The Game – Paper Dungeons

So let’s talk some more about Paper Dungeons. You can see it played, and you can see that I enjoy my plays of this game. But as I’m getting closer to being done with the 12 game campaign, is Paper Dungeons going to be a game I continue playing. Or, once I’ve played all the combos and set-ups will I be ready to move on from the game?

I’m of two minds on this. I think that solo play will probably stop for me. But with multiplayer game, I think that there is still play to interest me. In particular, with it being a race to the gems and a race to the milestones, it would be a different game. In solo play I can try and get every single gem and that’s a good way to get a lot of points. A multiplayer game that is less of an option.

That said, I could see this leaving after a bit if there isn’t more support for it. This game is ready for something to build upon the content. More monsters and scenarios are the obvious thing. But I also think alternative sheets, almost like a 2nd Edition would be great as well to change up what you see as a player on the board, what things you can craft, where the monsters are, things like that. I appreciated that about Deadly Doodles even though that game is simpler. It came with different maps.

The Drink

Just a standard Old Fashioned. Orange bitters, simple syrup and whiskey. It turns out a good drink so I won’t complain about that. I find that orange bitters do make a good drink for sure, but I almost prefer some like grapefruit, rhubarb, or lemon. They add a different element to the flavor. Orange bitters are often too subtle. Now, that is sometimes what you want, though, against a good whiskey. Let the whiskey shine and that bitters just add a bit of a background note. But with a cheaper whiskey, it can be nice to change up the profile.

Upcoming Streams

I think my plan is going to be to finish up Paper Dungeons next week. In particular a Monday and Wednesday stream to take care of the last five games. After that it is going to be learning a new campaign game. I might make a video showing off the table as well since I should have the gaming table coming on Friday.

After that, though, it is going to finally be time for a campaign. Right now I am leaning towards playing some Folklore: The Affliction. One that I have wanted to stream for a little while, but is not really viable until I can leave it set-up. But I have a few options, so help me pick by voting down below, over on Twitter, or on Facebook.

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Easiest To Hardest

Fighter

The first two on the list are by far the easiest to rank. Fighter is not a difficult class to play, mainly because it’s the most common thing that we’d know of. We can think of fighters in basically any movie set in a fantasy setting or a medieval era. And the mechanics are pretty simple as well, most of what you will be doing is fighting with your main weapon. Now you can make it more interesting by adding in additional types of weapons or customizing your attack style in a different way, but mechanically it is a pretty straight forward class to play.

Barbarian

Next up is the Barbarian, much like the fighter they are basically all about fighting in their fairly basic way. The fact that they add in the rage, that makes it very slightly more complicated. Same with the natural defense that they have, but neither of those really make it more difficult to play, they just change is up from how most other classes handle your basic fighting. Once you have the concept of rage down, the Barbarian is as easy to play, or maybe even easier, than the fighter.

Rogue

Next up I went with the Rogue. Now, I do think that the Rogue is a slight step up in terms of complexity. But again it is still going to be more of a standard fighting class. The rogue, however, is shiftier and interacts with their adventuring party more in combat than other classes. They like to focus on enemies are already facing off against someone else to get that sneak attack damage. But they can also go and hide to get bonuses and get away from someone they are fighting easier. It if a little more to keep track of, and they aren’t going to be able to tank like a Fighter or a Barbarian can.

Cleric

Our first spell caster is on the list and it’s the Cleric. Mainly because the concept of a cleric is pretty simple to grasp. The cleric is going to be pass out some buffs, but really, they are going to keep the party on their feet. So slinging around healing spells and making sure if someone gets knocked out they can get back up again, that’s going to be the clerics main focus. There are types of clerics who can fight solidly as well, but most clerics will focus on healing.

Paladin

The Paladin is much like the cleric in that they are good at healing. The difference is they are a half-caster class versus a full caster and that means they have access to fewer spells. Adding in the fighting that a cleric can do, it is definitely a step up in complexity, but not that hard. The main thing to know is that Paladins can convert their spell slots into more damage, so there are two types of Paladins. The first is going to be the type that heals and the other is going to be the type that fights, and generally stick to one instead of trying to do both. But once you pick, then it becomes real easy.

Ranger

Next up we have the Ranger. The Ranger is another half-caster class and can be a bit trickier. There is the Beastmaster Ranger who can have an animal companion which gives them more to do. However, for the most part the Ranger will use a few standard spells, like Hunter’s Mark, and a bow and arrow to deal with their enemies. Some of what becomes trickier are their other abilities. The favorite terrain, how do you work that into a campaign or use that meaningfully. Those are the questions for the Ranger player and DM.

Monk

After the Ranger comes the Monk. These two and the next one are all really close in complexity if you ask me. The Monk is another fighting class. Like the Barbarian it has it’s own way to calculate defense. Where the complexity comes in is the chi that the Monk has. Basically it is a way to manipulate attacks and attackers. Some of the disciplines of the monk give you lots of ways to manipulate your chi so you really need to think about how you spend it.

Wizard

Now we are into caster territory, and the second easiest caster is the Wizard, in my opinion. The Wizard could even go higher, but I think that casters tend to be a bit trickier than some of the other classes. Why is it easier than some of the others, how it casts is very simple. Simple use of spell slots and not much else that a Wizard does besides cast. It just depends on what type of caster you want to be.

Bard

The Bard is also a pretty straight forward casting class. Again, like the Wizard it is just spending spell slots. Where it adds is Bardic inspiration. Bardic Inspiration is basically a way to help your party do better. It gives them a die to spend on a check and the Bard has a limited number. As you go, it can even do more depending on the college you went to as a Bard. Not too complex to play but adds in a little more to do, and a Bard can also get into the fray with combat more.

Druid

These last three could have gone in most any order, but I’m placing the Druid as my third most complex. The reason that it’s sitting here is that the Druid can go in two different ways. There are caster druids and there are wild shape druids, basically think shape shifting. While the caster has some wild shape, they will focus on casting. Whereas a wild shape Druid will cast, but the wild shape is a key to a lot of what they do. Definitely adds in complexity with what creatures you can turn into with your wild shape and when you do.

Warlock

Next is the Warlock, I think that the Warlock could be simpler than some of these, except that it’s casting works very differently than other classes. You have fewer spell slots, they are always as the higher level and you get them back on a short rest. Plus they have their pact and different benefits that they get from what. Once you can wade through how the class plays, there are some solid and simple combos out there, mainly with Eldritch Blast you can take advantage of.

Sorcerer

Finally we have the Sorcerer. I put this one as the most complex even though it’s base casting is simple. You spend a spell slot and cast it. The difference is they have meta magic with sorcery points. You can convert spell slots to points and back. And you pick which meta magics you want to use. So there are more choices to consistently make than other classes, in my opinion.

Are Any Too Complex For A Beginner?

To wrap this up, let’s talk about this question, are any of the classes too complex for a first time player? Yes, but it depends on the player. I wouldn’t give someone who is casually interested in Dungeons and Dragons any of the last three classes. The Druid, Warlock and Sorcerer are probably just a bit too much, and I would maybe shy away from the Ranger and the Monk as well.

However, a player who is really excited about Dungeons and Dragons, they can play any class. No class is too hard out of the box for a player to pick up. Some of them are just going to require a little bit more work to learn than others.

Now, I skipped the Wizard, I think the concepts of the Wizard a good for a new player. And I think that they are pretty easy to learn, they just have a lot of choices. For a new player that might be too many choices, or it might be just fine. But I think even a somewhat interested new player will be able to figure it out, leveling up just might take longer.

Which is your favorite class to play? Are there any that you avoid because they are too simple or too complex?

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The Idea

This is something different, normally I pitch campaigns, this time I want to do something different. This would be three one shots that all come together at the end. I would put together three groups of two players, maybe three players, and take them through the opening part of the race. Let them get to the tower, but when you can see the tower, that is when you end the session. Then you get all three of the groups together and let them fight over and all the way up into the tower.

The trick for running this will be timing. It’s pretty unlikely that all the groups would arrive at the tower at the exact same time. In fact, I think in the one shots you’ll have to be keeping track of timed elements to figure out who makes it to the tower first. Of course, getting up the tower won’t be easy, and you can do things to delay the first group more than the other groups. Then that last session, you have the groups arrive at different times, tell people to start at different times. So if one group was fast, they get there and get an hour to get as far into the tower as they can. Or maybe half an hour, then the other groups show up. Of course, now that the first group has cleared the tower to a point that makes it really fast for the other groups to catch up with them. Now it’s a question of, will any of them survive to the top. Will they work together or will it all fall apart?

So that first session, what would be the plan for that? I think that it should be about finding where the Wizard’s Tower is. create a general map of the lands, and create some points of interest, different ones for each group that they have to get through. One should be focused on combat, give them a number of small missions and then a clue for where the tower is. The next one could be about puzzles and riddles, again getting a clue for where the tower is when they complete it. Another could fall more into skill challenges, and you guessed it another clue. I think that three things would be solid for a one shot, you want them to do enough and lose some hit points, spend some resources, but not have so much to do that you’d need two or three sessions leading into it. The wizard’s tower is magical, so it can get hidden anywhere, so the whole race, I think, makes sense to take place in a day or at most two, so that the players are a bit resource poor leading into the final session.

Then that last session, we’re going to be staggering when people arrive to the table, like I said. The fastest group will do the job of clearing part of the tower. And then it can be a free for all as players and groups try to make it to the top of the tower. I would make this session as crazy as possible. Make nuts puzzles with high checks for things like dexterity and strength. Give really open ended challenges and just see what the players decide to do to solve them. Let PvP happen if the players want it to happen. Or they can work together. Because when they find the top of the tower, there will be a giant monster for them all to fight or get devoured by. I’m thinking like how it’s a monster in the vault in Borderlands that you need to fight. Let them spend resources and just have a blast with it. Who knows, maybe no one will make it to the top.

Challenges

Now, I think this could be a good game to run. However, this is a very challenging game to run. You need more buy in from the people playing in the game. In a normal campaign, you can pivot a little as you realize what the players are really looking for in the game. But with this, it’s going to be harder, the game is almost on rails, though stuff like picking which spot to checkout first is going to be up to the players. If they fight the other groups, that’s going to be up to the players. But this would be more coordinating. How I’d probably do it is that I’d run the first session on the way to the tower over a single week and then that weekend, Saturday afternoon, I’d plan to meet up at a local FLGS that has food and drinks and make an afternoon and into an evening out of it.

Timing everything up as well is going to be interesting as well. I think that getting 30 minutes off of another groups time makes sense, so if one group is really late, they start an hour later than the others in terms of making it to the tower. Now, you could have everyone arrive at the same time, but it’d be kind of fun to have the groups show up to that last session at a staggered times to kind of create more of the feel of what happened in the game. Again, that makes it a bit trickier as you are trying to coordinate times.

Would You Run This Game?

Even for me, this game is a hard sell to run or play in. I like the concept a lot, but of all the people I have ran D&D for locally, I don’t know that I have enough to pull off a game like this. I’d really like to do it with nine people, three groups of three, and I could maybe make that work, but getting schedules to work together, that’d just be tricky. Even for six players, three groups of two, that is tricky. And I thought about this maybe at a con setting, but to commit to two sessions of a single game is a lot for a lot of players who really want to just get to trying as many things as possible.

How about you, would you run a game like this? Would you play in a game like this?

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The Session

After spending last session continuing their investigation, the party, Thrain, Barrai, Bokken, and Kip head back to the school to talk to Assendial. The school is still in chaos as the teachers are talking to the Half-Orc, Lasanial, whose room the group had found the second scarab in. Catching Assendial’s attention, they get her to come over and talk with them.

The chat is pretty brief. They fill her in on some of what happened and asked if they thought Lasanial was the culprit. Assendial says that he seems to be telling them the truth that he had no idea what had been going on. And they find out that Lasanial has made of lot of money in the fights which is why he had so much money and stuff in his room. They tell her a little bit about their suspicions of Addrus, but don’t go into full details as to why. But they do confirm that he should have only had four keys for the bank, from the school. Assendial says that she saw Addrus going to their barracks with Parrag while the party was out looking for him.

The party rushes over to the barracks to look for Addrus and confront him and try and get more information from him. They burst in and see Parrag lying face down on Barrai’s bed. Addrus is no where to be found in the room. Barrai goes to try and wake Parrag and Bokken steps outside to see if he can see anything suspicious. The place is still noisy, but Bokken hears something from the other side of the barracks and decides to investigate.

We drop into combat at this point; as Bokken goes around the corner and sees Addrus, the friends whom he’d met with in the market for a meal the time Bokken was following him, the adult whom had been with them, and Castillia. They are all making their way towards a wagon, though for Castillia it’s against her will. Bokken raises the alarm to the other three and charges into battle.

Things start out going well for the group. Bokken takes out one of Addrus’s friends in the first round and makes his way towards the wagon where it looks like they are going to try and kidnap Castillia. The other three come around the corner to see the battle in full swing. Turns out that Addrus friends can use magic and are slinging around magic missile spells at everyone and they do a fair amount of damage to Bokken. Everything moves along nicely for our players as Kip, Thrain, and Barrai keep things interesting for the friends and Addrus, including Barrai throwing down a sleep spell. However, that sleep spell knocks out the two friends who are moving Castillia and Castillia just as Bokken reaches the wagon.

The adult, clearly frustrated with how the battle is going, decides to join the fight and drops a fireball on everyone, minus himself and the horses. Most of them manage to make the saving throw, but with the damage that they already have taken, it takes down all of Addrus’s friends, Bokken, and Kip. Thrain casts a magical darkness over the wagon as Barrai heals Kip getting him back into the fight. Addrus comes charging out of the darkness and throws two daggers taking down Barrai. And the adult, in the darkness, disappears, which surprises Thrain as he can see through magical darkness. Thrain rushes into the dark, to avoid being attacked and seeing both Castillia and Bokken down casts Spare the Dying on both of them. Outside of the darkness, Addrus comes to attack Kip to take him out, but Kip casts the second sleep spell of the battle and Addrus falls asleep.

At this point in time we drop out of combat and the teachers, some second years, and Sanphire come around the corner to see what has happened. Thrain drops darkness so that they can see everything, and Assendial heals the party and Castillia getting them back to their feet. She tells all of them to come join her for a conversation. As they head back, Bokken grabs a few things from the wagon, Addrus’s trunk, a cloak with the initials L.M., F., and A.O., he also stops to check on Parrag and grab Dorin’s trunk again. Parrag is just unconscious, so Bokken lugs all of that to Assendial’s office. She heals them all again and that brings Parrag back to consciousness.

They fill in Assendial on what happened with the fight, but then say that Castillia might know more. She tells Assendial that she’d seen Addrus go out of the barracks with some people so she’d decided to investigate because Barrai and Kip had asked her about Addrus. Going into the barracks, she’d found Parrag unconscious and been grabbed two of Addrus’s friends who were still in the room, shortly after that the fight started, so Parrag might know more. He says that he wad spotted Addrus so he’d gone to ask him about the extra key, why Addrus had borrowed his shirt, and why he’d gone missing. Of course, Addrus’s friends had been there and they knocked him out. Assendial asks them some more questions, but nothing much more comes to light. The group tries to get paid for their investigation, but Assendial basically tells them no because she knows they’ve taken money from some of the other rooms.

Behind the DM’s Screen

I came up with this idea for a fight after last session. I had originally planned for them to run into Addrus at the bazaar, where he’d been before, but the group went to the bank and the bar to look for him instead. I figured, since time has passed, he’d have made it back to school, but with the year end, he’d probably be looking to ditch quickly as well, especially once he knows the party has been sniffing around.

I actually had a plan of how I wanted this fight to go, did it go that way, nope. In my plan it was going to be a countdown of a few rounds until something happened, the fireball, and then whomever was left in Addrus’s group would make a break for it on the wagon. However, I put in modified Acolytes into the fight as Addrus’s friends, they can do some things, but not take hits from Bokken when he attacks it turns out. I should have gone with less but tougher ones if I were to do it again. So when Bokken got close to the wagon and the boss who was based off of the [redacted] template. That boss decided it might be better, not really planning on fighting, to set off his attack early and drop a fireball on everyone. I let the players roll for that just in case it waited a round before it happened, but it didn’t.

I wanted this more set piece type fight also in this session as we’ve gotten through the first year. Now the players have their next mission that they decided, deliver Dorin home, and also have a villain who can come back. Overall a successful and fun session.

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What Archetype Of Character Do I Want To Be

This is pretty big, but we’re talking about a pretty big generality here, do you want to be a sneaky character, or maybe a helpful one, maybe you want to be able to rush into battle or sling spells from afar. Think about the broad terms that you can play. Bring this general idea to the table for your character creation as it’ll give you something to build off of and help you make more informed choices. Another way to do this is to think about your favorite people, normally in fiction, but could be from the real world, and think about what makes them them. If you love Yoda, what is essential Yoda, we have the age, the wisdom and the force powers, but when he was younger, slightly, also could be a nimble fighter. So look for those characters or people you really love and think about what would make them an interesting D&D character.

This Is a Chance to Play Pretend But Start Similar To Yourself

Now, I just got done saying, pick your archetype and pick whatever sounds like fun, but infuse it with your personality. Playing a role playing game is great because you get to take on other personalities and dive into a life and a world that isn’t you, but for your first character, unless you’ve done a lot of acting, it’s going to generally be you. Even if you don’t want it to be, unless your a seasoned actor or improv performer, you’re going to drop back into playing yourself or making decisions based off of what you’d actually do. So instead of pulling away from that and being frustrated when it does happen or feeling like you aren’t on the level of Critical Role, instead make your first character like you, but with a few twists on it. Give yourself a few fun things that you can interact with that are different than yourself, but keep general personality pretty close to your own, because most of the time it’ll end up there for your early player characters.

Constitution Is Your Friend

I don’t care that you want to be this wispy elf wizard who is gaunt and stares off into the distance while vowing to never eat again, constitution is your friend. It’s easy to think that it mainly matters for fighters or barbarians or anyone on the front line, and that stat is very important to them, but a -1 on constitution for a wizard who has D6 for their hit die, that means you start off with 5 health. There are a lot of monsters that can kill you at that point. At worst have a 0 in constitution, but most classes and characters, I really think having a +1 one is huge, even if your just taking the average of your hit die, that +1 is really important, and if you’re rolling for your hit points each level, that keeps you from ever doing too poorly.

Backgrounds Can Evolve

With the background you are picking some personality traits, ideals, flaws, and bonds. For your first character I’m telling you to keep a broader picture of who they are going to be, and the background can feel like it’s locking you in. Talk with your DM, and they should know this already, but backgrounds and personality are fairly fluid in the first few sessions. You might have wanted this charismatic Barbarian, but instead they are kind of a dick to everyone. Or maybe you want them to be the face, but instead they use their charisma as a quiet confidence and less of the face. Less the background will be changing, but the personality traits, flaws, bonds, and ideals might change and evolve as you go. Totally expect this to happen, especially if you are going with a bigger departure from your own personality.

Finally, Being Bad at Something Isn’t Bad, It’s Good

When playing an imaginary character there’s a strong desire to be good at everything, because who doesn’t want to be awesome at everything all the time? But that’s not going to be the most fun character. It might be pretty fun for you, but it won’t be fun for the other people at the table if you’re better at the things they’re supposed to be good at. But beyond that, you’re playing a character who is supposed to grow and evolve throughout the game. And, you are also going to be put in more fun and interesting situations if you aren’t good at everything. Maybe you’re the fighter, why should you be good at sneaking around, you’re just ready to bash stuff with a sword, so when you fail to sneak all the time, that’s something you can play into. Your deficiencies on the character sheet are not weaknesses but role playing opportunities for you to create a fun and memorable character.

Now, there’s a whole lot more I could talk about when building your first character, and I’ll probably go more into the details of it in future articles, but these are some big picture items to consider when building your first character that might be overlooked. What general advice have you given new players, if you’ve played a bunch before, for their first character? What piece of advice stands out to you from this article?

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

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Quick reminder of our characters:
Thrain the Hill Dwarf who became a Hexblade Warlock
Bokken the War Forged who was granted the ability to become a great Fighter (Samurai)
Barrai the Tiefling who now gets to use their musical and story telling skills as a Bard (sub-class to be determined)

At this point in time, they are all level 1.

Upon leaving the tower they were given what basically was an exit interview to gather what their powers they had been granted. A runner took all of their skills around to the various schools, but the characters (players) were given a free choice of what school they wanted to pick as a group.

There were eight different schools:
School of Spying and Espionage
School of War and Combat
School of Charm and Seduction
School of Wisdom
School of Business and Money
School of Order and Government
School of Nature and Raw Emotion
School of Dark Arts and Assassination

They went with the last one, though they did debate for a little while around some other the other ones, The School of War and Combat made sense and they were also interested in Nature and Raw Emotion. At that booth they spoke to Tormin, a recruiter and one of the teachers at the School of Dark Arts and Assassination and had to explain why they wanted to go and what skills they had that would be useful for the Strawhog – Ye Old School of Darkness and Magic. Tormin told them that they’d be in a barracks, bunk house, type set-up with another person who had gone through the trial of the Tower at the same time as them, a Gnome named Dorin.

Then I gave them two weeks of time to do whatever they wanted, Barrai practiced the harpsichord, Bokken picked up work at a warehouse and made a bunch of money moving boxes non-stop for that time. Thrain went to brush on his fighting and sparring at a local combat focused gym.

Showing up at the school, Strawgoh, they met Dorin. He was a pompous little gnome who clearly had a chip on his shoulder and was trying to be important. Barrai made friends with him by bribing him with a gold piece, but Bokken really didn’t acknowledge him, and Thrain constantly referred to him as a halfling, as a goof, though the best part was when the player, not the character, forgot that it wasn’t a halfling. They dropped their stuff off in the barracks and then joined the other nine students for their introduction to the school.

Head Mistress Assandial told them about the school, about how hard it was going to be, about how they still might die, even in the school and if anyone wanted to leave now they could. But everyone stuck it out. She then told them what became the focus of the rest of the session, there were two spies in their midst, two of the people had been recruited prior to the test of the Tower and already had some training. Those two would get extra credit if they could stay hidden for the year. But if someone correctly figured out who they were, they could get those extra credit points. But wrong guesses, there was a consequence for that.

Bokken immediately began investigating and looked for the people who stood out the most, the richest, the prettiest, whatever caught his eye. He spotted a halfling who looked rich and spoke to Narius. While Narius was a bit of a pompous jerk, Bokken didn’t get the feeling that Narius was likely a spy at that time and decided to offer to work for him if he had a job. Which, Narius said he would consider it once they graduate and he started his own assassin’s guild.

They talked to a bunch of other of their classmates, Domon a Tiefling Warlock who wasn’t that smart. Thrain interjected himself into a conversation between Cordin a Dragonborn Wizard and Sadran the Aasimar Wizard who Bokken had noticed earlier. Sadran was nice enough, but Cordin treated Thrain fairly rudely. They talked to Addruss a Human Fighter who had gone through the Trial of the Tower with Castilla a Wood Elf Rogue.

Barrai used his ability to cast the message spell to get information from Domon that he’d gone through the tower trial with the Aasimar, Sadran, and an Elf whom the players haven’t talked to yet.

At one point, Dorin, appointing himself, or trying to appoint himself, leader of the barracks decided to confront the party and see if they’d just tell them that they were spies. However, the party turned it on him pointing out that he was the only to survive the group of four, which seemed fairly suspicious to them.

Finally, the party talked to Edzial, a Dwarf whom they don’t know what class she has yet. However, she says that she went through the trial with Domon, Sadran, and the elf that they didn’t talk to. And the characters call her out on that. She gives a reason that they is investigating to see how much they know, but the players note that she, like Dorin, is the only one who didn’t have party survive the trial of the tower.

The players, since they decided that they could trust Castilla, spoke with her about their suspicions as to who might be the spies, but they really didn’t have all that much proof and they didn’t want a wrong accusation on their record. Barrai, since he is also a Tiefling and Domon had made a big deal out of that earlier, leveraged that friendship to convince Domon, not the brightest character, that he should go and accuse Dorin for them.

And that’s where I ended the session with Domon off to do that.

The DM Notes portion, if you don’t want to see behind the screen don’t read further.

There were only a handful of rolls in this session, once they started talking to people, they rolled for several insight checks but that was about it. I’ve run sessions like this before with little rolling but it wasn’t planned.

So about the planning itself, I had all 8 schools determined and I had the cast of characters, teachers and students whom they’d meet at whatever school they went to. Would they have always been paired with Dorin, no, Barrai asked early who they were going to be paired with, and I had him roll a D10 to determine which out of 11 students they’d be paired with, yes the math doesn’t work.

Also, for preparing for something like this, don’t come up with a new batch of teachers and students for each school, my four teachers (two of them met so far), and nine students were going to have the same names no matter what. Now, the fact that Dorin is a Gnome Rogue and Castilla is a Wood Elf Rogue, those things could have changed.

I was also potentially prepared for combat in this scenario. Only because they went to the school of Dark Arts and Assassination did they end up being a test and students. It was going to be a school who was going to send in some spies that the players would have had to have fought and figured out what they were after instead. But it worked well this way for the school.

Strawgoh is Hogwarts backwards and because of that Bokken now has a commanding officer, mentor named Rettop Yrrah as well, Harry Potter backwards.

This session went really well and I had a lot of fun with it, even though it wasn’t dice chucking combat or an epic set piece of massive story, it was a bunch of different smaller social interactions, some funny, some normal that the players had. Even with the funny ones probably being the most entertaining, the players have already gravitated and made Castilla someone who is going to be important later because they trust her, you never know who they will pick.

Feel free to steal ideas from this for your own game and let me know, what would you have picked for a school in the players shoes? Do you think they are right and Dorin is a spy (I should say, spies were set before they got Dorin as a bunk mate)?

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In Locke & Key, it’s a story about a family who return to their father’s family house and the kids start finding magical keys throughout the house. Right there you have a basis for a game of D&D, so let’s see how I’m going to suggest turning it into one.

To start off with, you are likely not going to have kids nor, in a heavily fantasy setting, do I think that you’ll want to have a particular house or single location where all these keys are stored. Instead, you have Ashiri, a famous wizard from thousands of years ago, who legend has it, created many magical items and drove the fields of magic forward. No one knows what she created, but there are a lot of people who would love to get a hand on her work. Unfortunately there are a lot of con artists out there as well who claim to sell her items.

The game would start around discovering some sort of clue to the location of one of these items. Or the location, maybe, of one of the places that she worked, something where a lower level party is going to be able to do a dungeon crawl through it. Come up with a reason, such as the manuscript with it on having just been found as to why people haven’t gone there to loot it before. And don’t just give the players the information make them buy it, somehow, they can decide if they want to owe a favor later, agree to give away 75% of what they find, or something like that.

Give them a dungeon crawl but when they make it to the place, they find a locked door, not magically locked, from the outside, but something that a rogue would be able to pick, a wizard magic open, or a barbarian bash open. Let them get inside, and then that’s when you start having fun, you close the door behind them, even if the fighter or barbarian bashed through it, the door reconstructs and it’s magical, so immune to all damage, can’t be picked, and while the wizard can cast magic on it, if they have identify, they’ll know that it needs a particular magical item to open it, but what that item is, who knows.

Then give them a dungeon crawl, and hide a couple of keys in there. Don’t make them easy to find, but with two keys in there, and again, if they have identify, they’ll know they are magical and match up with the door. But only one of them should allow them out. The other one should do something else. I like the idea of the mirror prison from Locke & Key, where a player character might end up getting trapped. And maybe even have them find a third key that they think will work on the door but is more like the head key from Locke & Key where it goes into the back of someone’s neck.

I wouldn’t really put a ton of monsters in this dungeons, maybe some skeletons or something undead that Ashiri could have used as guards, but this place is meant to have been sealed up for a long time. Instead give them challenges and puzzles. Maybe there is a trap in a hallway that they can see because there’s a dead skeletal person in armor who has been cut in two. Well, they know there’s a trap there, and with a perception check they can see where blades or something that had cut them in two and also spot some pressure plates or something on the far end of the room that stops it. So give them things to do that focus on the characters abilities.

Once they get through this and have dealt with all the traps and they’ve headed back, I don’t know that you need to double cross them, but maybe have it that the person who got them to do this was blackmailed by someone else to send someone into get this, because the last person they sent in had failed, can even be the dead guy cut in half, so you could start tipping off the players. Or if the players get greedy, have someone come after them and start chasing them down. But while doing this, start hinting that the keys work anywhere, and have given them a clue to more of Ashiri’s locations.

Eventually, I think the campaign ends with them finding a near immortal version of Ashiri who has been twists and corrupted by some sort of magic. There can be some lesser bosses along the way, those who just want the keys for their own nefarious purposes. But make Ashiri someone who isn’t hiding away in one of her former places but is living publicly somehow. That’d make the players questions some of the things, or maybe Ashiri has been cursed to never enter her former places because she was going to bring on the end of the world. But go with an epic climax like that where whom the players thought someone was, it wasn’t the case.

I think that there’d be good buy-in pretty often from groups of players for this, and there’s a lot of room to play with it as the DM. You can create keys that do anything, which is the great part, and you can borrow from Locke & Key. The Head Key, from Locke & Key would work great if someone has gone insane and they have to go and rescue themselves from their own head or something like that or go into someone else’s head to try and pry out some information that they don’t remember. The Echo key to bring back a twisted echo of someone, especially if it’s a fallen player character would be amazing twist on things.

So would you play in a game like this or run one? What sort of character would you want to play?

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In the Players Handbook, Monster Manual, and Dungeon Master’s Guide, there is one primary way that the game is built for you getting experience, and that’s through combat encounters (and encounters of other types), but in combat, each monster has a certain number of experience points that they give you to divide between the party. This is the standard way, then comparing your total experience to that of the level chart, when you hit a certain amount of experience you go up a level.

While this is the classic method, I’m not a huge fan of it. First, it adds to me doing more math as the Dungeon Master when building an encounter and as players then when dividing up and adding in experience. Now, it doesn’t have to be difficult math, but if someone misses a session, does their character still get experience for it? If they don’t, that causes even more of a mess because now characters will not in sync level wise and since the game tends to be more combat focused when you are using encounter/combat based experience, that means that a character might be lagging behind with that. On the other hand, this is the classic way to do it, and for video game players, it’s how almost all RPG’s work there, so it is something that they might enjoy.

My preferred method of leveling up and experience is to actually not track experience and go with something called, event or milestone leveling. When you hit a certain point in your characters story or in the over-arching story, you get to level up. The advantages of this come from leveling up in those moments where the story becomes more epic, you become more epic with it. You also don’t need to track everything and keep count of kills and what was killed, instead it levels you at proper thematic points. The downside is that if there is a point in the game where you are grinding through a dungeon and things aren’t changing, there might not be that character milestone or story event launches you to the next level. Instead you are stuck at a lower level for a while, while you’re waiting to go up and take off into a new ability for your character. That’s something, as a Dungeon Master, when using this method, that you need to be aware of, not to let the levels sit too long and instead focus on creating those epic moments every few sessions.

But, a friend, introduced me to an interesting idea from a video he’d watched on Professor Dungeon Master Youtube Channel. This concept is that you get a few points that you are tracking for experience, if things go really well in a session, you get 3 XP or maybe 4 XP. If things go awry, you get 1 XP, if it’s just okay 2 XP. And when you hit 10 XP, you “level up”. But, instead of just getting the level up, you need to do something in game or in downtime between sessions to get your character leveled up. This could be a little mini quest, such as a paladin destroying a cults temple and building up one to their god, Professor Dungeon Master’s example, or it could be something that is more tied into the main quests of the campaign. So you’re tracking experience, but at a limited level. And then to actually gain that level, you need that epic quest/story moment for your character so that they have a reason to gain new skills.

Now, I think that is an interesting option that I’m going to want to try at some point in time. What’s interesting about it to me is that it gives the players something to track in terms of experience points, they can see how close they are getting to leveling up at the end of a session, but they and I don’t need to do a lot of math and figuring for the game. It’s just adding together single digit numbers until you hit 10, and then you start again. I also like, and this is something that’s bugged me with Dungeons and Dragons leveling, is that you could, theoretically, just because of a random encounter on a travel somewhere level up, and now the Wizard knows more spells, the fighter is better with their sword, and the Druid can change into more animals. So, while it can delay leveling a little bit, I like how a character needs to complete some sort of quest or mission for that character or the story overall. So we’ve talked about a Paladin, but a Druid planting a small grove and getting that started in an area, that could give you a level up, a fighter going and defeating some low life thug on their own to stop them from going after other people, that’s something that would work as well. But I think it gives a chance for players and the DM to be more creative in storytelling, and you can decide how much you want to spend in game on this, but you could also go between sessions as well for leveling up.

If you’re playing, do you have a preferred method? I don’t think that any of them are bad, I just don’t want to do the math, so I haven’t done the more combat focused gaining for experience. Would you try out another method other than your preferred one? Let me know in the comments below.

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Quick refresher, high magic means that magic is common and is used for common tasks or that towns will often have a healer or someone who can cast some spells. When people see you cast a spell they won’t want to either worship you or burn you as a witch. Low magic means that magic is rare. If you can do magic, you might be revered or you might be seen as an abomination that should be killed.

Now that that’s out of the way, let’s talk about how it can affect how you role play in a game.

I think if you’re a magic user in a high magic world, you aren’t going to be set apart at a lower level. A spell like mend or cure wounds, your small towns are probably going to have someone who can do those things. People are just going to see that as normal and it won’t be until you start casting higher level spells that you’ll be considered special. In game, I would use that a motivation for a character, you want to be the best smartest wizard, most powerful sorcerer, or devout cleric. It gives a reason for a character to go off adventuring from their small town where they might be able to live a good life, but they want more because they’ve heard of that powerful and revered wizard who now consults for nations and can travel to other planes of existence, you want to be like that. Or maybe you have a rival who is just slightly better than you.

You can also, since magic is common, take some role playing queues from maybe you are just common and not needed in your town. You can almost be kicked out to go find a small town where your skills are needed or maybe you’re just not as good yet, as the person in town, so they want you to take over as being the towns healer, but they send you away to get more experience first. So instead of leaving to make a name, you might be leaving to adventure so that you can come back home. I like this one because it can give you a nice hook for adventuring and gives the DM something to play with.

Let’s look at the flip side of this, what if there is very little magic in the world, how do you role play that?

Firstly, there’s always getting kicked out of your town because you’re a witch or needing to flee, especially if it isn’t a holy magic. So any class that isn’t Cleric or Paladin could be seen as being some sort of abomination. And if you’re a Warlock, maybe your pact actually is with a demon. But, how can you use that to role play. You might be out to prove that you are in fact great. Or prove that your town should have kept you around because some day they might need you. This is a very chaotic and potentially neutral or even possible for an evil character. And, again I like it for a hook as a DM, at some point in time, when you have the power to stop something to happening, I’d force you to make a decision, do you go back to your home town to save them or do you let them burn because they kicked you out? If you still have family there, did they kick you out or was it the town, do you need to still save them?

Or, on the other hand, you might be almost revered. Does that make your character pompous because they can do something else that others can’t and everyone loves them for it? Will they hold that over everyone? I can see a couple of backstory hooks, one where the town sends out the person to save them from some impending doom because you are the best person for it in the town and you must be able to save them because you have magic. But what happens if you can’t? The other would be if you’re playing more a pompous character, are you going to go out and make a name for yourself because the town you’re from is too small? If someone did that, I would then definitely have something happen to the town that you could have stopped, and how does that affect the character? Is it an acceptable loss for their fame or do they feel guilt over something having happened?

There are a ton of hooks you can choose to play around with for both low and high magic worlds and playing a spell caster in them. I didn’t even get into how it might affect party dynamics, but that’s something you’d probably need to role play out with your own adventuring group. Do any of the hooks I’ve presented interest you? Have you played a character like any of those before?

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In my opinion, the best starting point is to look and determine if your character is a “support” or “attacker” character. Now, It’s possible to be a blend of both, and even if you lean towards being a support character, you should have at least an attack spell option, and if you’re an attacker, you should have some more support style spells for non-combat situations. It’s very tempting to go all in on either side, but there will be times when you need the other spells.

For example, if you’re a support character and you’re in combat, you’re at the point where most of the party is down but the monster is mainly dead. If you take a good hit from the monster, you’re probably dead as well, and that would end the combat with you all losing the fight. You could get someone else back on their feet with a couple of hit points, but at this point in time, you’re more apt to survive an attack than they would be. Do you just do the support thing and heal someone, watch them get knocked out again, heal them again, and keep that up until you run out of spells? That doesn’t sound like that fun at the table, and it also doesn’t really sound like it’s going to win the combat for your adventuring party. So you can attack, but you didn’t take a good attack spell or any attack spells, so you’re kind of stuck just healing.

The big thing that’s happening in the scenario is that you’re creating a prolonged and possibly stalemated battle for a chunk of time. And while attacking might not be what your character would normally do, a good attack would potentially end that stalemate. But it’s going to cause people to have more fun at the table because it isn’t a cycle of revive, monster knocks out, revive, monster knocks out, and so on and so forth. Adding in attack spell doesn’t stop you from being mainly support, but it can keep the game moving and keep it more interesting. The same goes for the flip side, maybe you’re a fire wizard and you’re up against a dragon that is resistant to fire damage. First, your DM’s a bit of a jerk if it happens all the time, but now you’re out of combat, so what do you do? You can attack, but it won’t do as much, but if you had a support spell or two, you’d be able to still interact with the combat. Or, maybe you want to be the best in combat, why not have your signature attack spell(s) but then also have the ability to support yourself so that you can truly be the best in combat and not have to rely on others for that aid.

This is all good to think about when picking your spells, but not actually picking spells. Let’s go with a Wizard as an example like I did in a previous article on magic. Our Wizard is fairly smart, 16 intelligence, so we get start with 4 spells known and 3 cantrips at first level. We have 2 first level spell slots as well, and I want to be an attacking focused Wizard. I believe in calling down the powers of the elements to smite my enemies and I might like fire a bit too much.

When I’m looking at cantrips, I know for sure that I want to get at least one, if not two attacking cantrips out of the three. These, at low levels, are going to be my go to spells (and even at higher levels), so I want something that feels like a signature ability that I can theme my character off of, or that has fire, because I’m a pyro. So the first cantrip is going to be Fire Bolt, a good attack spell with really good range, 120 ft. That allows me, since I’m a wizard and am always going to have lower armor class and hit points, to be at a safe distance for attacking and not being attacked. The other attack one I’m going to take is Thunderclap, this one is a bit of a jerk spell, because it can hit my allies, but it’s an area of affect, so that is a nice way to hit a lot of creatures if need be. Finally, a utility cantrip of light, simple spell, even if I have darkvision, that doesn’t mean I can see in pitch black, so good utility for outside of combat. Now we’re onto the first level, and with four known spells at first level, I’m going to consider a couple more attack spells, but again, we’re a pretty quishy character, so I’m going to grab shield as a spell. That is going to help keep you up. Witch Bolt is a good ranged spell that does lightning damage. Longstrider is going to be my first enhancing spell for my abilities on the combat field with an extra 10 feet of movement. Magic Missile is then my final one, a spell that doesn’t do massive damage, but it will do consistent damage.

Let’s break down what I picked, I’ve already done some why. Thunderclap and Fire Bolt both give me consistent spells to attack with. Witch Bolt and Magic Missile give me damage when I need a boost of damage. Magic Missile is the consistent damage when I need to finish everything off. The damage ones are definitely the most obvious spells, the others are just fairly obvious, but what I’m trying to create with my attacking wizard is a situation where I can keep out of range, Longstrider, boost my armor class to avoid an attack as needed, Shield, and be able to see outside of combat or even in combat if I’m fighting something with truesight or blindsight. But with so few spell slots available to me, I’m not going to use the first level spells for attacks all that often, it’ll mainly be for shield and then I’ll use my cantrips for attacking. There is a downside for that because cantrips aren’t as good for attack spells, but with a fairly high intelligence, it helps out the odds.

And, I only picked 4 of my 7 spells as attack spells. But even with that, I have a variety of damage, thunder, fire, lightning, and force, so I can get around most damage reductions. And while Fire Bolt will be my signature, the others have good utility for combat. Thunderclap has an area of affect, Magic Missile will never miss, and Witch Bolt can hang around for a while and continue to do damage. When I get to hire levels, I already have picked some utility damage spells, so I can focus in on more fire damage because I know that is going to be my signature element, but I have enough that I can still be effective if fire isn’t.

And when picking utility spells, I looked, besides the cantrip, as to what can boost my effectiveness in combat. Sure, I might want to use magic missile a one of my first level spells, but Longstrider allows me to avoid, which, again, I’m squishy, cause I’m a Wizard, and Shield is there for the same reason. I can’t be an awesome fighter if I’m constantly getting knocked out. At higher levels I’ll be able to improve upon those options as well with spells like Blur which make me even harder to hit.

I can flip this as well, and while I’d probably still keep a spell like Fire Bolt and Magic Missile (it’s kind of a signature of Dungeons and Dragons for a spell), I’d focus more on what can help other people. Longstrider on a Dwarf would allow them to charge into combat faster. Though, a Wizard probably isn’t the best support class out there, they do have some decent options as you get into higher levels. A class like Cleric would give you more support options.

When picking spells do you pick a variety of them or do you really focus in on attack spells or support? Have you every made a mistake with the spells that you’ve picked? I guess, that’s the last bit to write about for me, the mistakes and what what can mean. In Season 2 of Dungeons and Flagons the wizard picked a lot of weird attack spells, but they are were all area of affect spells, so that meant with two melee characters rounding out the party, he was always, when attacking, going to do damage to them as well. So thinking through your spells is important.

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