Mbeacom comes back to us with a post about brevity and conciseness in regards to adventure design. It’s a good one; I’ve included some follow-up thoughts at the end.

One of the groups I currently run is taking a short break while I prepare for, and go on, a family vacation.  I had this planned for a while so I was able to make sure the narrative we were engaged in had tied up pretty nicely leading up to the break. There are several dangling strands for future adventure but nothing that is time constrained so as to make the break feel unnatural.  As far as my group of heroes is concerned, they’ve earned a nice chance to kick up their heels and let the locals gush over their hard fought successes.

But where to go next?  As I said, I’ve peppered seeds of adventure here and there but now I need plans for what those seeds may become.  Normally, I like to use published adventures as a framework, at least pulling some villains and motivations from them to lay at the feet of my players. Then letting the players show me what they feel needs attention. If they follow the hooks of the adventure, great, if not, that’s fine too. I like the potential for things to happen that I hadn’t thought of. It makes the story feel more organic and it’s a nice surprise to see where things will lead, rather than having all the spoilers in advance. For some reason though, this group has me a bit stumped. I’m relatively new to the group, having only DM’d them for a few months and not knowing any of them personally prior to the start of the campaign (props to Wizards Encounters program for giving me the opportunity to meet other local gamers).  They’re not a particularly vocal bunch but they definitely love playing the game.

It’s this background that I’ve been mulling over in my mind as I try to decide what tasty challenges to put on the gaming menu.  When I’m in a situation like this, I tend to reach out to the web for inspiration. I try to find an article or story or even a random comment that helps me put things into perspective.  In this case, it was a fantastic writeup by Chris Sims over at Critical Hits.  Chris is a guy I’m really starting to sync up with. His great perspectives and original ideas make him a solid source of inspiration.  Back in February, he wrote this story about game design.  That’s right, about GAME design, RPG design mostly.  However, in reading his thoughts and suggestions, I realized that they’re not exclusively relevant to the design of new games. They’re so fundamental and easily overlooked that they’re useful for almost ANY type of design or creative process.

In my case, I’m going to endeavor to use his tips to help me focus on my adventure design. This brings us to “The Nanopitch”.  Chris describes this as the single sentence one might write in an effort to get their idea in front of a decision maker at a company. What is it about your idea or product that makes it unique? Or, tell us about what your idea means and why it’s worthwhile.

Ideally, you want to couch your nanopitch in terminologies that everyone understands. If you use references to common cultural icons, you can sum up ideas and concepts in a very short bit of text. I think this is not only great advice, but it’s a great way to think about your campaign plans, or even more simply, your story designs. Heck, even a villain could benefit from having a nanopitch.

Whether you’re a player or a DM, think about your game. Can you sum up why it’s great in a sentence or two? Can you make one sentence that encompasses what the story is about? Ok, so maybe campaigns can get more complex than a couple of sentences allow. Even so, I think it’s a great exercise to try to apply the concept of a nanopitch to certain aspects of our adventures. Perhaps each character could have a nanopitch. Perhaps each subplot or quest could benefit from this focused approach.  Just one simple concept of what it means or what motivation drives it forward.  Using this, I think it can help us design encounters, both combat and non-combat. Does the encounter serve the concept? Is it “necessary”? I think if we start to look at things this way, we can avoid some of the oddities of adventure design that tend to creep in. Those things that dilute the awesomeness of the story, or confuse the players as to what is really important.  And as I’ve learned from my experiences of running games, diluted awesomeness and confused players are very often a signal that your adventure design needs to be more focused.

So, as I sit here and ponder what unthinkable evils my players will have to overcome, I’m thinking of them with laserlike focus. I’m designing with greater consistency of theme and purpose.  I hope not to lose that 50,000ft view of the world, even as I dig deep into the wild antics of the skirmisher I plan to use in certain encounters.  I’m resolved to create a “core ethos” and stick to it, letting it guide my design decisions. Hopefully this will help over the long term as transition into Paragon tier. I really want my players to look back and feel like they made a journey, rather than just did “a bunch of stuff”.  Perhaps I should ask my players to make the nanopitch.  That could get really interesting.

This nanopitch idea reminds me a lot of something that exists in the Dresden Files RPG: the high concept aspect. Each player character has seven aspects–descriptive phrases that say something about who and what your character is–one if which is the high concept aspect. This aspect sums your character up in a few words to a sentence, boiling your character down into something short, punchy, and memorable. In fact, all named characters (NPCs included) have a high concept aspect, which helps to keep them differentiated in everybody’s minds. Applying a similar thing to D&D (or to other games) can help you come up with a cleaner, clearer vision of your game world and the cast of characters populating it.

I also want to touch on the idea presented at the very end of this post, the idea of letting your players give you the nanopitch. I love this idea. Again, DFRPG does this to some extent. The first session is City Creation (of which Character Creation is a part), and everyone’s involved. All of the players, in concert with the GM, create the game setting in concert, complete with NPCs, threats, and locations. New things can, of course, be introduced during the game, so the GM is not constrained by what is created in the first session, but it’s a great way to mine your group for ideas, and a great way to get them to tell you what they’re interested in seeing in the game. Chances are, if a player tells you that there’s a mob boss controlling the trafficking of supernatural drugs somewhere in the city, that player probably wants to do something about that problem at some point.

Again, the applications to D&D are intriguing. Setting aside the first session of a new campaign for character creation and setting creation takes a lot of the creative burden off of the DM, and gets the players immediately invested in the world (since they helped make it).

Another post from our friend mbeacom, in which he talks about soliciting player input in your campaigns.

I just read a great article over on Dungeon’s Master and I’d like to use it as a stepping off point for some thoughts and experiences I’ve had on the subject.  In this article Wimwick discusses the subject of player input, and in particular, how much should players have in building the story and even the campaign.

I think he rightly surmises that player input is both vital to the story, as well as incredibly helpful to the DM, a person who often struggles with the endeavor of putting together an intriguing interactive fiction that is hopefully enjoyed by all.  He starts with the tried and true; the player back story. Then he moves on to what I think is just as key to keeping things moving along; the Paragon Path.  Wimwick supports my belief that Paragon Path is more than a few extra class features and attack powers we can expect to get in the mid levels of the game. It’s something we can use to fuel our player progression and set us apart from (or bring us closer to) others in the group in a good way that advances the story while supporting creativity.

So, let’s take those solid building blocks and see if we can pepper in some more juicy bits that might benefit players, DMs, and more importantly, stories moving forward.

The Player Trademark
I play in two alternating groups and DM for two others so I have lots of opportunities to try out different techniques.  One that I’ve been tinkering with, as well as been exposed to, is The Player Trademark.  It’s still in its infancy but I’d like to throw it out there to see if others are having success doing something similar or if it sparks an idea that might improve on it.  I’ve been trying to put together a few little eccentricities (as have some of my players) for the characters I play to give them flavor. After reading posts like Wimwick’s, I think there may be greater potential here.  I can see a possibility where a player Trademark would be a great vehicle for using story to give information to both the DM and the other players in the group.  

An example of this is my Ranger character.  He’s level 7 now and I’m considering the Battlefield Archer Paragon path.  That’s good information for my DM to have for planning adventures and we’ll eventually have the very discussion that Wimwick advocates. However, being the story loving type that I am, I would like to influence the story in more subtle ways as well.  I’m going to try to develop a Trademark that will give the DM even more flavor for developing any portions of narrative that lead to my eventual Paragon Path. Currently, I’ll call what I do a gimmick more than a trademark.  My Ranger has a habit of whispering the name of the enemy he attempts to kill in combat prior to rolling the d20. I’ll probably take this a step further and begin whispering the name to my bow, or perhaps to each arrow specifically, communing with it as an extension of myself. Perhaps I’ll come up with a post-combat ritual to add to this.  Doing this can be an interesting RP exercise as well as giving my DM a peek into what is important to me as a character, i.e. my bow and how I use it to dispatch my enemies.  Knowing this can add the extra oomph to how he plans my trajectory into the Battlefield Archer Paragon Path.  This extra depth allows me to impact the story such that I can help seed the DMs imagination in a way that is in keeping with who I view my character to be.

Player Relationships
Another interesting story seed is player relationships.  This is a pretty common thing to think about. Does the Paladin get frustrated by the Rogue or the Warlock? Does the Dwarf constantly bicker with the Elf in the party? Is the Warlord constantly “over” negotiating NPCs with his intimidate and diplomacy skills?  These are pretty standard tropes insofar as we understand them. However, thinking about this has made me realize there is more potential there for the thoughtful player and DM.  

Others may take this for granted but it struck me recently that these relationships should both be informed by player backstory as well as impact Paragon Path choices.  Our relationships with other PCs, NPCs and even villains, can be a great way to set our characters on certain adventure paths. Do we want our character to be someone who melds easily into society? Do we want them to be someone who struggles to maintain relationships? Do we perhaps antagonize certain types of characters or villains? Do we have things in common with them? How does the way we make these choices, and how we RP them, affect the ideas we have about our Paragon Path choice?  I’m not sure I have all the answer to this one, but I’m certain that with further thought, and potentially some feedback, there is great storyline potential here, especially as we try to link it to our chosen Paragon Path.

Player Weakness
Now this is one that I think has some great potential.  We all spend a lot of time building our characters strengths, powers, and capabilities.  However, inherent in those very designs is weakness.  In many ways, those weaknesses, those “holes” in our character optimization can be just as interesting as our actual abilities. Perhaps you’ve designed your character to be an expert in certain areas. This could very well mean your character is narratively deficient in others. Think about your skills.  What happens when you stack your design to have great scores in certain areas? Naturally, your scores in other opposing specialties will suffer.  This is more than just good game balance. This is a narrative opportunity.  Similarly, those nights where your dice are ice cold can present an opportunity to tell a story that is interesting and different from the nights where they are flaming hot.  This is a story challenge, and even failure can be exciting if you build a story around how it relates to your relationships and even your Paragon Path.  Just like failure needs to be interesting in a skill challenge, so too does failure need to be interesting when it comes to our characters’ abilities and endeavors.

In fact, I’ve recently had discussions regarding one of the games I play in where the DM makes success a bit too easy.  All those potential storylines that revolve around failure, or lifting yourself out of defeat become purely theoretical. Don’t get me wrong, I like to do awesome things as much as anyone (see my most recent guest post) but I also think that the greatest feats of awesome often begin life in the shadows of failure or near-defeat.

Think about your character’s weakness. Perhaps it’s a Barbarian who is weak at ranged combat. Perhaps it’s a Cleric who was built around healing but has little damage potential. Perhaps its a character designed for combat but who suffers in RP situations.  These are all great hooks that can be influenced by backstory and further used to make our Paragon Path choices all the more interesting and potent.

I guess the point I’m trying to get across as it relates to Wimwick’s post is that he’s more right than he realizes.  Backstory is huge. Paragon Path is huge.  So much so, that we need to continue to expand on both as well as what they mean for the future and how they relate to our past.

If you have any thoughts on getting the most out of your backstory and Paragon Path, I’d love to hear about it in the comments.

Frequent commenter mbeacom gives us is first guest post today. Those of you who’ve followed recent comments might know where this post is going, but I encourage you to read it anyway. Mbeacom does a great job explaining his own little house rule, and backs it up with a lot of, well, awesome stuff!

Marcelo Dior wrote a wonderful column last month on speeding up combat in 4E. It took the bold position of questioning whether or not speeding up 4th edition combat is really as vital as internet message boards would have you believe. It really got me thinking, and based on Marcelo’s well reasoned treatment of the subject, I’d wager it did the same for a lot you.

So I asked myself, “Do I need to speed up combat?”. A year ago, you’d have heard me give a resounding, “YES!”. I was still youthful in my experience as a DM in 4E, having spent most of my time running far simpler versions of the game decades ago. I was a strong proponent of gridless combat and theater of the mind. I avowed collaborative storytelling and eschewed what I understood at the time to be a heavily mechanical design shift underpinning all of 4E’s combat. To put it simply, I thought combat took too long. And, embarrassingly, I endeavored to recreate the combat of previous editions in my 4E game.

A year and several gaming groups later, I’ve come to different conclusions. My understanding of the workings of 4E and its “underpinnings” has changed markedly over that timeframe (much thanks to Brian Engard and this great site in helping with this). I’ve seen all sorts of gamers chew on the rules and spit out wildly different results. I’ve learned that not only is beauty in the eye of the beholder but so too is “speedy combat” in the eye of the gaming group. While one group might grind to a halt at the 45 minute mark, another would burst into the second hour full of energy. I started to put things together and came to some conclusions. These conclusions have lead me to make changes to my own games. In this article, I’m thrilled to have the opportunity to share one of them with you.

The most successful initiative I’ve tried over the multiple gaming groups I’ve run 4E for has been what I call, “The AWESOME card”. It was derived as a response to something I noticed happening at every table I ran for and played at in the 4E era. Players would flip through their character sheet scouring over their juicy powers and feats. The funny thing is, they would do this in an almost unspoken effort to find something that wasn’t there. I could see the looks on their faces almost as if to say, “Hmmm, this looks good, but not quite right”, or “Oooh, I like that one but I better save it for later”. To this, I wanted to shout out, “NO! your character sheet doesn’t have the answer!” “Just do something AWESOME!” That’s when it hit me. What SHOULD they do? Did the awesomeness potential of the character begin and end during the process of choosing powers? I certainly hoped that wasn’t the case. So I decided if they couldn’t find that “perfect” power on their character sheet, I’d help them make one up on the fly. And when they did so, I’d reward the effort with a power card of my own, something that says, “You did something creative and entertaining and we all enjoyed it!” I’d give them and “AWESOME! Card”.

Lead By Example

My first step towards insinuating this new “mechanic” into my game was to demonstrate what was possible. As a DM, I started really describing the actions of the enemies. I’d tumble around opportunity attacks and one enemy might leap on the shoulders of another as they both got combat advantage positioning before falling prone in a heap on the floor. My players were initially stumped as as I bent the rules to the breaking point and played up the strengths and weaknesses of the enemies they faced. But it didn’t take long for the craftiest of my players to return the favor. He asked if he could “try” something and my eyes lit up. I was prepared to say yes to my own execution at that point. His idea was great. It was well within the “exception” based rule system of 4E and when he was finished, everyone was impressed. Immediately, they were looking over at his character sheet for something they had missed. We had all visualized an action that was significantly more interesting than “State power, role dice, announce damage”. Don’t get me wrong, sometimes, that’s exactly what needs to be done, but in general, flavoring things up can be a lot more fun.

After he completed his epic turn, I looked to the next person in initiative order and said, “Well, what are YOU going to do?” And to this day, we’ve never looked back. Recently, one of my players informed me, he doesn’t even look at his list of powers anymore, except to try to find some mechanics that make sense for what he wants to do.
I said to him, “GREAT!”

Reinforce The Awesomeness of The Players

Ok, so you’ve shown your players what “awesome” looks like and they’ve even tried it themselves. Isn’t that enough? Sadly, I wish it were so. Unfortunately, with 4E combat being very tactical with powers that make life so easy by telling you essentially what 6 actions are available to a character, it’s easy to fall back into old less-exciting habits. That’s where the AWESOME! Cards come in. Each time one of my players does something really creative, clever, or simply entertaining to the group, I hand him or her an “Awesome” card. It’s essentially just a reformatted homebrew power card that says some funny things and gives a reward. A few examples of the rewards are that perhaps you get to reroll a missed attack, regain a healing surge, recharge an encounter power, or even roll a special giant D30 that I keep around for fun.

These concrete mechanical rewards make the creativity feel that much more awesome. Players feel a sense of achievement more frequently through the course of the combat. This breaks up the work and reward cycle that comes from working hard to achieve a goal. If they work for 1 hour to achieve a goal (defeating the enemy, surviving, escaping), things can get stale because this one singular goal takes a long time to achieve and no single action stands out as making the achievement possible. Then when they finally achieve it, it can feel almost anticlimactic. However, if there are smaller intermediate goals that can be achieved, it removes the sense of slowdown one can get as combat draws toward the hour mark. The bite sized bits of greatness keep things surging forward and keep everyone entertained as each player tries to find some fun thing to do rather than decide which power would be the most effective at that time. The players worry about their characters and what they would actually do, rather calculating the most DPR possible. Now, if you LOVE calculating DPR or dropping mind numbing Novas, that’s great, there’s no “right” way to play D&D. But I’m of the mind that 5 people calculating DPR is generally not going to be as entertaining to watch over an extended period. (although Novas can be pretty amazing) Now, if you want to calculate DPR as well as do amazingly creative things, then I’m all for it. That’s what I would describe as “winning” D&D.

Other benefits

The last thing I’ve noticed since I’ve started using AWESOME! cards with all my groups is that the players’ interaction with the game world seems to be more under their control. What does that mean exactly? To be honest, it’s hard to explain. These awesome cards work much like an Action Point, in that you choose to use it when you feel it would be most beneficial or interesting. This gives the players more agency; more depth in how they can control the game they get to play. And, in the case of the re-roll awesome card, it keeps the dice rolling. Nothing I’ve seen has greater impact than getting that high die roll when you’re really in a crunch. Nothing is more devastating than when you get just the opposite. With a re-roll card in your pocket, you can more frequently experience the best of both worlds. You can fail spectacularly and still have a shot at saving your hide. You have more chances for those elusive crits. In the end, it just gives you that much more reason to do something fun, entertaining, and NOT predetermined by a character generator.

So this brings us back to the initial question posed by Marcelo. DO we need to speed up 4E combat? I think the answer is a resounding . . . not necessarily. Combat really only needs to be sped up if it’s too slow. It’s only too slow if it lasts longer than your players interest and it will mostly likely only last longer than your players interest if something isn’t happening during combat to pique that interest. Well, I’m here to assert that finding ways (one is via in-game rewards) to incent players to entertain themselves and each other through their characters actions. A side benefit of this is that it takes a lot of load off the Dungeon Master as entertainer. It also helps make the game more fun for him or her, as well as everyone at the table. And, isn’t that it’s all about?

I was reading through the Dresden Files RPG, and came across the above phrase. It really made me sit up and think for a second because it’s an idea that I believe a lot of people forget about when they play many RPGs, most notably D&D and its ilk.

Here’s what I mean. Say you’re at the table, playing D&D. You’re fighting a frothing band of orcs, and you’re rearing to go. You take up your sword, and you say, “I activate Cleaving Stance, then I use my move to get over here. Then I’m going to charge this orc.” Notice anything? You’re describing your character’s actions in terms of the game mechanics. This is a clear example of mechanics preceding story, and while it might not be a terrible thing (it does have the advantage of making your actions mechanically clear and precise, and eliminating confusion), it’s not all that exciting.

Now, what if you instead said, “I draw my sword as a run over here to get into position. Then I barrel headlong into this orc, and my blade cleaves through his flesh to lodge into his ally over here.” That’s a little more exciting, a little punchier, and it says the exact same thing. The main difference here is that you’re leading with story rather than mechanics; you’re describing things from your character’s point of view instead of your own. Intent is preceding mechanics.

This is easy enough to do when you know exactly how you want to handle your actions mechanically; you just figure out how to describe what you’re doing narratively and you’re golden. But here’s the awesome thing about leading with story: you can do it even when you don’t know what powers or abilities you want to bring to bear on a given action.

This is a great tool to use when you’re unfamiliar with a character’s specific abilities, or even the game in general, but you have a decent amount of familiarity with the concept of your character (which you should, if you made him). When it comes to your turn, don’t worry about what’s on your character sheet. Think about what your character would do, how he would react, given the situation. Would he move to intercept an orc charging at one of his companions? Try to fry the chieftain with arcane fire? Cry out in defiance and lash out at everyone around? Think about what your character would do, and describe it in terms of narrative. Then, work with your DM to come up with a way to model it mechanically.

As a DM, try to encourage this kind of play. In general, I’m willing to bet you’ll see your players doing interesting things more often, like using the environment and taking improvised actions. Powers are great, but they can be a crutch, too. Most importantly, your characters don’t know what powers they have, or what they’re called. They only know what they would do, or try to do.

Another guest post by The Great Seamus. Today he talks about playing D&D on the cheap by making use of local craft stores. As an aside, Seamus and Marcelo are both contributing pretty regularly to the blog, so I think it’s time I made them honorary members of the Guild. Their posts will no longer be prefaced by “Guest Post” (though they’ll still be in that category, for easy finding of things). I will, however, be including little intros like this on any posts I don’t write myself.

I sometimes feel that the hardest thing to convey to players these days is perspective. In our digital age, simply telling a player that a colossal black dragon is rearing on its hind legs, acid dripping from its maw, eyes glowing a hateful red . . . players today want to see it. I know many “old-school” gamers decry this, saying that back in their day, all they needed was imagination. I say that this is that natural progression of entertainment and technology. PONG doesn’t cut it anymore, and neither (necessarily) does imagination and dice. And while there is no substitute for a healthy imagination, these days there are a number of tools at a player’s and a DM’s disposal to help make the game come alive.

The two biggest aides one can have are maps and minis. Thinking up a character is great, but it is a little more endearing to put down your perfectly crafted mini on the table, geared for war. The same can be said for monsters – that same black dragon is much more impressive set dead center on the map, towering over your players’ minis like some dark god. Minis range from metal to plastic to paper, and obviously the quality varies accordingly. Some DM’s are perfectly happy have a round disc-shaped token on the field – me, I’ll take my dragon. The maps are another key addition. Most modules come with nice paper maps, featuring excellent artwork on a 2D surface. Some companies even make modular dungeon pieces for you to collect and assemble. Of course, this gets very expensive after a while. Dwarven Forge, for example, makes some of the most beautiful modular gaming terrain you will ever see – and for hundreds to even thousands of dollars, you can have it all. That black dragon I described to you can be bought, too – for around $75, straight from Wizards of the Coast. So how does one do all of this on a budget?

I find that craft stores like Hobby Lobby and Michael’s are the perfect place to do gaming on a budget. Michael’s sells and distributes toy figurines from a company called Safari Ltd, which produces both real and fantasy based animals that are in good scale with our friendly neighborhood D&D game. I myself purchased three dragons of equal size to the Wizards black dragon for a fraction of the cost. Do you need a blue dragon? Grab some paint and brushes, too. The best purchase you can make there are plastic tubes filled with miniature versions of their larger animals – perfect for medium and large sized creatures, and also able to be painted to look however you like.

Moving on to maps and terrain, you can also find a myriad of things to help out your game at these stores, too. Numerous stones, shells, and small plants can be purchased for less than $5 and added to your 2D maps to give perspective on cover, blocking terrain, and even difficult terrain. There are even trees and bushes made by those same toy makers that can be added to your map. Do you need castle walls? Get yourself some building model bricks and stack them however you need them. Another good resource would be looking online or at local garage sales and thrift stores for dollhouse furniture or accessories from the now defunct games Heroscape and Mage Knight. These accessories can be resurrected and help breathe life into your game.

Of course, some things you may need to get from the source. You will probably never find a beholder at Michael’s, and those maps need to come from somewhere. Also, if gamers fail to support the company, the company goes out of business and the game suffers an irrevocable loss. Try to balance your purchases. By all means save some money, but remember not to bite the hand that feeds you, as it were and support Wizards and your FNGS as much as you can.

Other links:
Schleich S
Reaper Minis

Skill challenges are an oft-maligned aspect of D&D. In my experience, this is likely because they are often misused. D&D is a very mechanics-heavy game, and very focused on tactical combat. There are a lot of tactical combat options, meaning that combat is, by its nature, mechanically interesting from moment to moment. Skill challenges are a different beast. They’re mechanically much simpler and–lets be truthful here–less interesting mechanically, too. There’s not as much going on from a purely gamist standpoint, and that’s very likely intentional. In my experience, a lot of DMs have a misunderstanding of how skill challenges really should work at the table; this leads to bad experiences with them, which leads to not using them. There are a few relatively easy things you can do, though, to make them interesting again.

Keep it Secret, Keep it Safe
Skill challenges are at their best when they’re invisible. I can’t even count the number of times I’ve been at a game and the DM has said, “Okay, this is a skill challenge. You can use Perception, Nature, and Insight here. What do you want to do?” That’s mistake number one, in my opinion.

See, the players don’t need to know that they’re in a skill challenge. In fact, it’s probably better if they don’t. When you couch it in mechanical terms, everybody looks at their list of skills and tries to find the ones they’re best at. If those skills aren’t relevant to the challenge at hand, those players are just going to sit there and do nothing, or try to aid someone else. That’s pretty boring, as is simply going around the table calling for check after check.

Instead, read the skill challenge beforehand (even if you wrote it), and imagine what it looks like in the world. Imagine how a group of adventurers might face it, and overcome it. Describe it in those terms, in terms of the world and the narrative. Give players some hints as to courses of action that might be useful, but don’t ever mention specific skills. Let them describe for you what they want to do, then tell them what to roll based on their description. If a player says, “I roll Insight”, ask that player what his character is doing. Try to coax the narrative out of your players, and get them thinking in terms of the story rather than the numbers on their sheets.

Go Off-Script
A lot of DMs look at the list of skills provided in a skill challenge, and they get tunnel vision. If a player tries to use a different skill, the DM tries to guide him back to using one of the ones listed in the skill challenge. What a wasted opportunity!

A skill challenge is a basic framework that allows you to adjudicate success or failure in a particular, non-combat encounter, and reward it appropriately. It is not a script that you must adhere to slavishly. Think of the skills on a skill challenge as suggestions more than anything else. If you’re using a pre-written skill challenge, some of the work has been done for you, but you may not need it. Your players are creative, and will likely think of things that the designer never did. That’s a good thing, and you should reward it.

Let me tell you a secret about how I write skill challenges: I don’t! At least, not in the traditional sense. If I’m writing one up for publication somewhere, yeah I’ll do the full writeup. But for my own games, a skill challenge is represented in my notes as a level, a complexity, and then a brief list of possible skills with DCs, sans any descriptive text. I don’t want to decide beforehand what success on a given skill means; I’d much rather let that evolve organically, in reaction to what the players are actually describing.

Make Failure Fun
Or at the very least, make it interesting. Your players are going to fail skill checks from time to time, and they might even fail the whole skill challenge. This is an opportunity for drama, and to throw additional challenges at your players. It’s very tempting, when a player blows a Perception check, to say, “Yeah, you don’t see anything.” Resist that temptation. Describe what the player does see, instead, but be deliberately misleading. Emphasize things that aren’t important, and downplay things that are. Describe things in ways that cause the player to draw the wrong conclusion. In the long run, this will be a lot more fun than a null result.

When considering these tips, consider this, as well: it’s a good idea to rehearse the skill challenge in your head beforehand, probably more than once. Look at it from your players’ perspectives, as well as from the perspectives of any opposition they may be facing. Think of possible outcomes, and come up with cool descriptive elements or awesome turns of phrase that you can pepper your narration with. It’ll pay off big time.

Marcelo Dior graces us with his prose again, and it’s a good one this time! Today he talks about speeding up combat; specifically, he discusses whether or not it’s really necessary. He’s really thought this one through and backed it up with his own games, and he includes some really solid advice, too. I agree with pretty much every point he makes in this article; give it a read!

There’s a lot of house rules out there trying to speed up combat, to better integrate players at the table, to make the experience more interesting, agile, funnier, etc. But— do you need them?

The penny dropped for me when I listened to the January 30 episode of The Tome Show, «Expert DM Seminar», recorded at D&D Experience 2011. At that seminar, Chris Perkins and Greg Bilsland bounced ideas off the small audience about their house rules. A lot of nice stuff came out from there, and I  already knew some of those tricks. But, most of it… I found out I don’t need.

It has become an Internet obsession, the need for speeding up combat; texts and tweets about cutting down the time spent on Combat Encounters appear in every D&D blog and from every Twitter user who runs D&D games. It is perfectly justifiable and very important for a lot of DMs and players out there. But is it for everybody? Is it for you?

I’ve found out that, for me, it’s not. I’ve been running a regular D&D game for six people since last Summer, and combat is pretty agile and dynamic. Of course it takes longer than one hour – it’s six people after all – but I hadn’t realized that combat was dynamic enough, and for months I went on cramming all kinds of house rules, trying to cut seconds and minutes from combat.

Wanna know what happened? Combat was, on the contrary, taking longer because of all those house rules. None of them were necessary to my game, but I was so enthralled by the concept/obsession of speeding up combat that’s raging through the Internet that I convinced myself I had the same problem. It’s sorta like those medicine ads: you think you need to take them because you see them on TV every day.

This is going to sound redundant, but Combat Encounters need speeding up if they need speeding up. Each combat at your table takes two hours, but everybody’s having a ball and no one cares? So don’t change a thing. The combat takes less than 45 minutes, but you’re not having fun and your players are feeling that the combat is dragging? Go ahead and crank it up! You shouldn’t set your game by a time-limit determined by some random blog or tweet. If it incidentally fits your game, fine. If it doesn’t, just as well. My own measure is not in minutes, but in rounds: three or less, the combat was too easy; more than six, the combat’s dragging its feet and should end quickly.

I’ve realized the most time-consuming element on my table was me, the DM. My players aren’t doing anything wrong, I am – and I registered that after listening to said podcast. So I decided the only changes to speed up combats at my table would be:

• Initiative and condition markers are to be administrated by the players. There’re six of them and only one of me, and I already have a lot of stuff to take care of.
• I’m making monster defense scores visible when a PC hits its number, or close. I already state “bullseye!” or “you missed by one!” anyway, so I’m turning it into a mechanic: I’ll use the tent-style monster stat card suggested by Sly Flourish, only with the defenses covered by pieces of post-it. When someone hits it (precisely or close) I’ll ask them to lift the post-it off of that defense. It’s a compromise between letting the players know monsters defenses from the get-go or never revealing them. It’s going to give me a little bit me more work the day before, but I think it’ll save a lot of time not having to check and say if the attacks hit or not.

And here are the lessons I learned from almost three years of playing D&D which I’m turning into guide-lines from now on:

• I seldom use Minions. With my present group, 95% of them are dead at the end of the first round anyway – it just make me lose time positioning all those minis on the map. Exception: a very tough monster, like a boss’s Lieutenant, and his platoon of Minions. I love that configuration, usually putting a different mini amongst them; my players always think that guy is some Sergeant (not just a regular Minion with a different skin).
• Do not use more than four distinct monster stats; ideally, only two or three. The number of enemies must come from the quantity of each monster, not variety. More than that number of stats on hand, I get lost and spend an unnecessary amount of time sorting out my monsters, halting the combat when it comes to my turn (and the DM turn comes a lot).
• Do not have more than one monster with a great variety of attacks. I found out that most monsters won’t last enough time to use all their cool powers, so just one complex monster is sufficient. The others should have no more than one attack and – perhaps – a one-use-only power.

Here’s my lesson, dear reader: you should only speed up the combat, or change any characteristic of your game, if it needs to be changed. If there’s a problem with, say, the way feats are handled on your game, change it. If not, leave it alone and be happy.

In spite of everything I wrote here, you should listen to the seminar I mentioned at the beginning. You might find some good, interesting tips worth being tried out.

Apologies for the week of silence. Some of you may already know that I’ve just recently (this past Monday) started a new job; those of you who did not know, now you do. Because of my work schedule and my long commute, I’m getting home later than I’m used to, and I’m still adjusting to the schedule. Once things settle down a bit, you’ll probably see my posting become more regular again.

In any case, I do have some posts planned, so I’ll tell you about some of the things that I’ve got in the queue.

• D&D Lite: I posted about this a little while ago; I’m trying to figure out how to cross-breed D&D and Gamma World in order to create a leaner, quicker, easier version of D&D, ideal for pick-up games and teaching the game to beginners. That project is still on, I just need to find the time to do some design. It’ll likely become a semi-regular column on this site, and I’m hoping to have something usable and fairly complete by the time I’m done. I wouldn’t mind this becoming a group project, so if anyone wants to help me develop it, reply to this comment or drop me a line at engard at gmail dot com.
• The Dresden Files RPG: I’m in the process of reading this one, and I like it quite a bit. It’s a great read, and the mechanics really hit close to the mark. When I’m done, I’d like to post some more thorough thoughts on it; I’d also like to see about getting a game going at some point.
• Solos that vomit minions, which turn into terrain: This came from a Twitter conversation started by Sly Flourish, and it grabbed my imagination. I’m going to, at some point, come up with stats for such a creature, and possibly an entire encounter based around it.
• Anabasis and Doppelganger: I’m still in the process of designing these games with a friend of mine. The going is a little slow (see my excuse, up under the D&D Lite heading and above that), but it’s still going, and it’s still a project (or projects, really) that I’m interested in pursuing. As the games develop, I’ll probably post more about them.

Guest contributor Marcelo Dior returns to us, giving us his take on a contest of martial skill, the axe-throwing contest.

Let’s say there are two Rangers in the group, equally skilled with the battleaxe, or you’re the Ranger and that thickheaded Dwarf Fighter keeps bragging about he being the best axe thrower of the realm. I present you, dear reader, a Skill Challenge that could be used between two PCs or against one or more NPCs. It’s a competition, the…

Axe Throwing Derby

Setup: a target (usually circular, but it could be a straw doll mounted on a rack) is put 10 yards from each of the competitors, who have 30 seconds to throw their axes. Considering 10 seconds for each Skill Check, the contenders may roll up to three different Skills before actually throwing their axes, otherwise they won’t be awarded any points. Only the battleaxe or the greataxe is permitted.

All the Skill checks have a DC 15, and they might be:

• Acrobatics: The contender concentrates on the weight and balance of his axe while adjusting his stance so the throw comes out more precise. Success: +2 bonus to the throw. Critical failure: -5 penalty to the throw.
• Athletics: Cannot be used on the last (third) throw. The competitor flexes his or her muscles to lend potency to the throw. Success: +2 to the throw. Critical failure: -5 to the throw.
• Bluff: Must be made prior to the throw of another contender. The competitor makes sudden and odd movements, feints, and jokes in an effort to make an adversary lose focus. Success: one contender near the you takes a -1 to his or her action (throw or Skill Check).
• Endurance: Cannot be used on the first throw. You try to catch your breath for the next throw, ignoring the weariness of the previous throw. Success: +1 on a Skill Check made before the next throw.
• Healing: You summon your inner energy and your knowledge of anatomy to warm your muscles correctly and recover from the weariness of the competition. Success: +1 on the Endurance check, above.
• Perception: You gauge the distance to the target, wind speed and direction, and the play of lights and shadows cast over the field to precisely calculate your throw. Success: +2 to the throw. Critical failure: -5 to the throw.

(I decided the roll of 1 on Skill Check should have consequences, something alien to 4e, to make things a little bit more interesting, reflecting in game terms a gross miscalculation on the use of Acrobatics, Athletics, and Perception.)

Competition details:

After all contenders have made their Skill Checks, any and all of the bonuses and penalties they earned are added to a Melee Basic Attack roll against 12 (that’s right, Melee Basic, not Ranged. This is a precision test, not an attack to kill a monster). The one who beats it by the greater margin earns points equal to the number of contenders. The second best net hit earns points equal to the number of contenders -1, and so forth. Failing in beating the DC of 12 earns you no points for that round. In the case of a tie, both competitors earn the same number of points.

After the first throw, the weapons are returned and the targets are repositioned at 25 yards. The same 30 seconds (three Skill Checks) are available and now the DC for the Melee Basic Attack is 15. The points are tallied and we move to the third and final round of the competition, with targets at 50 yards and DC 18. In the case of a draw at this point, the last round is done again with the contenders that have tied, as many times as necessary to untie the score.

Usually, in this kind of contest, magical axes or other items — such as magical bracelets or belts — aren’t allowed, and the organizers (if there is one) will have means of detecting magic over or on the competitors.

Variations:

Obviously, this competition may be about other kinds of weapons. It could be a dispute of archery (with Ranged Basic Attacks instead of Melee), knife-throwing or even the obvious handaxes. An especially peculiar organizer could allow the mix of battle- and greataxes and handaxes amongst the contenders (in which case the check is made with the Ranged Basic Attack for the contender using the handaxe). That would lead to possible and interesting protests by the other competitors or heated discussions at the tavern after the competition about the validity of such an obviously lop-sided contest.

When Essentials was being marketed to us, it was marketed as a faster, easier version of D&D (for the most part). To some extent this is true; making an Essentials character is easier than in standard D&D, due primarily to the limited set of options compared to the vast array of abilities available in standard D&D. Some classes, also, are easier to run because they are simpler versions of the standard D&D versions.

That said, some people I game with thought it would be a different beast, not so similar to the D&D they already knew. Once those people started playing Gamma World with me, they told me that they thought it would be nice if Essentials had been more like Gamma World: fast, mostly random character generation, simplified rules, quick(ish) combats. It got me thinking: what if someone were to create a version of D&D based on Gamma World, using its rules where possible and adding things from D&D when necessary. This “D&D Lite” would be a quick-starting, simple, lean version of D&D, ideal for pickup games and one-shots.

Core Assumptions
Mechanically, there are some things I’m going to assume about D&D Lite. In general, the rules will follow those of Gamma World. There is a simplified set of conditions and keywords, there are no feats, character generation can be mostly random, if that is preferred, though selection of race and class are not out of the question.

Magic items will play somewhat less of a role in D&D Lite. I envision them being more similar to Omega Tech cards, acting as limited-use encounter powers more than magic items proper. As in Gamma World, one’s level will be added to just about everything, to compensate for the lack of magic item bonuses.

Alpha mutations are a key component of Gamma World, but such a mechanic does not fit into D&D Lite. Instead, class- or race-based encounter powers will be introduced as players level up.

There will be a very limited set of races and classes; these will take the place of origins in Gamma World. I’m thinking eight of each, so that a d8 can be rolled for random generation, with the player choosing whether race or class is primary. For races, I’m thinking: human, elf, dwarf, halfling, half-elf, tiefling, dragonborn, and eladrin. For classes: fighter, rogue, cleric, wizard, paladin, warlock, druid, and bard. Each origin will have one novice power, one utility power, one expert power, and a handful of journeyman powers. Journeyman powers will allow for some variation between characters of the same race or class, and will take the place of Alpha mutations. There will likely be three journeyman powers per origin, and any time a player gets access to a new journeyman power, that player will get to choose one of the remaining powers from either origin.

As in Gamma World, the level cap is at 10; however, I’m thinking that players will use the D&D experience point chart rather than the quicker Gamma World chart.

Next Up: A race origin and a class origin!