now.

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What do I mean by this? Well, a warrior tribe might fight to the death but an owlbear might only fight until it’s gotten some food or until it knows it’s been out numbered. What is the motivation of your monsters?

Fight Or Flight

When things go poorly for a monster, what are they going to do? I gave two examples above, but think about it before you get into combat. Every monster will have a motivation for what they are doing. A group of bandits might want to intimidate and rob, a mama dragon will want to protect her young, a zombie wants to eat your brains.

So when you plan a session, and combats, think about what they want. Will a bandit surrender if the rest of their party is killed. Will they run away? Or maybe a bandit leaves the party for dead and steals their stuff if they beat them. What makes sense for your story and for the monster you bring into battle?

On the flip side, a monster that is dumber, like an owlbear, what do they do? Most wild animals don’t want to fight. They will run if put in a situation that is dangerous to them, or until provoked. But back them into a corner and they fight. Maybe the owlbear spots your gnome and is hungry, do they continue to fight the party if they knock over the gnome, or do they pick up the gnome and run? I would say that the owlbear probably plans to run and separate the gnome from the party.

How Long A Fight?

Like I talk about above, this is another question to ask when planning. How long will something fight. Let’s go back to that mama dragon protecting her young. She won’t stop fighting. On the flip side, bandits will most certainly run if things go south.

This becomes an assessment of how long a creature will fight. Think about it before the session but also during the combat. An owlbear won’t fight for three rounds and run. If it is getting hurt, it’ll run. A bandit won’t fight until it’s at 1 hit point. If half the bandits die, the other half will run. So it’s less about the timing of how many rounds of combat versus what is happening in combat that makes that determinations.

And like I said with that mama dragon, she won’t ever run. A zombie, they won’t run. But the big bad of your campaign, they might run before combat even starts. A smart bad guy tries to avoid getting killed. And if they have a plan in place they want to enact, why wouldn’t they run immediately. Now, the players might not be a threat. In that case, the BBEG would not run but would they fight?

Target Priority

Finally, I want to talk about target priority. I think this is where DM’s, including myself, trip up often. We like to go after the tank or spellcaster, but I don’t think that is how it should always go. Some monster target based on other things.

I want to go to my game. The last session, you can read about it here, I put an arcane stalker in the parties way. The arcane stalker prioritized spellcasters. Why, because that is the arcane stalkers job. They kill spellcasters for the Winter Court of the Fey. And with a teleport ability, they didn’t care so much about the fighter. It made sense for them to ignore the tank to get the casters.

On the flip side, an owlbear, they will go after who they think is the biggest threat. And an owlbear threat isn’t going to be how humans maybe perceive a threat. The larger the character, the bigger the threat. Or, on the flip side, if the owlbear just wants to grab a snack and get out, they might go for the smallest. Either way they do not prioritize based on abilities, but on a simpler system of size.

Going back to our bandit example. Think about the composition of the party and of the bandits. If the bandits have a spellcaster or ranged fighters of their own. They might send two or three members to engage the tank. Then the ranged attackers will go after the healer or a spellcaster. Basically trying to keep the tank occupied so they can’t get to their own weaker members. Target priority is really something fun you can play with in Dungeons and Dragons.

How Do You Handle This In Your Games?

I want to know what you do in your games. Leave a comment below. Or let me know over on Twitter or Facebook, information down below.

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