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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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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I don’t think that matters if they already have. Dungeons and Dragons is a great spot to borrow, steal, and ask the players to help create your story with you. I talk about this often, Dungeons and Dragons is a cooperative story telling game, and that means that you can tell whatever story you want. Even if you are ripping off something else, go for it.

But You Want It To Be Original?

I get that, I really do. When I say rip something off, I don’t mean fully do that. Stealing a whole story is not going to be nearly as interesting as stealing pieces that you like. But using pieces that you like, that makes it easier on you. You don’t need to come up with everything yourself. I use stuff that I’ve read all the time, because it is cool. If there is a giant set piece in a story that I like, I will use that to create a combat or encounter in my game.

Tower of the Gods is a great example of this, you can find what is happening in that in the Friday Night D&D Posts. What is stolen in there? Well, first off, the whole idea of the tower, that is 100% stolen from the LitRPG series Arcane Ascension and Towers of Heaven. Heck, I named my campaign Towers of the Gods, it’s a bit on the nose. But I didn’t steal the whole plot of either of them.

How Do You Keep the Balance?

That is the trickier part, keeping a balance so that you don’t rip off everything. I think it’d be easy to just try and create the beats from either of those stories and see what happens. However, if someone already knows the story, that isn’t going to be interesting to them. It would be like playing through the Lord of the Rings trilogy. If Frodo still needs to throw the ring into Mount Doom, that’s boring. And never give your players the One Ring, they will abuse the power.

Instead, pick and choose a few things. In Tower of the Gods, I took the leveling up or getting the class power from the tower from Arcane Ascension. In that book, you go into the power and you get a power of some sort and that is where it starts for the main character. But, I also took the idea of potentially fighting over the tower, but that was from Towers to Heaven. Two separate story ideas that I wove together.

Borrow Lightly

So, with that example, borrow lightly. From Arcane Ascension, I took the leveling and the school idea. The plot that I run is very different. On the flip side, Towers to Heaven, I introduced the idea of fighting over the tower. But how I run that is exceedingly different than how the author of that book wrote it.

Like I was saying, grab nuggets of things. A concept or a image that you really like from a story. Weave that into your game and it saves brain power for you. But just borrow a little bit, even if people don’t know what. Because I want to tell my own story, and most DM’s are going to want to tell something that is fairly well their own.

Steal Moments

This is basically the same thing as borrowing lightly. Don’t steal everything. But it is totally okay to steal things that stuck out to you. If there is an important moment in the story, such as the luck of the draw when getting your class in Arcane Ascension, steal that. I 100% just took that and put it into my story. They drink from a cup when they are about to exit the tower. My players picked a cup to drink from and that determined what class they got.

So that imagery, I really liked. It made sense to me for how you’d end up getting a class. Now, it totally went against how Dungeons and Dragons normally does it, but it was a fun way change things up for people who know D&D pretty well. I made it work different than it did in the book, though, giving the players more agency in potentially picking what class they ended up with.

Beg For Help

Now, this sounds silly, but asking the players to help will cause your story to verve at times towards story and tropes that have already been done. Most people who play Dungeons and Dragons know fantasy. You and I know all sorts of books, movies, and television shows that are fantasy. Whether we actively think about them all the time or not, that doesn’t matter, we know them. So when you ask for help in creating a location or character, you will find that tropes start to show up or ideas from books show up.

This is a good thing. Grounding your fantasy world and story into what people know is important. It means that you and the players are more connected to the world and can more easily understand what is going on. I get the idea to do something extremely out there and unique, but that isn’t always great. Sometimes it can take people out of the story, instead of keep them in.

Putting It All Together

So how much should you or shouldn’t you beg, borrow, and steal? That is a great question. For some stories, it might be a fair amount that is pulled in from other places. Or there might be chunks of the story that are and other chunks that aren’t.

In Tower of the Gods, the whole Dorin subplot, trust me, there is no way that is any published book. Or if it is, there is no way that I’d have made it to that part of a book, because it is just so weird. So while I borrow from Arcane Ascension and Towers to Heaven, there are other parts that you can blame the players for, or myself as the DM for letting it get there.

So don’t steal everything, people will know when you have the novel on the table with you. But borrowing a little bit, all of that is good. Stealing a memorable moment, that is amazing. And asking for help means that players will be even more engaged. Don’t be shy about it because what you do will never be exactly like that book, movie or television show.

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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?

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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?

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