Within said high-rise dwell three of the PCs. The Native American mystic has a small sub-let, one of Nightbane PCs is a teenagers (and still unaware of what he is) living with relatives and the other Nightbane is a homeless, slightly addled ex-soldier squatting in a foreclosed apartment. None of them know each other, but in comes the plot hook.

The CIA assassin.

After weeks of preparation, the PC assassin infiltrates the building on a mission. His target is a famed lawyer (also an Evil Overlord minion) that needs “removal.” Sadly, our fearless assassin chose the wrong night to visit this building…

The next events take place  simultaneously, but game mechanics require I deal with each player individually. Admittedly this is not a great way to run a game with 75% of the players not playing. That said, it went relatively quick and did not seem to lag too much.  My first victim is the teenage Nightbane. One of the Nightbane supplements has a mind-controlling parasite called a “Flesh Lamprey” that is always great fun. Imagine a leech the size of a poodle with tentacles that climb inside your brain. Oh, and it slowly eats you alive after gaining control. Good times.

Our poor teenagers hears a crash in the next room and a skittering, crawling sound. As he investigates, the power fails and he scrambles for a flashlight. All the while, the skittering grows closer…

Fumbling through a drawer the teenagers grabs a flashlight and flicks it on,  carefully scanning the room for the skittering’s source.   Initiative rolls fly and, well, the teenager did not win. His last conscious thought is horror as the lamprey leaps from the darkness, attaches itself and starts eating. The newly controlled teenager/snack shambles towards the door, heading down the hall and  a date with a sacrificial altar.

The CIA assassin  makes it up to the same floor as the possessed teenager.  The assassin’s easy lope down the hallway stops as a man emerges from an apartment. Wearing a grey jumpsuit the assassin freezes when he sees the face…it is his face! Falling back on a lifetime of violence,  the silenced 9 mm pistol slides from the holster and plants a bullet  squarely in the newcomers chest, blood sprays but the doppelgänger does not stop.  It furiously attacks with supernatural strength and hideous glee.  More shots strike the strange being but it will not die.

Our homeless soldier (soon a Nightbane) hears the hallway struggle outside his apartment squat and investigates. A nightmare of bullets, blood and flailing fists greets him in the hallway.  After watching the doppelgänger shrug off multiple bullets, the soldier enters the fray with a combat knife. Between the two heroes, the doppelgänger falls and they are left with only a puddle of melting goo and many questions.

At this moment the door opens and the lamprey-lunch teenager staggers on the scene. After recovering from shock at the pulsing nightmare attached to the teenager, the soldier and assassin strike, killing the creature.   United by blood and horror,  the three decide to flee the building.

Moving through the building the party comes up on two men loading an unconscious figure on a cart.  Some parts of the building endured a sleeping gas attack and the last player, a native American mystic succumbed. Actually, the player failed to make a character in advance and took so long building his character I used him as another plot hook until the PC reached completion. It worked out well as it game the party an opportunity to follow the men to another floor where a sacrificial altar hungrily awaited.

Minutes later a rescue attempt lead them to the cult’s lair and the first party fight of the campaign.

I had a rough idea how to do this, but I was not certain it would work or worse, be dull. That said, it went better than expected and now the PCs had a reason to cooperate and fight together besides “the GM Said so.”

I hope you found this little tale informative and I welcome any other “party forming” ideas.  Drop me a comment.

Trask, The Last Tyromancer

Humans had help blowing up the world. In a near future, scientists develop a telepathic entity and insert it into two human fetuses. Telepathy between two people was the initial experiment, but it failed badly.  Rather than two people with a link, it was a single mind controlling two bodies!  Of course, the military quickly saw the benefits of a soldier with two bodies and developed the paratwa. Telepathy was the first step, then came advanced energy weapons called “wands” that are seriously vicious when used in pairs and boosted physical reflexes. The paratwa became the ultimate assassins. An arms race quickly produced regional flavors of the creatures and small wars broke out. This went on until the paratwa started fighting for themselves….

The paratwa met defeat through massive nuclear firepower and the remaining humans fled to the colonies, secure in the knowledge that no paratwa still lived.  Ignorance is bliss…

“Liege-Killer” is actually the first part of the “Paratwa Saga” trilogy, but I consider the subsequent books inferior. That said, there are interesting plot twists and development in the later books. If the first book really hooks you, read on, but otherwise go no further. Regardless, “Liege Killer” is a great resource for a post-apocalyptic space game. The design and strategy of the paratwa (and those that hunt them) is great game fodder.

Here are the Amazon  links to all three novels.

Liege-Killer (The Paratwa Saga, Book 1)

Ash Ock: Book Two of the Paratwa Saga

The Paratwa

Trask, The Last Tyromancer

Contrast this with the “squeeze every last dollar out of the franchise approach” too often seen in genre television. I doubt you will find anyone that mourned the “X-files” after season five. It was not a terrible show, it just lost its fizz. Eventually fading away in a cloud of sub-standard acting and tedious “monster of the week” episodes.

If you can run a long campaign successfully, then do so with my blessing. That said, twelve memorable game sessions are a better legacy to leave your players than 50 forgettable game nights.

Trask, The Last Tyromancer

Characters in RPGs are HEROES, not just heroes. Anything they touch affects the entire world, the future of humanity or threatens to end time. No major event occurs without the PCs direct intervention and the villains actively seek the PCs destruction. Even worse, the PCs have a high destiny, born to wage  battle against a Dark One/Devil/Cosmic Evilness/Foul Overlord/etc. The PCs matter in a way that no common man understands. Thousands of lives or entire nations teeter on oblivion, held back only by the PCs sheer will and force of arms.

This is the cliché and it is popular because it is a fun experience. PCs have lots of power and their actions have direct, widespread consequences. They can say, “I literally saved the world.”

Sadly, most people simply do not matter. On an individual level, yes, every person is important. In the scope of history though, only a very few exceptional people rise to the level of legend. That said, there is a potential for heroism even in the most humble circumstances.

Rather than build a world-shaking campaign, build a smaller world, but with more humanity. My thought is a simple village threatened by forces beyond their comprehension. Great powers play games of state with vast armies and powerful magics, with the PCs village caught in between. The village has no strategic value, it is literally in the wrong place at the wrong time. Let the campaign revolve around preserving their way of life. Some ideas for adventures include leading scouting parties away from the village, negotiating with one or both sides of the conflict to gain some advantage or simply surviving the aftermath of a magical WMD. The PCs do not have direct control over the larger events and merely fight for survival.

The advantage to this “smaller” approach to a role-playing campaign is the chance to make failure more personal. When epic heroes lose a battle, thousands die and the heroes retreat to plan the next attack. There are more important things to worry about than a few thousand soldiers. The world is at stake! Much as I loathe Stalin, he was right, “One death is a tragedy, a million is statistic.”

Giving the PCs a smaller “life,” makes even one death matter. For extra pathos, have the PCs create spouses. Most adventurers are single because of their lifestyle, so a hearth and home to protect is an unusual situation for most players. Add in some interesting and potentially adversarial NPC villagers (the cowardly, quisling mayor is a personal favorite) and you have all the makings of a great campaign.

I hope this inspired you to try a smaller campaign world. Remember, just because you cannot fight for the entire world does not make fighting for your part of it any less heroic.

Trask, The Last Tyromancer

Role-Playing and Public Speaking

diminishes the story and is a sure recipe for a bad gaming experience. Over the years I played RPGs with literally hundreds of game masters and only a very few had any real skill at public speaking. Oh, they had lots of verve and desire and put together a fun game, but no formal training and it showed in some classic speaking mistakes. What really pains me is that the mistakes are small and so simple to fix, but significantly degrade the GMs presentation.

Before continuing, I should mention my public speaking qualifications so you do not think I rant without justification. I did competitive public speaking in high school (I did debate) for four years. Finding it fascinating, I went on to get a rhetoric degree from the University of California. I understand of the basics of good public speaking that most GMs need. Am I God’s gift to public speaking? No. There are many speakers far better than I. Am I a better speaker than the majority of the population that fear public speaking more than death? Yes.

There are a few mistakes that I see over and over among game masters that, if rectified, will seriously improve the GM’s delivery. The first item is legendary and so pervasive that everyone hears it every day and never notices.

The non-verbal utterance.

You may know it by its other name “umm.” When people are at a loss for words, they utter “umm.” I had a teacher once that was in love with this non-word, racking up 56 in one hour. (Yes, I counted.) This is an easy fix. Never use it. NEVER. “Umm” is the verbal equivalent of picking your nose in public. Stop it, just stop. If you have nothing to say, do not say anything. Do not move your lips.

That said, NVUs are tough to stop because they come from a lifetime of practice, but their elimination is a critical first step to better public speaking. It is critical because it makes you think about what you are saying, building awareness of what flows from your mouth. Every “umm” interrupts the flow of your voice and makes the listener stop listening for a split second because NVU do not really have any meaning. I suggest you enlist your players for help. Make them throw dice at you, kick you or otherwise notify you that an “umm” escaped from your lips. If you get nothing else from this post, killing the “umm” will make you a better GM. A great first step.

I always wondered why many game masters include the table as one of the players. Yes, the table you play upon. I know it is a player because the GM treats it like a player by looking at it and speaking to it. Human communication is not omnidirectional, focus on your listeners. The easiest way to fix this issue is always look at the players when speaking. Seems like common sense, but I observed many a GM chatting at the floor, walls, table, GM’s screen. Just about anywhere that a person is not sitting. Besides reducing volume and clarity, it disconnects the speaker from the listener. The easiest solution is always look at the person you are speaking with. Eye contact is necessary. No one every died from looking a player in the eye.

Speaking of body parts, a human mouth works best when it is not full or covered. I watched GMs chew on straws, suckers, gum and a variety of other oral fixations. Food aside, most of them looked more like nervous habits than something that the GM needed right that minute. An empty mouth speaks more clearly than a full one. Give up the chewing gum!

Still other GMs cover their mouth with a fist, nibble on knuckles or otherwise interfere with their voice projection. If you have a nervous habit to cover your mouth, just make a point of keeping your hands occupied. I used to do this, but found grasping the edges of my podium kept me from doing blocking my mouth during a speech. However, do not fiddle with pencils or dice so much it is distracting to your players. Do not substitute one problem for another.

When running a game, try to practice your speaking parts in advance. Even if you have only a rough idea of what you will say, giving it a couple of practice runs in front of a mirror will never hurt. There are very few speakers that can deliver a smooth speech cold. Even national politicians practice before using a teleprompter on the big day.

If you  implement these suggestions, you are well on your way to improving your public speaking skills. Now for the bad news; you cannot read advice and get better. It takes practice. Lots of it. So much that you forget that you are not supposed to say “umm” and just never say it. If you are thinking about these techniques then you need more practice. These skills work best when ingrained into your psyche, not when you think about using them.

If you need some excellent examples of skilled speakers, there is one group that far outstrips anyone I see . A speech teacher in college held up news anchors as skilled public speakers, but I argued they only speak in two-minute bursts, with a teleprompter. I think there is another group that more closely reflects the public speaking travails of a long game session.

Televangelists.

While I do not advocate their message, the average Sunday morning televangelist has real public speaking skills. They are confident, well-prepared and articulate. Smooth like wet ice.  A GM should strive for the same goal(without the pleas for donations, of course).

If you are really interested in developing your public speaking skills and cannot access to a speech class, I have an alternative; Toastmasters. Toastmasters is a club specifically designed to improve public speaking skills. The club is inexpensive to join and allows you to give speeches in a non-threatening environment to a group that provides useful feedback. They even have a designated “umm” counter! Really a great organization that is well worth your time.

Gaming aside, investing in your public speaking skill pays benefits in everyday life as well. I still use my rhetorical skills every time I speak in a meeting or presentation at work. You will reap tangible benefit from your efforts.

Oh, and it will make your role-playing game better too.

Trask, The Last Tyromancer

A Broken Gamer that Failed His Save VS. Boring Combat

The battle continues…the players groan.

Combat is an integral part of many role-playing games.  It adds an element of risk, tactics and randomness to an otherwise sedate hobby. There is, however, the possibility of too much of a good thing. More precisely, combat encounters that go from challenging to tedious in a few short rounds. Often it is not the fault of the DM when the encounter goes stale. A combination of bad luck, bad encounter design or unforeseen game mechanics can make a good combat go bad.

Here are my thoughts on how to identify when an encounter goes flat and possible solutions besides just “calling it.”

I refuse to set a “10 round” limit on an encounter. That is too arbitrary and many systems just take longer than others. Instead, I suggest that certain characteristic clearly mark when the encounter needs a “nudge to completion” from the DM.

Combat encounters are all about winning. Therefore, every round their must be a winner. One of the main reasons players lose interest is when they do 10 points of damage per round and the bad guy regenerates 10 on his turn.  Endlessly pounding on a bad guy with no results is disheartening and most importantly, dull.  Even if the bad guys wins for a few rounds, at least that will focus the player attention better than a dull status quo round.

Change is good in a combat encounter! Keep some variety flowing and keep the players motivated and interested.  I played several encounters where the monster, clearly doomed and incapable of significant threat to the PCs, insisted on fighting to the death. Normally this is fine by me, but game mechanics (insubstantial/regenerating creatures) greatly limited our damage. Many rounds later, with little threat of them damaging any PC, the entities died. For DMs, when there is no threat to death to the PCs, move on to something else.  Even if you want the PCs to expend resources during the adventure, do not make the players spend three hours of real time for the sole purpose of draining their healing potion supply.

Power/resources expenditures are also a great way to gauge how much longer the combat encounter should last. When the PCs are down to throwing rocks and harsh language at the enemy, a good DM will end the encounter. Not to pick on 4th Edition Dungeons and Dragons, but the extremely limited encounter/daily powers make for  incredibly dull combats after about 10 rounds. I played in a couple of games where most of the combat was every player using the same “at-will” power, over and over again. They simply had nothing else left.  Other systems have more options in terms of attacks, but you get the idea.

This last item is a personal pet peeve. It is so simple, yet I have countless examples of module writers and DMs repeating this mistake over and over again.

They make the monsters too hard to hit.  PCs that optimized their characters for combat have a blast. The remaining players sit on their hands for 3 hours during the combat waiting to roll a natural “20.” This being the only way to hit the monster. Do not make your players go watch TV, keep them in the game. You are the DM, fudge the numbers and make the game fun!

Bottom line is that the DM needs to take control and really manage more than the NPC hit points. They need to manage the entire table so that everyone has fun. As long as you do that, everything else will go just fine.

Trask, The Last Tyromancer

These men, whether hero or villian, joined our cultural consciousness with their death. Leonidus disappears into the depths of history without his heroic, but futile last stand.  Hamlet degenerates to a movie-of-the-week revenge plot without the final scene of carnage. Death  is the ultimate act of theater.

RPG games are dramatic theater. The DM creates a plot and the PCs inhabit it with fascinating characters. The PCs live in this fantastic world doing the impossible and living the drama they create. Occasionally, drama demands a death. I am not talking about a bad dice roll that kills a PC in some random encounter. No, I speak of the heroic death. A final death (no raise dead) that fills the other players with joy and grief. Joy at the victory your sacrifice assured,  grief at the terrible price paid.

It is my observation that modern gamers, ie those gamers who spent more time playing video games than tabletop games, are far less likely to make this sacrifice. I even think I know why. It is very difficult to role-play in a video game, at least as I have come to understand the term.  The focus becomes the acquisition of power, wealth and skills to survive the next encounter. The player invests his time and effort in the character sheet and not the character.

After many hours invested in a “World of Warcraft” or  “Elder Scrolls,” character no rational human being would just let him die for “dramatic reasons.” In those games, there are no dramatic reasons, only mechanical ones (ie a dragon eats you.)

I fear that many players now play tabletop games as though their PCs represented 80 hours of playing time, instead of a living part of the plot.

Should the plot ask it of you, do not fear sacrificing your PC in a dramatic fashion. Think of it as an opportunity to put your mark on that campaign. Make another PC and explore a different aspect of the world your party inhabits.

Death is not the end, only  a new beginning for the RPG player.

Trask, The Last Tyromancer

One aspect of most RPG campaigns I find truly annoying is the juvenile approach they take to economics. DMs spend hours on the politics, religion and demographics of the world, but forget all about the economy.  Today, I will offer some ideas for integrating a functioning stock market into your world.
The first step is to define terms.  A “stock market ” or “bourse”  is a organization for groups of investors to collectively invest in various money-making operations. Historically, these included companies, commodities or other high-risk investments that no one investor could afford to purchase.  A stock market is a boon to the economy by maintaining a flow of cash throughout the economy and providing a place to seek investment for new endeavors.

Yes, this is an incredibly simplistic definition of a stock market. I want to add some realism to a campaign, not turn it into a CNBC trading game .

If you have hard-core stock market junkies at your table, then the bourse (stock market is so dull, bourse sounds better) can be the center of your campaign. Get the PC in on the ground floor as traders and go to town. If you can run a campaign like this, more power to you. Most campaigns are far more likely to use the bourse as a jumping off point for more standard adventuring scenarios.

If you still cannot see the value of a bourse in your campaign, think about the beating heart of a bourse and what drives it. The answer  is money and money is power. Men will kill, steal, lie and hire adventurers in pursuit of power.

Here are a few ideas to utilitze the bourse as an adventure generator.

Business Intelligence:

A successful bourse trader needs information to make informed investments.  Perhaps the trader in question desires to purchase  corn futures from in a distant province, betting that corn will have a high price this year. Many traders would leave it at that, praying to his favority god that the corn crop is good bad.  Successful traders send a PC party out mid-year to check on the harvest.  Bad news today ( in this case a bumper crop)  is more valuable than bad news tomorrow, when it is too late to abandon your investment and minimize losses.

PC need to travel quickly, gather the intelligence, investigate a mysterious  blight on the corn, fend off some orcs and then return to their employer, knowledge in hand. For some extra fun, have another team from a competing broker have the same information. Turn it into a cross-country race, with the victor saving his investment and the loser takes a financial bath. No teleporting!

Insider Trading:

The military is looking for a new arms supplier. Many companies submitted bids for the project. The announcement is to be made next week and the winning company’s stock is sure to rise.   It would certainly help to know the winning bidder’s name today rather than next week.  They keep the list in the “Citadel of Doom.” Perhaps someone might like to walk in and find out the winning name…

Performing/Preventing Industrial Saboetage:

A trader buys large quantities of a company’s stock, with the understanding that their main competitor will “have an industrial accident,” guaranteeing his holdings will sore.  Evil PC groups can plot the demise of a company while good PC parties are hired to protect the company under threat.

Trade Mission:

A group of investors finances a trading vessel to a distant and profitable land. It is potentially  profitable because the distant land is awash in rare spices. Most ships fall victim to pirates and natives, so the PCs are hired on as guards. This is a long-term campaign idea, in fact it might be the entire campaign by itself.

Corner the Market:

PCs are hired to purchase, steal or destroy every piece of a commodity they can find. Their employer has a large stockpile, currently worthless that will become valuable once the item is sufficiently scarce. This is more oriented to a neutral/evil party, but even good PCs can run about trying to prevent products from reaching the market.

I hope some of these ideas inspire you to introduce a bourse into your campaign. Not only is it a literal fountain of adventure hooks, it gives your world that sense of realism and depth that all players crave.

Trask, The Last Tyromancer