Dicegeeks February Newsletter
Dicegeeks February Newsletter
This issue contains two articles from guest writers. If you want to write for the dicegeeks newsletter, find out more below or click here.
Also, look below for a link to a new blog post from yours truly and, of course, the free monthly dungeon map. Plus a list of 123 tabletop RPG blogs I sorted through.
In March, I will mainly be playtesting and writing Realms of Understreet. However, more fun and free content for you will continue to flow.
Keep gaming!
Matt
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This Month's Free Dungeon Map
I designed this map around a pit. It has plenty of chambers for you to fill with great encounters as well.
The Pits of Cerrinea Crom - FREE PDF
A Dungeon Master by James Mahoney
When I was a kid in the 70’s and a teenager in the 80’s, I often heard about people playing Dungeons & Dragons, and longed to play.
Having it show up in the movie E.T. (1982), and the cartoon “Dungeons & Dragons” (1983-85) only fueled the fire.
Sadly, I was a very shy kid, who missed a lot of school, and so I didn’t have many friends. And to be frank, the kids I heard that were playing it spent maybe 80% of their time arguing about rules, and at most 20% of their time actually gaming.
When I was 17 I came to the realization that the only way I was going to ever play this game, was if I ran a campaign myself.
So I purchased Basic Dungeons & Dragons, followed quickly by Expert Dungeons & Dragons.
I admit, I wasn’t a big reader (creative writing and math were my thing), so that’s what lead me to the Basic Game, as opposed to Advanced Dungeons & Dragons.
However, the longer I played, the more I would slowly blend in rules from Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. I found it made the game more intricate, in a non-bogged down kind of way.
Initially I played with my brother and his girlfriend, but quickly added my brother’s best friend at the time.
For me story was important, but the NPC’s (Non Player Characters) were what truly drove the campaign.
Also, I made sure that we used just enough rules to make it realistic, and focused less on rules that frustrated the players.
I found that I loved creating worlds (As opposed to using the campaigns they sold), and I loved playing, and creating voices of characters (But I am a writer, and love doing voices. Pre-made campaigns are perfectly fine).
My players were happy, and so was I.
MUTATED HUMANOIDS
Along the way, I decided it might be cool to ‘mutate’ some of the existing humanoids. Since Orcs were my favorite kind of characters to have them battle, I decided to create Red Orcs, White Orcs (Or Snow Orcs), Black Orcs, Fire Orcs and Blue Orcs.
Here are some basic descriptions of two of them.
BLACK ORCS – Black Orcs are stronger, wiser, more intelligent versions of the standard orc. They are primarily used, and/or renowned, for being Generals of orc battalions.
Prerequisites (I generally write these guys out like Characters)
STR – 16 (Minimum)
INT – 15 (Minimum)
WIS – 13 (Minimum)
DEX – 9 (Minimum)
CON – 14 (Minimum)
CHAR – 13 (Minimum) they are leaders of armies
ALIGNMENT – Lawful Evil (They are honorable, before they are evil)
Black Orcs are noble creatures. Creatures of war. 95% of them serve as leaders of armies, under the control of some other humanoid such as a Warlock or other. They do not aspire to rule, only to lead in the name of rulers. The other 5% may be Player Characters, questing alongside other evil, chaotic evil, and/or chaotic party members.
RED ORCS – Red Orcs are what I consider the Engineers of orc armies. Somewhat like Dwarves in that respect. They’re smarter, and stronger than the average orc. But their intelligence is solely focused on things like building, and operating catapults and ballistae.
Prerequisites (Also written up like characters)
STR – 13 (Minimum)
INT – 13 (Minimum)
WIS – 9 (Minimum)
DEX – 8 (Minimum)
CON – 13 (Minimum)
CHAR – No Minimum
ALIGNMENT – Neutral or Evil (All they care about are machines, they care not for politics)
Red Orcs serve leaders of armies. They are not ambitious beyond Engineering. They generally are not used as Player Characters.
GAME MASTER TIPS
1) I often try to customize the Campaigns a bit towards the Players in the group. I’d say my Campaigns are 80% me, and 20% customization. Remember, the point of playing is for people to have fun, not just for the Dungeon Master to defeat the Party, and/or create something that is only interesting to them.
2) Let them defeat your Enemies. I’ve played with Dungeon Masters who, if their campaigns are figured out early, didn’t let the party defeat the main enemy. Instead the DM blew off the roof of the place, and the bad guy flew away. It was horrible. If the Party outsmarts you, they outsmart you. This is a good day, and should be celebrated for them. Back to the chalk board for the DM, such is the life of the Dungeon Master.
3) Pay attention to the Players conversations, and reactions to things. There have been times that characters have come up with better concepts than I had planned. This often occurs during ‘brainstorming’ sessions between the players. Sometimes it’s worth altering what you had planned, if what they thought might be happening sounds owe so much better.
4) Keep it realistic. I’m not into overpowered characters. When someone brings in a character they already have, I mute it down so that they are more or less within the same zone power wise as the group they’re playing with. I know that there are certain DM’s and Players that love to be like superheroes, undefeatable. And that’s fine. But for me, as a norm, I like to keep things realistic enough that the characters are truly afraid of the possibility that they may die. This creates much more intense and well thought out strategies in the game.
5) Don’t use life draining abilities in monsters. This is just me… But characters work their A$$es off building their characters. To rip away a level of experience from them can truly depress them. Don’t get me wrong, you want creatures such as Vampires to be ominous, and scary… But you can do this in other way. Embellish things like his strength, and his dramatic nature. This is just my choice, but it’s worked out much better for my groups.
6) Eat together out of character. One of the most fun things that one of my later groups used to do, is get together a half an hour or so early, and eat together. We’d talk about our lives, and sometimes the adventure. This really created a great comradery, but it also got real life out of our system… As for the most part, it was a general rule that we didn’t talk about real life during the games. I have yet to run a game since cell phones became so huge, but you might consider having them on mute, and have breaks during the game that people can text, or call someone.
7) Make sure everyone is having fun… And if someone isn’t, or doesn’t appear to be, take them aside at some point during, or after the session, and ask them what’s up.
8) Don’t let any one player ruin the session for everyone else. This is very important. Be selective about who you let in your groups world. But, also, do allow people chances to change their ways. Sometimes, especially in new groups, people may come on too strong… Simply pull them aside, and talk to them.
9) Maintain balance. Easy for me to say, I’m a Libra, lol. But seriously, strive for balance within your worlds, and within the group.
CLOSING THOUGHTS
For me, Dungeons & Dragons is a world of endless imagination. An opportunity to swings swords, cast spells, play characters in a wondrous fantasy. Make sure everyone is having fun. In some cases, some people aren’t truly into it, and you may have to ask them to leave the group. But for the ones that are into it, have fun… Be lively… Pay attention. With these things in mind, the fun possible is infinite.
James Mahoney is a writer and filmmaker living in southern California. Dungeons & Dragons is one of his all-time passions.
RPG Players Should Be Descriptive, But When?
When should players describe their characters' actions in detail? This new blog post discusses just that.
RPG Players Should Be Descriptive, But When?
A List of 123 Tabletop RPG Blogs
I'm on a quest to find amazing RPG blogs. I collected and sorted through this list of 123 and picked my top five.
Tabletop RPG Blogs: A List of 123 Awesome Blogs
Game Masters in a Post-Critical Role World by Jason Watson
There has been a lot of talk recently about our expectations as players and DM's/GM's now that we live in a post-Critical Role world.
This discussion revolved around the sudden surge of actual-play podcasts and shows that display a polished and sometimes edited view of how people play Dungeons and Dragons. One of the main topics of discussion described the pressures placed on new DM's to perform as well as top DM's such as Matthew Mercer, Chris Perkins and Mark Hulmes.
I couldn't agree more that the recent flood of actual play podcasts and content such as Critical Role, Acquisitions Inc., etc. could potentially provide an unachievable expectation for new players and future DM's. Though, without Acquisitions Inc. and Critical Role, I wouldn't have picked up my dice again and invited my friends back to the table to re-kindle the fun we used to have.
I agree it's difficult to accept that we may not become as good as Matthew Mercer or Chris Perkins, but it’s still fun to try. As long as I and my players are having fun, I don't mind how we get there. The moment I realised I didn't need to worry about my “skill level” as a DM happened after a few sessions into our new campaign with my group.
We were a couple hours into our session, the food had turned to crumbs and most of the drinks had once again landed upon our bard’s character sheet. We took a break to resupply and my group left the table to go outside for a few moments, I finished up with my notes and went out to join them. As I entered the conversation, two of my players were halfway through getting our ranger caught up on the last session that he had unfortunately missed.
As I listened to the two of them describe the events with enormous animated passion, it became clear to me that they were talking about it as if they were actually in the world that I had built. They weren't just sitting around a table rolling dice, but actually running around the goblin filled cave clad in armour and wielding powerful magic.
I felt content that my job was done; I had been able to achieve what I set out to do. I sparked that childlike imagination that I loved about the game.
Playing D&D and other tabletop RPG's to me is the pursuit of emulating the experiences we had playing pretend as children. One of my favourite memories as a child was the time when my two brothers thwarted the giant red dragon spewing hell-fire from its mouth (me standing on a chair in the garden trying to spray them with a hose); but we never talked about the children playing in the garden.
Whenever we talked about it with our parents or anyone who would listen it was always and always will be the time when the fire encapsulated their shields (dustbin-lids) as they pressed forward towards the beast; the heat almost too much to bare under their heavy metal (cardboard) armour, forcing their way closer and closer until they could plunge their Vorpal swords (wooden sticks) into the dragons heart (under my arm) and watched in awe as the gigantic beast fell lifeless to the ground (I tripped and fell off the chair). Their heroic and brave actions led them to rescue the princess (a stuffed bear) from the tallest tower (climbing frame) guarded by the fiendish creature and they returned to the city victorious. The king was so grateful for his daughter’s return that he held a feast in their honour (we were called in for lunch).
My point is, whenever anyone talks about our games at the table we imagine how the game went in our minds not how it happened at the table and that’s good enough for me.
If anyone has ever taken on the role of the DM/GM and I mean really sat in the chair and ran a campaign, however large or small, published or home-brewed; you'll know how easy it is to criticise your own performance and to think back over your past sessions and say to yourself "Oh man, I should have said this...or done that". Just remember that your players can't see the mistakes you've made or what should have been.
What I am trying to elude to here is a message to all GM's and DM's, past, present and future; in your players eyes you are the Matthew Mercers' or Chris Perkins' of your game and no one can take that away from you.
Play for the fun of the game and the love of this amazing community we find ourselves a part of.
Jason Watson is a writer and designer for a tabletop media company called Wisdom Save Media. Along with his partner in crime Marshall they write, produce and support tabletop gaming content. Their most recent publication is an adventure written for a science fiction RPG called N.E.W.
Realms of Understreet - Pre-Order
In the summer, I will be releasing a full campaign setting for Realms of Undertstreet. This will be a full 5e campaign setting packed with incredible details of the world and tons of original content.
The introductory PDF has been getting great reviews. Check it out here.
Pre-Order Realms of Understreet
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