1. I am in sci-fi geek heaven.
2. My wife is one of the most understanding people on the planet.
3. Star Trek uses a science fiction universe to tell stories from every genre.

Some episodes of Star Trek  are mysteries, others comedies, a few can be classified as horror, and with the plot devices of time travel and holo-decks the various series could introduce any genre imaginable for a single episode. The various Star Trek series are not the only nor the first television series to take this approach, but they certainly mastered the approach from what I have observed.

Why not apply the same techniques at the game table?

Use the “official” genre to establish the episode’s genre.

Whenever an episode of Star Trek strays from being a work of science fiction it uses science fiction to explain how the temporary transition into another genre is achieved. An alien might alter reality to allow for a an episode in a fantasy setting, or a malfunctioning technology causes the crew to get stuck in a Western setting. This allows the show to break the established expectations of the viewer by using those very same expectations to justify the change to the viewer. The transition back to the series genre at the end of the episode is achieved via the same method, but the bulk of the episode is firmly seated in the “invading” genre.

You can easily do the same thing with your typical RPG’s setting. How does a session of D&D where the PCs have to cross the trenches of a World War I battlefield sound? Just have a wizard cast a spell or introduce a magical portal that transports the PCs to that moment in history. Or maybe your supers game could use a haunted twist for a change. All you need is a super villain that can summon ghosts, goblins and other ghastly apparitions to  establish a horror game if only for a single session. If the transition is introduced and removed by a method aceptable to the series’ genre then the episode’s genre can be anything you wish.

Introduce the change early, but have it exit cleanly.

If you are going to switch up the genre for an episode of a television series you should do it no later then the end of the first act. Likewise the episode’s climax should be the event that returns everything back to “normal” with no serious long term consequences (such as creating alternate timelines to prevent altering history significantly due to time travel). The switcheroo of swapping genres works best when you do not give the audience time to think about what has happened. Get to the good stuff, and once the story has peaked get back to the normal mode of operations.

If you want to temporarily switch the genre of your game you should try to introduce the change within the first hour of play. During that brief period of bewilderment that the players might have as they contemplate the change in genre reassure them that the change is limited to the session and not the campaign. Establish the goal for the session that will get the campaign back on track and state it clearly to the players. Also make sure to clearly explain that while the characters may suffer serious consequences during the session (injuries, loss of items, even death) that the game world will remain intact if the goal of the session is achieved. This will provide both incentive and reassurance to the players.

Jump into the deep end.

If you are going to have Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock deal with prohibition era Chicago gangsters you might as well have the whole planet be nothing but prohibition era Chicago gangsters. If the heroes enter a mirror universe where the good guys are now bizzaro world bad guys then turn them into over the top really evil barbaric bad guys! There is no point in dipping your toes into the waters of a different genre, so you might as dive in head first and see what happens.

As a GM if you are going to use this technique you might as well go for broke. Take that idea of a D&D game that for one session is set in a WWI battle. You could play it safe and have the PCs just deal with a few members of the infantry, but why not throw in a tank instead? Have mustard gas launched into the trenches, and machine gun nests protected by barbed wire. Use the stats for equivalent monsters and spells or create your own, but take the best elements that you can think of from the “guest” genre and milk it for all that it is worth.

How do you switch it up?

Those are the tips and tricks that I have observed being used in Star Trek, and I have used them with some success in the games that I GM. What about you? Have you switched the genre of your game for a session or two? If so, how did you pull it off? Leave a comment below with your own tips and tricks to share with the rest of us!

(Want to provide anonymous feedback to me with the option to have me respond? Visit my SayAt.Me page and have at it!)

Here is a “how to” on constructing a modular dungeon set with a single mold, using the kinds of crafting materials that are available at craft stores and big box retailers.

1. Selecting the mold

I purchase molds from HirstArts. For this exercise I chose one of the least expensive. Cracked Floor Tiles, Mold No. 203 is an excellent choice as a starter. It costs $29. You can use it to create 1-inch dungeon floor pieces. It’s versatile: The smaller pieces can be used to create some three-dimensional structures as well.

2. Casting

I learned to cast from the instructions here. I use craft-quality plaster, which is available at the local home supply retailer, but can also be purchased from a craft store in a $5 jug. More durable molds can be obtained using dental plaster.

You will find that your first couple of attempts may not yield “picture perfect” casts. Don’t be discouraged. Like with anything, the more you do it, the better the results. Keep your spoiled tiles. They make great rubble for dioramas and other terrain effects.

3. What’s the game plan?

I will be constructing a modest floor tile set, one that’s modular so that you can construct a dungeon level with several rooms. I’m using these Dungeon Tiles from Wizards of the Coast as a model. (However, I’ve also planned out my terrain building with quick sketches on graph paper).

Constructing such a set will require about 250 1-inch squares, which means I’ll need 25 castings of my mold.

25 Castings?!?

Yes, that sounds like a lot, and it is. Rarely do I make castings for a specific project. Rather, I devote one morning a week during the warm-weather months to mixing plaster and pouring the molds. I’ve got a spot under a shade tree behind my house where I set up an old card table and my molds. Counting mixing, pouring, setting, removing the casts and cleaning the mold, I average about 1 set an hour. I do about two sets of several molds I own each time, then set the pieces out in the sun to dry. By devoting the warm months to making casts of all the molds I own, I then have stored away the hundreds of pieces I’ll need for building terrain during the cold weather months.

4. Cutting out mounting boards

I use a thin foam board — poster-sized pieces can be obtained for under $4 — to mount the tiles. But I’ve found that cork and cardboard works well, too. (However, I’ve found the cork tends to crumble after repeated use and the cardboard starts to bend under the weight and pull created by larger tiles).  The foam board retains its rigidity for large pieces.

I use a straight edge and knife to cut out bases for the sizes I will need.

In Part 2, we start assembling and gluing the castings.

When such things happen, it can be difficult to “take it back” without hurting feelings or impacting the campaign. In some cases, the rules work against you; the PC’s new power was a legitimate XP purchase, the uber-weapon was lying in a treasure trove of a published adventure, or the war machines were legitimate salvage.

I think in theory, most GMs would say “if it is ruining the fun, get rid of it,” but this is easier said than done. Is it worth the aggravation and hurt feelings? Is it easier to try and work around it, even if it means cutting your campaign much shorter than you’d intended?

I’ve found that, as I’ve grown with experience, I can catch these things early and nip them in the bud with minimal fuss. The player is usually content so long as she doesn’t feel weakened by the taking; she gets her XP back, she’s offered something else of equivalent, but less game-breaking, value, or all the PCs take the same hit, equalizing the loss.

There are still times, though, when a player gets to keep something for several adventures before I realize it’s an issue (or I’ve stopped trying to work around it, which also isn’t fair to the player).  By this point, the player has become attached to the new power and she has a paper trail of adventures to back her argument. Unless she can see how her power made those adventures less fun, then she’s going to have a difficult time wondering why you think it’s a problem.

So, fair or foul? If a PC acquires something that is problematic, should you take it away? Do the circumstances of the acquisition or the timing of the proposed taking matter? If you did take something away, how did it affect the rest of your campaign?

My latest game is NPC heavy, and almost all of the NPCs are politically motivated in some way or another. This puts an extra bit of importance on NPC actions and when they occur. There are a lot of balls I’ve got to juggle, so I’ve been looking for effective ways to do so. To keep things organized, I’ve been doing something that I call timelining.

Timelining, in my version of it as it applies to RPGs, is the act of writing out NPC actions and plans in a generalized order in which they will likely occur. It is drawing out the straight line of action for an NPC or NPC group if everything were to go according to plan.

This is different from merely plotting out an NPCs motivations in one key way. When you timeline an NPC, you begin by taking the PCs completely out of the equation. This gives you a view of their goals and actions, building a version of the character without tailoring them around the campaign or the PCs. You can watch the PCs intersect the NPC timeline and react to the actions, as opposed to building the NPC with the campaign in mind and being tempted to try to constrain the PCs to the pre-plotted courses.

An Example

Malvora the Spider queen is the main villain NPC in a space opera game I’m not currently running. I start by writing out Malvora’s Timeline in a very basic fashion. I set up her actions and plans beforehand, making sure to merely think about it from Malvora’s side and not accounting for any way the PCs might be invovled. This gives me an idea of what her actions are and what she is planning.

Malvora’s Initial Timeline (Sans PC Interference)

• Malvora hears about the Techtron Modulator, a device that works out the equations she has been missing for time travel drive her scientist’s have been working on.
• Malvora sends Denarius, her lieutenant, to capture the device. He ambushes Doctor Ferris at his lab one night.
• Encountering little resistance, Denarius brings the device back to Malvora.
• It takes her scientists 3 weeks to decode the device’s security and make the device ready.
• Federated Earth Council forces mount an attack against Malvora’s fleet, attempting to recover the device or destroy her fleet.
• An epic battle ensues, but Malvora is able to hold the forces off long enough to get the device working for one jump.
• Once the device is ready, Malvora is able to use her fleet’s flagship to jump her fleet through time. It takes a lot of effort and material to do so. She requires massive amounts of Macguffin X, a fuel that must be refined and is semi-rare, to do so. She jumps to a safe location and is able to stock up enough fuel to begin her universal time war.
• Malvora begins a conquest of planets, taking them over at the peak of their industrial revolutions. This gives her well developed slave planets who can work and have tech, but who are not at high enough levels to overcome her forces.

Ok. So we’ve got a timeline of Malvora’s plans without PC interaction. We know what her general plan is and what steps there are from the beginning to the end of Malvora’s plan. We have a general idea of other factions which might act against her and how that might go. The backbone of the next couple of sessions is built out, and ready to get decimated. She is a much more organic NPC than if we had written her out while thinking about the campaign and how she will act towards things the PCs are likely to do.

The PCs actions can intertwine and screw up Malvora’s plans all to high heck now, but we have a base for what Malvora intended. If we introduce the PCs to the game by having them foil Denarius’s theft, we can take this timeline and extrapolate the changes that the PCs bring. If they fail and Denarius gets away with the device, then we know that it will take the scientist’s 3 weeks to decode the security on the device, giving room for the players to pursue the action in their own ways or giving us hooks based on what occurred in the previous game. Maybe Dr. Ferris hires them. Maybe the FEC forces throw the PCs in jail, misinterpreting the situation.

With an approach like this, Malvora gets a chance to grow and be affected by the PCs actions instead of allowing predetermined outcomes to cage the PCs in.

An NPC’s timeline is fairly linear to start with, but as things get changed the
timeline becomes more of a flow chart. The NPC is still trying to fulfill their plans,
but they must accommodate for the the continual changes create.

Why I Find It Useful

Timelining out an NPC’s plans this way is much more work than I normally do for NPCs, and it does create more work as the game goes on. However, it has one huge advantage to me: The NPCs grow along with the PCs. They aren’t static creations meant solely to hinder the PCs. In a game like the one I am currently running, that is a wonderful thing. The players know that the NPCs aren’t merely foils to their plans, they are living and evolving characters whom they can interact with.

From my perspective as the Game Master, I know the NPCs plan out to the end. I know their end goals and what they were aiming for. When the PCs interfere, I can accommodate and change things while still aiming for the end goals.

Malvora might decide to use her resources to covertly hire the PCs to work for her rather than try the head on approach if they prove overwhelming to her militarily. Maybe she will decide the Modulator is too troublesome and send her minions after a supercomputer, one that has more raw power but is not built to the task. I can merely timeline out her plans for that in a basic way and then figure out how the PCs would encounter those.

Doing It Yourself

Timelining an NPC’s (or many NPCs) actions might not work for every game or play style, but it has some nifty applications. The process is also a fairly simple one.

1. Take an NPC and write down, in a very brief way, their goals and actions as if the PCs didn’t exist.
2. Make sure to include interactions with other NPCs or NPC groups. Don’t be afraid to use words like Might, Should, or Will Likely when intersecting multiple NPC timelines. (When Malvora and the FEC fight, it is likely that Malvora will win, but the course of the game and the PC interactions will definitely change things.)
3. Plan the generalities our far head, but not the details.Knowing the generalities, especially the NPC goals and their attitudes, is what will help you modify the timeline as you go along.
4. Start the game. As the PCs actions intersect with the timeline/s of NPCs, determine how they deviate and if/how the NPCs will still try to reach their goals. Abandon later game changes if they don’t seem in line for the changes that have occurred. Get ready to modify. Remember, it’s not a static railroad, but the NPCs plan.

Some Tools

2 Columns/Index Cards  – When I do this for my current game, I generally use 2 columns on a 1 page sheet or 2 index cards. In one is the initial timeline and goals. In the other column (or other card) I place checkmarks if things went according to plan or I write notes and draw lines to point to where things lead. Here is a recreated version of what happened in the Malvora example (apologies for the handwriting and shorthand).

Flowcharts  – One thing that works well for timelining NPCs are flowcharts. If you can do it electronically, you can really modify things as needed and keep things neat. It works really well, especially if you have multiple NPC timelines in play.

Gliffy – I used Gliffy, a mostly free online flowchart maker to do the flowchart example above. It worked really well, but Kurt “Telas” has used it for extended periods and mentions that it gets nerfed after a 30 day trial. 0
http://www.gliffy.com/

Dia – Dia is a freeware flowchart maker that I’ve heard highly recommended on many forums.
http://dia-installer.de/index.html.en

yEd – Another free flowchart program that I’ve heard recommended.
http://www.yworks.com/en/products_yed_about.html

Final Thoughts

The big downside of this approach is constantly updating the timelines. The big upside is having a concept of the NPCs and their goals that you can deviate from to make the NPCs feel more organic. Malvora’s example is very general, but I’ve got about 6 timelines going in my current game that help me conjecture on how one NPC will feel about another NPC being defeated by the PCs, or how linked plot points are affected by PC actions. It helps to keep the chaos of the multiple PCs under control, and when I’m at the actual game I’m in total improv mode. I know how the NPCs feel, I know what goals they are working towards, and I don’t hear that wiggling little voice saying “That will totally destroy Suvid’s plans!!!! Stop him!!!”.

Do you think that timelining an NPC out would benefit your game or would it be too much work? How do you generally plan out NPC motivations and actions?

Prep For Success

Whether you’ve never been behind the screen before or an old pro, you may find yourself in a similar position. This isn’t about improvisation, it’s about making use of an accelerated prep timeline and focusing on the important few.

• Make a list of exactly what will be done in the first session and you need to have ready. In this case we’re doing character generation. That means being familiar with the creation rules, not necessarily the entire rules set or combat.
• Strive to meet those minimum requirements and, if time allows, then expand into what you’ll need to know for sessions 2+. Don’t spend time on, say, the experience or advancement rules yet.
• In the case of a setting or backstory you’re not familiar with, lean on your campaign guide or online resources. Most campaign or players’ guides strive to compact the essence of “what is this game about?” into a concise summary. You don’t need to be an expert but you do need to have a common foundation and language to work from.
• If someone else in your group is familiar or has knowledge of the game then utilize them to help spread the workload and explain it to other players (or you!).
• Online resources continue to be an excellent way to help shave time off your prep. Handouts, logs, spreadsheets, etc can bring relief to your limited timeline.
• Have a plan to get ahead of the prep; being just one session ahead isn’t a sustainable model for success in most cases and will sap your energy.
• When the rubber hits the road for that first session, consider a pre-created one. Introductory adventures tend to be well-tested, contain a number of newbie-friendly hooks (good for you as well), and are character-neutral. That is to say, they tend to work of all characters. Later sessions can focus on your newly-created PCs. It’s easier to read an adventure designed for new campaigns and GM/players rather than writing your own under the gun.
• Don’t be afraid to pull the eject handle. If, in the first session, you get up to where you were able to prep, don’t be afraid to stop. End the session, explain that you’re as far as you were able to prep, and setup for the next session. That’s better than trying to stumble ahead, ill-prepared; and your players will see it, too.

Again, none of this is improvisation, just good time management.

What’s That Game?

As mentioned in the lead-in, I was a little surprised to walk away having to plan for a campaign for the A Song of Ice and Fire RPG, aka A Game of Thrones. Beyond the HBO miniseries and the first novel, a setting I’m not intimately familiar with. The system roughly the same, although I’ve been researching it for the past month as a potential Birthright replacement, something we’ve been eager to play but not saddled with the D&D rules.

Fortunately the first session will be all about House creation and the setting’s default state is just prior to the first book, alleviating some of the prep concerns for only have a week to begin. But all of this is rather academic when confronted with excited and engaged players. It doesn’t feel like work at all!

Any tips to share about a quick game prep turnaround? Share below! Also, want to toss a Gnome a bone (or halfling)? Give me your Game of Thrones campaign ideas!

(Carolyn’s always in the mood for something fresh, so after weeks of train games and card games like Poo, Uno and Hike, she was willing to dive back into an rpg, while Jonathan was eager to use the new plaster dungeon terrain set he helped construct and paint).

Considering the buzz about 5E/DnDNext from the D&D Experience — that the first public play of the new rules harken back to the days when adventurers cut their teeth on module B2:  The Keep on the Borderlands  — I couldn’t help but feel nostalgic.

So I decided to dig out my two copies of the Basic Rules (Moldvay edition). It turned out to be an excellent choice to run for children, and it reminded me again of why I have such fondness for this version of the game.

Character creation is a snap

Does it get any easier than this? Roll 3d6 for six abilities, roll up hit points, and gear up by selecting from Ye Fast Pack in the back of Module B4: The Lost City? In about 10 minutes were were up and ready to roll, with Carolyn playing a magic user, Jonathan a thief and me running an NPC fighter.

My regular group loves the built-in complexity of Third Edition/Pathfinder skill selection and feats, and in previous sessions my kids have enjoyed the cool-sounding names (and effects) for 4E character powers.

Detailed character creation can be its own kind of fun. But we were interested in exploring a dungeon and rolling dice in some combat, not worrying about a host of modifiers for skills and combat.

On the fly adjustments

Not everything about the Moldvay edition is sunshine and roses. So I made some rules adjustments to keep the action going.

• Nixed character death for the kids (hey, even with a fighter around, 4 hit point thieves and magic users go down quick). Characters reaching 0 hit points are ruled unconcious. Each character also started out with two healing potions. (And it was interesting to see which player was willing to share their healing potions.)
• The magic user was not subject to fire-and-forget. Rather, I allowed the magic user to recast after 1 turn of rest. I’ve learned a lot about how fun encounter and at-will powers can be for casters in 4E. And frankly, magic missile used this way still does less damage than an archer who hits every round.
• Pincushioned hides. Monsters with natural armor had their AC raised by 1 (to a maximum of 10) after each successful hit to reflect the wear and tear of battle. Effectively, as the battle wore on, they got easier to hit (remember, under THAC0, the lower the AC number, the better).

Giant toads are still a hoot

Fire beetles, vipers, and yes, even giant toads with 15-foot long sticky tongues and a taste for humans are still fun to run and to fight.  And interestingly, because I gave the PCs a quest — item retrieval — they started to discuss the need to bypass some encounters because they discovered their resources were being depleted

Four-star recommendation

Look, the old rules have their shortcomings, especially during campaign play, because the PCs aren’t being rewarded as they level up with a raft of additional powers and abilities like they do under more robust systems.

There’s adventure to be found around the next bend. Just mind the white roses and any nameless jovial priest whose acolytes have taken a vow of silence.

Heroes and villains come and go, but traitors live on in infamy! The traitor does not just turn her back on the cause – she takes its secrets with her to the enemy’s camp! As a GM the traitor NPC can serve multiple roles. A traitor can add to the drama and tension of a story. The traitor can also serve a tactical role when he undermines the defenses of his former comrades. The traitor is a classic role in fiction that any GM can use to add some intrigue to the game.

Time to look at our cards! Here are three types of traitor NPCs for you to use in your game.

#1 – Just Plain Bad

This traitor has the simplest of motives. She sells out her friends for money, power, or something else of a similar and base nature. Perhaps she just wants to be on the side of the “winners”, or she wants to humiliate the PCs whom she is secretly envious of. It does not really matter, for in the end her motives are petty and self-indulgent. She is a traitor simply because she was never really dedicated to the cause in the first place.

#2 – Forced Into Treachery

This traitor wants to remain loyal to his cause, but something of even greater value to him is threatened by the enemy unless he does their bidding. Perhaps the enemy has materials that they are using to blackmail the traitor with, or maybe the traitor’s loved ones are being held hostage. The important detail to remember here is that the traitor is both the offender and the victim. This presents the PCs with a dilemma of their own: punish the treachery or help their suffering comrade?

#3 – On Your Side

She is a traitor like the others. She might even have motives similar to the others. There is one major difference though, because this traitor is defecting from the enemy camp to come join the PCs in their mission! Her reasons can range from noble to purely selfish ones, but she has information and skills that the PCs can use to their advantage. Whether or not the PCs trust her though is for the players to decide.

GMing Tactics to Use

The most important consideration for a GM when introducing a traitor NPC into the game is when will the actual betrayal take place. Timing is everything in this case. A good rule of thumb is that the less significant the NPC is to the story the sooner the betrayal should occur. Likewise the more significant the NPC is to the story the later the betrayal should occur.

Having that betrayal come to light at just the right moment is crucial to playing the traitor NPC. The impact of the betrayal from a tactical point of view is not nearly as important to your game, because good players can roll with those kinds of punches all day long. But if the NPC has earned the PCs’ trust over a long period of time (or has long been the recipient of their scorn in the case of traitor #3) then your players are going to have a bigger reaction to the revelation of the traitor’s true nature when it takes place.

Have an idea or two for what will occur if the PCs discover the traitor’s secret earlier than planned. My personal approach depends on the quality of the PC’s evidence. A mere hunch that an NPC is a traitor even if that hunch is correct is not going to help the PCs very much at all. Revealing that hunch to the traitor in the form of a “We’re on to you!” type speech is just going to make the traitor extra cautious in covering up his tracks.

If the PCs have some solid evidence though and can put all of the pieces together let the chips fall where they may. It can be great fun to watch your plan for an ambush against the PCs be reversed into an ambush against the traitor. Good GMs realize that forcing a game to go according to plan is far more risky than it is to adapt to what the players come up with.

So throw a traitor into your game and see what happens, and do not be afraid to twist the archetype to challenge your players even more!

How would you play a traitor in your game? Do you have your own variation on the traitor archetype? Perhaps a favorite tactic or two for dealing with treacherous NPCs? Leave a comment below and share your ideas with the rest of us!

(Want to provide anonymous feedback to me with the option to have me respond? Visit my SayAt.Me page and have at it!)

Writers Dice: A Quick Summary

Writers dice are d6’s, but rather than the standard numbers they have the following words on them: AND, OR, AS, SO, BUT, and IF. You use the dice to connect one thought to another. For instance:  The heroes must enter the dungeon…ROLL…SO… that they can find the cure to the plague in the town…ROLL…BUT… the cure is guarded by trolls.  Simple and fun.

The dice were not made for any specific game, though they are a great fit for story-based RPGs like Do: Pilgrims Of  The Flying Temple or Fiasco. But what about more traditional RPG’s like D&D or my current campaign, All For One?  How could these Writers dice help enhance the game?

As I worked on my most recent session notes, I sat the dice on the table next to me, and started to look for ways to integrate them into my game. I came up with a few ideas…

Idea One: Consequences of Failure

This concept is covered in the Writers Dice guide and is not my own idea, but its a natural fit. When a character fails a skill check, there should be consequences for their failure (something I talked about before). Often GM’s, myself included, take the mental shortcut and just say that the skill check failed.  Writers dice can be used to help create consequences for failure.

GM: Make a Larceny check to pick the lock.
Player: Failed.
GM: You fail to pick the lock. Rolls: OR
GM: The lock does not open OR the lock opens but your lock pick is broken in the lock.

It can work just as well with with a successful check, but for my use, I am going to stick with just failure since success often has a good definition of what will happen built in.

Idea Two: Enhance Player Narrative

I like to include scenes in my game that are not key to the plot, but are there for the player to expand and grow their character. For instance: The character goes and talks to their teacher, goes shopping in town, or they decide to live it up in the tavern. In these cases, I typically will just ask the character how it went, and often get a very safe answer: “I talked to the shopkeeper for a bit and then got the equipment.”

With the writers dice, you can now ask the player to narrate and include one or more writers dice in their description.  For instance:

GM: “You went to see your teacher…”
Player:  rolls  AS and AND
Player:  …AS he was in the middle of an argument with another student, AND the student attacked my teacher.”

Now from a simple trip to visit his master, a new story has unfolded.

Idea Three: NPC Motivations

You can use Writers Dice to help decide how an NPC is going to react to a situation. Perhaps you know the overall disposition of the NPC: friendly, unfriendly, indifferent, etc, but the players now ask a favor. Using the Writers dice you can enhance the NPC’s response.

Player:  Captain, you must take us across the sea, we need to get this cure to our people.
GM: The Captain is unfriendly. Rolls: BUT
GM: The Captain is no friend of yours, BUT her sister lives across the sea so she will help.

A Dash of IF and a Sprinkle of SO

Writers Dice can be a fun way to enhance your game. The word on the die takes you down a path that you may not have thought of at first, and in doing so can create those serendipitous moments of gaming that are unforgettable.

Writers dice are not out for general sale yet. I talked to Daniel Solis on G+ and he let me know that after all the Kickstarter backers have been sent their dice, they will be available for general sale. Details will be posted on his blog page about Writers Dice. That pages also has links for getting the Writers Dice app (iOS, Android, and Windows) as well as the Writers Dice Guide.

I have named three ways you could use Writers Dice in your game, now how would you use them? If you have a set, what ways have you worked them into your game?

Person of Interest stars Jim Caviezel and Michael Emerson as Mr. Reese and Mr. Finch, respectively. Mr. Finch has built a top secret machine fed by NSA data in a post-9/11 world that allows the machine to detect “relevant” threats to the country. The machine also spots “irrelevant” threats, such as a premeditated murder plot or a person who could be the target of a violent crime. Every night the machine erases the irrelevant list after sending Finch a copy comprised of nothing but social security numbers.

Overcome with a desire to help those in need, Finch enlists the aid of a former black ops CIA officer who’s life is in turmoil after the loss of his lover some years back. Afforded an opportunity to help those in need—and in time—they fight crime!

Each week Person of Interest focuses on the protagonists trying to help—or stop—the person who’s name has come up. The machine doesn’t give details, which turns each person of interest into a bit of a character study. Who would want to kill them, or is the irrelevant person actually the threat?

Person of Interest has several sub-plots going as well, most notably how the machine was built, Finch’s guilt over the death of his business partner and friend, as well as the demons that haunt Reese. If that wasn’t enough the police aren’t keen on having a vigilante running around New York. It’s an intriguing setup with multiple layers. Personally, I like seeing Jim Caviezel channel his inner Count of Monte Cristo one more time in the suave and soft-spoken John Reese.

So what takeaways from Person of Interest could be drawn into our games?

Credible Threat

One of the mid-season changes in the show revolves around the determined Detective Carter (Taraji P. Henson) who’s trying to capture the mysterious Reese. It served up for some good drama for half the season until it became clear that Carter was out of her league. Thus enters the CIA, looking out for their missing asset, unwittingly pulling Carter into their plan to either recover or eliminate Reese.

It’s a good example of raising the stakes and challenging the character with a more credible (and believable) threat. While Carter and Reese had some nice cat-and-mouse encounters, there was never any doubt that Reese would outwit her.  The CIA now provides that overarching element of risk that Reese and Finch have to deal with every week while still trying to protect innocents. It’s important in our own games that the characters be faced with credible threats worthy of their status.

Consequences

Previously I’ve highlighted the qualities of making characters more believable in making them fallible. The occasional mistake or plan that doesn’t quite go as intended. Person of Interest does this as well but even upped the ante some more. In one episode Reese is betrayed by Carter and left in the sights of the CIA, who put a bullet in his gut. Bleeding out, Reese barely escapes with the help of Carter and Finch. Where this deviates from most storytelling escapades is the following two episodes still has Reese dealing with these consequences.

In the next episode, which has wonderful shades of Rear Window, Reese is confined to a wheelchair, leaving Finch to do much of the spycraft in the episode. It’s a pleasant role reversal. It also humanizes Reese for the viewers. Following that, Reese is back on his feet but takes a punch in his still-healing wound that ends a fight with the opponent getting away. Reese still wins—he’s the protagonist and a badass—but he’s still dealing with the consequences of being shot two episodes ago.

Most games abstract not only damage, but the healing as well. The story typically moves on, and the wounds of the past forgotten. Resist that urge and have the scars of the past linger a bit longer.

Looking Ahead

Foreshadowing is a powerful tool and it’s a darn shame that Person of Interest lets a ripe opportunity go by every episode. The machine spits out a new number every night, an obvious bridge from episode to episode, teasing into the next. Sadly, the writers don’t take advantage of this opportunity.

Realistically most GM’s probably won’t be able to pull this off either, but if you have the luxury of planning an adventure ahead, consider doing so. The tease help sets up the story for the next adventure, gets your players thinking—and anticipating—the next session. Even if you don’t have your next adventure plotted out, consider dropping the tease anyway to place yourself under some creative pressure.

A fan of Person of Interest? What elements of the show could you incorporate into your own game?

Meet the character sheet archive!

I must admit that, for the sheer number of times I’ve had similar issues to those above the idea of keeping a character sheet archive took a long time to gel. I usually keep copies (or the originals) of all the PCs in my campaign, but they were usually reasonably up-to-date versions. I’ve since discovered that it’s really handy to have each step of a PC’s development at my fingertips for when one of these weird situations pop up.

With information technology being what it is these days, it’s painfully simple to keep a PC archive, especially if your group uses spreadsheets or character generator software. Simply give each iteration its own file number and you’re good to go. I tend to play rules-light games, which means it’s relatively easy to design a character sheet in MS Word and just update it as we go along.

Alternatively, you could keep initial character sheets and just keep track of XP expenditures. I generally do both. I track XP expenditures when “at the table” and update the sheets later.

Having a character sheet archive is handy for several reasons:

• We’re only human and even computers glitch on occasion. It’s easy to reverse-engineer a mistake if you can go back and look at the archived sheets.

• Regular updating leads to regular oversight. Not only are you better able to nip mistakes in the bud, but players are likely to be more careful if they know they’re being scrutinized.

• Some games have different rules for spending points at chargen and as XP. Having an archive makes it easy to determine what was spent where.

• My crazy campaigns do sometimes involve time travel or alternate universes. It’s handy to be able to “regress” PCs back to what they actually were. Ditto if I want to run a one-shot with the PCs at an earlier stage of development or a flashback scene.

• While D&D and its various iterations do a great job of keeping track of XP, I’ve found that in other games I’ve been lax in remembering how much XP I gave out and my players generally only keep track of unspent XP. Without a tally it can be a nightmare to do a PC rebuild or check for accuracy if you don’t know the total XP spent (GURPS is a notable exception, since its “character points” are uniform from creation through experience).

Do you keep track of your PCs’ progress along the way and keep notes of the changes? If so, has it been overly burdensome or do you find it useful? If not, do you think this is something that may come in handy?

This article was written for the first annual New Year, New Game blog carnival hosted by Gnome Stew as part of the 2012 NYNG challenge.

This past weekend I wrapped up a 16-month Star Trek campaign, and ending it (always a tricky affair) made me think about how I started it — which in turn seemed like a pretty good topic to cover for NYNG.

I’m going to talk specifics because this stuff all worked for me, and for this particular game, but the trick to starting a new game right is learning what works for you as a GM and for the specific game you’re going to run. It’s a fuzzy process, and both GMing experience and time spent as a player watching what other GMs do help make it go more smoothly.

Basically, I prepared for my first session of Star Trek by stealing everything that wasn’t nailed down.

Steal What Works

Three Things: I stole fellow gnome Don Mappin’s Three Things technique to get my players to come up with usable ideas for the game, increasing their buy-in in the process. Over the course of the campaign, I hit every one of their three things in the game.

First session structure: I also stole Don’s approach of running a fairly “character-neutral” first session — one that showcases the game’s highlights, but which isn’t deeply connected to any of the PCs. That doesn’t mean a session where the PCs are just color, or don’t have anything to do, just one where another group of PCs could have been slotted in without any problems (IE, more like a published scenario).

Templates: From the excellent Star Trek Narrator’s Guide (sadly OOP, but well worth tracking down; it’s full of excellent GMing advice and tools), I stole templates for the series profile (a quick summary of the tone and focus of the campaign), episode structure (the three-act model, which was a great way to get sessions to feel like Star Trek), planetary profiles (to provide pertinent info on the worlds featured in the game), and more. I can’t praise this book highly enough as a GMing aid. The Stew’s own DNAphil has also written some excellent material about using templates in your game, notably Prep-Lite Manifesto: The Template.

My own advice from years past: I also ate my own dog food (which I guess counts as stealing from myself?), sticking closely to GMing advice I wrote back in 2005 and 2007, respectively: Lead with the Cool Stuff (don’t save your best ideas — use them!) and PC Backgrounds: Pressure Doesn’t Make Diamonds (if you ask for backgrounds, ask the right way and use what you get). And, of course, I used my three playlist system for background music.

Antogonists: And finally, I stole from my players again by asking them what enemy group/race they’d like to see be the focus of season one. They chose Romulans, which drew a box in which I could play to one of my biggest strengths as a GM: creativity with constraints. I used a Romulan NPC from one player’s background as the central villain for the whole season, and made every other episode about Romulans to a greater or lesser degree.

Try New Things, Too

Running a new game is a great excused to step outside your comfort zone, and I always like to try a couple of new things when I start a new game. Not too many, because that tends to overwhelm me, but a couple.

Going digital: The biggest new thing I tried was going almost entirely digitial for this campaign. I used Obsidian Portal to do that, and it worked beautifully as a repository and tool for collaboration. I also used Google Docs to take notes during sessions.

No screen: Despite being a screen fanatic, over the past few years I’ve warmed up to the idea of not using one at all. This was the first game where my screen stayed folded up in front of me with its most useful tables showing, not set up to shield things from my players’ view. With a laptop and minimal paper, there’s nothing to shield!

One hour of prep per session: I made it a goal to prep in an hour or less for each session, and generally hit 30 minutes of “semi-prep” — brainstorming in the car and writing down a brief bulleted outline of the episode — followed by one hour (sometimes 90 minutes) of actual prep. Given that I used to spend 4-8 hours per session in past games, hitting 60-90 minutes was a huge shift — and one that worked really well, forcing me to pack in only the important stuff and rely on one of my strengths as a GM: improvisation.

Next time I start a new game, I’ll do many — though likely not all — of the same things. This is my current groove, and it works well for me; I hope that some of this advice resonates with you, as well.

How do you prepare to run a new game?

Similar to the questions on Metagaming, I would like to see an article on how a GM can give hints and clues for a story without the players immediately leaping upon it. You know, the old “if the GM mentioned it, it must be important!”

Example: The PC’s are meeting an important dignitary for dinner, and the noble goes, “Ouch!” as he apparently gets a nasty splinter from his chair. The PC’s immediately all jump up, start casting spells to locate bad guys, cast anti-poison in the NPC, etc, etc.

Is the answer to just litter your game with inconsequential incidents for NPCs? Is it to make them roll to have noticed the NPC getting the “splinter”?

Long story short, Iceberg–what you’re hoping for is actually difficult to accomplish.

Your suggestion–littering your game with inconsequential incidents for NPCs–strikes at the heart of the matter. The first solution to the problem is to litter your game with incidental details. What do I mean? Well, here are a few quick examples:

“The corridor continues straight for thirty feet, opening on a (GM draws a room) room 30′ wide by 20′ long. Three orcs stand, brandish their axes, and… roll for initiative!”
versus:
“The wainscotting continues down the corridor, a polished oak that must keep his staff endlessly busy with dusting. Ahead, the corridor passes through a rounded oak arch sculpted with angels and demons. You hear guttural voices suddenly still in the room ahead, and hear the scrape of furniture being pushed back. From Jayen’s angle, she sees two thickly muscled figures wrapped in grimy finery standing and raising battle axes from the floor…

Those could both be descriptions of the same developing scene. I know that I can get lazy when describing things, particularly when I’m looking forward to the next fun combat. Still, if you’re looking to include subtle surprises, you need to add a layer of subtlety to your game on a continuous basis. Otherwise, every detail that’s described is important, so of course your players are going to react to it–it’s important! In fact, if you want to subtly direct more attention to things, you should follow John’s advice in Defining Importance: Making sure the things you want to be remembered about your game are. (In fact, my article is just the complement to his key tip: Present the things you want to be remembered in a way that makes them stand out from the rest of the events going on.)

It does take more time to describe things in more detail, or to describe incidental events–but it’s less additional time than you think. For most traditional games, combats take something like 30 to 120 minutes. If you cut one round of one combat, you’ve probably saved enough time to add dozens of conversational asides and world-deepening (but plot inconsequential) flavor.

Switching modes (from “sufficient” to “verbose”) is better handled steadily, over time, than in an overwhelming blitz. If you suddenly take five sentences to describe a room that previously took one, you’ll overload your players–and probably struggle to come up with that much material consistently. Instead, slowly add more conversational asides, have NPCs talk about the weather, describe a few more terrain features. When more of those features are revealed to be interesting but not plot arrows, your players will come to appreciate the more detailed world… and never notice that you can slide in subtle hints more easily without raising red flags.

Here are some easily implemented flavor ideas to get you started:

• Have someone praise a PC’s clothing, armor, or weapon.
• Describe the texture of the wall in the next room.
• Have someone ramble on about a missing sheep within earshot of the PCs. Have another NPC sigh tiredly, and mutter, “She’s always on about her sheep” to a PC.
• Introduce a strong smell: sewage, oleanders in bloom, or ammonia.
• Ask a PC where they learned [something]–then have their asker interrupt with his own story about learning smithing from old Davard.
• Have an NPC complain that everything is going wrong; life was better when they were a child.

It’s not foolproof, but that’s the path I’d take to chivvy players away from reacting to every burp and bush flowering out of season as a plot hook.

Two Kinds of Comments

There are two things that I’d love to hear. First: If you have a different solution to IcebergTitanic’s problem, please share your approach. If there’s a fast, easy path, I wouldn’t mind adding that to my quiver of options. Second: My list of flavor ideas was pretty short. More bits of scenery that are easy to work into a game and conversations that add depth, but don’t point to a plot, would be handy to have ready the next time a GM wants a more detailed game-world.

Over the past couple of years, I’ve refined a simple, lazy, but highly effective approach to RPG background music. I call it the Three Playlist System, and in this article I’m going to show you how to use it.

This approach to BGM balances the desire to set the mood at the gaming table with the need to focus on what really matters: the game. I want background music and my group wants background music, but we don’t want to devote a lot of time to it.

That’s where the three playlists come in. This system will provide you with scene-appropriate background music without requiring much attention at the table.

1. Create Three Playlists

I use the following:

1. Ambient for the bulk of the session — anytime I’m not using one of the other two playlists, I’m on this one. The music in this playlist isn’t distracting, but it isn’t boring. There’s the occasional track in there with shades of action or spookiness (TV soundtracks in particular like to group several short songs into a single track that doesn’t quite fit this system), but overall the music in this playlist is designed to fade into the background pretty easily.
2. Action for, well, action scenes: combat, chases, and other thrilling escapades. The bulk of this playlist is music that gets your blood pounding — it’s what you hear during movie trailers and fight scenes in movies and TV shows. If a track is a mix of action and ambient, I usually stick it here; it can be nice to have the occasional lull during an action scene.
3. Sinister for scenes where I’m trying to put my players on edge, up the tension, or where creepy/scary stuff is happening. This is my smallest playlist because most soundtracks don’t include a lot of tracks I’d classify as sinister. It’s kind of like porn: hard to describe, but you know it when you see (hear) it.

I primarily use soundtracks because, in general, they work for multiple genres. My three playlists are more or less genre-neutral, and should work for most RPGs. (For a slightly more refined approach, see the tweaks at the end of this article.)

That may not sound like enough playlists or enough diversity to cover every situation, but the past couple years’ of gaming have taught me that (for my group, at least), it works well.

2. Take Notes about Your Music

Cataloging your background music can take some time at first, but maintaining that catalog is easy — and even up front, when it’s work, it’s really just an excuse to listen to awesome soundtracks.

The first time you listen to a new soundtrack (or other source of BGM), write down “Action,” “Ambient,” and “Sinister” on a scrap of paper and keep it next to you.

When you’ve heard an entire track (to avoid unpleasant surprises, like a sinister track that suddenly gets cheerful) and know which playlist it should go in, note its track number in the appropriate spot. After you’ve listened to the whole album, drop the tracks into the appropriate playlists.

3. Turn On Shuffle and Play

Shuffle is important because it introduces variety into your background music — doubly so if you don’t have a huge amount of music in your playlists. I also turn on the repeat option so a playlist won’t end suddenly.

4. Switch Playlists as Needed

This step couldn’t be simpler: If it’s an action scene, switch to Action; if it’s a tense or creepy scene, switch to Sinister; otherwise leave it on Ambient.

Tweaking the System

One of the things I like about this approach is that it’s easy to tweak. Here are my two current tweaks:

• For my Star Trek game, I use the same three playlists (Ambient, Action, Sinister), but I have a separate set of them that contains only Star Trek music. There’s so much Trek music that these playlists have a good amount of depth, but if I were running a game — Star Wars, let’s say — with less music available for it, I’d mix in genre-appropriate tracks from other sources.
• I use the same song to open every session, and because I don’t like hunting for things I created a one-track playlist called Opener that contains only this song. For Star Trek, it’s the Next Generation opening theme.

Need Inspiration?

Creating Simple, Deep Playlists for RPG Background Music was the genesis of the Three Playlist System, and goes into more detail about how to build each playlist and what kinds of music work best.

If you’re after soundtrack recommendations, here are 41 personal recommendations and 58 reader recommendations and new discoveries, all with links where available.

I hope this system gives you and your group as much enjoyment as it has me and mine!

Note: I am going to make some sweeping generalizations. Take them with a grain of salt. Its done mostly to make my point. I promise at some point this article is going to make sense.

It’s About Netflix and My Gaming Group

So for the past few months I have been watching a lot of Star Trek, mostly TNG and DS9. The truth is that I am slowly building up to a Star Trek campaign later in the year, but that is not what this article is about. So, in both TNG and DS9 there are lots of aliens and people with different occupations (in DS9 more than TNG), but for the most part they are pretty normal for their setting; except for Odo and Data. In both series, Odo and Data are not like the other characters on the show. They both have very unique backgrounds, and in terms of the main cast they are each one of a kind. You see it as well in Voyager with Seven of Nine, the only Borg crew member. Keep that in mind.

Now, about the Amber:Diceless RPG. When new players make characters for this game, they tend to make characters very close to the characters in the novels, because it is comfortable and its based on the original setting. They all wind up mostly human, with the Pattern ability. The second time players make characters for the game, they take advantage of the unlimited expanse of possibility within the game, and the parade of half-angels, humanoid whales, and blue tiger-striped men all start rolling in. Rather than taking the Pattern power, the very staple of the game, they all try to invent their own powers and constructs. There is this irresistible urge to be something different and unique, to move away from the core rules and setting in the most dramatic way possible. The end result is a group of players that look nothing like the characters in the novels (default setting) and at times become jarring to the setting, though perfectly fine in terms of the mechanics of the game.

Splat books… ugh. I really am not a fan of most splat books, with some noted exceptions (Corporation, I am looking at you). For the most part, the splat books for any game introduce fringe classes that are kind of like the core classes, but a bit different. So the Paladin gets the Samurai, the Rogue gets the Ninja, the Ranger gets the Gunslinger (sorry Pathfinder, I am not singling you out, just making a point). Because these characters are different and have new abilities, players pounce on them like cats on a mound of catnip.

Players Love Weirdos

So if players love making unique characters, and splat books fuel that urge with more classes and options to do so, we run into a case where a group of experienced players, especially those who have played the same game for a long period of time, start to make characters that are stranger and further from the norm for the setting. Away goes the party of the Cleric, Wizard, Fighter, and Rogue. In come the Shaman, Warmage, Knight, and Ninja. Then add in variant races and the true freak show begins.

There is a tipping point when the party composition becomes silly, when everyone is so focused on being unique, that it can be disruptive to the continuity of the setting. How is it that the Dwarf Ninja joined the same party with the Half-Fiend, Half-Elf Knight? Unless your setting has brought these people together by divine intervention, there is a lot more work to explain how these people met, than how the halfling rogue and the human Wizard crossed paths in a typical fantasy setting.

Where Star Trek Gets It Right

Now back to Odo and Data. The writers for both shows understood that tipping point, and created a party (cast) that is mostly normal for the setting. In TNG we have Picard, Riker, Worf (different but not totally out there), Troi, Crusher, etc. Most of them are human, all of them are Starfleet officers. Added to that party is Data, a unique android who is the only one of his kind on the ship (yeah I remember all about Lore). In DS9, the GM is a bit more relaxed. The cast of characters are a mix of Starfleet (Sisco, Bashir, Dax, Worf, etc) and non-Starfleet characters (Kira, Quark, Garak), but for the most part they are pretty normal for the setting. Then there is Odo, the only Changeling character in the group.

In both cases the majority of the party is pretty normal; standard to the setting. Each has a unique character in terms of what fits into the setting. It adds a dash of spice, without interfering with the believability of the setting.

Now what if we had a show with a starship crew made up of: one human Starfleet captain, an Android, a Changeling, a Borg and a reformed Jem’Hadar? Would that work in the Trek universe? Possibly, but its really pushing the boundaries of believability for the setting. The writer (GM) would have to work pretty hard to explain how this group fits into the framework of the overall setting.

The Weirdo Card

So, if all players have that drive to be the unique character with the more unique (read: strange) class and/or race, and too many of them can strain the believably of a campaign, how do you keep this from toppling a game before it starts? You could ban splat books. I have done it and its not bad, but not always fair, since things in moderation are often not bad. Inspired by Start Trek, I decided to take a different tack. Rather than banning the fringe classes and races, why not just limit them so that the majority of the party is pretty standard (they can be unique in personality, which is more of a challenge than doing it via mechanics), and allow a player (or two depending on the game and size of your group) to be the fringe character.

So I created the Weirdo Card …

Free for general use

This is a card that I made and laminated, which I plan to give to my players before our future Trek campaign. The card allows one of the players to be the weirdo, the fringe character. Everyone else will stick to the core books to make their characters. How the players determine who gets the card for this campaign, and for future campaigns, I will leave up to them. They can roll for it, they can debate for it, etc. The end result will be the same. One weirdo for the campaign.

The holder of the card gets to pick out a class, occupation, race, etc, which is in the fringe category. As the GM, I will then work this character into the campaign to make it fit as best as possible. I will also make sure that there are no other concepts like this player’s concept. After all, they are the unique snowflake. For some level of campaign protection, the GM does get final approval for their concept (no Vow of Poverty Monks…none).

How Many Weirdos Are Too Many?

You may not approve of my approach, and to be honest, I won’t know how well it works until I launch my Star Trek campaign, but I think I might be on to something. There are many ways to address this issue, and this is just one of them.

How do you deal with the weirdos in your group? Do you limit splat books? Do you use a group template to make sure there is a purpose for the party? Is there something in your social contract? Do you limit fringe character ideas? Or do you just let your weirdness flow and go with it? Would you hand out a weirdo card, and what would your players do, if you did?

If you want some more background on the method, check out the original article. Otherwise, on with the show!

Example 1: A Typical Dungeon Crawler

When I was running a D&D 3.5 game set in Eberron, I used this technique a lot. The nature of the group was one that lead to a lot of unique ideas, and I encouraged their going off script, but that meant I had to keep up with lots of odd things. I’d make a sheet with bullet point notes to figure out what kinds of things I could whip in (based on the ongoing story and the nature of that mission. Here is a very typical adventure that was a short introductory dungeon crawl.

Jungle Temple

Possible Order/Plot (This was the likely order of events, but I wanted to keep it open to prevent railroading. If the PCs took the hooks, this is how it would go down.)

• Meet House Cannith quest giver, pays to retrieve artifact, arranges transport.
• Travel via airship to jungle locale. Dropped off in clearing. Travel to temple.
• Find hole where temple was. Find destroyed temple in sinkhole. Find temple looted.
• Pursue through tunnels. Find emerald claw

Places (I briefly detailed evocative elements about areas so I could do recall them during the game.)

• Cannith Meeting Room
• Airship Egatalia (small, privateer)
• Jungle Clearing/trail – a jungle clearing big enough for the airship to hover over and the small trail leading to the temple
• Sinkhole/Ruined Temple – dark, musty, light shafts filter down, find ruined and cracked rooms askance and askew, artifact is gone
  - fountain room (water gushing out)
  - top of ziggurat (broken statues)
  - treasure room (with giant croc)
• Tunnels – winding tunnels that are mostly linear, draw as needed, a few doors
• Final fight cave – a large cave where the group can encounter the emerald claw

Fights

• Jungle Clearing – other adventuring party, can be negotiated past. Only include if early stages are dragging.
• Angry Creature  – Giant Crocodile pg 271 MM
• Emerald Claw Squad (blood of vol priest 228 Eberron Book, 3 schlock 1st level fighters)

NPCs (Very few needed for this one, so I kept it light.)

• Luyun D’cannith – Quest giver (quiet, nervous, wants power and is planning to use the artifact as leverage for political gain)
• Paloma Nalworth – Airship Captain (brash, drunk, scarred)
• Halldor – Blood of vol priest (not much known yet, white long hair)

Traps

• Ruined traps in most places in temple, a few in hallways if needed.
• Fusilade of darts and arrow trap (d20 Srd)

Rewards

• ~300 in gold can be found in the ruins
• Bracer of natural armor +1 can be found on the priest and one of the fighters
• Weapons on the fighters, etc.
• The artifact (Mcguffin for the sake of game, some kind of ancient key, figure it out as you go along)

When I was planning this out, I wanted a quick adventure to meet up to a published adventure I was going to be running and get the group up to level. I went pretty standard with the prep route, knowing I could modify as I went along. I didn’t need too much more than this and played off of the group’s leanings in the game. I made notations to things I might need to reference later, but played it pretty loose and fast. These notes came from an old text file and were copied almost directly.

One of the beautiful things about using 3-3-3 for a dungeon crawl is that the categories can be pretty static. I know most adventures will include the same types of elements, so all I have to do to make a new adventure is change out the ingredients.

Example 2: A Less Typical Adventure

This is a 3-3-3 prep example from a different game. This is one for a bank heist they tried. At this point, I’d written up a lot of generic stat blocks for my games, so I didn’t bother with as much notation.

The Bank Heist

Places

• Kundarik Bank (Dungeon 147, aundarian job)
• Portal Room
• Mror Hold
• Vault 101E – The place where the files are stored.

Fights

• Guards at bank
• Manticore (SRD)
• Slaughterstone Behemoth and Eviscerator in the MMIII. On page 160

NPCs (I had no idea how the PCs would proceed, so I wanted at least names and a few small descriptive elements. My group tends to say things like" I go looking for someone a bit shady who looks poor. I want to bribe them.” With minimal details on the NPCs, I can reinforce the group’s ideas by matching Sorjaris to the NPC type they went looking for.)

• Shogo – Can provide information about notes
• Ppl in bank (all could provide obstacles)
  - couple with kid, dwarven
  - old bearded man, hard of hearing
  - young girl and husband (half elf), newlyweds
  - bank teller (marilyn)
  - shifter merc depositing pay
  - mage from Sharn (tcot), coming to pick up item
• Garallis – The bank manager, dwarf
• Telnot – lazy, bribable guard, dwarf
• Sorjaris – A person in xx city who can sell them plans to the bank, human
• Lanir – Mage willing to sell items of invisibility or stealth. Also can disable wards. Was planning job himself. Elf

Traps

• Spell Turret – web
• arrow   
• pit   
• fireblast   
• Summon – hamatula
• Glyph of warding trap  

Plot Points

• They know they need merrix notes to incriminate him. They know they are in the mror holds.
• Bust into bank. Shogo can provide some information, but not materiel help.
• let the group plan, then break
• provide NPCs and ways into bank. If they want to spend time doing research, remove obstacles based on their ideas/rolls
• People in bank can be issue if do it during daylight
• Once into Mror hold, all hell can break loose. If they disable alarms though, they can loot with impunity for a brief time.

Rewards (This was the big section I knew I needed. I random treasure generated a list and included it in my prep notes. This let me quickly tell them what treasure they found when looting vaults.)

• merrix’s notes on the lord of blades and xulo
• masterwork sword    320
  6 letters of credit    6000
• stone carving, snake, ruby eyes    500
  fine wines and ale    1500
  Scroll of Summon Monster 1    750
• Immovable Rod    5000
• 3 emerald    3000
  2 fire opal    2000
  1 blue saphire    1000
  Masterwork full plate    150
• rierdan crysteel scimitar    1500
  flametouched    1000
• 10x eberron    900
  10 syberys    2500
  3 khyber (large, makes 2 smaller)    4500
  Cyre university scrolls    3000
• 15 drow knives    225
  15 claw gauntlets    600
  5 yuanti serpent bow    750
  chitin    320
  dreamhide    700
• 3 (no magic) immovable rods    600
  platinum    3225
• 3 poison darts   
  drake helm    32000
• gaseous form 3rd    5000
  wind wall 3rd    5000
• art: black velvet mask with numerous citrines (80gp)    80
  art: old masterpiece painting (2,100gp)    2100
  art: solid gold idol (10 lb.) (1,000gp)    1000
• art: silver ewer (30gp)    30
  medium +2 dragonhide full plate armor (8,950gp)    8950
  medium adamantine dagger (3,002gp)    3002
• houseward    (Cost 25,000) plot element for white hearth or citadel of winds base
  Coins    6,494

Obviously this one doesn’t follow the 3-3-3 format very closely. I prepped to the things that i knew the game was going to contain, and since this was a bank heist I went heavy on the possible loot. 3-3-3 is about quickly prepping the things you think you’ll need in case you need them, and if the group is doing a bank heist to get a specific item (in this case Merrix’s blackmail notes), then you’d better believe they’re going to develop sticky fingers once inside the vaults.

I planned for all sorts of contingencies, knowing the group was going to take some time to plan out the smartest route. I wanted to have bank patrons if they decided to daylight rob the place disguised as other people. I wanted traps and night time guards and creatures if they tried to dungeon crawl it. I wanted people they could bribe. I wanted to be prepared for any interesting idea they had. Not to be the dick GM and try to foil them, but to make sure they had a good session and didn’t steamroll over an unprepared dungeon master. This was an example where challenge would make the whole thing worthwhile.

Well, the group threw me for a loop and bypassed many things I had planned with a really clever idea. I was glad I hadn’t planned everything out in detail. This quick prep method allowed me to not waste a lot of time looking up the intricacies of every element beforehand. Focusing on the ones that I was sure would come up (like loot) kept things moving forward. Things that didn’t see any play time (like most of the fights and NPCs) were only a few minutes worth of work.

Example 3: A Deeply Political Game

I once ran a 1920s vampire game set in nearby Akron, Ohio. This was a vastly different game from the other types of games I’d used 3-3-3 with, but it really worked for this environment. Once again, I focused my minimal prep on the elements I knew would be important to the game. There was so little planning on my end. Most of it was reacting to the PCs and what they were going to do. I had to juggle a lot of NPCs and organizations though. I would make up a sheet like this at the beginning of every “real” session. That would let me remember things that went on within the games before and give me a handy cheat sheet for my  notes.

Movers and Shakers Active/Plotting (There were many NPCs in this game, so I would determine which of them were currently involved in plotting or relevant to the next session, as much as possible. I would denote their plots/plans so I could keep them in mind. It was also a way to keep track of what had gone on off-screen.)

• Justin – Working up the sabbat to attack
• Marcellus, The Current Prince – Trying to marshall the forces. Fighting against the new unions.
• Lealia, Tremere – Waiting on sabbat to attack so that she can offer aid at just the right time. Preparing Jeb for combat.
• Trelia – In sewers, trying to search out the last of her brethren

PC Plots At Play (The PCs were plotting lots of things themselves, and we played a lot of that out in one on one conversations between gaming sessions. This was a way to know what was up in the air and make sure to focus on PC plots.)

• Jacques – Still riling up workers and unionizing. He has been making his illegal childer from the ranks.
• Brian – No big plots. He has been causing problems for Andrews and the prince. Blew up people in park.
• Sean Andrews – Losing confidence in the prince. Almost ready to make his move, but he doesn’t have a strong enough power base yet. His meeting with Lealia may shift her help to him. Still on the fence about betrayal.
• Tony – Recently Sabbatized. Out for blood. Player mentioned he might try to pretend to still be brujah. Sean witnessed his turning though and will likely call a hunt.

Reactions (There were many  organizations and non movers and shakers that could hamper the  PCs and NPCs. I kept track of them here. I kept track of their reactions to various game events in case they needed to come into play. )

• Police – still on ventrue payroll, keeping things covered up
• Army Base in Stow – confused about the theft of things and bloody deaths.
• FBI – Monitoring situation of unrest, but under orders from “a higher up” to not interfere. (Blood bound ghoul politician.)
• Camarilla – Lost confidence in Marcellus, waiting for city to fall to sabbat.
• Sabbat – ready to pounce, but still disorganized.
• Masquerade – Still intact, but Jacques is causing major issues and doing things sloppy.

Places (There was a map of akron with various places. I wouldn’t bother trying to preplan too much place wise, but I would make notes of what had happened last game. In a lot of ways, this 3-3-3 prep was mostly recapping previous games so I could be on top of things with this game.)

• Edwin Shaw hospital – Tony met with malkavian there, got info on current prince
• Army base – 2 murders here
• Stan Hywett – Prince is tightening security
• Goodyear Plant – Jacques had a meeting there and had to kill to prevent being discovered.
• Capitol Funding Building – Andrews held secret meeting there.

Random Names (My players loved names in this game, and I had lots of trouble keeping up. Finally, I random generated lists of names and would make notes next to them.)

Name list at beginning of session
Gretchen I. Hill
Karen U. Puckett
Elsie A. Hamilton
Malcolm A. Wagner
Francis C. McNamara
Neal A. Lawrence
Alex A. May
Eric T. Steele
Tim A. Watts
Beth A. Walton

After my notes
Gretchen I. Hill – Girl fed upon by Sean
Karen U. Puckett
Elsie A. Hamilton – Secretary that Jacques Dominated
Malcolm A. Wagner
Francis C. McNamara  – Soldier Brian was attacked by
Neal A. Lawrence  –
Alex A. May  – Young boy who witnessed Tony’s murdering. Blood handprint.
Eric T. Steele – Police officer who tony killed.
Tim A. Watts
Beth A. Walton

This game was really one where the prep/recap helped out. I couldn’t spend a lot of time mucking about in my notes, but the one page recap 3-3-3 notes helped me remember things quickly The Random Names list here was essential to quickly moving things along when the group would go hunting for people to feed on. It also helped up the feeling that the group was interacting with a real and full world. They  might have been vampires hiding amongst mortals, but when they knew the  secretary’s name was Elsie or that the kid they just traumatized could say “May, Alex May sir. Are you a gangster?” before they wiped their bloody hand on his face, they felt like their interactions and roleplaying meant something.

3-3-3 In Play

The core idea of 3-3-3 is that you write categories for various game elements and add in shorthand bullet points to them. You don’t fret about the details, you just build yourself a skeleton of a game. If you need to move things about, you can. The adventure isn’t so detailed as to be restricting, but it has enough to let you improvise from. The categories that are going to be most relevant to your game are going to be the elements you see the most of. Political games rarely need pre-planned fights, but action and combat games do. 3-3-3 works really well for lists of things that MIGHT come up, like random NPCs or likely loot. Whatever elements you feel are most likely to come up, flesh those ones out more. Throwing in small descriptor words or phrases (much like the tags on our posts) can help you build detailed elements without reverting to reading blocks of text. Page and book notation are also helpful things to add in. Give it a try and see if you can’t use it to run a good game without much prep.

Do you find that 3-3-3- would provide enough to run a game off of or do you feel that you need more than this to feel prepped? What categories would be most relevant to your current game and how many bullet points would you need under those categories?  I’d love to see your take on what your last game looked like if it were prepped with 3-3-3.