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?

Email us at nerdologists@gmail.com
Message me directly on Twitter at @TheScando
Visit us on Facebook here.
Support us on Patreon here.

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?

Email us at nerdologists@gmail.com
Message me directly on Twitter at @TheScando
Visit us on Facebook here.
Support us on Patreon here.

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.

Email us at nerdologists@gmail.com
Message me directly on Twitter at @TheScando
Visit us on Facebook here.
Support us on Patreon here.

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.

Email us at nerdologists@gmail.com
Message me directly on Twitter at @TheScando
Visit us on Facebook here.
Support us on Patreon here.

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.

Email us at nerdologists@gmail.com
Message me directly on Twitter at @TheScando
Visit us on Facebook here.
Support us on Patreon here.

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?

Email us at nerdologists@gmail.com
Message me directly on Twitter at @TheScando
Visit us on Facebook here.
Support us on Patreon here.

A quick recap of what is going on. The party has finished up their first year at school and after breaking Dorin, they decided it would be good to help him. This was after they had helped investigate two dragon attacks on the school. Kip was left behind to clear up a few details. Things went sideways on the trip as they were attacked by goblins multiple times, but they did get an Owlbear that Bokken named Fukuro Kuma.

The Session

Things started off not being as restful as the group would have hoped. The lands in which they were camping didn’t turn out to be too nice as the sunset and they were attacked by four specters. Things actually go really well. Even though Bokken can’t hit spirits the hardest, Barrai enhances his abilities and Thrain gives him protection from good and evil.

Now, I say it goes pretty well, Barrai is still knocked unconscious after taking down the first of the specters and drawing their ire. But Thrain is able to stabilize him with spare the dying and that worked out. Kip hearing the fight is able to join up with the party who are camping off the road. He has taken care of what he needed to in town and hurried to catch up with them. He joins as Dorin, who has his hands tied behind his back is taking off running away from the spirits.

Bokken sends Fukoro Kuma after Dorin to fetch him, but realizes that something might have been lost in translation between him and the Owlbear. This is in fact the case and Thrain, Bokken, and Kip, riding on the back of Bokken take off after Fukoro Kuma. With some dexterous grace, Kip launches off of Bokken getting into range to cast sleep on Fukuro Kuma, but it doesn’t work, he does manage to put both his bird Kraig and Dorin to sleep. This makes Dorin way easier for Fukoro Kuma to catch and he just destroys Dorin to the point that Dorin is starting to bleed out.

Thrain, being the slowest of the group, makes it up there after Bokken has distracted Fukoro Kuma with some rations. They get Dorin back to the unconscious body of Barrai and decide to settle in for the night. Bokken takes Fukoro Kuma with him to make sure that no one finds them and that the owlbear won’t eat Dorin.

The next two days were a whole lot more uneventful with Kip trying to teach Dorin how be a better pirate. Teaching him how pirates love treasure and booty, which Dorin of course will take the wrong way. They untie him to bring him into town and find out that his family actually own a textile wholesale company. This works out decently well for the group as Bokken is able to get help making armor from the goblin’s leather for Fukoro Kuma.

They send Dorin out so that they can talk to his father running the shop. They get some information including that this textile company is the one that provides the fabric to the shop where they bought their fancy clothes and where they got the clue on that wizard whom Addrus was working with. Things seem to be settling down when they hear some noises from down the street. Dorin has found his way into a bar and has picked a fight after harassing a patron. Fortunately, Bokken can squeeze into this gnome only establishment, at least built for that, and that basically does the trick.

The night ends with them finding an animal handler that Bokken leaves Fukoro Kuma with. He pays for a few months of training for Fukoro Kuma so that there won’t be a situation where the owlbear will try and kill someone in their party again. They send Dorin back off to his family and settle in for the night.

Behind the DM’s Screen

The person playing Kip was back this week. The question that came up with that is how do you get him back to the group. I’d narrated that he’d spent the day before dealing with stuff at the school. The sirens from the previous night could have been Kip had the player been able to make it to that session. So the plan was, with the amount of time wasted on finding Dorin, that’ll give Kip time to catch back up. And it worked, I just needed a reason for him to be able to find them off the main road. Having specters scream seemed like a simple solution.

Then Dorin’s home town of Castleveinea. I’m not sure that we’re done with everything that is going on there. but I’ve been dropping more hints about this textile place or really driving home the point that they gave them the address for Addruss’s friend, the wizard. So we’ll see if they go down that route or what their plan is, I feel like they are going to leave Castleveinea next session and probably think about picking up that thread (all cloth puns intended).

What do you think of this session? Have you played a game where you’ve needed to do an escort mission before? Or as a DM, have you played where the players have picked up a pet that can fight in combat. What did you do with that?

Email us at nerdologists@gmail.com
Message me directly on Twitter at @TheScando
Visit us on Facebook here.
Support us on Patreon here.

People do those five things in different orders, but I tend to like them in the order listed above. Some people pick class before race, but for me, the race plays a more important part in who your character is. Everything I want to lay out should enhance both your roll playing and your role playing.

Race

So why is race the first thing? Why not class? I think that race will give you a better idea of your character for both roll and role play. And elf might not be as likely to be a barbarian but if they are, you now have a story surrounding that. But for first time players, race can be easier to pick than a class. Picking that you want to be an elf then leads you in certain directions for your class choices. Granted, picking human leaves everything open.

So from the roll play side, like I said, picking your race helps you nail down your class. And I think that the class for a lot of players is a little bit more flexible and most races can play most classes well. Going back to the elf example, you can pick to be an elf and be a fighter, a ranger, a rogue, a druid, or a wizard very easily. And I think that a number of the other classes work as well. Picking your race will give you a narrower target for classes, but a wider target than picking a class and then going back to race.

From the role play side, you now get to create a character with more of the flavor that you might want. When you look at the classes, you have a variety open to you still, both fighters and casters. The race give you a better picture for role playing than class does. How do you want them to interact, do you want a haughty or nature focused character, an elf, a gruff drinking and brawling character, why not a dwarf. The race helps set more of that personality than anything else would.

Class

Class helps focus the character. This really covers both roll and role play again as you can use the class to focus more of the story. But you also get a lot of mechanics out of this. You are going to get your first skills, if you pick a spell casting class your first spells, and you really get to see where you are going to be rolling the dice. Take this time to when looking at the class to find those skills that are going to be your characters standard. What attack is your signature, so when it comes time to combat you are ready to go.

But there is also role play elements to think about. When you pick your class you start to add in other questions. If you are a wizard, what wizarding school did you go to. What connections do you still maintain there? If you are a fighter, where did you learn to fight? Who is your mentor or trainer, and are they still a friend or a foe? Were you in the military or town guard or why did you pick up the skills?

Stats

Now we move into an area that seems more like it is roll playing and role playing. But in reality, it is both. The roll playing part is obvious. You roll your dice and you use the stats to modify them. So with your race and class, you now know what stats you need to be good at. If you are a wizard, intelligence, a fighter, strength, that sort of thing.

But putting down your stats also gives you a ton of opportunity to create more role playing as well. It is tempting to try and be at least okay at everything. Using a standard array for numbers, it is going to give you one thing you are below average at. And that is where you get your role playing. What does it look like to be worse than average at intelligence or to be missing subtly because of lacking common sense from wisdom? What is it like to be a character who isn’t strong? There is a lot of story that starts to develop from your weaknesses, as well as your strengths.

Background

This is the last part of what you need to be thinking about from the book. The background helps flesh out your characters backstory and who you were at some point in time in your life before you decided to go adventuring. This one is much more focused on the role playing side of things, versus the roll playing. In fact, you are unlikely to get any dice improvements out of this beside getting some more skills and maybe some tools to help improve your modifiers.

This is about picking a background and getting four areas in this. You get personality traits, bonds, ideals, and flaws. Check out them more in details in my Building a D&D Character 201 article. But these add in story elements naturally to a character by giving them connections and little ticks and more. These are not hard and fast things your character will always adhere to, but they help create touch points when you aren’t sure how you character would react. It also gives them some skills to fall back on.

Backstory

We are finally to backstory. This one is the easiest to talk about. This one is only role playing focused. This is what helps your dungeon master know how to bring your character into the story. It is also the only part not in the book. However, I put it last because if you don’t know what backstory you want, the other things will help. In fact, they can do most of the writing for you.

If you are an elf, you will see things more one way. If you are an elf fighter, it focused more. An elf fighter who is great with a bow because you have high dexterity but bad charisma, more focused. An elf fighter with low charisma and a military background, you now have a lot of your backstory written for you. You just need to flesh out the details.

Now You Have Your Character!

If you go through those steps, you’ll have a character that is ready to be played. Work with your Dungeon Master through this whole process, because you want your character to fit the story being told. As a dungeon master, I recommend a session 0, a chance to sit around, talk about your story idea and setting and then build characters together. That will create a group more cohesive characters for the players and the world being played in.

What type of character do you want to play next?

Email us at nerdologists@gmail.com
Message me directly on Twitter at @TheScando
Visit us on Facebook here.
Support us on Patreon here.

Unknown To The Players

Introduce the big bad guy to the players not as the big bad guy. The saying goes something like, the villain is the hero of their own story or in their own mind. So rarely do you get a moustache twirling villain who just exudes evil. The bad guy thinks they are doing something good, not something bad. And what they do might look like it is good, especially early on in the story. Create this go getter character who is forward thinking and out to do great things to the players. Give them some quests from that player, and then start to drop hints slowly over time that this person isn’t as good as they seem. But introduce someone to the players who ends up being the bad guy.

Looking Down On The Players

Another way to do it is to introduce the characters to the bad guy just to show them how far they have to go. The bad guy can come in being known as the bad guy and not even bother fighting the players. They are just seeing who is being tasked to be a pest to them. And because the players aren’t a high enough level, the bad guy can just leave, probably leaving a henchmen behind. It shouldn’t be until the players are at a higher level when they will actually be a concern to the bad guy. If your players are a quite low level, have the bad guy one hit knock out one of them and leave. It’ll create that impact and push the players towards the end goal of stopping the villain.

Through Their Henchmen

If your bad guy is part of a crime ring, or controls some sort of gang, runs a cult, anything like that, you have other characters that can introduce them. In this way bombard the players with villains, low level and then up the food chain of the group. Make it obvious they are all part of the same group. The players will know that there has to be someone at the top that they’ll deal with eventually. You can even build up the legend of the person over time for the players. Talk about how cruel or crazy the person is, or how sneaky and cunning they are. Build up the mystique around the big bad guy for even if the players don’t meet them right away, they know them.

At The Early Stages

The early stages is going to be different than the unknown to the players, though it will cross over. When the players don’t know that the big bad guy is going to be the big bad guy. In this case, the big bad guy doesn’t even know that they are the big bad guy either. They are some small level bad guy who is down on their luck and sells the players a sob story of some sort. Ideally, you do this in town where killing someone would get you in trouble with the town guard. But give this person a down on their luck, stealing because they need the food, try and get the players to feel sympathy for the bad guy. Then, in the background have the bad guy slowly become a big bad guy for a big reveal at the end. Almost think Count of Monte Cristo style where the Count is actually known as someone else as well. It’ll make for a fun reveal when this bad guy who goes by some odd name turns out to be the bad guy they helped at the beginning.

Final Thoughts

Now, with that said, you can not introduce the big bad as long as you want. If your ultimate big bad guy is going to be a beholder, that makes sense that you wouldn’t just stumble across a beholder. But, it can be fun to try and introduce the big bad guy early, give the players some target or some surprise later on. It is a twist on a lot of stories where the big bad guy is revealed towards the end. But it can be just as good to introduce them early and make them sympathetic or untouchable so that the world develops more.

What is your most memorable bad guy you’ve encountered or ran in a Dungeons and Dragons game? How do you make them stand out from other bad guys?

Email us at nerdologists@gmail.com
Message me directly on Twitter at @TheScando
Visit us on Facebook here.
Support us on Patreon here.

Last time the players had just finished up a test in the Tower which had gotten them up to level 3. It was a bit of a challenge as they had to figure out a number of different puzzles.

When they made it back to Strawgoh, Kip, Thrain, and Barrai were pulled aside by Assendial, the player playing Bokken was the one who couldn’t make it, in order to get their help trying to figure out how the scarab that had attracted the dragon had gone missing. Since they had previously found out the two spies, she entrusted this to them before the school year ended. She also told them to be more discrete about it, not to use their normal tactics, of theft, destruction, antagonizing, threatening, and general ignoring of people, rules, and common sense. But they had previous success which is why she asked them.

They started to dig into everything that had gone on while they were gone at the test. Three of the teachers, Assendial, Tormin, and Linken had all been with them for the test. So that only left Dadellous at the school. Plus Sanphire was keeping watch and all the second year students were still there as well. Plus Parrag had been there while he was sick.

Barrai decides to go and check with Sanphire first, see if he had seen anything from up in the tower. Sanphire, now incredibly bored because it’s been months since the dragon attack, was able to give them some idea. He’d seen a couple of second year students, Parrag, Addrus and Dadellous all around the building that has the teachers quarters and offices. But he wasn’t able to give them a ton of information.

Their next idea is to go and look at the scene of the crime. Tormin had the scarab in his office, even though according to Assendial something like that would normally have been stored elsewhere with other magical items and should have been when Tormin left to go with them for the test. However, he had left it in his desk. Kip decides, since it’s before dinner in the evening to knock on the door. He knocks, and knocks, and knocks, until the door across the hall, Assendial’s office, opens, and she unlocks the door for them.

In there is a fairly standard office. Tormin has a desk and some book shelves, a few pictures on the wall. Since the scarab was stolen from within Tormin’s desk, that’s where they started looking. Kip gives it a once over and sees that there are two locks that look like they’ve been used or messed with more than the others. He gets one open and sees some papers with a box underneath it. Grabbing the box, he is surprised when the box grabs back on and bites his hand. Turns out that the box was a mimic. A quick battle ensues while Thrain and Barrai attack, Kip tries not to die and tries not to cut off his hand. Whether or not Kip would have made it through the fight is questionable, but Assendial hearing the commotion casts a high level sleep spell knocking everyone out, including Karl the squirrel who has been with Kip. When they wake up Assendial is standing in the doorway shaking her head at them as she has put the mimic back into the drawer.

They are a bit more careful and Kip tries to pick the other lock that looks like it’s been opened more times. Try as he might the lock won’t open. He kicks the desk and there is a sound of a spring. He goes back to picking on the lock with Barrai’s help, bardic inspiration and enhance ability, and eventually gets the whole front of the drawer to fall off, only to find that it isn’t a front of a drawer, there is just desk behind it. Thrain then takes a look around the room and sees that there is a safe behind one of the pictures but no visible lock. Instead he also notices that the underside of the desks looks a bit off. On the right side where Kip had been picking the lock, there is a not a bit of a bump out. He pulls on it, it doesn’t move and pushes it and it pushes it back in. It clicks back into place. They try pushing on the desk, but they find that kicking it is a more successful way to get it to open. After spending some time poking around, Thrain uses mending and attaches the drawer front to it. They get it further open and then using some leverage manage to swing it open revealing a hidden compartment. In that compartment there is a small book that contains poison recipes, a statue of a toad, a necklace with 8 black beads on it, and a bag containing some gems. The gems, to Kips semi-trained eye, look as if there might have been some spell cast on them.

They are interrupted by Assendial again who reminds them that supper is coming up and that they should clean up this room putting it back as they had found it and go have supper as not to be suspicious. At supper, Barrai watches the second year students to see who stands out. There are twin dwarves, a half-orc, giant, and tabaxi who all are out of the normal, but no one seems suspicious. Most of the second years head off to their barracks to prepare and rest before their test in the tower tomorrow.

Two of them, an elf and a human, head off to Moody’s Bar. There they find a spot in the corner, and Thrain finds a spot at the bar to watch them. Barrai and Kip tag along as well and Kip spots Zaphir across the way. Zaphir seems very concerned about Kip and still very mad at Thrain and Barrai, not knowing which one of them robbed him after he started a bar fight with them. Kip decides to order a round for the two second years and goes and talks with them. It turns out, after a bit of persuading (casting friendship) that they are there to test out a theory to rig a fight. But he also does find out that theft has been up a little bit on campus over this year, which the students found odd, but not too concerning since it wasn’t there stuff.

The three, Barrai, Thrain, and Kip head out as the fights start. As they do, Kip makes it so Zaphir’s beer tastes like urine. Then they go back to their barracks and Bokken realizes that they had been gone for most of the time after the test.

Behind the DM Screen

This was a loosely planned session. I wanted it to be something that is important towards the main thing that has happened so far, the dragon attack, so it didn’t just seem like filler, but I also wanted it not to be so important that it wouldn’t make sense for Bokken to be there. I feel like logically Assendial would have known that Bokken was not stealthy from the dragon attack, but would know that Thrain, Barrai, and Kip definitely are and that Kip was part of the group already, which is why she’d go to them instead of all of them.

As for the desk, I decided that a puzzle door would be interesting to get into that one drawer. Basically whatever, unique or interesting thing that the players did with it, that would get it open, they just needed to do a few things. I like the creativity of trying mend on the door front onto the hidden door.

What do you think of this session? How do you run investigation in your games?

Email us at nerdologists@gmail.com
Message me directly on Twitter at @TheScando
Visit us on Facebook here