Overdoing the DM NPC

 

I had first heard of the term a DM NPC in some forum or another around 11 or 12 years ago. A DM NPC was one of the campaigns NPC's, but usually had a more negative connotation. Not just meek shopkeeps and street sweepers/walkers. But the terms "precious" and "favored" NPC's were thrown about. 

There seemed to be a real thing about this. Many folk clearly had a bad experience with DM's about NPC usage. And I guess I can see that. I remember about 12 years ago going to a Star Wars Saga session at this guys dad's apartment, me and 3 or 4 other full grown adults sitting on the floor playing in the guys Saga game (I only went because I was to run the system and wanted to experience it). I don't remember a lot other than the black dude in his 20's running a game while me and a handful of others in our 40's sitting there on the floor smoking pot. But one thing I remember is his main NPC, a well painted jedi miniature, being all over the little model buildings set up on the floor, doing almost everything while the rest of us kind of just waited our turns. But this kid loved his NPC clearly, and just wanted his favored guy doing most of the work while we watched. An extreme case to be sure. 

I also remember back in the day in my early teens going to the local Jewish community center in Santa Monica a friend invited me to because there was an older (probably around 30) guy running D&D for anybody who wanted to play. The main thing I remember was towards the end our characters were in trouble and were going to get killed by a local gang or something. And older DM dude having our characters having heard of this NPC, clearly his own character from some other campaign, and seeking his help. I remember the NPC confidently walking down the street with us, casting haste on himself and twirling a pair of swords around as we walked. I think that NPC mostly took care of the final fight. 

So yeah, I get it. Both of those are probably extreme examples, but if anybody was in the hobby long enough they probably had similar experiences. But how guilty am I? I suppose its subjective. 

From early on in my DMing my "precious" NPC's would be present. And more often than not they started as my early characters, and I incorporated them in my fledgling game world because, well, I wanted NPC's to be around other than shopkeeps and wenches. So here are two examples of my earliest D&D characters/NPC's (started in the latter 70's).

Arcturus Grimm - A ranger. He was probably among my first couple of characters ever created. I think from the original Greyhawk supplement where ranger was introduced (or maybe an issue of Dragon). There was no 1st ed Players Handbook yet.  He was exceptional and though we used 3d6 in order, I rolled nothing lower than 14, and the stats included 3 of them 16 or higher. As I was practically a kid I probably didn't realize how rare that would be. I made him a ranger, a strong 6'5" man (maybe based on one of my older brothers who was that big, and an all city athlete in school). His name was taken from a couple of my fave comic book characters. He was raised by bears in the northern Darkwold Forest. I had Arcturus Grimm be the elvish words for "Archer Bear." He was raised in the deep woods, and was fairly naive. 

When I soon started my own world, and began rarely sitting down as a player, I just injected Arcturus into the new setting (mostly just a tavern and a dungeon.). Over those early years Arcturus was there as the world grew. I expanded his background as being the adopted son of The Woodking Armis, the leader of an ancient order or rangers in the Darkwold known as The Woodlords, which I also added to the world. An early teenage sweetheart playing the game eventually would have a character marry Arcturus (making things awkward setting-wise when we broke up). But as characters, players, and campaigns came and went over the years through the 80's and into the 90's, Arcturus was here and there.

 Not hogging glory or fighting the fights for characters, but he would be around. Cameos as PC's adventured or playing a bigger role as wars and other major world events went down. At one point in my early 20's a girlfriend ran a daughter of Arcturus. New ranger characters might have heard of the Woodlords, and maybe aspired to join at higher levels. And Arcturus would be there. I have him pop up rarely to this day, still mortal but somebody of very high level who dallied with gods and other major spiritual beings. His adopted sister, Sheenara (or Sheen) rose to a minor woods deity status. Over 120 years of game time has gone by in my games, but Arcturus is actually 3rd elf so is not all decrepit yet, but far more mature than the young man I started him as when I was very young. Of all my characters/NPC's I probably had the closest affinity for Arcturus. I lived his ups and downs in the game world along with him.  

Over the decades I used various miniatures for him. Ones older gamers like me would recognize. 

One of the few minis I still have since the early 80's. Of any mini I used for Arcturus, this one looked the least like him. I suppose it is relative from a distance, but this does not convey the sense of a 6'5" dude. Just a basic ranger figure. Like most of my minis I got it at Aero Hobbies where I played a lot (but not as Arcturus) in my early teens. Owner Gary Switzer offered to paint it, and despite my descriptions proceeded to paint him how he wanted. I already did not like that the mini had a mustache, at a time Arcturus was clean shaven. And he gave him light hair instead of dark brown. But what the hell, it was a mini.  Early on as a character Arcturus had a Pseudo Dragon familiar (we levelled up fast when we were kids), so he used epoxy to put it on his shoulder, which was a nice touch. 

But more recently for brief cameos in Roll20 games I used this image:

Also his sister Sheen has made and appearance or two in the matters of druids:

These appearances are more for me than anything else. A brief touch of nostalgia. In most cases the players have no idea of the greater history I have with them. But I have had children of his (he left many of them throughout the lands after the Woodlords disbanded) appear in more recent games, specifically the twins Frend and Frenda, who are rangers encountered working for local caravans and what not. They appeared in the last couple of campaigns but nobody knew their parentage. So another insider bit for myself. 

Montigar Silverglen - he was an elvish fighter/thief I did up to play maybe a year or so after I created Arcturus. He was a high elf raised among wood elves and was an adventurous spirit who dallied with player characters here and there. He fought primary with two swords, and yeah when he became an NPC in my world I pumped him up a bit. 

Through the 80's and 90's he popped up here and there, usually meeting new characters in new campaigns. Every time he was encountered he was into something else. He was a dualist, a privateer, a Bon Vivante, a highwayman,a monster hunter, and a hero of two kingdoms, human and elf. I somehow ran him very charismatically; no less than 3 women in my games over the years had characters romantically involved with him. A romantic triangle between him and two other player characters (neither of them were girlfriends of mine, though "T" who I often mention is still one of my players) ended in death for one of them (his former girlfriend character, a fighter, killed a mind-controlled character of T's thief (the players were actually roommates then) who was his current girlfriend. Rather than restrain her, the fighter killed her. It was wild. No ending of friendship with the players, but this was a memorable moment that just became another part of his storied history bards would eventually sing of (which actually happened in recent games. Keep reading).  

One interesting aspect of Monitigar is his father was Whirligar, a high elf illusionist who was looked upon as a deity by gnome illusionists. Just one of those weird facts you come up with as a kid. 

I had a teenage sweetheart who ran a wood elf thief named Noradama. She identified with this character the same way I did with Arcturus. She and Montigar hooked up and were a famous power couple in the mostly city games I tended to run in my later teens and early 20's. This was the first time (but not the last) I would experience personal relationship role-playing, and my GF and I spent late nights acting out these characters as if they were in an inn room. Sometimes it can be extra good being the DM. I imagine other people must have experienced this. 

Much later, after the 90's, I had Montigar be a bit of a tragic figure when he appeared, someone who had bards across the lands sing of his many adventures and misadventures. Triumphs and failures. But I thought of him as somebody who was tired of the death and violence and doomed romances. He was a lone soul who never lost a fight but always lost in love. 

The first of many times I used the old Apple Lane setting for D&D in the early 2000's, I had characters encounter him living out the song Margaritaville there, working for the weapon trainers and drinking day and night, pestered by various would-be legend killers coming to make a name by taking his life.  

As a kid I got my hands on some Ralph Bakshi LOTR minis, including Legolas. I would eventually use the Legolas mini for Montigar, adding two longswords to the mini. Though Legolas was fairly effeminate looking in the film, the mini was a bit more butch.

Yep, after many decades I still had this fucker, though with an arm missing. One of my first ever paint jobs, and it shows. But really, now much better was Gary's paint job for the Arcturus mini.

Prior to the most recent games I think characters in a couple of campaigns the last two decades ran into him living the more or less quiet life. Probably several years since the last. But recently he appeared in my current Roll20 thing. 

The characters were on their way to the dungeon just beyond the southern border of the kingdom (taking several games to do so), and when they came to Shire's End, a remote village at the southern frontier of the Halfing Shire, I was brainstorming encounters there. Three families control the place, mining families who have concerns in the mining town a couple hours south near the dungeon out in the Grass Wilderlands. As the place had not much in the way of kingdom security (army outposts), the place had its own force of volunteer halfling frontiersmen, but also I decided this would be Montigars latest hang out place, being a Regulator for the families in return for a nice tower to live in and a modest stipend.

 The characters show up to the area and are chased by a hill giant but make it into the walled village. There they eventually meet Montigar, who is happy to see other than mining material and lumber merchants and invites them up for a party in his well-appointed tower in the merchant family inner compound. Here is the image I used for later in life Montigar, with scars and all.

Montigar spent a lot of the time manning his
minibar. "One for you, one for me, one for you..."

There is an issue with a hill giant, wandered up from the grasslands, menacing folk and stealing sheep. Long and short of it Montigar will deal with it, though he does not want to kill it because he is tired of killing things in his long life. The next day the characters go out to help him (he says maybe with their help he can subdue it over killing it), and it turns out there is a female one as well that was hidden in the copses of trees. With help from the characters Montigar got the giants to submit, and he offered the big dummies the opportunity to stick around to help protect the area and be helpful to the inhabitants in return for regular offerings of sheep, pigs, and bags of potatoes. Montigar asked the characters to stick around for another night of partying. 

I added the minibar to this map!

Despite my hopes that the wood elf bard Xanthia of "T" and the wood elf ranger Myrnigan of "L" would hook up at some point, given his history I thought it would be just right for Montigar to get the Xanthia hookup. I mean, she is super-hot. Tall, built like a female volleyball player, platinum locks, and a high charisma bard. Who would not want to experience that?

Or maybe I just have a thing for a cartoons

Ultimately, she wasn't having it. That is until Montigar asked her to do a duet of a famous old love ballad from their hometown of New Denaria. Luckily there was something nice in elvish in the jukebox to play and set the mood.

It won her over, though there was no nookie for ol' Montigar. Not yet, but it was on her mind. We'll see if that hookup comes down the road. The dungeon is only two or three hours away, so...

BTW, Evador the young cleric was taken with him, and snuck up later the last night to be with him. Xanthia the bard actually followed her up to the den to see what happened, and was glad to see Montigar nicely turned the Tanmoorian teen down, said she was too drunk and so was he, and sent her back to bed. Xanthia seeing that put her in the "I like Montigar" camp even more. 

So yeah, that DM NPC appearance was fairly self-indulgent. But what the heck, "T" enjoyed seeing an NPC from the past she knew of, and B and L thought he was cool. "Like a character from a fantasy romance novel" one said. 

But this is a rare case. I'm coming up with NPC's for games all the time, some regular, some more interesting. But jeez, I've had this game world a long time. It's nice to drag out old NPC's that have been around since my youth out of mothballs now and again. Not all of them are still alive. But why not use them?

Above: any Dragonsfoot Grognard who 
might read this post

Cheers

"Relics of The Dungeon Age"

Note: I'm not going to do session reports on the current ongoing dungeon jobber, though some of this post will seem kind of like its going that direction. As if. But I do want to get into what its about a bit, more or less, to point out some thoughts and ideas in relation to such a campaign. It seems every campaign these days has me getting the privilege of touching upon beloved old school notions, while also exploring new things with the latest edition. Yes, I do believe these things can live together.

So,

One of my "things" as a DM of old school persuasion who is doing a dungeon-as- tentpole campaign is to delay the actual dungeon crawling for several games (at least). There are a lot of reasons for that. Sometimes it's to let the characters settle into the campaign, and maybe go up a level or two. An extreme example would be my Night Below campaign for the old ongoing group back in my home city of Los Angeles almost 10 years ago. It was maybe a 30-session campaign of almost a year, with the characters, when all was said and done, were in the neighborhood of 8th or 9th level (traditionally high levels in my post-teenage years). And the first three or four of those were just bumping around the surface towns and villages getting to the point of being strong enough to go into the Night Below (which I believe counts as a dungeon as much as the old Descent into the Depths was). 

So, a little Roll20 campaign with a handful of my besties. A journey to one of the last remnants of the time of dungeons, or the Dungeon Age as I like to call a time period now mostly past (in my setting and in D&D in general). And I love the title "Relics of The Dungeon Age" because I can kind of see it having multiple meanings. The dungeon itself a relic of a time past. Old relics you actually find in the dungeon. And perhaps the players themselves, wanting to delve into a dungeon, are themselves relics of that age in an analogical sense. 

As a nice change from dealing with often oddball strangers of the Roll20 forums, this is an intimate little campaign with my very closest friends. 

 Best friends. Almost family. There is no more comfortable gaming than with people you have known for a long time, or feel close to for whatever reason. Not "D&D" people, but just some people who sometimes play D&D. That was always my sweet spot, especially in the 90's. Private groups filled with people you already know who want to play. 

So yeah, several games of just travelling south to get to the dungeon. So the deal with the delay is: B &L are new to Roll20, so I thought a series of basic overland and town encounters would kill some time till they were up and running with it. But I also wanted them to be a little higher in level than 1st when they entered the dungeon for reals. Why? I mean, a classic dungeon is just made for, you know, 1st level dudes on the first level. 2nd level on the 2nd level. Rinse and repeat. 

But c'mon. Does it have to be that ginned up for fairness in leveling. Was it ever? Back in the day in the Caves of Chaos you would) fight kobolds and goblins at 1st level?  2) orcs and gnolls at 2nd? 3) ogre and Medusa at 3rd-4th?

OK, CoC really isn't a levelled thing classically. But you know what I mean. 

Naw. I mean, when trying to go full classic every few years with a self-designed magical dungeon, it was fun to go "ok, rats and kobolds on 1st level, the orcish clan on the 2nd, a 3rd level with minor undead, blah blah blah." That is fine for the oldest of old school. But with this edition I think I can stray from the formula. You know, what they consider classic dungeoneering gold on old grognard sites such as Dragonsfoot.

"...AND EVERY THIRD ROOM SHOULD BE
EMPTY AND FULL OF DUST!"

So these guys would eventually enter the dungeon, probably through the entrance that goes to the 1st level, and they shall be around 3rd level when they do. 

So we started the campaign in a rural hillside town in the human shire south of the kingdom proper. Overtown in the shire of Overton. 

A location I have used for decades. I love rustic shires as a break from city games or deep wilderness slogs. Out in nature but still in civilization. 

And just to the south the halfling shire of Bundtland. But Overtown was the furthest south human dominated town. The last before things get all hobbity. With B's young sorcerer Ruvan, and L's wood elf ranger Myrnigan (a gal running a male character...grrrr) a team was forming. 

Ruvan the sorcerer. 

Myrnigan the wood elf

Ruvan is from the sparsely populated Riverlands just east of the shire, and Myringan from the nearby Blackwood Forest; a far cry from the metropolitan wood elf community/city of New Denaria a few days east of the city Tanmoor. These are areas I wanted to develop for a long time. My setting has been built in large part from character backgrounds and birthplaces, and these are two new towns/villages I can put on the map. 

T was not present for the first session. I wanted to do a little work on getting B and L up and running with characters with the nifty Charactermancer, and some character set up. They were knew to Roll20.

With an eventual party of 3, I need a 4th. So in comes the DM NPC, Evador, who is a young cleric of the healing god Billick. She is "a Blue Heart on the Red Path," a cleric of Billick who wished to be an active field cleric for the faith. So she chooses a dangerous mission of a personal nature to complete as sort of a thesis to impress the leadership at the Billick cathedral. She hooks up with Ruvan and Myrnigan during a barfight at the tavern they get swept up in. Evador explains her mission, to go and enter one of the worlds last true mythic dungeons. She asks them to accompany her. 

I have fun with this NPC. She is a former rich party girl from the city, who had a year or two of college then discovered the religion of the healing god Billick. Despite her rich kid rearing, she is taking the religion seriously, but I also have her dealing with physical stats that are not optimal for fighting monsters. I portray her as a tall girl who is a little awkward physically (in the most recent encounter she missed with her mace five times in a row). 

T's (wood elf) character Xanthia, playing tunes as a bard at the tavern, would be there to meet the other characters in the second game. Evador was seeking her out, because Xanthia had been to the dungeon before.

 

..and looked fabulous doing it.

Yeah, my very first little Roll20 campaign where T first ran Xanthia about 3 years ago was to this very dungeon. They got to the second level, and got to mess with its magical pool room, a staple of my mythic dungeons going back to In Search of The Unknown. I thought it would be fun for her to go to The Meadowlands Dungeon again as the sort of mentor about it to the other characters. In the first game she was still 3rd level while the others were 1st. It was a fun dynamic. Both T and I played with the notion of her coming off as the seasoned vet and Defacto leader. 

Off they went, heading south into the halfling shire of Bundtland. I already posted about their encounter with the halfling witch Emerelda, and their starring in a dating game show at her festival.

Fun in the chill halfling shire. Xanthia knew Governess Cymbaline Garlandheels from the previous campaign and ran into her and her entourage at the festival. This time there was to be a party at the estate. After helping out with some giant spider problems in the area, they boogied down (more or less) with local personages and interesting locals. A halfling high society deep dive. Good contacts. And a good way to gain a quick 5 lbs. 

I'd had Cymbaline as the governess of the shire forever. Tall and more slender, I always referred to her as a "Manling," a rare half hobbit half human mix. Be when all is said and done probably just a "Tallfellow."

So the party was swell. Xanthia playing tunes with the band. Myrnigan dancing with the young halfling gals with a crush on him. 

It was cool, but there would be more parties before the dungeon was delved. 

Next: Overdoing it with a DM NPC

 

When a Player Character (and sometimes the player) gets Laid

 

In my experience over the decades, all the way back to my teens, one thing seems a constant. Most male players running a male character (or even a female character run by a male in some cases) find it important for their character to get sex. Sure, they can be a Conan type and just throw some coins and gems at a strumpet and go to town. But it seems like kind of a big deal. Sometimes as important to the player as them getting laid personally. I don't know if it has anything to do with lots of D&D dudes traditionally being "incel," though a decent number of D&D wonks of my generation have had marriages and children and all that (personally I'm a long-avowed hedonist; I have two older brothers who had kids and that didn't always look like fun to me). 

An example here, one I experienced for almost 10 years. The host of my last group in my hometown up to around 4 years ago, ran a bard in a long campaign of mine where I used the great Night Below module, and beyond. These characters were played long enough to hit higher level, which is rare for me. So here is this bard character, with a name that should be emblazoned in my mind but I just cannot remember (my brain is pretty good at healing from trauma. Or maybe its just early onset dementia) the name. Anyway "horny bard" was constantly on the make. The player put a lot of his focus on the character getting nookie. And what can you do? If a character is flashy and has a good charisma, you have to let the chances be there. Well, I guess you don't. But I run a game that I like to consider heavy on the emergent (love that word), and where possibilities are open. So I let the dice with modifiers be my guide. 

But whatever it is, I didn't always like it. I had to be "OK, look dude, we don't need to go into more than the basic description of what is happening. I'm not the actual NPC girl, you dig?" It was all in good fun, with a nice dash of "whatevs," but honestly as time wore on in this campaign, I felt like a pimp for this player character. 

But that really isn't often the case. Besides the aforementioned Conan style whoring, if you run a game where you allow role-play to pan out a bit, relationships happen. Maybe between a PC and an NPC, and maybe a bit more rarely (in my game anyway) a couple of characters hook up. It can go to extremes. Such as any girlfriend I have playing in my games from my late teens to my early 20's. If one of my NPC's hooked up with one of a GF's characters, well, that is a bit more in the way of intimate possibilities. I mean, a bit of role-play happening at night when the game is over and everybody is gone is something I experienced a bit of, and I'm sure I'm not alone there. And when I was around 20 something there was about as an extreme example as you are going to get. 

I had two gaming friends who had started college at UCLA. So we had a game at their large dorm apartment. Them, me, and another friend of mine. And my GF at the time I think. We all knew each other from the year or so before at Santa Monica College and all of us had played together many times. All except this other girl present I didn't know. She was a super cutey, and she wanted to play. A couple hours into the game, it was clear she was flirting hard with my non-UCLA buddy "K," and he was responding to it. This girl was staying with the two UCLA guys. She was a student there, but something happened where she got tossed out of her place, and they were letting her stay a few days. They made it clear why they were doing that to me a day or two later when I asked about their behavior. They wanted a shot at her. Keep in mind these were some pretty nerdly dudes. Like Revenge of the Nerds level, more or less. But even at that age I found it kind of shitty that they were letting a gal stay there in hopes of hitting it. It was a different time.

Honestly, they didn't look much different than this. 

Anway, the flirting was going on in character, and it evolved into the real deal. K and the hottie adjourned upstairs to the spare room before the game was even over. I was loving it, but my other pals weren't feeling it. Though I was over the moon. Me and my pal K had a song from the great film Twins we sang to the other when we were making time with a gal:

Jealousy is a powerful emotion. An old man on a barstool (where I got all my best young advice) once told me "Jealousy is like being seasick. You think you are dying and everybody else is laughing."

One of the guys went upstairs and weirdly put a lit candle in front of the door. Maybe a Catholic curse? But it soon escalated to the door getting kicked in and the loving was broken up. It was for sure a ridiculous situation, but I guess it shows an extreme case of what I am talking about. It coming into real life. But boy oh boy, how often has something like this happened. For me, at the time, I was all like "I must be the greatest DM of all time." But of course, if that was true, I'd have been the one upstairs bringing sexy back. 

FYI I was only friends with the UCLA nerds another year or so, while King K is a bestie to this very day. 

But OK, why am I posting about this? Well, in this last Wed night session, some sexy got brought back. Uh, in game, not in real life. Now that I have retired from face to face to do Roll20, the odds of hookups are a bit light.

The fight with goblins was over from the previous game, and all that was left was to pick up the pieces and head back to town. The player of the Shadow Elf ranger was hit with Covid, so he was out. As I think I mentioned in a previous post, he was kind of a murderous mind about killing Relanis and Demul, a couple of ladies who had more or less "Stanned" (stalked) the party since game one. Though all the characters were suspicious (Especially Callie, the cookie making village girl, who seemed to be in large part the focus of the "Odd Couple's" attentions). But even though they had recruited the characters to explore some nearby caves with them, Mr. Shadow Elf ranger seemed to be close to drawing his blade to slay them, especially the albino dwarf Demul, who had the ability to raise dead with a flute and seemed obsessed with doing it whenever possible (Shadow Elf has a hatred for undead, and thus a hatred for her). 

You would think this was right 
up a Shadow Elf's alley.

But he had to miss the game, so the Odd Couple were not in much danger really. But when returning to town I had Relanis be afraid that Shadow Elf was lurking around waiting to kill them. So she used her most powerful weapon to gain a guard for the night. She asked Zip the young fighter (who grew up with Callie in a small village) to walk her to her room. How could he resist? And how could he resist her slow seduction in the boarding house room when she had him take off his shirt so she could use a washcloth to get some goblin blood and mud off him? Though disfigured and partially crippled from a childhood fire and wearing a mask, she was quite lovely and rocked a 17 charisma (and a bard who cast inspiration on him in the caves). In a previous game she had bought him dinner, and they got to know each other. He was the only character who didn't distrust her. Blind, stinking, simple, ding dong, doo dah naivety. And she was a several years older, university educated woman from the big city. 

Having half your face burned
off makes you no less sexy.

Here's M, the Callie players, recap of this last session:

"The group finally leaves the goblin caves, Ton’Rial parts ways and the rest go back to town without him. Halfway back Relanis begs Zip to walk her home, just him… The three others watch as Zip walks with her back to the place they’re staying, goes upstairs and they watch as the lights come on and go out and still no Zip… They go back to camp leaving Zip to spend the night. Callie mentions she’ll be back in the morning unless Zip comes back to camp. The group (minus Zip) goes back to the caravan and has a long rest. Welcome to lvl 3 The next day is a holiday. The Great Autumn Hunt, Callie doesn’t care, she gets up and marches into town to fetch Zip. She has a conversation with Demul briefly before being let into the building. Callie retrieves Zip and goes back to the Caravan. Once we are back, we begin to work, once work is done, we are offered an opportunity to help Howard the Wine Merchant. (Probably not his real name, but has forgotten it.) He wants us to go on an escort mission. We will go with him to a deserted town to pick up some wine he wants. "

Anyway, it was hilarious. Zip was upstairs losing his virginity, while all the others hid in hedges across the street wondering if he was being murdered or something. It was like something from a Porky's movie. 

Callie stews. Her best friend is with what could be a horrible foe of theirs, but she is powerless about what her bestie was up there doing. The next morning, she threw her chainmail shirt over her bodice and marched to the boarding house and fetches her grinning and dehydrated childhood friend away from the witchy woman. 

This was amazingly the first session I've run in many years where there was no combat. Sure, we played about a half hour less than usual, but shit. It just flew by for me. This is as good as role-play gets without becoming community theater. Poor "T," her older, no nonsense female dwarf fighter has no skin in the doings of these young fools but had to crouch in the bushes with the others while Zip was getting his groove on. 

As his virginity was taken, I gave Zip a nice bardic inspiration to use within 48 hours, while he walked around with a goofy smile and his legs shaking. With the Tonrial Shadow Elf probably back next game, odds are Relanis will be looking for another night safe in the arms of the strong and handsome Zip. Or maybe the halfling druid Tealeaf?

Mmm...naw.

This strange and character development heavy game was really great IMO. And I loved doing my part in making a good and decent PC happy. And I didn't even have to feel like a pimp doing it. YMMV.

Cheers

NPC's because Reasons

 Including NPC's in campaigns has always kind of been my jam. Because one of my main joys I get out of running games is watching PC's interact with my setting, NPC's need to be a part of that backdrop. 

They are usually created and injected into the games with particular purpose. And I'm not talking about generic shopkeeps and villagers. Its NPC's that stand out in one way or another. In many games over the decades I would have an NPC be part of the party. Either out of necessity (no cleric, not enough fighter types, etc) to fill a niche, or because I thought they might lend themselves to emergent game play. In the case of the party member, they were there to pad things out. But in other cases it was usually just a nice sprinkling of personalities that would be around for PC's to interact with as they wish. Sometimes they are briefly delt with and fall to the wayside as characters move on. But there are times that the NPC might get swept up into the ongoing doings of the characters. That's where things get all emergent. There have been times when an NPC I thought would just be minor gets involved one way or another with a PC, and in many cases have had major effect on the emerging story that is the campaign and stuck around forever. In a couple of cases relationships were born and marriages eventually happened. 

In the early days of the OSR I remember visiting one daft neckbeard forum or another where I would see arguements, people actually getting heated, over whether DM's should have NPC's around other than as cardboard backdrops. "DM NPC" was a dirty phrase. How dare the DM inject some precious NPC into the doings of the characters, taking away their god given time in the spotlight. Yeesh. I certainly never saw it that way. No matter how cool an NPC seems, they are ultimately there in service to the PC's tale. Patrons, royalty, mentors, apprentices. They can play an important part in the emergent play. 

OK, so in my current main campaign on Roll20, I introduced a couple of NPC's in the first session. They actually did not interact much with the party, other than a smiling glance across a tavern room. The party did not know it yet, but they had a keen interest in at least a couple of the characters, and would follow them, mostly at a distance, over the course of several sessions. Stalkers really. 

Relanis

Demul. 

I did not exactly come up with these two, the "odd couple" as the party calls them. Their inclusion is sort of an inside joke with myself. I have done these little inside jokes most of my DMing life. Here is how this one started.

After a successful 12 or so session initial campaign on Roll20, I wanted more. And I strived to find that perfect little group to run for. At the same time, thanks to adopting 5th edition, I had a couple of face to face groups over the last couple years or so. But another satisfying campaign on Roll20 was elusive. I had a couple of session zeros. 

For one I was in contact with this artist, a transgender woman, who had a couple of guys she knew from other games, and along with my long-time player "T" we tried a session out. I kind of knew it was going to be trouble from the get go. This lady, "J," was into playing characters that ran around barefoot with their breasts out. And I mean, ALL her characters were like this. So she wanted settings where that was normal. Well, my setting was not that. But I kind of hand-waved it. One of her guys, a Texan, had a normal name, but insisted on being referrred to IRL as "Morpheus." I found that kind of ackward. Nicknames are great, most of my friends call me "Mac," but Morpheus? I found it kind of lame. 

Then we get into the session and things move along for a bit. Then some combat with an Ankheg goes down. The non-Morpheus guy, who supposedly had some experience, suddenly was clueless. Like "move up to 5 squares and attack if you like" was over his head. No amount of coaching could get him to act. For 20 minutes I was like "just move up to it and roll a die." It was ridiculous. Then I skipped him and it was Morpheus turn. He had a bard character and gave a 5-minute dialogue at the start of the game about his background. Well, it was his turn and he declared "I don't have a character sheet done up." Um, what? You had this elaborate story. You have D&D experience. How could you not have a 1st level character prepared? I didn't even say that out loud; as usual in a difficult moment in a game I try to push past it and wing it as best as I can. "T" would later tell me that she turned off her mike for a few minutes because she was cussing out loud in frustration at these idiots. Meanwhile "J" was still worried about having her tits visible. 

We got through the session, but that was enough for me. "Morpheus" actually had the nerve to lecture me in an email about proper running of a game (me with over 40 years of successful campaign experience and waiting lists for my games based on local word of mouth alone). Yes, the guy who didn't even show up with a character prepared lectured me. Disappointing. I apologized to "T" and told her I would vet a little better next time. 

And I did. A couple of months later I heard from a couple of "gals" through the Roll20 forums. Both had some gender pronouns I would have to be aware of; them/they or her/har or whatever the fuck. I didn't care. I'll run for anybody, though the Roll20 forums seemed to be suddenly awash in "game must be LGTB- ABC" or whatever friendly. Fine. My best friend when I moved from LA was my transgender neighbor, and she was the first person to call and see how I was doing when I got into my new town. I'm hip. Let's just have a game, and I apologize in advance if I use the wrong pronoun/verb/person place or thing verbiage. They had very little experience with D&D and wanted to learn. Great, I love noobs. 

We had two sessions and I thought they went great. They seemed real into it. They had two characters, bards. Here are the images they provided:

 

Look familiar? Yes, these or the NPC's 
involved in the current campaign.

 

I did not invite T to the first or even second session. Before I took up her time I wanted to be sure this might last. So I ran two sort of learning games for the ladies. It went well. So for the third session T entered the game, and the set up was there for them to join the merchant caravan that would be the first half of the campaign. 

I sent a message right after the game saying it was fun and they did great. The reply a couple minutes later was "it was fun, you run a good game. But we need to admit we just wanted a couple of games to learn how to do it so we could run for each other. Thanks. "

Fuck. OK, they were fun little sessions, but it was a lot of work to hand hold noobs during them. I wanted a campaign. Disappointing, and I felt I wasted T's time with these two attempts at getting something going. 

I said "screw Roll20" and ended up running for a second face to face group in town. It went well for several sessions, but then the hosts having a family illness nixed that. And I was sort of getting fed up with going to a house and running in person. After a bit, I decided to try Roll20 again. Long story short, I met this great gal "M" in the forum who is very skilled with 5th ed and Roll20 and has been a bit of a mentor for me. Found a few more players, and the campaign is now going into session 7. It's the best group I have had since the 90's. Great role players with interesting characters. 

And here's where Relanis and Demul come in. 

As I said before, I love to do inside jokes with myself in games. Spoofing myself, my settings, and various pop culture things. Fitting in The Godfather references ("take the crossbow, leave the mince pie") or modern music nods. 

So the inside joke here was I would not let the last attempt at campaign be a total waste. I would use elements from it. Relanis and Demul had a game with T's dwarf and said they would work the caravan. So in large part for T's dwarf's sake, I would not retcon that last session. It happened for T's dwarf, and Relanis and Demul would now become NPC's for me to use. As they almost joined the caravan, they would be lurking around watching the other characters who did take the job. And with some changes I could make them possible antagonists of some kind or another. I mean, they were sort of offbeat characters. I would make them offbeat NPC's. 

Changes were in order. Both characters were good aligned bards before. First thing was I would change them to neutrality on the darker side. Relanis was a Scourge Aasimar bard. I would keep her a bard, but make her a "Broken Aasimar" (see my last post for more details). Demul would be changed to a rogue (though still a musician), with the ability to create undead with a flute. And based on her image provided she would make a perfect "Voor" dwarf (also see last post). They would follow the party throughout the campaign, Relanis having an interest in Callie the (unknown to the party and Callie herself) Protector Aasimar based on a hunch, and Demul causing problems here and there with her addiction to creating undead. 

I had another inside joke throughback to the original games with the LGTB girls. The Inn map I used had a stuffed bear in a corner of it. In the game last year the Demul player talked to the bartender and insisted on hearing an interesting story about why the bear is there. "Uh, its a stuffed bear. Somebody killed a bear and stuffed it. It came with the place." She was insistent. Give me a damn story about the bear. I did not have one to give, and we wasted like 5 minutes on this. 

So for the first session in an inn with these new characters, I used the same inn and same map. The one with the stuffed bear.  I was obsessed with incorporating that bear in this first session. You want a fucking story about the bear? I'll create a great story around it. This is when during pre-campaign prep I decided to give one of the girls the ability to bring a corpse to live. Even if it was just fur and wood framing. I would use that fucking bear. And I did. It came to life and was the first combat of the campaign. That's often how concepts to include in a campaign come to me. "Wouldn't it be cool if..."  Now that ability to create skeletons or whatever became a major part of the campaign and part of what the characters are dealing with. 

You can read my last post for more details and how I have used Relanis and Demul, but the point here is I wanted to get some use out of a previous failed attempt at a campaign, and I did. I found it satisfying. 

I suppose a case could be made that I should not use their ideas. But screw 'em. They will never know. I don't get the impression this was their original artwork. And it's not like I'm making money on any of this. But using those concepts for my own sinister purposes is not just satisfying in a closure sort of way, but what the heck. It's my world and I can use anything that came before. And it certainly is not the first time I tapped into characters of previous players who I'll likely never run for again. 

And I doubt it will be the last. YMMV, as the grogs like to say. 

Cheers. 

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. 

Symbol: Insanity

In last week’s Night Below session, you could tell things had gotten really high level. The party continued the assault on the Kuo Toa Priest King’s palace, and took on the king (a 12th level fighter/cleric), the last Illithid in the city (as far as the players knew), a couple of the kings 10th level fighter guards (complete with good armor and magical great swords), and a handful of 5th level “whips” (fighter/thieves). The main temple of Blipdoolpoolp might have been a better strategy, in that the destruction of the statue in that place would reduce all Kuo Toa priests in power, including the king. But the decision was settled on to take on the palace because the Illithid there bore the Crown of Derro Domination. And they managed to get their hands on it, in addition to fairly handily take care of the royal guards and the king.

A really high level spell was encountered in the king’s chamber, a Symbol of Insanity that the king inscribed upon the floor of the center of the room to hopefully catching any foolish enough to charge right in. Well, Vaidno the Bard was so foolish (actually, a pretty brave character who comes off these days more like an acrobatic fighter), and he tripped up the symbol.

What a powerful spell this is. See, the king had the spell per the module, and I hadn’t really studied on it significantly. So when it was set off and I looked up the save, it said “special.” The Symbol spells have a variety of affects, but it turns out in the case of this one there is no save. On the spot I could not really figure it out, and we even looked in the DM guide. The only indication of save is in the Confusion spell that you are directed to for rolling on a table for affect (run away, fight your friends, etc). That spell gives a save -2. Anyway, not wanting to burn the player with a permanent spell that only a Wish or Heal spell will cure (ironically, it was a player complaint that kept Terry from running two characters some time back, depriving the party of high level hobbit cleric Kayla, who was the only character that could provide a Heal spell), I decided to give that save as per confusion. “Surviveno” made the save, as usual.

Was it wrong to not go by the book and mess up this character, effectvly taking him out of the game for the final session of the campaign? Well, I wasn’t sure of the spell, and basically decided it was better to decide in favor of the character in case there was some addendum to this spell that we later would find, after Vaidno had already ran screaming into the Underdark or was dispatched by the others for attacking them.

In all honest, I know we are dealing with high level spells, and some of them can just mess you up, saving throw or not. But a spell that a character would just step on and be really messed up with no kind of save seems kind of bogus to me. The character could easily have missed his save and been jacked-up anyway. It seems much more exciting to make a save of some kind. A freaking fighting chance.

Anyway, I’m going to have to take the time to better understand these higher level mess-you-up spells for the next session for sure, so I can decide in advance if I want to nerf them or not.

Taking Pride in your Group

(pictured above: Our usual host Andy, and also a group that is not us)

As it has been pointed out here and there occasionally in my post comments, I don’t necessarily lean towards the positive all the time when talking about my games or my players. Let’s face it, some of us deal with happiness by just enjoying the happiness without making a big deal out of it. We deal with things we aren’t necessarily happy with by ranting about it. It’s sort of like guest reviews on a hotel’s website; you see so many negative ones because it’s mostly people unhappy with the experience who are compelled to review in the first place. I actually love my group, and I want to talk about it a bit from that perspective.

Currently there are seven of us regulars in the group, which is perfect really. Our games at maximum occupancy are one GM and six players. Perfect amount of players, because you can still have a fun and epic game with 5 or 4 players. Even with three players available we can do alternates or whatever. I keep the player count at a max of 6, but usually have sort of a waiting list of people who want in (a problem I have not heard that other locals groups have). I hear on an almost monthly basis from locals from various sources wanting in on the games. So many that I have considered trying to get a second, separate group together. But it’s hard enough to put together the time for one such group, so I think that is going to have to be my one and only group. Fine by me.

Four of us have been there pretty much since game one (or “game zero” as I like to call it), two and a half years ago. Me, Andy, Dan, and Terry (our token chick player). For around a year we had two or three players come and go, which is usually par for the course in any groups that weren’t all friends to begin with. Then Big Ben and Paul came along around the same time around a year or so ago, and we have had the same steady group now for close to a year and half. Little Ben, who played for a bit the other year but had work obligations, returned a few months ago. He has missed a few games since then, but more out of happenstance of his schedule more than anything else.

So, a solid group for many moons now. That seems to be a bit rare, at least in the Los Angeles area. Most groups I have seen or have experience with don’t seem to be able to keep it together the way they would like to. Not a knock at them, just part of my gratitude for a steady, steadfast group of great players. One experience I had was with a DM in West LA with a presence here in the old school blogs that resulted in my freshly created character being slain by an unfriendly and somewhat hostile player less than an hour into the session (I won’t include any links or names here. Regular readers can figure it out; I don’t wanna be starten’ nothing or cause any epic weirdo freak-outs), who turns out is the DM’s ONLY regular player over the years. Hmmm…wonder why. Regular player and co-founder of my group, Andy, had similar experiences with that GM and that player. As a matter of fact, Andy’s experience with these same people a few years prior to mine caused me to see Andy in a whole new light after my own shitty time with them, and to gain new appreciation for him and his play style. Andy seems just as happy to have a great and friendly group of regulars as I. With what is locally available out there, no wonder.

So yeah, I am happy with, and proud of, my group. For anybody in the past that has commented that perhaps some of my unhappy experiences outside my group is perhaps my own doing, I can only put forth my evidence against that theory: I have 3 people who have stayed over two years for my games, a pair who have stayed regulars for well over a year so far, and one who came back after a several month absence. My running of some OD&D at a local mini-con and then an Orange County Gaming Con last year were very well received, although I will admit that I think some of the friendships I made at those may have been affected by some of my harsh words in my blog about some of my other local experiences. Even Bob over at Cylopeatron, who I think looks at me with an eyebrow cocked lately after initially being fairly friendly, will admit that in his Gamma World session at the MiniCon event that I was the player MVP of the day (helping take the one-shot session to a solid conclusion when it was looking like it would end in a cliffhanger or forced conclusion at best).

So in regards to myself, my conscious is clear despite the occasional kerfuffle: I’m a very decent, fun and welcoming GM whose decades of experience shows, and as an occasional player I put a lot of my priority into the good time of the GM and the other players at the table besides my own. The proof has been in the pudding for anybody who has met me and played with me or under me.

Enough kissing of my own big ass. Let me kiss some butt and heap some praise on my worthy regulars a bit (in order of appearance in the group):

Andy: Sometimes drinker, sometimes toker, always smart-ass. Andy pretty much co-founded the group with me. He saw me on meetup.com looking to run some 1st edition (after a several year break), and after some of his less than satisfactory experiences with local groups he wanted to be in on something new. Andy usually hosts us, with his lovely wife Kara giving us the use of her fabric workshop in the back. It’s a nice cozy area, not too small and not too big, with a patio for the smoker/tokers. I was initially annoyed with Some of Andy’s play style choices, but in the long run I have come to really appreciate his excellent attitude towards role playing, and general welcoming nature to new folk who came along over the short years. Along with Dan, Andy is a very vocal player who loves to run his characters in an outgoing fashion, and any GM knows that is a valuable person to have at the table. Not everybody has to be real vocal, but a couple of people need to be. More than anybody outside of Terry, Andy is the most accepting of playing whatever genre I want to run. Can’t `put a price on that. I’m glad we have that. In the main AD&D campaign Andy runs Vaidno, a half-elf bard. In my occasional Champions games he ran a very cool Chop Socky Jackie Chan sytle Hong Kong cop, and in my Metamamorphosis Alpha/Mutant Future sessions he ran pretty much a mutated Billy Bob from Slingblade.

Dan: Big guy originally from South Africa (white) who has lived and travelled around the world. He has swum with sharks, trained in mountain rescue, and all kinds of crazy shit. He is some kind of computer related international business man, and has a nice pad up off Mulholland where we have played occasionally. He recently married his hot girlfriend. Dan has it all, and it’s one of the reasons I give him so much shit. A very outgoing player much like Andy, Dan also tends to be a little powergamey and argumentative with his characters, but funnily enough not in a negative way that you would usually find those traits in gamers. It’s fun to play the put-upon DM to his Munchkin play style. Dan loves the escapist nature of the games, and loves to kill things. I’m hoping he doesn’t one day decide to kill the DM. Dan’s main character in the 1st edtion games is the controversial Krysantha, a female drow raised by druids. She isn’t evil, but is for sure one hell of a bitch.

Terry: I have known Terry for over 20 years, and she has played on and off in my games for that long. I met her at the very first Renaissance Faire (formerly in Agoura Hills) I ever worked in the late 80’s. I actually posted about my appreciation of Terry as a friend and player a few months ago (inspired probably by her treating me to a weekend in Las Vegas), and you can check out that feel-good post here.

“Big” Ben: Call him Big Ben, because we have another Ben in the group who Big Ben has a few pounds on. Ben has a lot of 1st edition experience from the past, and actually knows the rules btb better than the rest of us, without being a rules lawyer. Ben has actually been very valuable in looking up things in the books when I don’t feel like it and am ready to just house rule something (Andy is handy that way too). Ben runs a high Elf mage, Lumarin, in my main campaign. Ben also runs the occasional 1st edition game for us so I can take a break and be a player. In his campaign, he had us all required to run high elves or half elves. Can you see a pattern? Yeah, Ben seems to have an elf fetish. If he was skinny with long flowing blond hair it might seem to explain things, but Ben is around 6 feet tall, burley, and bald with a goatee. Hmmm…

Paul: a young college student with no tabletop D&D experience, he has a lot of experience with the D&D video games, and that seems to pay off at least in game concepts being familiar to him. For a new player, Paul has really taken things to the grill with the MU/Thief, Lily, that he ran. He eventually betrayed to the party to former allies of his, basically screwing himself out of getting to run the character any more. And it was not just to be a dick like a lot of experienced, anti-social type players might. He was actually role-playing what he thought that character might do, in the process having to start playing an NPC provided by me to continue in the game. In the Met. Alpha/Mutant Future mini-campaign we ended this week, Paul ran a mutated tree. He is very cool, with a powerful shriek and acid sap damage abilities. This character was probably the most interesting in the entire campaign. Paul sort of inadvertently named out group last year. I started a private Yahoo page for us, and needed a name for it. I didn’t want some dorky gamer name, so Paul said “you should make it something abstract, like “Waves of a Forgotten Box” or something like that.” Thus, a group name was born. Call us “The Wavies.”

“Little Ben”: not really little, but smaller then Big Ben. He played for a bit the other year before his schedule got involved, and is now back playing again. A good guy, he is a solid player despite running a non-combatant in the Night Below games. His gnome, Ormac, chimes in with the occasional illusion. When another player murdered a captured NPC a few games ago, he refused to accept a magic item (want of magic missile) that had belonged to the victim. To me that is some pretty good role playing of a good character. How many spellcasters, especially one with few combat spells, would pass up a wand of magic missles?

There you have it, the current group, and I’m damn proud to be a part of it, much less the main GM. Without them, I would be awash in the gamer sea of flotsom and jetsom out there. How I got so lucky, I’ll never know. Or maybe I’m just that damn good ;)

So, tell me about what makes you proud, or at least happy, about your group…