What Is Failing Forward?

Failing forward comes from players having to do skill checks. A skill check is something that you use as a Dungeon Master when you want to see if the players notice or know something or can complete an action that they are trying to do. An example of this would be the rogue doing a stealth check or something like that.

The idea of failing forward is that the players roll their skill check and they fail it. But instead of them not getting the information or completing they action, they still do that. However, it is going to add in some sort of complication for them. So they succeed but there is a cost instead of them getting it without that cost.

Why Use It?

So why use something like this? The big reason as a Dungeon Master that you want to use failing forward is some things need to happen. Let’s say the players don’t remember a bit of information about the Big Bad Evil Guy/Gal (BBEG). And it is something that their characters need to know to be able to eventually find the BBEG. So you have the players roll history checks for their characters, what happens if they fail? Now they are soft locked out of knowing that information.

So let me define what I mean by soft locked. They aren’t completely locked out of that knowledge, but you need to feed it to them another way. But the idea of failing forward is that they get that information, they pull it up in from their memory, you don’t need to create a new role playing situation or create a reason why they would learn it again. They just know it. But, as I said, there should be a cost to it. And I wills how you what I mean by that when I give some examples later on.

When Not To Use It

So there are times not to use it as well. I think that failing forward is a very useful tool for a Dungeon Master, but sometimes it doesn’t make that much sense to do it. If they fail to disarm a trap, okay, don’t fail them forward. Let them be creative to figure out another way to avoid the trap, or to set it off and just make a run for it.

But the other big time is when it doesn’t matter that much. If the player wants to search a room for gold and they role a one, who cares. They toss the place and the three gold they might have found they don’t find. Or the barbarian wants to throw something a long ways, they roll a strength and roll low, that’s fine as long as it’s not part of the plot that they need to do it.

So, just to recap, use failing forward when you need them to succeed to progress the story. Don’t use it when it is for flavor, the players doing something that doesn’t matter, or there are other ways around the problem.

Examples of Failing Forward

So let’s talk examples, and I want to do a couple of different ones here. But just to demonstrate how you can use it well. And this is something that I’d plan on in the moment. Don’t try and pre-plan for your session checks that your player characters will have to do as the Dungeon Master, it just adds work that might not happen.

Example 1: The Deity’s Hidden Past

The characters are coming to realize that there is something off about this deity who has reached out to them for help. They know some general knowledge on the deity but how much do they actually know. If they roll well they are going to know that the deity was actually killed years ago and now someone has taken it’s place and that matters because they would then know not to trust them.

So all the players roll religion checks, and because this is ancient history it’s a harder check. The best role is an 8 and now they players really didn’t succeed on this check.

What is failing forward going to look like here?

You give the characters the knowledge but you give them more knowledge than is actually right. You explain it to them in the way of a long forgotten myth that is passed down still in some tribes, but was passed down verbally for years. The general details of the deity’s death are there, but specifics are wrong, and who killed the deity is wrong and you give them a lot to sort through that is right or not.

Example 2: The Chase

The other example I want to give is of something a bit more physical. The players were supposed to have snuck up on a criminal and knocked them out. Instead they talk to them. And they tell them exactly what is going on. So the criminal is running through the market now throwing things down behind them.

The players need that item to progress the storyline. So you give them some challenges to complete with athletics and acrobatics. They roll really poorly on their checks while on the chase.

How do you keep the guy from getting away? Well, you already know the answer, you fail forwards.

In this case, that is going to look like issues with the market in the future. The barbarian is in pursuit and runs through a cabbage cart instead of pushing it of their way. The rogue leaps over a stall with an acrobatics but instead just jumps onto it and runs through all the tomatoes. Now the people in the town won’t like them. Yes, they get their criminal in the end, but there is a consequence to their action.

Final Thoughts on Failing Forward

This is an important tool for the dungeon master. And in the examples I gave, I want to just say one thing. The issue that can arise can be something the players know or the players don’t. In the second example the people working in the market are going to be raising a big stink and shouting after the characters so they will know. In the first example, the players might suspect but they won’t know for sure and they won’t know what is right and what isn’t.

And then use it as a tool for the future as well. There are examples I could give where the character is undercover and fails a check to blend in. Now the boss knows that they aren’t who they say they are, but instead of acting on it, the crime boss just holds onto that for later. The players might know that they failed and be surprised, but now it’s something that they are worried about coming back to bite them later.

How do you use failing forward? Is it something that is part of your campaign, or do you not even make the players do a check when they need to know the information?

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Traps

The first area to cover is traps. Traps are generally not too complex a thing in Dungeons and Dragons or in your RPG. In a fantasy setting you have physical and magical traps that players can go into, and since I write these from the point of Dungeons and Dragons, we’ll work with that system.

When using a trap there are a few steps for creating something interesting. Though not every trap needs to be that interesting. It, instead, is able to be used to set expectations if you want. I create a trap in a room at the start of the dungeon, every player is going to check every room for traps. And I think there are good uses for that. But let’s talk about those steps.

• Type of Trap
• Finding Trap
• Disarming Trap
• Setting Off Trap

Type of Trap

Each of these is simple in it’s own right. But you need each of them to be there. Firstly, what type of trap is it goin to be. Physical, magical, and if it’s physical, pit trap, spike trap, poison trap. Or if it is magical, fire, water, changes room, teleport? There are a lot of fun things that you can do. But pick that and that is going to determine some other things as you go down.

Finding Trap

Next is how can the players find the trap. Even if it is arrows being shot off of a floor trigger when they step in a spot, there are signs. Or a magical trap, there might be a glyph that is triggered. But I think there are two worthwhile numbers coming up with. First, what is the difficulty for just passively perceiving the trap? If someone is very good with their passive perception can they just spot it? Or what is the perception check to see it. And then, what is an investigation if they are looking for a specific type of trap.

The second one shows up more if it’s a known trap. If in room one there is a pit trap, in room two they might look for a pit trap again. That is investigating to find something specific. So use both.

Disarming Trap

Next up is disarming a trap. Know kind of how this is going to work. Let players maybe brute force it, if you don’t have a rogue in the party. The Barbarian rips up the pressure plate on the floor, sure. But generally, rogue with thieves tools. Or if it’s a magical trap, do they need to dispel magic?

But this is again about creating that difficulty for the check. It might be a 12 for a rogue with thieves tools and slight of hand to be able to disarm it. It isn’t that complex a trap. But if you don’t have the rogue that day, or the barbarian gets there first, it might be a 18 strength/athletics check to rip it out of the ground. So know what numbers you want. But more so, know the ballpark. If you think they may come up with an alternative way know if you want that to be as easy as a normal way or harder.

Setting Off Trap

Finally, they might just set off the trap. Now, traps can be their own mini little puzzle in a game. What is going to happen if the whole party falls into a pit traps. Now they need to get out. Or maybe it is going to be timed event now for them to get through clouds of poison while taking damage?

Sometimes it is as simple as, a volley of arrows shoot and that is it. Or the player literally gets their foot stuck in a trap (or hand if they were disarming it). But think about how you want to use the trap and the trap affect to advance story or create interesting interactions if you want.

Bonus Dungeon Master Tool – Traps and Expecations

I talked about this a little but I knew I wanted to come back to it. What is the expectation when you create a trap in the first room of a dungeon? Well, the simple answer is, there are going to be more traps. In fact, there are going to be lots of traps. The player is going to check every room for traps.

Change Them Up

Now that the players are checking for traps there are a few things that you can do. Firstly, change up the traps. Not every room should have a trap, but when you set the expectation that there can be traps don’t waste your and the players time by only having one in the first room. But change up the traps, magical and non-magical in nature.

Only One

Or, do only have a single one. But make it so difficult and terrifying that most groups would immediately run in fear. Since a good adventuring party doesn’t have enough fear or brains to know to be afraid, they will just keep checking for traps. If you do that, though, make the rest of the dungeon a cake walk. All the energy was on the start of it, the rest is just empty hallways because no one ever gets through.

Develop History

Another thing, and last one I’ll talk about, is you can develop history. The history of the dungeon could be new traps are being created so it means that someone is still down there taking care of it. Or you might find adventurers who were killed before and the players gather pieces of history from them. Nothing like the first room and the adventurers see someone dead in a sprung trap. Now you immediately plant concern and can give them some history with the adventurers journal as to what they knew of this dungeon.

Puzzles

That is more on traps than I had expected. But I think that doing a great job with traps can make for an interesting campaign. And it is going to give the rogue something to do besides trying to steal everything that isn’t bolted to the ground.

But now we are onto puzzles. And puzzles, I think, offer three different routes to go. Though, the routes can overlap in some ways. But I want to firstly talk about who the puzzle is for, that is two of the routes. And then finally, what if there isn’t an answer.

Determining Who the Puzzle is For

This might sound odd. But there are two groups that the puzzle could be for. When you create a puzzle it is either for the characters in the game. Or it is for the players out of the game. Neither is a wrong way to create a puzzle and doing both can offer a lot of fun in the game for the players. But this is the first thing you want to determine when you create a puzzle, who it is for. Because that is going to change what you do.

Puzzles for the Characters

Puzzles for characters are going to be less of the cryptograms, jumbles, patterns, things like that. Instead, for the characters, a brain teaser or pieces of history and knowledge needed are the type of puzzle that you are going to create.

You go to the temple of the god of death, for example. Well, what is it that your characters know about the god of death? You create a puzzle where they need to know something about it. The players outside of the game don’t know this god of death unless you gave them a document with it all in there (don’t do this it’s a waste of your time). But the characters in the game sure do because it’s the god of death, they’d have heard of it at least.

So think about the checks that you want them to make. It might be an investigation to see if they can tell how someone beat the puzzle before. Or it might be a religion check to determine what they remember about the god of death. Again, it’s the god of death, the characters know of it for sure, but do they know the right detail.

So a puzzle for the characters is all about the checks that they do. And you decide how hard or easy you want it to be. But if you make it too hard, also have a way around it.

Example – The God of Death

So let’s run with this god of death example. There is a dungeon where they need to get down to the lowest level. They know that there is a secret passage called the River Styx that they can use to get down to the bottom. But they get there and it’s locked away behind a riddle.

“Bestow they worship upon me, pay the tolls once, twice, and three. Coins of death marked for their fate. Hours gone don’t tarry late.”

Solution

So, what is the answer to that riddle? The players need to provide the total value of the cost to cross the River Styx either three times or six times. Once, Twice, and Three could be 1+1+1 paying it three times. Or it could be 1+2+3, paying the set each time. I think I’d set this as an intelligence check of 10, pretty simple if they want both options.

But it is also a specific coin. What is a coin marked for death. Well that might be a soul coin from the hells. A soul given up to a devil would be interesting payment to get across the River Styx. This one is more of a religion check, and I think while people know of the god of death, it is taboo to worship them, so it’s less common. Make it a difficulty check of 15 for religion, so tougher.

What If They Fail

So what if in this case they all fail their religion rolls. They don’t know about the soul coins. But after feeding in a bunch of coins and nothing happening are they locked out of the dungeon? No, there is a longer path that is more dangerous for them. But if you need a roll to succeed to progress the story, always gives a different, harder way for them to go forward. If it is just a case of finding some treasure that would be nice. Sure, it is possible that they never figure it out. But if it is for anything related to story, give them that other option.

Puzzles for the Players

Next up, a puzzle can be for the players. This one I think is a bit simpler. Yes, you still might incorporate checks that the characters can do to give the players hints. But it is all about the players for this one. A cryptogram is a great example of this. You give them a little bit of a key and then let them get going on breaking the whole thing. It is something that all the players can take part in, but it isn’t part of the game and it isn’t meant for them to roleplay it out.

I am going to skip an example on this, but it can be a lot of different things. I made a room with gouts of flames that were being shot out. As I describe what the players watch, I kind of expect the players to take notes and solve the path. It isn’t something you do by trial and error but in that case, I also make it simple. And if the players aren’t solving it, I give them an intelligence roll and give some more details that make the puzzle simpler.

Puzzles with no Answer

The final thing is something that I think more Dungeon Masters should do. This is going to be the best Dungeon Master tip overall for traps and puzzles. It is simply, don’t create a solution. This is something that you can do with puzzles but also just with issues that arise. Throw the players a problem and see what happens.

Why wouldn’t you have a solution, though? The simple answer is, the players can come up with one. And this is something that can be done in character as well. You just wait until they try something that you think makes enough sense or is cool enough to work. When they suggest it or they try it, it can work as simple as that. And let’s face it, there is one of you and probably two to eight players, so more brains, more creative solutions.

This also can let you set a time for it. If you think, I want them to sweat a bit on this trap, give them ten minutes to discuss it and try different things, or maybe even longer if it’s supposed to be key and important. Or if it is supposed to be pretty trivial, make it that way, let the first cool or fun idea work.

Example from My Game

This came to be because I actually created one of these, kind of, last night in my game. The players were on a labyrinthian type floor of a tower, the main dungeon in the campaign. Every room was the same except for a few had plaques on the wall. The big thing is that they needed to get to the stairs for the next level. To do that they needed to go into rooms and figure out where to go.

In the rooms, and only a few of them, did I leave clues for the players. But the clues were fairly general. In the first room it said the following.

First Puzzle

“Beware – Zombies
Go this way.”

That was next to one of the four doors in the square room (one per wall). The players had to decide what that meant. But little did they know, and they messed this up in an interesting way, was that every room a character went into had more and stronger zombies. So if they fought, each time the zombies would get tougher and tougher and more and more.

Second Puzzle

So the player went the right direction, eventually, after one had done a loop to see how it would work and ramping up their difficulty. Eventually they got to another room with another plaque and a dead adventurer.

“Two Far
[down arrow]”

This meant head back two rooms and go south. Now going back is going to cause more zombies and harder zombies to appear. At this point, by the way, the zombies had +23 to hit and were dealing 1D6+21 damage.

The Real Puzzle

So the new puzzle was simpler but harder. How do we get through rooms without getting hit by the zombies. They had already spent a fair number of resources on a battle or two with the zombies. And I didn’t give them a solution. If they had gone the ideal route, it wouldn’t have been a major deal. But because they went further and created more zombies, it was way harder for them.

So two flight spells later and the Warforged character being disguised as a zombie the players got to the right room. But they needed to do it in a way where they weren’t taking 3-4 attacks of opportunity each, Because say it was three, all likely hit with a +23 to hit, and that’s a minimum of 66 damage, a lot for even a level 16 bard.

Final Dungeon Master Tools for Traps and Puzzles

This is the reminder that I give at the end of all of these Dungeon Master tools. Or if not at the end, sometime in there. But the point of everything is to create a great experience at the table. And that means progressing characters and stories as you go along. When you create a trap and a puzzle that should be in your mind as well. Because when you do that the most fu n is going to be had at the table for both you and your players.

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Dungeon Master Tools – Combat

We all know what combat is, so we’ll kind of skip over that detail, right? Well I think we generally know what it is there is a mindset that it means “beat the bad guys”. Combat certainly has that in it, but I think it is better defined as taking actions in conflict with an aggressively hostile party to end the hostile situation.

Now that is a bit of a mouthful. But the reason for that is that often “beat the bad guys” but it might be, escape through a group of hostile enemies, or run away from the combat. Or it might be protect an NPC who is trying to get to an objective or needs time to complete an objective, so you need to defend them. And it is even the situations where you beat someone down enough that they beg for mercy or a truce when they k now they are defeated.

How To Do Combat

So let’s start out with some basics again here. We now know what combat is, so how do you do combat. And I want to talk about two ways and suggest you do the second one.

The first way is to have a battle map. This is going to require minis, things on the map to denote enemies or terrain and things like that. It’s going to be a bit more complex because as the Dungeon Master you need to plan this out ahead of time to have everything ready.

The second way is theater of the mind. This is where you know what the battle is like in your head. Everyone imagines what it looks like and you work through it that way. Now there is a drawback of this is that it is a skill to be learned. It’s not always the easiest to do right off the bat, but it is simpler than always creating a combat.

Theater of the Mind

So we know what theater of the mind is. So you want to do that, how do you keep track of everything?

The first way is to simply add it into your notes as you go. When players and enemies roll for initiative I write that down and as combat goes, I might draw a line between player characters and enemies who are adjacent to each other. That way I can keep track of who is who. The more you run theater of the mind, the easier that is going to be to keep track of who is where just in your head.

That is going to be the simplest way of keeping track by drawing lines. Another way, if you want to help with that theater of the mind element is to create your own battle map. If you are fairly confident a battle will happen in a session, or you do this on the fly, you draw up where the player characters and enemies are. Then you just erase and move them as they move and attack and die. This is more work, but might be a decent first step.

When To Use Battle Maps

Now the answer for you might be never. I rarely use battle maps because I plan my combats on the fly. But if I know there is a big set piece, I am more apt to use a battle map. And I understand the desire to use a battle map. A big map and set-up is fun for players as the Dungeon Master alike.

So I believe in using them sparingly. I use them for a bit boss combat. If you return to the story arc article, each arc maybe has a final fight. Let’s look at this example again.

Example Arcs

• Find treasure
• Fight Mid-level boss
• Learn about Big Bad
• Search for way to stop Big Bad
• Get information from wizard
• Find artifact
• Confront big bad

Find a treasure doesn’t seem like it has a combat. Well, it can. And this is a great time to talk about another element of combat that I already talked about some.

Vary Combat Objectives

What do I mean by vary combat? I mean create the escort or protect someone combats. Create a combat where the players are overwhelmed and they need to get something and get out. Now, I lean towards combat where you beat the enemy more often than not. Whether that ends in knocking out the enemy or killing them or getting the fight to end through violence or spells, whatever that might be. But throw in other combats as well where players need to think through what they are doing.

So let’s talk about that “find treasure” scenario as an example.

Example – Find Treasure

This might seem like it doesn’t have that combat element to it. Or it might not be a set piece. But I think that it can be a very good set piece scenario. So let’s talk about building out that scenario and it might not all be known to the players at the start all of this, but I want to make it simple if I can for a new Dungeon Master, that’s the whole point.

The Objective: Get in and out as fast as you can with the treasure.
The Set-up/Description: You open the door to a hidden room in the crypt, unfortunately it’s guarded by undead. As you watch for a second, you see there are hallways and other crypts off to the side with more undead.
The Complication: There is no limit to the undead. Every round 1D4 undead are added into the mix. So even if they take them all out more will keep coming.

Now this is great because it can work well either as theater of the mid or in a set piece with a battle map. If you do a battle map create some terrain and bottle necks in there. The bottle necks can be where the undead come from off to the side. So players, theoretically could block one of them up by placing a tanky player character in front of it. But to win it is really get in and get out.

Enemy Actions

This is the second to last thing that I want to talk about before I wrap up combat. And this is where you really can develop, I think as a Dungeon Master. It is an area that I want to develop in more as a Dungeon Master as well. But give your enemies different flavors as you work.

Let’s use our undead as an example. And you might want to add this to your notes as the Dungeon Master as you think about the combat. But how does an undead fight? And are these undead mainly just reanimated corpses or zombies with an objective, or intelligent undead?

In my example, I see them as unintelligent undead. They are the corpses from the crypts who are awakened via magic. So I want them to attack whomever is closest to them. If players aren’t careful that means that one player might get surrounded which is bad at low levels. And I expect this to be an encounter for low level characters that they can’t win, again because there are always more undead. But that does mean that they aren’t going to target a healer or caster off the bat since they likely won’t be the closest.

Adding In Theme

Once we get past the differences between theater of the mind versus a battle map, the big thing that I’m trying to do by varying combat objectives and enemy actions or behaviors is to create fun thematic combat experiences. And I know I want to get better at this as well.

Why, I think that it makes combat more fun for both the players and the Dungeon Master. If I know something about how the enemies are going to act that the players need to figure out, that is fun for me. And for the players, it’s fun to have enemies that do varied things, to varied characters but are doing it for a reason. It isn’t fun when the enemies always ignore the tank and rush past to get to the healer and caster.

So, to wrap it up, come up with one element to add in theme to your combat. Whether that be hordes of undead who keep coming no matter what or an intelligent rogue who is always trying to drop into hiding and move their position around a crowded warehouse, give the players something to remember the combat by. And if you just happen to have group of street toughs who are just straight forward basic combat, that might standout too.

Final Thoughts on Combat

Combat is going to be a part of your game. I didn’t mention it yet, but I’ll say it here quickly and then again in the last topic, the meta game, but how much combat you have might vary a lot. I know in the Dungeon Master Guide and other D&D books they say 4-6 small combats a day. The idea is to use up player resources. That might work, or it might not, for your group. You need to figure that out, and we’ll talk about how in that meta game article coming out soon.

What I didn’t cover was encounter creation in terms of enemy power. The easiest way, I find is to use a tool like: https://kastark.co.uk/rpgs/encounter-calculator-5th/. It let’s you punch in details and see how hard your combat is going to be. Especially for combats where players need to beat the enemies by force.

So what is coming next for Dungeon Master Tools?

• Exploration
• NPCs/Social Interactions
• Meta Game and Players at the Table

Let me know if there are other things to cover as well that you want to know more about, or help with. I think that there are a ton of different things that new Dungeon Masters are curious about or that feel intimidating. So I hope that I can help make them clearer and simpler for you.

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https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/icarusgames/class-cheat-sheets-for-5e

So two things before I get to the meat of the article, this one doesn’t embed for some reason, but it’s a quick read so go checkout the page. And also this is a bonus Back or Brick, because, well, it’s a cheap Kickstarter to back that I think is worth at least glancing at.

Pros

• Price
• Design

Cons

• Not All Subclasses

The Page/Project

This is a pretty simple project but one that is laid out well. It gives you the information as to what the project is right away. It’s a one page layout for a lot of Dungeons and Dragons classes, well, all 12 plus then sub classes. It’s meant to help make learning your class and how to play Dungeons and Dragons easier. And hit hits the most common subclasses, which is nice.

I also really like that you get a blank template if you are at the GM Bundle Level. And if this interests you, I recommend backing at that level. Why, because of getting that blank one. I plan on going through every class, and subclass to get sheets written up and printed out. Probably when I have a player who is playing that class and subclass. This will be easier to handout to players versus having them trying to short hand stuff onto their character sheet. I might even laminate them for reuse.

Back or Brick

So is this a Back or Brick for me? It’s a Back. As someone who only runs Dungeons and Dragons, I can see this being really useful. It’s basically a sheet that allows players to see what they have coming up, what abilities they already have unlocked, and gives more space for knowing what their abilities do. Honestly, I think this could be a no brainer for a lot of Dungeon Masters. Especially if you have newer players or players who don’t have their own players handbook.

How about for you, is this Back or Brick?

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The Session

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

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

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

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

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

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

And that is where we ended.

Behind the DM’s Screen

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

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

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

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

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Listen To The Players

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

Give Up Control

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

Describe Big

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

You Can’t Plan Them

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bottoms up!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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I’m blessed with a lot of friends who like to play board games. When I was starting playing Gloomhaven, we didn’t end up with a fourth player because the person I asked was too busy playing other board games to commit. We host a board game night and get 8-10 different people showing up most times. The Risk Legacy group and the Gloomhaven group have no overlap. So clearly I have a lot of friends who like to play board games like I do. But what if you aren’t as blessed or you’re working against bad board gaming experiences?

Let’s start by talking about places where you can meet new people. This might be outside of your comfort zone, but it’s a good possibility for meeting new gamers to start playing with.

Look for meet-up groups online. There are a lot of meet up groups that plan events at breweries, game shops, and other places to hang out and play games. Obviously, this is going to be all strangers unless you can grab a friend to come along, but it would be a solid way to find people you know will be interested in board games. It’s also low commitment since you don’t need to show up at all of them, but going to a few in a row would be good to build up relationships.

Local gaming stores are another good option. Again, this is going to be more random people that you are meeting up with, but keep an eye out for board game events. International Table Top Day which happens in April of each year (most likely) is a great option. A lot of stores have sales, promo cards, and other events. Depending on the shop, they might have limited events otherwise, so they are going to be less likely to get you randomly connected with more gamers than a meet-up would be.

Local conventions are also a great option. Nerdy conventions often have gaming rooms and planned events and games that you can sign up for. If you have one that is for gaming in particular, that’s going to be your best option to get connected with people. Even conventions that aren’t focused on gaming often have gaming rooms. CONvergence, the one that Kristen has written about, has multiple gaming rooms even though that is not the focus of the convention. So even if the convention on the surface doesn’t look like it’s focused on gaming, check out the details and you might find that they have some gaming that you can take part in. I will point out that this is the most likely to be a one off, but who knows, you might make some great connections, or get connected to a group that way.

If all of that seems too intimidating, you can try and recruit from within your friend group. You might find out that there are people who actually like board games that just assume when someone asks if people want to play board games, that they mean Monopoly or some other game that they don’t like. So be specific when asking people to play board games with you.

That is going to be the case sometimes, but more likely, you’re going to have to introduce people to the hobby or break down the perception of the hobby. What am I talking about when I say break down the perception of the hobby?

A lot of people have the idea of board games of rage quitting Monopoly, or a game of Risk that lasts five hours. There isn’t fun with their memories of board games, and that is something that is tricky to work against. Or they have an idea of gaming as a bunch of overweight guys with acne sitting in of their parents basements playing a massively complicated game. It takes time and patience to change peoples opinions, especially from negative to positive. So what can you do to change minds?

Start with easy to grasp games. Games that have lighter rules and a heavier theme or at least a nice look to them are going to get people more apt to play. Sushi Go! is a good example of this. The game is pretty simple and straight forward, you try and get points by picking cards. It’s something that people can understand, and then you add in the graphics. The sushi and various foods are drawn in a very cute way, so it’s fun to look at while you play it. Once they’ve enjoyed a simpler game like Sushi Go! start them on more challenging games like 7 Wonders, which is a similar concept, but more moving pieces.

Also, start with games that are faster. To keep on Sushi Go!, it’s a fast game as well. There are a couple of areas that you can keep a game faster. One is how long it takes to play the complete game, but the other is how long it takes between turns. Now, gaming is often a social event, but you want people to stay involved in the game. So while in Sushi Go! there can certainly be talking, it also moves forward and keeps everyone busy with the game, so you’re less likely to forget what is going on. It doesn’t have to be a game where everyone is always taking their turn, but as long as they stay involved throughout the game that’s good.

Sometimes you also run into people who just think that they won’t be good at a board game because board games are too logical and they aren’t that logical. This has a nice solution to it, and that’s cooperative board games. A good cooperative board game means that they don’t have to do all of the thinking and planning themselves. As they are learning the game and the strategy behind it, try not to run their character for them. Give them time to come up with ideas, give suggestions when asked, but let them learn to play their character. Pandemic is a good game for this, especially with giving them a more straight forward role like the medic where they are going to be removing disease cubes, let them figure out where they want to go and what they want to do, and then suggest something if you see a better/different option. Cooperative games also has a lot of theme or an interesting theme a lot of times, so it might be easier to grab someones attention.

Speaking of theme, that’s one final way to get more people to play board games. Find your friends who really love The Thing, those are the people who even as non-board gamers might be interested in playing. Or find the theme that people might be interested in, your Lord of the Rings friends might want to play a Lord of the Rings themed game or even a fantasy game as compared to playing a Sci-Fi themed game to start. If you really like Euro games and trading the Mediterranean, you might have to find one that has a theme pasted onto it that people might like better. For example, there are some Euro games with a Vikings theme, that might be easier to get people to play. So look through your collection and figure out who you know who might like some theme in particular.

Now that we’ve gotten some ideas out there, go find your gaming group or make some new fans of board games. Have you tried any of these before, if so, let me know how it went in the comments below…

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

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