Roll20 and Online Gaming

Those who follow me on twitter will have seen a few comments about Roll20. It is in essence, a program that organizes encounters, images, story telling, and game mechanics in a browser based system to allow DMs and PCs the ability to play online. While people have been using skype, email, and chatrooms to hold D&D games online for years now, this all-in-one program has brought a number of key elements together. Roll20 allows video, voice, and chat communication between long distance players and a shared battle grid where players can move and update the stats of their own characters.

My group has been a revolving door of players. We’ve had as many as seven and as little as three players at the table. Two of those 3-7 players are also long distance, and have skyped in for every session since they moved to the other side of the country. Roll20 is still within a closed beta period and won’t be out for a few more months but it is quickly becoming a viable option for my party and the obstacles we face.

Right now my biggest problem with the program is a lack of tile artwork that lets me piece together encounter environments. Though you can scan and upload your own tiles and artwork there is a limit as to how much you can put up on your Roll20 account. Roll20 will be free to use in the future, but if you require more space to upload tiles/artwork it seems you will have to pay a fee. The other option around this is developing a large art community around Roll20 where people create custom tile pieces.

Small shortcomings aside, this looks like a solid, simplified idea that could become a staple for the pen and paper community and may prevent the deaths of many fledgling campaigns with players that are moving to new places.

A good overview video of the program can be found here.

Their main website and more details can be found at http://roll20.net/

Party of Three and that other guy

I’ve written about companion characters before and discussed how much I enjoy them. The DM PC has always been feared by D&D groups before and I find that playing as a CC (companion character) has always been a great way to play a little as DM and not steal the show. I’ve also greatly enjoyed the opportunities the CC has opened up for me. Being able to remind players of objectives or little details, leading them a little through a session, or even just full out rail roading them becomes much more acceptable when doing it through an ally. I’ve discovered it’s much easier to bring out an NPC’s backstory by making them into an official party member and letting the players see how this new guy operates in battle, skill challenges, and role play. Overall, I love the CC as a DM.

The companion character is also great for something else. Not screwing over your plans when trying to organize a session. I have a core group of players who are almost always ready to roll dice when we organize a session. Not only are they ready to play but they are willing to try new things, they role play extensively, and best of all two of them skype in from halfway across the country. These players are more than any DM could hope for. Now this is not to rag on the others who drop in and out of my game, let’s be honest everyone has more important things to do than to play D&D, but three is such a…difficult number. Three core players means only three of four roles covered in the game, no doubling up on important party roles, and an unbalanced variety of skills. Trying to run a 4th Edition game with three players can be a challenge and yet I have learned that it has its advantages.

CCs can be awesome

I almost always throw in a companion character into the group when we are a little under-staffed. It’s a challenge to create one that fills out a controller role because their powers require a bit more book keeping, but I will always strive to make a character that is of actual use to the party and not put them at a disadvantage. Beyond the actual mechanical issues with not having four full players, the real advantage to using CCs is the time it takes to run encounters and the social aspect of the game. I have seen on twitter, blogs, and forums many complaints about the run time for encounters, skill challenges, and overall decision making. 4th Edition was originally hailed as a vast improvement over 3rd in terms of encounter length. I’ve found three player parties with a fourth companion character move incredibly fast through encounters. You’re generally designing encounters with only three players who have to worry about their myriad of powers options, smaller numbers of enemies, and one significantly less complicated NPC. There are less player turns, the DM has less monsters to run, and the companion character has only a couple options available to him. On top of all of that I found monster types really shine with smaller parties. Minions last longer and remain a nuisance, Brutes feel like proper lumbering monsters and don’t get hacked down so easily, and artillery have an easier time of focusing fire on the players. Running 4th edition with a smaller party feels pretty stripped down and runs exceptionally well. Which brings me to…

Decision Time

The part of my games that probably take as long as, if not more, than combat is decision making. I have found that 2-3 people in a regular conversation is the optimal number when you’re having any kind of in depth discussion. When it comes to a game like D&D where I try to give my players a sand box, they will take forever to choose their next step. Do they steal a boat? Investigate a haunted cemetary? Go shopping? These are fun don’t get me wrong, but flipping through the Adventurer’s Vaults and MME to give them an inventory of things to buy from can get tedious. In a group of three players there are a significantly smaller number of ideas to pass around and discuss. Not only does combat speed up but the choices the party has to make requires less time to make. Many of my players will speak bluntly in smaller groups and simply point a specific objective they want to achieve. As long as the other two at the table can find something they can get out of it, they are already out the tavern door spoiling for a fight. It’s not unheard of for my games to either finish early or go through more than two to three encounters per session when I run a smaller party.

Shifty’s Challenge

Due to the announcement of 5th edition, the community surrounding the current edition of the game has kind of died down. The old complaints that 4e is bogged down with too much ‘stuff’ have resurfaced and people are quickly abandoning the game and biding their time for the next shiny new edition. So what I suggest for all you DMs out there is get yourself a group of three players (the lower the level the better), write up a great companion character, and start running some adventures. You may discover that a smaller party just might rekindle your love for this edition. Who knows you might just start a whole new campaign.

Update on Shifty 2012

I have not updated the site in a while but that’s alright because I plan on getting back into it soon enough. I’ve decided to do a small post on myself, the new year, and new things I want to do. So without further ado…

 

Exercise

I get a little stir crazy every winter. The first two months of snowfall is great, but after the fourth or fifth month of it I start to get a little antsy. I’ve also have let my physical fitness slide the last few years so I’ve decided to start start biking at least 15 minutes, three times a week. Many of us D&D players/DMs are book readers, and video game players, and it’s easy for us to sit down after work and just relax. But, I’ve noticed the moment I go back to an exercise regimen I feel A) awful for not keeping fit and B) feel great afterwards for actually getting off my butt. I’ve been trying to keep active until the snow clears up and then I’ll probably be spending more time outside.

Video Games

Don’t get me wrong, I love Elder Scrolls, but every time they drop a new game on us it seems like the rest of the video game world doesn’t exist. And that is crazy! I started seriously playing Deus Ex: Human Revolution and discovered what a phenomenal game this is! I can’t believe that it didn’t get more coverage in the industry when it came out on the summer. There’s so many great ideas in this game that could be stolen for D&D I’ll have to write an entire post for it. I’ve also put some serious time into the 3Ds. It’s fascinating seeing how quickly Nintendo’s newest portable went from a weak market entrance into an emerging powerhouse. This is another video game related article I will have to write as well. There have been some great releases for it, plus some great download options as well. I’m also going back to a few older DS titles that I never finished such as The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks. While they both share the much shunned cel-shaded style of Windwaker these are fantastic dungeon crawling action adventure games. I’m considering an article on these as well because of the treasure trove of dungeon ideas and puzzles.

Music

I’m a mostly self taught guitarist, and while I have been on and off for the last 10 some years of playing, I have been recently making an effort to improve. I’m also in the middle of some song writing that I might actually put together. If I ever finish them, I just might end up posting them here on Shifty.

Finally, some D&D…

This year so far has been interesting for my D&D campaign. We’re slowly getting through a major point in my campaign, some players will be well on their way to finishing some personal story-related quests, while others may be beginning their own unique stories. I’m very excited to see how this will all come about. I also ran an adventure a couple weeks back for some acquaintances of mine who happen to be Starbucks Baristas. They were both long time video game players who enjoyed Dragon Age and Skyrim. So when the topic of D&D came up I mentioned that I could run a one-shot adventure for them. Soon enough, they were uncovering a murder mystery in Baldur’s Gate and killing some lizardfolk. They enjoyed the game so much that they were both interested in trying it again. I may end up DMing two campaigns this year depending on my schedule, in which case I may be updating more often on Shifty about both games.

Exit Left

I hope to be more active in the upcoming months, and I’m excited to see what happens with the upcoming new edition.

A Fantasy Christmas Poem

I wrote this two years ago for my D&D group. I found it again and thought I’d share it with the rest of you. Merry Christmas!

 

While searching through my collected lore of Tel’ Amorgh, I stumbled upon an interesting piece of literature that seems to have originated from a goblin tribe in the Ironfall Mountains. I thought it shared a connection to the spirit of this holiday and so I have decided to post it here for your enjoyment. Merry Christmas everyone.

The Goblins Parade

Far, far away on a cold mountainside

lived a nasty, and murderous goblin wartribe.

Full of warriors, and sneaks and big chieftain bullies

they’d attack you from caverns, trenches, and gullies.

Nearby lived a village of humans and elves

who took proper care of friends and themselves.

But the goblins were envious, greedy and jealous

so they gathered the tribe; already overzealous.

“We’ll sharpen our axes

and blunt our maces.

We’ll poison our daggers

to stab in their faces”

“We’ll build a chariot ready for war

it’ll carry an army of thirty or more.

We’ll need someone powerful to make it soar,

so we’ll enlist eight strong minotaur.”

“On Gnasher, and Basher, Korgar, and Grom.

On Smasher, Thrasher, Gorig, and Nom.”

So down the mountain the goblins flew,

and what hit the village nobody knew.

They whooped, and hollered, and screamed their warcry

depicting how the villagers would die.

They reached the small village and were ready to fight

but the villagers were waiting, cheerful and bright.

They prepared a feast for their small goblin neighbours,

to thank them for coming and for their labours.

For the goblins kept the villagers quite shielded,

from many a monster and the weapons they wielded.

Shocked and amazed the goblins sat down,

the minotaurs looked perplexed but still ordered a round.

They pillaged the feast and broke into the kegs,

they danced on their hooves, and tiny green legs.

The mayor and the chieftain got on quite swell,

so they decided to declare peace as well.

So remember to treat all your friends with care,

for every day is a better one when it is one you can share.

Literature and D&D: A DMs Fuel

DMs have a plethora of information at their fingertips concerning how to build adventures, encounters, and campaigns. When I began DMing for my friends I did nothing but read the DMG 1 and 2, the monster manuals, and D&D blogs. I’m a firm believer in stealing from other sources for your own benefit. This was a great attitude considering the amount of experience and information within those books as well as the many blogs that I was able to use for my own game.

However, for all the tips, tricks, and design strategies out there, nothing told me what to run a campaign about. Or even how to come up with ideas for it once I discovered a theme. Literature, on the other hand, is full of story arcs, character development, conflicts, and antagonists. I finally convinced myself after pulling the plug on my first campaign that I needed to take a break from reading D&D books and start reading novels. DM burnout is all too common for someone who pushes themselves to design the next great thing for their campaign and doesn’t take time to recharge their creative batteries.

After taking a more improvisational approach with my DMing style and learning to do less prep work per session I discovered some basic rules that worked for me.

Back to Basics

The newer editions of D&D requires miniatures, maps, and tiles. These items are here to simplify combat and the overall game, but DMing still requires an ability to communicate, act, and provide description. I think of myself as a fairly outgoing person, who crack jokes, and talks a LOT. At the game table though, I’ve felt tongue tied and flustered when I’ve used up my entire vocabulary for describing magic, weapons, blood, architecture, anatomy, and the list goes on. One trick I discovered was reading books from a variety of time periods. Authors of today use modern language, and modern words to describe modern thoughts. Authors only a few decades back have entirely different vocabularies, dialogue styles, and methods of description. If you go back further in time you will start to find a very different type of English. One example I have noted was Robert E. Howard. The creator of Conan the barbarian and Solomon Kane. Howard wrote short stories and books in the 1920′s and 1930′s, not even a century from today, and yet he used strange words or even innapropriate words to describe vivid actions scenes. Since reading a few Solomon Kane short stories I’ve started using the word ‘volcanic’ to describe feats of strength or speed. It seems like a silly and small thing to use in DMing, and yet it gets my point across well and my players have perked up and paid more attention when I use it.

Simplicity is Key

Our everyday speech is littered with colloquialisms, unnecessary phrases, and pacing. As a DM, I realized that simple language espoused by Hemingway and George Wells is the most direct. Human thought is complicated enough and we don’t need to complicate it further with unnecessary or flowery speech. A major mistake I made in my first 4e campaign was to make the game harder by speaking in riddles, or vaguely describing things. The players would sometimes carve through my carefully planned adventures and so I started trying to confuse them. This brought everything to a harsh stop and the adventure would lag for the rest of the session. I learned that DMs need to be precise with their speech and that creating a challenge for the party is done through effective encounter design.

Story writing is not Adventure writing

Writing out every adventure in minute detail was my downfall as a DM. I built a world with lots of lore and history for a year and then dove straight into highly detailed adventure design. I did this day in and day out for my first campaign and then finally burnt out. I stopped DMing for a few months, played in a friends campaign, and did some major reading on improvised DMing. I was nervous when I started my first session in my new campaign. I had seven players in the first game (which I thought was quite dumb of me), a map of a town and nearby regions, and a handful of random encounter tables I designed. I also had a few pre-written plot hooks but no fleshed out adventures but not much else. That beginning session with too large of a party and what felt like a completely unprepared adventure, turned into one of my best DMing moments.

It seemed to me that having the bare bones for a story allowed me to modify the adventure as it progressed. I could take into account new ideas, or extraordinary successes performed by the players. A rigid storyline, like the ones I used to create, had no room for deviation and left me frantically trying finish the session without the party realizing I screwed up. I discovered that when players asked me questions or made a joke about what’s lurking behind the corner, they were telling me what they wanted. Usually I would get an exclamation of ‘I knew it!’ from a player when something they mentioned showed up in the game. This is when I discovered that reading books are great for expanding vocabulary, creating characters, and looking for story arc inspiration, but not for creating highly detailed maps on how to design and run campaigns.

Authors

I thought I’d share a few authors and books that I found particularly helpful in becoming a better DM and writing this article.

- Why I Write by George Orwell; This essay was an interesting mix of political thought and writing advice. Pretty sure it’s published by Penguin and is well worth the read

- Stardust by Neil Gaiman; I have yet to sink my teeth into Gaimans major works but this ‘Youth Adult’ novel is unique. It’s quite a bit different than the movie based on his work and contains more than a few surprising descriptions of sex and violence.

- The Once and Future King by T.H. White; I haven’t even finished this book and I’d suggest reading it. Besides being one of the top Arthurian novels, White also has a very dated vocabulary and this makes it a perfect novel to pick up some new phrases and words.

Comments, questions? Email me at shiftykobold@gmail.com or follow me on twitter @shiftykobold

I wrote today’s article in Ommwriter. If you’re having trouble doing writing of your own check it out here.

Role Play and Small Parties: Companion Characters

I have seen a bit of controversy over the use of Companion Characters in 4th edition. Many people liken it to the dreaded DMPC and groan. In my time as a 4e DM I have found the companion character to be a useful tool in creating plot hooks and quests.  The CC has never been a thing to fear due to its very limited abilities as a party member. As long as a DM sticks to the CC rules players don’t have to worry about a DMPC upstaging their story. Every time I have used one as a DM it was to fill out an underserved role in the party and to promote great role playing in the session. The CC is also a great way to bring a huge cast of characters into your game and add an epic scope to the campaign. Anyone who owns a copy of the DMG 2 can peruse the section on building CCs, but I am writing this to talk of my experiences in using one both in combat and for RP.

To Battle!

Of the four companion characters I have used, two of them were strikers, one was a defender, and the other was a leader. The DMG 2 states that a CC should have no more than three powers or else it will create too complex of a character. I have found that building a CC depends on how it’s used in the game. If I hand over a CC character sheet to a player to run in combat I will design that character with no more than two powers. A player has to deal with too many of their own abilities, that running a second character can be overwhelming. Striker and Defender characters can be built with two powers and be left in the hands of the party. The leader on the other hand had two attack powers plus a healing ability. I chose to run the leader myself to keep the players’ hands free.

In terms of powers for CCs I have found a good rule to stand by. Companion characters should be built with one damage heavy power and a second damage-light/controller power. In many cases, a CC power that enables movement for the party, or forced movement of an enemy is what players need when a fight gets challenging and they require some kind of respite. A CC should still be designed with simplicity in mind, because of that they can’t have all those nice get-out-of-jail utilities that PCs enjoy. Therefore, movement enabling powers will have to suffice. This system has worked fairly well for me and the party. The players know that the CC has a trick or two up his sleeve, but he won’t be able to save the day if the battle takes a turn for the worse.

Would Be Heroes

The four companion characters I have designed for previous games were Toh-kin the Kobold Avenger, Tenelin the Human Fighter, Jacoby the Halfling Rogue, and Sgt. Karev the Dragonborn Warlord. Each CC drew great reactions from my players, and even though they were simple combat ready NPCs, they inspired some fantastic role play. I personally believe the biggest criteria required for bringing a companion character into a session is whether the current game requires some role playing and advancement of story. I wrote before that the CC is maligned as a DMPC, and in some ways that observation is correct. Creating these characters is a selfish thing for me. I get to design interesting race/class combos, come up with fun backstories, and even pull out some fun voices. I get to be greedy and I get to hog a bit of the spotlight instead of playing standard bar tender #36 or old farmer who needs help #93. What separates the CC though, is that he isn’t capable of outperforming the players and I use him in a support role. These characters are great for reminding players what their goals are, or any bits of information the party might have forgotten from a few sessions back.

The reactions my players have had over theses characters have been thoroughly enjoyable. Toh-kin was essentially the younger brother of the party. Some players abused him and others loved him. He remained as an NPC for a long time in my first campaign, but there came a point when the party was in session and they were lacking firepower. I told everyone to take a break and stretch their legs. I pulled out my copy of the DMG 2 and asked the players random questions about their Kobold companion and what they wanted him to become. Soon enough Toh-kin became an axe wielding Avenger sworn to a new religion founded by one of the players. We continued on with the adventure and the young Kobold ended up having a few heroic moments that had the party cheering. Toh-kin went from younger sibling always underfoot to a somewhat respected companion.

Tenelin and Jacoby were not as emotionally entwined with the party but they certainly had an effect. While clearing out bandits in the woods, Tenelin had become the party’s meat shield for the session. He admirably took the hits for the rest of the party and drew the eye of the dark elf sorceress Chalii (played by one of my female players). Chalii, being a rather unscrupulous character, was admiring his excellent physical condition and his ability to direct harm from her. Though Tenelin hasn’t adventured with the party for a while I have made a mental note to attempt some kind of romance storyline (something I’ve never done before) with the dark elf at another time. Jacoby on the other hand was designed with the intention to make the players feel uncomfortable. The halfling rogue is dangerous and helped the party steal their biggest prize yet. Jacoby helped them grab hold of a nice sailing ship through the murder of its crew, and he could quite easily use their nefarious deed as blackmail later on. A tenuous, intrigue ridden alliance like this could spark a variety of quests or even turn the whole campaign into a cloak & dagger affair.

Sgt. Karev was simply a way for me to give the party a band-aid because the party leader wasn’t able to play that day. Karev ended up investigating a cult of Tiamat with the party and helped them face off against their first dragon. Most of the players got banged up and Karev’s healing was quite welcomed by the players. He fought valiantly beside the defender and almost died. By the end the party’s swordmage told Karev to back off while she tried to handle the dragon alone. I chose to roleplay the Dragonborn warlord as an honourable soldier and so he rushed forward and managed to bring the enemy down with a solid hit from his battleaxe. The party ended up acting quite grateful to the Dragonborn (usually the players treat NPCs like mud), and they’ve developed a sort of warrior-bond with him.

Conclusion

A lot of these CCs have developed complex relationships with the party as opposed to the classic quest and reward giving NPCs. They act as the supporting actors to the party and have helped me develop options throughout this campaign. I can easily see how the players react to each of these characters and now I can take their assumptions and create some interesting story arcs for these minor characters. From here I can start looking at when to bring these companion characters back, how to nurture a romance, how to reveal a treacherous conspiracy, and whether a proud and honourable warrior should sacrifice himself for a group of worthy allies.

Comments, questions? Email me at shiftykobold@gmail.com or follow me on twitter @shiftykobold

I wrote today’s article in Ommwriter. If you’re having trouble doing writing of your own check it out here.

Handling Large Scale Battles: Army vs. Army

I played 4th Edition D&D for a short time in a friend’s campaign shortly before beginning my own descent into DMing. He ran a big battle session, similar to a Seven Samurai story, where we had to defend a town from a literal horde of kobolds. I was skeptical as to how he was going to run it but he came up with a very fun and simple system. I call it the Pauwhanian (Poe-hawn-ian) Battle System.

The mechanic is simple to use, it just requires a small amount of planning beforehand. It works like this:

Each army involved in the battle rolls two d20s. The first roll is an opposed roll that determines the “victor” of the round. The second d20 roll determines the damage the opposing army takes. The pre-planning a DM has to do, as I mentioned, is determing the scale of the battle. If it’s a small affair you might have only 100 soldiers on your side. A soldier could behave like a 1 hit point minion, then if an army rolls an 18 on it’s damage roll that might mean 18 soldiers were killed. If you wanted a less lethal solution then you could make soldiers capable of taking one wound before dying.

Determining the scale of the battle is the essential part of this system. If you have armies made up of thousands of warriors you might say that a single point of damage equals 10 soldiers lives. Once you have figured out the scope of the battle you want to run, everything else is a matter of how you want to design and flavor the battle.

Strategy

One fun part about this system is creating quick maps of castles or battlefields and adding strategic bonuses to the encounter. Maintaining a wall, holding a hill, or using a piece of artillery will add a bonus modifier to the army’s attack and damage rolls. Of course you can change these bonuses into other advantages. A wall, for example, could instead provide damage reduction for the army holding it instead of an attack bonus. The players have to choose what part of a castle or battlefield they should defend, when they should attack, and what strategic locations need to be captured. Larger battles that are fought on multiple fronts will make these kind of encounters, and the decisions the PCs make, much more challenging.

                                        Large scale battles: You’re doing it wrong

Player involvement

Of course this is still a D&D game and the players need to get involved. My friend and fellow DM came up with a quick and dirty rule for player involvement that I feel really connects with the idea of 4th Edition heroes being ‘greater’ than normal people. A player character will add a bonus modifier to attack and damage rolls during the battle rounds between armies. Not every PC will give the same amount of bonuses for an army though. He decided to stick with the rule that your role determines the effect you have on the battle. A leader or controller class would give a high bonus to an army. I usually left it at a +3. A defender would give a medium bonus such as a +2, and a striker would give a low bonus of +1. This inequality might seem unfair, but controllers and leaders have a larger “effect” on combat encounters and would have a similar influence on bigger battles, this also creates a challenge for the PCs when they determine who should be positioned where during the battle.

Combat encounters

Now this kind of large scale battle would normally take up an entire session for my group. This would probably get boring if all we did was add player bonuses to a set of d20 rolls and pushed little units across a hastily drawn map. Using this kind of system is meant as a simple way to handle large battles without bringing in the myriad of player attack powers. What my friend and I have done in the past, while running this system, is breaking up the battle rounds with big spikes of combat. During a battle an enemy might take a key position away from the party and as a DM you could engage them in an actual combate encounter to recover it. These situations would probably work best with quick, dangerous encounters or maybe running an encounter with waves of minions while the party tries to barricade a hole in the castle defenses.

Victory or Defeat

The battle rounds will take their toll on both armies and it’s up to the PCs to determine the quickest way to victory. On the other hand they could lose and be forced to retreat. There are a lot of options you can explore as a DM to customize this system and maybe I’ll write another post to talk about how I’ve used this in my game and the ways I modified it.

Special Pipe&Scotch DM edition:

I am a casual smoker and decided to showcase a pipe of mine. The Killarney 01 by Peterson pipes. Made by the famous Irish pipe makers, the Killarney was my first ever pipe. The picture on their site is not exactly like mine, but it does have the same red stained briar and double rings on the stem. This pipe has been used and abused for 6 years now. I learned to smoke with this pipe and it has become an old, reliable friend. It has an ample sized bowl, the famous P-lip, and great wood figuring on the body. Check it out here.

Comments, questions? Email me at shiftykobold@gmail.com or follow me on twitter @shiftykobold

I wrote today’s article in Ommwriter. If you’re having trouble doing writing of your own check it out here.

Three Stage Bosses: Lestakrothos

Some months back I read AngryDM’s article on three stage or “act” solo monsters. I really enjoyed reading through the series of four articles and decided I wanted to make my very next solo fight a three stage encounter. I had a very cinematic scene planned out where my players were defending a fortress from a draconic army looking to loot the relics, tomes, and artifacts within. This army consisted of kobolds, barbaric humans, dragonborn, and a few others. I wanted this army led by a blue dragon, because I felt a Helm’s Deep scenario of fighting off a barbaric horde in the rain and a lightning/storm themed dragon to lead them would be perfect. The final climactic battle would pit the party against this terrifying dragon on the top of a tower.

Lestakrothos was designed in three stages starting with an artillery role, moving on to controller, and then finishing as a brute. Building this blue dragon was quite a bit of fun because I borrowed ideas from the standard blue dragon from the Monster Manual, from other dragons and a hydra in 4th edition, from video games, and just some general ideas I had about how dragons fight in fantasy.

Stage 1

I will admit that Artillery stage was easiest and played out as the most boring of all three acts in this fight. He had two standard attacks, an attack that combined the two standard attacks, a ranged lightning burst power, a breath weapon, and the heroslayer ability. The heroslayer ability that gives a solo a bonus to attack and damage rolls against defenders who have marked it is a really nice passive ability. Besides the ability to change to stage 2, there isn’t much to see here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Stage 2

I thought that a battle where a dragon flying around a tower peppering the party with lightning would be fun. Of course, it would be more fun when the players got to bring the dragon down and make him pay for his arrogance. I wanted the second and third stages for Lestakrothos to be fun ground based battles. He kept his two basic melee attacks but lost his ability to combine them. Claw got adjusted so the player would slide 1 square if they got hit. The gore ability got upgraded in stage two so players hit by it would zap other allies and give them ongoing damage (keep them from grouping together). He developed an aura that penalizes attacks made adjacent to him. He got an immediate reaction power that prevented flanking (we had a rogue in the party). The classic fear burst power was thrown in as well. He kept his breath weapon from the previous stage as well as the heroslayer and the stage change ability.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Stage 3

In the third stage Lestakrothos went for crazy, cinematic powers. He kept his aura, his immediate reaction power, his upgraded Claw attack, and the heroslayer ability. This time around I added three new powers Unfurl, Gore and Roar, and Warp of the Storm. Unfurl was a simple encounter power that pushed back anyone adjacent to Lestakrothos with his wings. I was afraid while designing this dragon that he’d get swamped by the players (the exact opposite happened). Gore and roar was a different upgrade to the Gore attack. In this case the solo can make an attack against an enemy, and choose to either grab the player and deal ongoing damage, or throw him a whopping eight squares away. I wanted to convey the feeling of the true strength of a dragon, capable of picking up and hurling a medium size creature across the room. The last new ability was the most fun and most dissapointing power of the lot. Warp of the Storm was essentially the charge ability from Mass Effect 2′s Vanguard class power. I wanted the dragon to essentially warp a large distance towards a target, regardless of obstacles, drop a devastating melee attack and leave a lasting mark. I was excited to drop this on my players in the big fight and I ended up rolling exceptionally low for both melee attacks.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Conclusion

Overall I had a ton of fun designing Lestakrothos, especially when I was choosing powers to fit the theme of each stage. I wrote each stage as it’s own stat block and did a bit of mental prep work before using him in the big session. I got great reactions from my players as the blue dragon got up not once but twice. I placed ballistae on the tower of the encounter for the players to use. I had a vision of a fantasy character jumping on an anti-air gun to shoot down a dragon, and I thought this would be the best chance to do that. Unfortunately most of us agreed that the 1st stage dragon as an artillery role was the most boring because the party was mostly melee based. The other stages were fairly entertaining, but I ended up not getting to use Warp of the Storm because of my bad rolls. I hope Lestakrothos might inspire someone to make their own three stage boss, and I would love to hear from anyone who chooses to use my stat blocks in one of their own games.

Comments, questions? Email me at shiftykobold@gmail.com or follow me on twitter @shiftykobold

I wrote today’s article in Ommwriter. If you’re having trouble doing writing of your own check it out here.

That new campaign smell…

I love the beginning of a new campaign for D&D. There is so much going on at the table that it’s hard to take it all in. In less than a week I’m about to start DMing a brand new campaign and in many ways this will be our finest hour. Old players are coming back together, old friends who are new players will be joining us, and a few players will be leaving our city later this year. We will be playing a great co-operative game, with a great group of friends, and we will get to have one more adventure together before two of our number bid farewell to us and their hometown. Am I sad? Not at all.  Our entire group of friends are geeks and we love gaming together. We played Super Smash Bros. and Counter Strike in High School. We set up LAN parties at our houses and gamed in to the wee hours of the morning. I am not sad, because we have so many of these memories together that I can only be grateful for what we got to experience. D&D was unique in this case because of how co-operative of a game it is. As a group of a friends we could play as a group of adventurers and continue our antics regardless of the setting. It’s fitting in a way that while we lose two players we have two new ones coming to join us. There’s an opportunity for us to keep our game running and hopefully create more memories with our new group.

Since starting this blog and joining Twitter I have discovered the enormous amount of emotion boiling in the D&D community. There is anger amongst the customers and fans of the game for all the changes and upheaval. A change to an edition that has brought such fond memories is always startling, but I have to ask a question. Does it really matter? My group of friends play 4e fairly close to the original rules. We rarely look at errata, none of us have used the Character builder, or paid for a subscription to D&D Insider. We buy the books, sit down with pen and paper and all the other paraphernalia necessary for a game. We play the game first, and we house rule second. We don’t care about the ambiguity of the text, because we’re more interested in giving an entire town a case of food poisoning so we can raid an embassy with an airtight alibi. I have never felt pressured into using a supplement I didn’t want in a game I was running for friends. I have never felt the need to use terrible words to describe the people who spend their lives designing games that bring so much fun to so many people.And I most certainly have never felt the need to get so upset about a game that never really changes its core goal of entertaining those who play it. I think if the community learns to let go of all this, and focused more on blogging, sharing ideas, and most importantly running games, we’d realize that this game is more about us and the fun we could be having than any design change Wizards might make.

I’m about to run a campaign for new and old players. We are setting sail (literally) for adventure and soon we will be saying goodbye to two dear friends. We have no idea what we’re going to find, but we’re going to enjoy every minute of it.

Comments, questions? Email me at shiftykobold@gmail.com or follow me on twitter @shiftykobold I wrote today’s article in Ommwriter.

If you’re having trouble doing writing of your own check it out here.

Music: For play or for work?

I have found that music is a useful tool for DMs while designing and running campaigns. Dead air occurs while you’re reading through rulebooks or while your players are making decisions in the game. Sometimes music is useful to keep the pace of a game, keep you entertained while you’re designing encounters or maps, and even give players something to hum a long to while something is taking up an inordinate amount of time.

Music is, of course, purely opinion oriented and within my group of players I certainly have a much different taste than others. I was a metal head throughout much of school, I have played guitar for over ten years, and I’m one of the few people in my social circle who has spent ridiculous amount of money on headphones. I love music, I love to listen to it, I love to play it on guitar, and worst of all I love to share it with people. While the metal genre is certainly epic at times it does not always fit the mood and feel for a DnD session.

Apropos

I like to listen to music while designing games and running them. They also give me quite a bit of inspiration. But the music for a DM is not always the music needed for players. I’ve discovered that some of my tastes have become hits with some of my players. Some of the metal I listen to is accessible and even has a few hooks of its own. Other bands I listen to are straight out of the question.

I’ve learned that catchy, simple music is the key to keeping gamers happy and focused. Walls of noise or even overly complex songs can break a groups concentration. Though my metal sensibilities scream at me for writing this I have to say that Pop is popular for a reason. It is catchy music loaded with catchy hooks and simple rhythms. Anyone can sing along to it and it doesn’t take up much brain power while the party is rolling d20s. Use it and most people won’t complain.

Spice to taste

I have started to develop a list of music that I like to use for both DM work and running a game and I thought I’d share it with you. I might end up creating a master list later on.

Radio Rivendell – First and foremost this needs to be listed. RR is not a band it is a site that streams fantasy music 24/7. If you are too lazy to find music and pipe it out through some speakers then plug a computer into some speakers near your players and stream this site!

Lord of The Rings/Dragon Age Soundtracks – These two are fairly obvious. The biggest fantasy trilogy of the last decade and the one of the biggest fantasy video games of the past few years. Both are blasted with immense and epic music. Howard Shore and Inon Zur (respectively) did excellent jobs of creating musical scores to describe such detailed and beautiful worlds.

Loreena McKennitt – A Canadian singer/songwriter with a penchant for celtic folk. A beautiful voice, a nice collection of folk instruments, and a discography with a wide range of attitudes and moods.

Muse – This band has become one of my favourite groups of the last few years. An excellent rock band, a group of accomplished songwriters and musicians, and they scream nerdy prog rock like no ones business. Their music is super catchy, sometimes epic in scope, and other times quite heartfelt.

Electric Wizard – A stoner/doom metal band from England that I’ve recently discovered. Groovy, 70′s style, metal reminiscent of early Black Sabbath. Perfect for classic dungeon crawling DnD.

Tallywood String Quartet – I know next to nothing about this group but they are an excellent way to fill the dead air during a game. TSQ has released a plethora of albums all dedicated as tributes to individual artists and bands. They have covered Hendrix, Dylan, Muse, Guns n’ Roses, and many more

Comments, questions? Email me at shiftykobold@gmail.com or follow me on twitter @shiftykobold

I wrote today’s article in Ommwriter. If you’re having trouble doing writing of your own check it out here.