"Official" D&D vs "Folk"D&D and the pitfalls of playing with strangers

(this post may qualify as a rant. Take it with a grain of salt)

 I've recently been seeing a bit of this lately, the use of the term "Folk" over the usual "Old School" designation.

"Official" is of course the rules (more or less) as written, while "Folk" is a name for people who rely less on whatever the current editions and settings are, and "do what thou whilst" hodgepodge gaming. I like the word Folk for this. The term "Old School" is getting, well, a little old. 

As a D&D person myself, this is sort of hypocritical I guess, but I find gamers, D&D players especially to often be an odd lot. I suppose I always considered myself Old School, but maybe less so in recent years. When I got hipped to the OSR (sometimes derogatively referred to as the "blOwSR") around 2009 or so, I got involved a bit. I started this blog not long after starting a 10-year group where I ran a variety of genres, but mostly 1st edition. I'd say about 60% of that experience was great, and the rest, well, often when more or less unfulfilling, and often the drizzling shits. I feel this is because it was gaming mostly with strangers. Sometimes weird ones. And I found this to my experience with the modern crop of players, especially gained on Roll20 forums. Maybe chock full of more oddballs than Grognard places like Dragonsfoot. 

Most of my gaming life since I was a teen was about me running campaigns, of various genres, for friends I already had. People who often had no real D&D experience. They came in fresh, and just wanted to enjoy the play without a bunch of expectations. Open minded. In any genre I ran. And these were my most happy gaming years. Dungeons and Dragons, Champions, Call of Cthulhu, Runequest, Traveller. Kind of a bummer that this was 20 years and more ago. 

As a teen I knew that playing at game shops or cons was not for me. So many of the people turned me off. 

So as far as 1st ed D&D was concerned, there was no arguing over rules or rulings, whereas in the groups of strangers that I ran for years later that was often the order of the day. So much of 1st was open to interpretation, it was an easy in for power gamers and rules lawyers to work their shitty magic. People who if you gave in to, would, like classic bullies, feel they could do more of it until you were worn down. They were so proud of how they viewed how things should be run.  It was one reason I treasured doing games like Champions or Call of Cthulhu. The rules were fairly clear. But eventually it would be back to D&D and "D&D People" and their particular peccadillos. It was often hard to feel like these people were friends.

When I moved to a new state it was a chance to sort of renew. I adopted 5th edition and had a couple of decent face to face campaigns, the first one was me being tapped to DM by my current beloved besties B and L. I was happy to more or less be turning my back on my old school roots. But my experiences going mostly online with Roll20 the other year was also decidedly mixed. It was mostly with strangers. Because of this I decided to hew close to the rules, but still, no matter the experience or age range, D&D players still seemed to have particular expectations, rather than just going with the flow of whatever the DM had in mind. 

 So, call them old school or new school, call them official or folk. The only main difference to me is that one wants rules as written, and the other ones want something more creative and distinct. But they still often seem to be odd people (yes, I am very much generalizing) with particular expectations. Such as "I want to run a cyborg minotaur gunslinger!" People under 40 on Roll20 are full of this kind of "hey, look at my cool character!"

But even if I stick with 5th ed, it will soon be a "folk" edition. One DnD is going to change everything. WOTC recently and very blatantly announced that the players are an untapped resource to be monetized, so part of their plan is microtransactions that themselves are well known as the drizzling shits of the video game industry. To play it is no longer the DM's who will need written material. Players will need to create online minis for their characters, and I can see a couple of dozen microtransactions for every aspect of it. Face, hair, clothing, every weapon or piece of armor. The colors. What the cost of this stuff will be is what interests me the most. In the past you could buy some paints for about 10 bucks, and a mini for about 5. Will your online mini cost you 30 bucks? 50?

But that is going in a direction that I am not at all interested in otherwise. 

Mostly it turns me off as there will be a lot more work for DM's, and likely a lot more costly for them. They will need to invest a small fortune in DND Beyond, as will the players. And as usual, you will be dealing with fickle players you often do not know along with the cost and time investments. For me, based on my hit or miss Roll20 experiences with the community at large, will it be worth it?

Nah, I will stick with Roll20 and 5th ed for now. Or maybe just try to get a campaign of Call of Cthulhu or a Superhero thing going. A break from D&D people. I think I am maybe starting to head towards being done doing RPG's with non-friends. I have a campaign of infrequent games I run for my local besties B and L, and my old player Terry, which is just great because it is just like those games of old for my friends. No weird expectations. Just D&D. A D&D game once or twice a month with true friends, with my favorite video games in between (this was a super banner year for video game), is starting to seem just right to me. I'm really kind of fed up dealing with strangers in gaming. 

So yeah, this will now be old school or "folk" gameplay for me. Until WOTC buys up Roll20 and other platforms and it is no longer supported. The time is maybe coming when if you don't want to invest in the official stuff, it will have to go back to face to face tabletop. Somewhere you don't need WOTC or their bullshit. That will be the true Folk RPGing. 

Maybe unfortunate for me, as I still feel I want to be retired from face to face. I have boardgames for that.

YMMV

Cheers

 much of 

The Encounter that what was meant to suck, but Didn't

 Besides my regular Roll20 campaign, "Trade and Turpitude," I've been doing a little campaign for my besties every few weeks. My old Friend and player "T" back in Los Angeles, and the younger couple who sort of adopted me when I moved to a new state, "B and L." I met them when they were looking for a DM to start a campaign, and when that campaign ended after maybe 15 sessions, I stayed friends with them because in all honesty they were the only players I didn't pretty much hate. Heh. And they were so good to me, I held on to them like grim death. They spend most of the year on the road travelling the country but were recently visiting town for a couple weeks. They took me to a couple of great shows, a showing of Ghostbusters with full orchestra lead by Elmer Bernstein's son, and a local theater doing Evil Dead the Musical. 

But while they are on the road we do some online stuff. Like digital Talisman, and now some Roll20.

I love B and L, but they are not what you would call outgoing players. They are fairly reserved. At least compared to my regular players in the other campaign. So after a couple of games in the campaign I showed them a "50 character questions" thing my player Mary gave everybody in the other campaign. Just basic things to flesh out a character. I even use it for some NPC's. I thought it would help B and L get a better handle on their characters, allowing them to be more at ease with basic role-playing. 

After a few weeks they hadn't done it. So I decided to "punish" them. Not really, but I thought I might put them through the ringer with a heavy role-playing situation that would test them, and maybe open them up a bit. But like a lot of chances a DM takes, it might well suck. But the point was to get them to come out a bit. I'm not looking for community theater, but its more fun if players can improv a bit with you. 

So I was going to be using a free Roll20 adventure for an easy-going session. It's called The Festival of Emerelda. It comes with a map of a whimsical fairground. 

Not a lot of content is there. The most obvious are some audio tracks featuring the halfling witch Emerelda and some of the festival event barkers, but they don't work great. In one instance uploading the tracks deleted all the other tracks in my Roll20 jukebox. 

As far as the festival, the contests involving drinking, arm wrestling, and other things were not really working for me as far as the rules and presentation of the games. But I mostly made up my own rules that suited me. The map has some things, like an owlbear chained up with a food bowl, and some Griffons in a pen, all things you can wing it to have some fun with. What interested me was a tent with a couples game, A Suitors Claim. The rules didn’t tickle me for this, so I decided to change it up, and at the same time put my reluctant role-players on the spot with it. 

T was running a fairly outgoing bard, but I would make an example of B and L. I would put them into this heavy role-play contest as a trial by fire. I decided to make it like a 70's dating game show. The party was divided up by two males and two females, so it was perfect. They were split into two sides and they would have to ask questions of each other. The audience would be played by me, and my reaction to the questions and answers would dictate the couple that would finally win. 

Each one of them got 5 questions of varying levels of intimacy, and each character would choose 3 of them to ask. Here are some examples of the questions I came up with:

1)      do you still have feelings for any of your exes? Tell me about it.

2)       What's the worst advice someone else has ever given you?

3)      What do you think happens when you die?

4)      Get up and Dance like your life depends on it for one minute.

5)      Lick a bar of soap.

 Describe the weirdest thing you've ever done while inebriated or impassioned

What's one thing in your life you wish you could change?

What's something you've done that you'd judge someone else for doing?

Put on womens clothing and walk through the crowd

Eat a teaspoon of mustard

I found a jazzy lounge type music in the jukebox to go along with the game. 

And it was on. So, I figured B and L would hem and haw and have a tough time with the improv. I imagined I would be cutting it off in 10 minutes, B and L having learned that they need to get more in touch with their characters just for the sake of role play. I mean, not so much to interact with me, but at least all the players need to be able to communicate openly with each other in rpgs. I got it going and was prepared for it to bomb. 

Here's the crazy thing. It didn't. OK, B was kind of hesitant. His male sorcerer was teamed up with Evador the female cleric, an outgoing rich girl. Seeing that B's shy sorcerer was having trouble with the questions, she assured him it was alright. She asked him the less embarrassing questions, not worried about winning the 50 GP prize money. This seemed to kind of spark an understanding between the two. Still, B rose to the occasion a bit, nicely answering a question about the most embarrassing thing he did drunk (getting naked on a chilly hunting trip).

T and L were far more outgoing. T was running her beautiful Elvish bard Xanthia, and L was running her male elf ranger Myrnigan, a character she created as being very dumb but a bit of a womanizer. With those traits I really wanted L to come out of shyness closet with this character, and with the help of Xanthia she did. Myrnigan and Xanthia asked each other the most challenging questions, and asked each other to perform outrageous acts, like duck quacking and dancing around for a minute. "Lick this bar of soap." They had such great fun with this and were highly entertaining. They of course won the prize. 

So what was supposed to be a minor encounter that bombed, this ended up taking most of the three-hour session! I never expected B and L to enjoy a game with almost no action, but they loved it. I tested them and they passed with flying colors despite my expectations. 

I take chances with sessions here and there over the years, doing something that I know has a decent chance of bombing, but it is so satisfying when your fears turn out to be unfounded. And in this case especially, a couple of reserved players came out of their shells a bit. Gotta love it. 

Cheers

Roll20 in-game chat makes me feel like a Twitch streamer

 

So, I think we are going on game 15 in my regular Wednesday night 5th ed game in Roll20. I could not be more pleased with how things are going. Despite almost everybody having more 5th ed and Roll20 experience than me, I have yet to lose a single player due to my shortcomings. I'd like to think its my old schoolish style and over 40 years of experience as a DM. But whatever it is I love this group. Good role players, respectful, friendly, funny, patient. It's all there. I may never have a group like this again, and it makes me want to get the most of it. 

One thing that is really awesome to me is the in-game chat box. I did not pay much attention to it for my first few games. But something it has come in really handy for is posting a spell or ability you are using, official text on the particulars. The player simply has to click on it in the digital character sheet and the spell or what not appears in the chat for me to look over. This along with the in-game compendium searcher has made it so I don't really need any books or paperwork at the table. And I use this as a learning tool as well. After a session I have one last beer (or three) and go over the chat box to bone up on the spells and things. 

And once I got in the habit of checking, I discovered something else the players are furtively doing there. They have an ongoing text chat during each session where they comment and discuss or make jokes on the current encounter or occurrence. You see, I'm too busy to always have that chat box open. When somebody makes a dice roll, I look quickly because that is where the modified number shows up. But I'm usually doing 5 things at once. 

But those chat comments. It's a special treat for me to go in after a game and see what the little dickens have been up to there. It's kind of a hoot, and a new thing I am experiencing, and extra pleasure, I never had in face-to-face games.

So, I'm not streaming, but this little feature makes me feel like I am. And it's yet another thing making me feel, more and more, that this is the format for me to DM in for good.

Two New subclasses - The Voor dwarf, and The Broken Aasimar

 

In my latest campaign (run weekly on Roll20), I introduced two NPC's. One is an albino dwarf long known in my game world as a "Voor," and the other a 5th edition specific race known as Aasimar. In this case, a sub-class I created of Fallen type I'm calling a "Broken Aasimar."

OK, first the Voor. Its less complex than the other and is actually a dwarf race that I came up with for my setting around 30 years ago or so. 

I honestly don't remember the specifics of introducing them into my world. I just remember a party from the city visiting a lone mountain sitting 3 or so days north. Once a small kingdom of friendly dwarves, some time centuries past a strange gas was released by mining there that engulfed the dwarves of Voor mountain and mutated them. They were bleached albino, and their bodies became a bit more emaciated in contrast to the usual stout dwarvish form. They lost passion for most things that bring joy to dwarves, and in fact lost a sense of emotion. Not becoming truly evil, just kind of sociopathic. 

I don't really recall why I didn't use Duegar or any number of fallen dwarvish races that came along with the Fiend Folio and Monster Manual 2. For whatever reason I did not delve into these alternate dwarf races until decades later. 

The Voor NPC in my current campaign, part of a duo the characters have come to call "The Odd Couple," is a young girl named "Demul." 

Demul and her friend Relanis are travelling musicians. But in Demul's case not a bard, but in actuality a Rogue. So far I have enjoyed her being underestimated. Quiet and always following Relanis lead, Demul discovered she had a strange power prior to the campaign while practicing playing a flute. When she plays a sinister tune on it (I've been humming the old Dark Shadows theme when she does it), a certain amount of undead come to unlife and begin attacking whatever living things are nearby. So far she has no control over them. Indeed, she seems to have a certain lack of control about using her power in general. She is obsessed with this ability, and dead things in general. And because, for certain reasons, the "Odd Couple" is following the party at a safe distance, Demul has brought dead things to life that the party has had to deal with. In the first session at an inn in town there was a stuffed bear in the bar. From a dark corner Demul player her tune, and the stuffed bear was the first fight of the campaign for the group. 

In the second game the party fought a troll on the road, eventually burning him up in fire. From the treeline, Demul played her tune and hey presto, the party were fighting a zombie troll. 

Her travelling partner, and mentor, is the 26 year old bard Relanis. Dressed very straight laced, and wearing half a face mask and walking with a cane due to childhood injuries, Relanis is secretly a "Broken Aasimar." One that became "fallen" due to her transformation happening during severe childhood injury.

Strait-laced townie Relanis

Hair down, out in the field 
travelling Relanis

A traditional Fallen Aasimar is an Aasimar that experienced some kind of emotional trauma that caused their Aasimar form to take on a more demonic appearance. Especially so in the case of a Broken Aasimar. Perhaps a bit cruelly, the Aasimar form of a Broken has no such injuries or disfigurement. 

Relanis' Broken Aasimar form

So Relanis and Demul follow the party around, slowly gaining suspicion. It actually took the party awhile to realize that they were responsible for the dead coming back to life after they killed it. And also that Relanis has an obsession with the Paladin (also secretly a Protector Aasimar) Callie, a lovely unassuming, cookie baking village girl who doesn't even seem like a paladin (she often uses a rolling pin in battle).

I think all the male characters are
around because of Callie.

One of the traits of my Broken Aasimar class is that they are in large part driven by nightmares as well as dreams, and also have a minor sense that somebody might be an Aasimar of some kind themselves.  Though in Relanis' case the nightmares tend to be about her childhood injuries, caused by her house burning down with her in it. But as soon as she saw Callie in the first game, she sensed something, that she may be Aasimar as well. Hence, she and Demul follow the party, usually at a distance, because Relanis wants to be around when Callie makes "The Change." 

This caused all sorts of suspicion, right up to this last session where Relanis asked the party to come along on a short adventure nearby ("we are musicians, not fighters"). In the goblin caves things started coming to a head. While Callie is a bit freaked out by "the Odd Couple's" attentions, its the parties grimdark Shadow Elf that treats them like crap, and since he hates undead, he has come close to drawing down on them when he learned Demul is responsible for all the foes coming back after a fight. There was a lot of tension in this session, especially after Relanis and Demul (hanging in the back) were ambushed by goblins and Relanis made the change to her Aasimar form. Relanis broke into sobs after changing back (the Aasimar form is not disabled and has no face burns, and Relanis wishes she could stay in that form), and instead of sympathy, the Shadow Elf still wanted to kill them. But the fighter Zip, who grew up in a small village with Callie, has a certain fondness for Relanis after she bought him a tavern dinner in a previous session. 

The inclusion of these two unique NPC's in the campaign has paid off as a nice side-interest thing, and I so look forward to where it is going. The party just turned 3rd level, so Callie should make and Aasimar transformation before too long. It will be Suprise for her seeing as the player has her clueless about that celestial blood, and maybe at that point she will understand why Relanis has such interest in her.  The party is none the wiser about her secret race. And my misdirection of having Relanis show a morbid interest in the Shadow Elf ranger has helped them remain clueless. I was a bit worried originally that I might blow it for Mary, the Callie player, by drawing all that attention then her stalker turning out to be an Aasimar. But it remains secret. 

I think I will make a quick post on the origins of "The Odd Couple" in this campaign. I actually have specific reason for why I included them. But for now, it's just fun to get some experience with Aasimir in my games, and to finally after all these years get to touch upon the Voor dwarf race with the inclusion of Demul. 

Roll20 & the Player Experience

 

With a new campaign that is promising, and a successful 12 or so campaign during the height of the pandemic the other year, I got the chance to sit down as a player in a Roll20 game.

A player in my game, who has been super helpful in guiding me into getting up to snuff with various Roll20 functions (charactermancer, initiative, etc), had scheduled a one-shot that some of her regular players could not make it to. I was invited. 

The kicker was it was a Sunday morning. We would play from 11-3. NOT my favorite time frame to game in. But I live right across from a park at a protected biophere of the River where, when the weather gets nice, all sorts of events happen, most commonly "fun runs." This one was for Mothers Day, and they shut down various streets nearby, and traffic goes from almost nothing to apocalypse for a few short hours. A good excuse to make a big breakfast and a pot of fresh ground coffee instead of the usual handful of drinkies, and chill out and learn some things. Well, actually, by around 130 I went for a couple of ciders. What the hell. 

The major score for me here was I had yet to experience Roll20 play AS a player. So when I run a session I'm not always sure how the players see things. But also in the course of play, I have to get to know the character sheet usage better and it was a great lesson in that regard. Some things I just muddle through in my own game are easier now. Sweet. 

It was a decent group to play with, mixed male and female an nobody annoying in any way. I ran a meat and potatoes basic fighter mercenary, and the others were the modern "look how cool my character is" more advanced types. But I didn't mind.  No big woop. 

The encounters themselves were classic dungeon stuff that surprised me. Though I think my new friend M is old enough to have played some older edition, I did not peg her as dungeon minded. But there we were. We dealt with a ghostly child and her playroom, a mirror with our evil selves on the other side, and in the end an owlbear attack for the characters who did not join us to fight those dopplegangers. Me and a halfling on the other side of the evil mirror, and the rest of the party quickly dispatched by the owlbear. It was a TPK. Split party 101.

Now, I don't often do one shots. But when I do I just try to have like three interconnected encounters. Just stringing things together. But I think M was working on a larger dungeon, and we just dealt with sections she wanted to tweak. 

Thats all good. It was a great learning experience, and I got a few laughs with my cool dry wit, so maybe I'll get invited to more? 

Trade & Turpitude

 

GAME 2: "Roads Hold the Gold" - so, you are going to be a worker on the trade roads? Well, keep in mind, they still building the southern shire portion of The Great Tanmoorian Highway. For 20 years the queen been paving trade roads and promoting the highway. It's not all fine stone and slurry. When going south it won't be long past River Town that the paving stops and you start to see the kingdom's best road workers taking long lunches and holidays off where the pavement meets the country soil. Don't fool yourself. The Kingdom doesn't care where the pavement starts and stops. When it comes to the Southern Shires, it's profit that moves the maps..."

-Overheard from a seasoned caravan worker...

(above: campaign front page blurb for next weeks game)

So just like that I'm running a campaign again. 

After a handful of years working non-stop in health care, including a major regional hospital during the deepest parts of the pandemic, I decided to take a few months off from work. I live in a beautiful mountain area, known for plenty of outdoor activities. So I want to smell the roses, NOT have to get up early, be able to do some things during the week, and chill out. But this also makes me wish I had some extra gaming to do outside my XBOX. 

So on a lark I posted a "want to start campaign" comment in the Roll20 forums. I didn't have much hope. I have had only moderate success sourcing from the forum.  It's a place rife with Critical Role wonks and people who are looking for games where members are all into "alternative lifestyles" and require you to learn a list of ways they need to be referred to. Not that I'm biased against anybody. The first person to call me when I moved to a new city to see how I was doing was a transgender neighbor of mine. I'm good with anybody who is a good person. But the general populace of that particular forum are very particular about what they want in a game, and what they want you to refer to them as (and god help you if you get it wrong). 

I was clear about my background and how I go about DMing. Long and short of it, I eventually had 4 great sounding players wanting to be in a new campaign all within a week or two. It happed very fast. The first person I was contacted by was a gal (who I will call "M") who as it turned out was in my very same neck of the woods! Most of the rest are actually in different time zones. I rounded out the group by of course inviting my long time player and one of my best old friends, "T", to come in and play. Though not exactly a techie, T seems to enjoy the Roll20 stuff I did in the past. Once she gets up and running at game time she's loving it. 

My interactions with most of the folk in the days before the game made me hopeful. Flakes abound off of the forums. But man, everybody showed up. 

I ran Roll20 games very low rent in the past. Throw some maps up, move tokens around. Maybe a little jukebox music. But M was very helpful with some basic stuff. Helping me use scripts to set up a player welcome package which shows them the fillable character sheet right away. 

It had been awhile for both me and T in the format. The usual opening night technical issues slowing things down a bit. When T went into Roll20 she was confused to see herself still in the old campaign pages haha. 

Everybody had cool characters. Nothing too outlandish. I did expand on the material I was going to allow as far as characters (I still only own the PHB and Monster Manual. Oh, and the DMG which in 5th ed is next to useless. Summer reading material maybe). There was a shadow elf dude, a halfling druid with some dream connection thing, T ran a female dwarf, and there were two young commoners who decided they would be from the same local village. A male fighter and a female paladin. The paladin was outside the usual form you expect a paladin to take (at least in old school). Just simple townie clothing and a sword. No real deity. Just a connection to the cosmos. Maybe because she is, in part, one of those Assimer(sp) semi-angel people.

So there were no Cyborg Ninja Minotaurs, which was nice. But everybody had way more 5th ed experience than me (and also Roll20 experience, which is a little intimidating to a noob). But for their sake I had to start allowing going out in the weeds a bit with character gen.

I had this campaign idea for a long time, one where after a few games I would have the characters arrive at my D&D version of Runequest's Apple Lane, one of my favorite old modules. Get them all caught up in the pawnshop attack and eventually to The Rainbow Mounds. 

But I figured a caravan thing for the first couple of games. My style has evolved to where I like the first couple of sessions to just be "settle into our characters games," and caravan guard situation is kind of perfect for it. 

 I decided to focus on the trade season atmosphere for the entire campaign. Late fall where the last caravans of the year are getting in some last of the year travel. The towns and roads busy with profiteers. I can fit in flavor for this all over the place, in many situations. And make the characters want to earn more and more money by letting them see cool, expensive stuff to buy.

And while my urban city games might have a lot of Tarantino and action movie influences, I like to go with a David Lynchian vibe for the country. You know, everything looks nice and innocent, so the odd and terrifying things are all the more so. "Look at that lovely field of grain; oh shit, and Ankheg just popped up and ate that farmer!" 

That, and some things I was planning had me land on what I think is kind of a unique (if not clever) campaign name. "Trade and Turpitude." 

They all started in River Town, "the gateway to the southern shires." It's the next largest community after the main city, and in the decades of my game I have grown it bigger and bigger. 

The couple of commoner characters are on a quest to find a friend of theirs who ran away months ago based on dreams of a beautiful woman he felt was actually out there somewhere. So as they got to know the characters (the ones who were at the table anyway, The shadow elf lurker in a balcony nearby) they also inquired around about their friend. 

When I had the obligatory tavern fight go down, it was a table full of locals who were arguing over the towns bid to have the Queen of Tanmoor declare it a sister city to the capitol. A portrait of the queen was above the fireplace, and a single derogatory remark about her got the fight going. 

Even in campaigns where characters are never going to meet the queen, I like to get some lore in about her. Even minor mentions. This was an NPC in my game going back decades. She was around player characters since childhood (her father, the late King, tapped into player characters frequently for secret missions). Even my pal "T" has history with her. She has an old high level druid character who is Queen Libertines best friend going way back. 

Anyway, these days I like to have a tavern brawl act as one big, possibly growing creature, and I use a cartoon fight cloud to represent it. 

PC's can interact with it in various ways as it rolls around and endangers others. It will grow if others dive into the brawl, or it will shrink as parts of it are knocked out or brawlers removed from it. It always seems to get a hearty chuckle out of the players who see it for the first time. 

Caravan leader, Marge (who T's dwarf had already hooked up with) got the characters together to offer them a job. She took them to a secluded upper area to eat, drink, and makes some deals to work for her small caravan concern. 

I got my second chance to have another fight here. A mysterious figure who I won't go into in this post was at the bottom of the balcony area and started playing a spooky flute. There was a big stuffed bear up there with the characters (it just so happened the tavern map I sourced had it there!) and it very atmospherically (the wood and plater frame creaking and rubbing as a disembodied bear spirit was heard growling) animated to attack them.

 It was of course less deadly than a real full bear, but the characters were nicely freaked out by the sudden situation. Very out of place in a nice, busy inn. David Lynch, yo!

We ended the night with that crazy stuffed grizzly fight.

As I stayed on Roll20 to work on a few things, and hearing from some of the players seems to have us locked in for a second session next week. So far so good! I always figured that if you make it past a 1st session ionto a 2nd one then you know you have a campaign. If I do what I usually do, that is to try to top each previous game, it should be in the bag. 

But man. It's interesting how a group and a campaign can come out of almost nowhere in online formats. Sunday early Mary is doing some one shot thing with some of her regular players and I'm invited to join in for the day, so I'm going to get a chance to finally see Roll20 working from the players side of the screen. I feel not having done that is a major weakness in my own use of the format. The more I learn, the better I can be. 

Cheers

RPG's - NPC voices and sound FX part 1

 

Since its earliest days, the GM's job was to portray the world along with adjudicating the action. He was in control of the world's NPC's and intelligent creatures. It does not matter how old school neck-bearded wargamey, how Braunstieny, the GM was being in the earliest games. He was acting to a degree. OK, many then, and even now, more describe what an NPC might say over doing a full personal portrayal. But for those of us who kind of inhabit the role of almost all NPC's, you cannot help but it being a little like acting. 

Weeell, I sort of fall in between. In a hurry, or using a very minor NPC walk-on, walk-off role, I might just blow through the info he gives. "He comes in and says the high priest will meet you at 1AM at the Whirligar idol in the Park of Statures. He bids you well and leaves." But in extreme cases where an NPC mostly becomes part of the group, I like to have a way of speaking for him. Run him like a character. 

This is NOT community theater (though it could be). Its portraying somebody. I'm acting. You run a character with a personality, and you are acting. 

I'm no actor. I don't try to be. I dabbled in high school (an important part in West Side Story - here's a hint "got a rocket in your pocket, keep cooly cool boy!). Took some improv in college. Did partly improvised stage shows at Ren Faire for decades and sometimes still do. But no, for gaming I try not to make it about that, and it helps to let new players know there is no pressure for such. For the most part I put a little elbow grease into interesting characters. Old men voices, demon voices, etc. Softer speech pattern for female NPC's. I can do a great Scottish or Irish accent if I have a couple adult beverages (or more) in me. In all honesty I probably could have been a success in Voice acting if I had started early and took lesson. With the success of Critical Role, I can only wish I had. Rolling into a booth in a jogging suit. Knock out some lines then go be a guest at ComicCon. Oh well.😢

OK, so no actor here. But since I first started D&D I got heavy into sound effects. A spear piercing an abdomen. A sword getting stuck in a head. A character falling 100 feet and going splat. It is often greeted with great hilarity, even by the guy losing his character. What has been my secret? What got me started? Well, not Adam West Batman. It was reading Mad Magazine as a kid. Specifically, the works of the immortal Don Martin. I still have the issue with his sound effects spread. 

By my second year of DM'ing I probably used each and every one of these (besides the more modern things like the DeWalt "bzzownt" or the hand saw. But these particular sounds are violence gold. I mean, if a character gets hit with a bottle in a tavern brawl neglecting to use the "doont" is a crime against god. I think in one of my rare con games, where the characters were slipping and sliding on floor-poop in a goblin latrine, I used "glitch " and "ga-shpluct" maybe a dozen times. And man, that "sizafitz" is perfect for multiple magic missiles. And yes, I have uttered that sound the one time a dwarf character put a cigar into an elf characters eye. And of course, a GM should look for inspiration anywhere he can. One of my personal faves is the sound of a bad guy dying on the old Johnny Quest show "iiieeeee!!!!"

These are true crowd pleasers. If they don't get a laugh, I don't know what will. And as my second favorite cartoon rabbit once said...

We are living in trying times. We need laughs baked into our escapism. Cheer your players up by dipping generously into these "die laughing" gems. 

Cheers

Orcs, goblins, bugbears - same, same, same?

Early on in this blogs first run, I made a post about orcs in general. But my friend "L" has recently been reading a book called "Orconomics" or something like that which got me thinking a bit about them. Not so much as "what are they," but what I have had them be in the past and present. 

For sure I have gone back and forth about the general nature of orcs.  For most of my DMing life I have had them be of the almost demonic Tolkien variety. Murderous, hateful, cannibalistic.  Other times, like now, I have backed a little bit off my belief that most human women would rarely survive an assault scenario.  But there are a lot of half orcs characters in my games the last few years. For many years now various media (video games, non D&D rpgs, etc) often portray orcs as more or less barbarians, though sometimes noble. I've resisted that interpretion. I think its pretty boring just to make them human-like thugs or barbarians. Hateful and inherently and irredeemably evil beyond human ability to be so are my orcs.  Orcs, elves, dwarves, halflings; I like them to be pretty much drilled down into a single type of personality with particular behaviors. Its humans who should have the wide variety of behaviors. Saintly to thuggish. 

I have found over the years that everybody has a kind of orc they like. I guess my biggest change to them, starting around the late 90's up into more recent years, was to have goblins and bugbears just be different sizes of orc. Goblins are the wee ones, and bugbear stats used to signify Uruk Hai types. 

I may be totally wrong, but my impression from LOTR goblins were indeed just low forms of orc. The original hobbit of course had them be goblins, a separate race. Peter Jackson went that way with them. I think the old Rankin Bass Hobbit cartoon had them as goblins. 

Or...something...

This kind of made it easy on me. I did not feel I needed a wide diversity of humanoid types. With gnolls, kobolds, ogres, etc. around there seemed to be plenty. 

I think it was several years ago when I used The Keep on the Borderland's Caves of Chaos that I started going back on this notion a bit. The caves are a highly diversified series of apartment flats sectioned off by race. Orcs, goblins, gnolls, bugbears. At this point it was harder to think in terms of "ok, small orcs are over here, and a bunch of Uruk Hai are over there. " Doable but felt a little awkward to me. My thinking would have made the other races quite outnumbered by orcish types. 

But it was my adopting 5th edition about 3 years ago that had me breaking up the orcish diversity thing. In old edition the humanoids are mostly divided up by HP, AC, and damage ability.  But in 5th things are way more unique. Advantages and such giving them specialties. Abilities to gang up on foes, charge their foes, etc. So I parse them back out. Goblins have zero relation to orcs. Back to being creatures more akin to Brownies and Red Caps of legend.

"I'm a goblin. In a red cap."

 And I think I prefer it. I like to think of goblins classically, more mischievous than outright bloodthirsty, but also often murderous. A single blade-wielding goblin coming up in the dark to stab you in the back, or a small gang of them looking to take down a loot a "big'un." But also capable of just being families of mushroom farmers in the upper caves of the world, wanting to be left alone. My basic orcs are less diverse. They just want to torture you, kill you and maybe eat you.  

Bugbears are back to being their own thing as well, though I might still look to them as examples of nice big badass Uruk's. 

We just won't mention what they are like per Runequest.

The New Campaign 1st Session Murderhobo Test

 

This was something I have been doing for years, but I never had a name for it. I didn't even think of it as a thing. I just did it. But my recent experiences running for a new group (3rd session coming this weekend), all strangers to me, compels me to blog about it. So I needed a name for this test I do at the very beginning of the first game of a campaign of D&D. At first I wanted to call it a Litmus Test. But until I looked it up that term didn't really apply. It was just a name for things, usually not matching the pure definition of it. Hence, the title of the post. Good a name as any. 

The "you meet in a tavern" trope was something I did as a kid when I first started DMing. It was easy. Just be at a tavern. When I started my own setting after using Judges Guilds Wilderlands, it was essentially a tavern (in a village...gotta have a supply shop too) and a dungeon. That was it. Its a loooong story, but my world grew from there. But at some point in the late 80's, I got more mature and creative as a DM and started going outside my usual box. Characters meeting on a crossroads and something happening (save a family from bandits, encounter a mage who needs help, etc). That was a favorite. Or all of them starting out hired by somebody and already in a room meeting about what was to come, the players doing what they do in any first game (because I make them); describe their characters to everybody. That "already hired" method worked great for superhero campaigns, and even Call of Cthulu in some cases. 

So well into the late 90's it was anything BUT meeting in a tavern. 

But at some point for D&D I went back to the "meet at a tavern" gimmick for one particular reason. Whether it was a group of new folk I was running for, or the usual group, I would more often than not go into it not really knowing how the characters would combine as a group dynamic. A couple characters might be easy going and not particularly violent, but even just a couple of murderous PC's, merciless "Murderhobos if you will, can spoil the bunch. Not just that, they can ruin any chance for a peaceful meeting of minds for the new party. You see, a group of gang members or just basic thugs will start a fight. They will claim the table is locals only, or they might hit on a female character a bit too aggressively. Whatever it is, a fight will erupt. But the first fight in a civilized place that a party has can tell you a lot. And that is why it started being a test for me. How violently and mercilessly will the party, or at least a portion of it, react to a less than lethal threat? Its good to know early on so you can adjust your campaign plans to account for violent sociopath PC's shitting on your good works. Lets face it, few campaigns are suitable for both murder hobos and heroic types. I like a group of mixed philosophies, but the party will lean one way or the other more often than not, and I want to account for sociopathic behavior. If the party wants to kill everything in their path, then I'll plan on more fights over any kind of intelligent role play. Fine with me. 

So here is the test: the party is at a table in a crowded tavern. They mostly don't know each other, but it was the only available table so there they are; either introducing themselves or focusing quietly on drinks and dinner. A group of toughs appear (a gang of local rakes; some barbarians just rolled into town; a half-orc work crew just off their shift, etc). They start some trouble ("hey good lookin!"; "this table is locals only!"; "there is a beer tax for sittin; here!"). They may be armed, but knowing its a guaranteed night in jail at the very least if full weapons are used in a fight they opt to start out with fists and feet. If things are going badly daggers may appear, but not full size weapons unless the other party draws first. 

So how does the party react? If its in kind with fists with no real deadly weapon escalation, then you know you have a fairly reasonable and intelligent party. If they pull weapons out right off and start hacking away, then you know you have murder hobos with no fear of repercussions. 

So in the first game of my recent campaign I did this. Party at city inn. It was The Bonfire Inn on Bonfire Street. The largest and most popular tavern in Tanmoor. It also happened to be Queen Libertine's birthday, and the characters, individually, witnessed the queen riding in her own parade, stopping occasionally to politely refuse costly presents from nobles, and accepting letters and humble homemade presents from the poorer folk of the city, showering them with gold coins in return. 

The city was drinking, in a way a city often known as "The City of Cups" only can. So as the PC's entered the bustling tavern to get their own drink on, they were lucky to find a mostly empty table in the back. But it wasn't long before my "test" began. The were approached by a gang leader and a few of his followers. They were know as "The Ragdolls," a colorful group who did themselves up in colorful rags and ribbons in the fashion of rag dolls and corn dollies. Another group of young upper middle-class thrill seekers in it for the kicks. 

The gang wanted the table, exposing the classic "locals only" philosophy. After a little verbal back and forth, the leader swung a wine bottle at the barbarian dwarf and the fight was on. Though at least one character, a wizard, had stepped aside to wisely avoid getting in a fight, the dwarf, half orc fighter, and the druid who fancied himself a bit of an assassin were right into it with deadly weapons. The druid threw a fire bolt. The half orc immediately swung his great axe at the lesser armed leader, sinking it inches into his shoulder blade, taking him to zero and almost killing him with that one shot.   

The gang member who got hit with the fire bolt took off at full run as best he could through a crowded room, and the dwarf wanted to toss his hand axe at him from behind. When I made sure he knew it would more than likely hit an innocent with that shot, and could count on being out of the campaign in prison for a couple games (or more if he killed anybody from behind) he rethought it. I don't usually interfere with a characters decisions, or go a ways to explain the consequences of a characters actions, but here in the test it is acceptable. 

And when you know a character will tend to try and kill a retreating enemy, who had yet to attack anybody, in the middle of a city in a crowded hall, you knew that you had a sociopathic character on your hands. Sure, he's a barbarian. But not all barbarian characters are run like that. But the test showed me this guy would be. No prisoners. Good for a DM to know. 

So I knew what I was dealing with and the test was done. At least a couple characters were going to be murder hobos, with a druid who also had not hesitation to throwing a fire spell in a busy tavern. I ditched the idea I had for the campaign, an NPC heavy urban series of games, and decided to go for hooks and quests that would take them away at least from the major civilizations. Dungeon delves where they would be met by other brutal things rather than spending the games bullying locals and town folk. 

...and now I knew what to expect.