My DM was on the Tome Show

In the recent episode of The Tome Show, my DM (aka Sarah Darkmagic) built a skill challenge for us with the help of Mike from SlyFlourish. Here is her take on episode. I can’t vouch for the whole podcast as this is the first episode I listened to, but it was quite good so I’ve subscribed…. The Tome Show seems focused on DM’ing (the last couple of episodes have been about skill challenges). The discussion was particularly awesome for me and my group as we got to directly benefit from all these DMs collaborating on our adventure.

On the show they built an information-gathering skill challenge, which Tracy enhanced with a random rumor table to get things started. In designing the challenge they came up with several different ways for us to get to an NPC and then get the needed information out of him. What we didn’t realize when playing it out was: since we got a lot of information up front, we sorta combined them all into a single scenario in our minds, which was not the intent, but the DM went with it anyway. The challenge for us as a group is that because we are mostly high-Charisma characters so we usually crawl over each other to make the Diplomacy/Bluff checks. The way the challenge was designed, with multiple stages and avenues of exploration, allowed us to work together and split up the roles, instead of our usual conflict. For example, my character forged a note (Bluff) using advice from the rogue (Insight), and then handed the note off to the bard who gave it to a third party to deliver (Diplomacy).

This illustrates that a well crafted skill challenge and teamwork can get most of the people at a gaming involved. Unfortunately it did not work out well for the swordmage (see comments on the rumor table post). He felt left out of the challenge because we decided on that course of action which did not need his character’s assistance. The lesson learned, I think, is to make sure everyone gets a chance to participate in the challenge and brainstorm as a group on what actions a character can take, in light of the overall plan.

Also in the same episode, Quinn from At Will, discussed running skill challenges. I had the opportunity to play in one of his games, and I’ll be paying it forward next week when I DM for him in a homebrewed Arabian Nights game. I’m going to have a bit more of my DMing forays over the next weeks, but I’m going to try to keep my player focus with those posts. In particular, I followed my own advice and I crafted a backstory adventure for my regular character that I was supposed to run tonight, but I had to cancel because of work 😦

More on Bad GMs : When it goes on too long

I want to continue my thoughts on managing your GM. Today I want to focus specifically on when you’re stuck at the game table too long. I find that in 4e, the two biggest users of time are combat and debating what to do. In our games we also spend a lot of time chit-chatting, and sometimes the games run too long because we want to reach a particular milestone or good stopping point, i.e. the “just 5 more minutes…” scenario. But in general these are good problems to have.  The tipping point for me was the DM’s challenge game I played in at PAX.  There we were held hostage until 1:30 AM, when I was ready for bed by 11.

There’s a lot a GM can do set the pace of an adventure and if it goes poorly, sometimes it’s his fault. But to be fair just as often it’s the fault of the players, and sometimes it’s just the nature of the game. In the case when GM is in a position to move the game a long, here are some suggestions to help him out so you can get home at  a reasonable hour:

You can encourage the GM to call a combat if it is going on too long. There comes a time in a 4e combat when you’ve got two guys left, they’re surrounded, and it’s only a matter of time to wear them down. This is the long slog and for many people (me included) it’s not a lot of fun. Players and GMs may be disinclined to call the combat at this point.  In some ways declaring victory feels premature or like it’s cheating, and we all want to feel like we’ve earned the victory.  Additionally, a GM may have motivation for wanting to wear the players down, to use up consumables and healing surges before the next battle. Also ending the combat early removes a chance, however slight, of player death. When you’ve reached the long slog, suggest to the DM that maybe he should call it so you can get to on the rest of the adventure. Feel free to bargain: offer to exchange hit points or healing surges to exchange for what you would have lost. In that PAX game, I got our DM to agree to call a combat once all the enemies were bloodied. That was followed by a few more frustrating rounds, but we got there and were then able to move on. Alternatively maybe the GM could award everyone automatic hits, that way there’s still random damage and a chance of death, but you won’t be delayed by waiting three turns to hit. A similiar strategy is to ask the DM for some random bonuses, like the @Wizards_DnD encounters tweets (#dndenc): they’re like a bonus +1 (not game changing, but gives 5% increase to hit).  I’ve been trying to get my DM to accept them during the game, but so far, no luck.

That should hopefully take care of the encounter speed. I’d be interested in hearing of other player strategies. There’s a lot a DM can do control the pace of a combat through monster/terrain choice, but those are pretty much out of our hands!

When it comes to the other type of encounter: skill challenges (or no-challenge RP), time can be wasted deciding what to do–or worse, coming up with suggestions and having your DM tell you that your decisions are invalid. Here you could try a “c’mon man, throw us a freakin’ bone!” to get the GM to give you hints. If the available options aren’t obvious, it’s possible her puzzle is too obscure. Ask if you can use any of the knowledges or insight to divine a course of action, or ask her to supply you with some options (not all of them have to have good outcomes). If the issue isn’t that you’re unable to come up with fruitful actions, but rather you can’t decide between players, you can try to get some more information out of the DM to help make that decision, or at least get her to acknowledge you’re deadlocked and could use a hint. This doesn’t happen very often, but I’ve found that GMs that want to watch you struggle aren’t inclined to give you hints, either. At a game I played at PAX, I basically wore down the DM by whining, but really he shouldn’t have let it get to that point. In my weekly game, each player gets a “free reroll” chit each night; I wonder if players (maybe one per party) get a “hint token” each session to exchange for such situations. Or maybe just a freebie divine guidance ritual.

In the “just  5 more minutes” situation, this seems like a good problem to have: you’re having too much fun to stop, even if you’re really, really tired. I previously had a post with great suggestions in the comments for stopping mid-game, so that could help there. When you’re playing a con game or 1-shot, there’s no next game, so it’s best to remember why you’re there. It’s tough socially but sometimes you have to walk away from the table. It’s douche-y to do this at exactly when the allotted time is up, but certainly there’s no need to be chained there hours after it was supposed to end. Besides, it’ll give the DM a clear message to plan better next time.

How to gracefully fail a search check

I don’t know about you, but sometimes the most mundane events in my life lead me to odd roleplaying ideas. For example, when I saw the office manager emptying out the shredder this week, I thought that a high level modern rogue could sneak in and steal those shredded documents and reassemble them for some corporate espionage.  (Did I also mention Leverage returns tonight?)  My next thoughts were constructing a parallel fantasy d&d scenario for corporate espionage. After a round-about train of thought I developed a skill challenge relying heavily on Perception checks to gather evidence against an evil Baron.

In order to make it to the punchline of this whole diatribe, I have to bring in a bit of my day job. As a software programmer, I’m trained in making sure programs fail gracefully. That means if the database goes down while you’re still connected to it, instead of crashing your computer, the program remains responsive to input and allows you to proceed with your work as much as possible. Bringing that idea to my perception challenge, we don’t want a failed skill check to dead end the party’s plans, or end the skill challenge too soon.

The fantasy espionage example involves the party trying to uncover tangible evidence of a Baron’s dealings with the King’s enemies. Since the Baron is a pretty smart guy, he thinks to destroy all the obvious evidence. A hard DC perception allows the PC to find an incriminating note that got caught in the chimney flue instead of burning up.  In the standard-style skill challenge, beating the hard DC would count as success, and not making it would be a failure. In addition to counting as one strike, as a consequence for failure, the DM may decide that the failed search took 10 out of the 15 minutes before the guards make their rounds.

A gracefully failing skill check would not have a binary pass/fail option, but instead have grades of results (no more than 3 or 4 is practical). In my example, let’s say the PC did not make the hard DC, but rolled well enough to pass a moderate check. In that case she doesn’t find the note, but instead finds an undated bar tab for a tavern known to be frequented by the king’s enemy.  Since this hardly damning evidence, the baron saw no need to destroy it. But this circumstantial piece of evidence could be used by the party to then go to the tavern and try to find eye witnesses to a meeting (requiring further skills and RP). Perhaps only rolling high enough to beat an easy DC gives the PC mud on  boot only found in part of town where that tavern is, meaning the PCs must first uncover the tavern, and then find the eye-witnesses. Maybe this also uses up 10 of the 15 minutes minutes. Failing the easy might get the PCs no evidence and a strike against the skill challenge.

This seems like a nice idea to make skill challenges more fluid. If you play with a discrete skill challenge mode, obviously this will add to the complexity of a skill challenge, so the DM will have to adjust the rewards or break down skill challenges into smaller ones.

Sun Tzu said something about skill being the ability to subdue your enemies without fighting

Sorry I’m a bit late with the post tonight; we did our weekly game on an off day. Tonight I got to try out some of the techniques I have been talking about the past few weeks and it worked out well. For example, the DM set up an interesting encounter for the party to guard some VIPs in a carriage that was beset on all sides by an angry mob. Through some quick thinking, quicker talking, and some fancy acrobatics, the party was actually able to talk down the mob and avoid the fight altogether… I still hope we get the XP.

One thing that allowed us to play out this scenario is that the players were on the same page about proceeding without combat. The overwhelmingly large mob was made of misguided farmers, and we didn’t want to risk our allies, so we decided to defuse the situation instead. We were able to coordinate our actions through in-game diplomacy and intimidation checks and some meta-game discussion. We made our case to the DM why a particular skill should be used, and eeked out a skill challenge where a combat was supposed to be.

In the role-playing part of the night, I decided to get my character more involved in the story, since he hasn’t really had a personal reason to be in the plot. I did this at two points. First, I blurted out a piece of his sorted past to the rest of the party while they were all sitting around.  I didn’t pull this off well since I wasn’t in the mood to explain it further; I think it hung uncomfortably with the other players.

The second place I got my character involved in the plot was in the investigation of the mysterious and malevolent force controlling the king. To get closer to the suspicious adviser, I pulled out a story about my character’s former service to a different king to get into the new guy’s service.

My point of this ramble is that I took a small opening in several places to assert my character to get involved in the story. Good advice for any player, I think. That and when players get together they can prevent or cause combats with a willing GM.

On sneaking

Once upon a time, I used to play a lot of plate-mailed dwarf clerics, but now I usually play a quick-maneuvering, lightly-armored hero. I think I’ve been influenced a lot by video games where you can sneak around and take out enemies before they know you are there.  And being stealthy helps when pulling a heist, as I described last week.

Having a sneaky party is great, but sometimes you just don’t have a stealthy PC. What should you heavily armored Goliath warlord do? Should he stay home? No, not if he wants XP.

Back in November, Mike Mearls posted a great sneaking skill challenge in Dungeon magazine. While he gave some skills for non-Rogues such as Nature, Athletics, or Arcana, using those well bolsters further Sneak checks but do not negate the need for stealth.

There’s not much that can be done if the situation does call for stealth and you have none. However I made four Don’ts and Dos for a party with one or members sneaking around in plate mail.

1. Don’t split the party. It may be tempting to send the two sneaks up ahead at least 40 to 60 squares. In theory they can go up ahead and take out the guards silently, disable an alarm system, or otherwise neutralize the others’ chance of detection. In my experience this never works out well. The DM should know this plan with enough time to plan to put low-level minions on guard duty, where the players have a reasonable chance of taking them out in a single surprise round. I have yet to see this happen: either there isn’t enough time in surprise to get rid of everybody and the alarm is sounded anyway, or the monsters have enough defenses and hit points to withstand a sneak assault. This means that that the lightly-armored dudes are taking some serious hits in the 3-5 rounds it takes for the rest of the party to run to their rescue.
2. Don’t move. Success at stealth relies on movement. Move more than a certain number of squares in a round and you start taking penalties. If you stand still, you get a bonus. Hopefully in this case you have someone with a high perception leading the party from shadow-to-shadow or wall-to-wall. If you think you might have attracted notice (rolled poorly) or detect some movement from the guards (the higher perception person hears “did you hear something Frank?” from guard to another), you can just duck behind something and not move for a few rounds until the guards go back to their dice game. This will probably only work a few times before even thickest guards get suspicious, but its better than just storming on through.
3. Do Distract. Con artists and real life magicians use misdirection to fool their marks. You can’t see what the right hand is doing if you’re focused on the left. You can abandon sneaking altogether if the guards are otherwise occupied. As I mentioned in my heist post, a good old riot out on the streets will set some guards running and block the sounds of battle when you take out the token defense left behind. You can pray on the guards’ sympathies by having someone conveniently get violently ill in front of them. While the guards are helping out the sick guy, everyone can just run behind them, no matter how noisy.
4. Do Go for it. No matter how not sneaky you are, there’s a 50% chance you’ll roll higher than a 10, and a 25% chance of beating 15. If you can stack on a few magical items or situational bonuses it may just be enough to take the risk. After all, you can only advance the plot by doing something.

Even if everything fails, it doesn’t mean immediate death. If you alert the guards then you’ll probably have to fight your way through them instead (aren’t you glad you didn’t split the party?). Should the guards be too powerful, then you’ll get caught. This has two advantages. (1)  the “escape from jail” skill challenge is fun and gets to test skills in unique ways. And (2), once you escape you should be closer to your goal and the guard’s won’t be on the lookout for you.

Skill Challenge: World Series

I know it’s a little late, but in honor of my team winning the World Series, I’ve crafted a skill challenge.  In the midst of crafting this challenge I finally got around to to reading the skill challenge of the DMG2. It’s really well written and I a must for any DM writing or customizing their own challenges. I’m a little annoyed at Wizards because this all should have been in the first DMG instead of their vague references to skill challenges. This chapter helped me significantly transform the skill challenge from just a little play on a theme to one I would actually want to play in, myself. I think having the characters participate in some sports would be an interesting way to get them involved in the world.

World series

The party is approached by Winterhaven Lieutenant Oren Thatchbeard. It seems the Fallcrest Gorgons are in town for a little friendly baseball competition against the Winterhaven Yetis in a best three game series. The Gorgons have a reputation for playing dirty. It’s suspected but unprovable that they are behind the sudden illness that has the Yetis down a number of players (equal to the number of party members). If only there was some way the party could help out and take their place and keep Winterhaven’s honor.

The Yetis will take any win they can get, but want to sweep the series. Every three successes means that the Yetis win a game, but any failure causes the Yetis to loose that particular game. The final game requires a 4th success: the succesess through the 11th in the challenge bring game to tied in the bottom of the 9th. The final check will get the one of the players a game-winning home run. Although broken up into three parts, this is not designed to be a “Progressive Challenge” because each part plays the same.

Level: Any.
Complexity: 4 (requires 10 successes before 3 failures).

Primary Skills: Acrobatics, Athletics, Bluff,  Endurance, Insight, Intimidate, Perception.
Acrobatics (moderate DC by level) The character makes a diving catch, grabbing a short-hop for a double play. Or the character makes a leaping catch keeping a Gorgon’s ball from leaving the park. This skill can be used once per game.
Athletics (group roll, moderate DC by level) This represents basic batting, catching, and running. The whole party must make the check and it is successful if at least half the characters make it. This skill can be used once per game.
Bluff (moderate DC by level) The character has managed to set up a good set of signals and you catch the Gorgon’s batter off guard for a strike out. This can be used successfully twice before they catch on.
Endurance (group roll, moderate DC by level) Sometimes the best thing to do is just wear down the other team. Your pitcher stays strong and the Yetis destroy the relief pitcher. This roll can be used once per game.
Insight (hard DC by level) You catch a base-runner stealing or figure out that the opposing pitcher is going to throw a curveball over the plate and you smash one out of the park. This skill can be used to gain 4 successes in this challenge.
Intimidate (hard DC by level) The Gorgon’s are here to win, but you manage to stare them and get the crowd to chant “Gorgons suck” enough times that they start to crack. This can be used successfully twice before they catch on.
Perception (moderate DC by level) You catch on their signals, or notice the pitcher’s hands before the ball is thrown and get a good run-scoring hit. Or the characters catch some words of planning in the opponent’s dug out. This skill can be used once per game.
Special: A character can make a basic ranged attack with an improvised weapon against a hard DC for a success once per game. This represents that character doing a good job as pitcher. Failing this means the opponent takes the ball out of the park.

Secondary Skills: Arcana, Diplomacy, Nature, Stealth, Streetwise, Thievery
Arcana (hard DC by level) A character mage hands a ball just fair when it should have been foul. A moderate bluff or stealth check by the same character can be made first to make this check against a moderate DC instead. Failure means the umpires deliver a warning and all checks go up a difficulty class for the rest of that game, but a success counts as a success for the challenge. This can be done once per game until the character gets caught and warned.
Diplomacy (hard DC by level) You successfully convince an umpire to make a call in your way. Negate a failure or give another character +2 bonus to his next primary check.
Nature (easy DC by level) You notice how slippery the turf is and where it is uneven. Give a +2 bonus to Acrobatics or Perception check this game.
Stealth (moderate DC by level) The character is able to take a lead unnoticed by the opposing pitcher, get a +2 bonus to your next athletics check this game.
Streetwise (moderate DC by level) This has to be done before a game. You hear enough about the opposing players that you’re able to hand Lt Thatchbeard a scouting report. Grant a +2 to each player on any primary check, once per game.
Thievery (hard DC by level) Steal a base. Success means you get into scoring position and when you get batted in, it’s the winning run. Failure means you get caught and your out ends the game.

Success: For each successful game the part will win 1/3 of parcel’s worth of gp as a prize. Winning all three games means they are awarded a trophy (either an art item or a baseball-themed magic item) by Lt. Thatchbeard, and the party members gain fame and bonuses to social challenges while in Winterhaven.

Failure: Each failure ends the game, and the people in town have nothing nice to say about the characters for the rest of the day, or their stay if it they loose 2 or three games, and get a -2 to social checks.

It would be fun if failure means that a brawl erupts and the party has to fight the Gorgons. Turning a baseball team into a set of enemies with different abilities would be an interesting extension of this article. I’ll keep in mind for the future though. You have your brutes with bats, strikers with fast pitches, team manager leader, umpire controllers, etc.

I am going to be on holiday for the rest of the week. I have set a new article to be published here every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 5pm while I am out. I won’t be able to approve or respond to any comments in that time. Cheers and have a good American Thanksgiving.

Play by email

I’ve been interested for a while now in exploring ways to game away from the table. There’s been a lot of activity recently about using Google Wave as a RPG medium. I also tried getting a play by email campaign going a few months ago, and that fizzled before it even began. There’s a certain amount of stuff in roleplaying that is hard to in asychronous text, and there’s a certain amount of momentum required to keep any campaign going.

Gabe of Penny Arcade recently shared with the whole internet an itergame email skill challenge. The skill challenge itself is pretty interesting, but even more interesting is that they’ve managed to keep their gamementum going between sessions. I usually have such big plans at the end of the night of gaming to keep the discussion, planning, and prepping going between sessions, but I can never seem to get it going. Instead I’m usually updating my character sheet at the table immediately before play.

NewbieDM sends a PDF recap to his players after each session so they have something for them to think about in between games.

Increase game attendance with great session reminders

These are things the DM can do to keep his players involved outside of the game night. Here are some things the players can do between sessions:

1. RP hanging out in the tavern.
2. Split the party: have two guys go off and some streewise stuff in the in-between time.
3. Research a spell or take a one-week apprenticeship with the town smith.

Ask your DM how you can keep your character active while you spend a week or two in the real world.

I am going to be on holiday for the next two weeks. I have set a new article to be published here every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 5pm while I am out. I won’t be able to approve or respond to any comments in that time. Cheers and have a good American Thanksgiving.

Wonderful Wondrous Items

My favorite treasure has always been wondrous items. Magic weapons and armor are always nice, but they pretty much have one use. Wondrous items can tickle the imagination and inspire creative uses. And I don’t just mean the 1,000 uses sovereign glue. I’m talking about the time we summoned a small boat to bridge a pit trap that was too far to jump.

This past week our DM let us choose a fresh magic item to round out some treasure parcels to get the party up to our power level. Choosing a free item from any book in the compendium is a challenge worthy of XP as any encounter with Trolls. My party is made up people passionate about their characters and who want the best chance of success for themselves as well as the party. Before I reveal how we really handled this is as a group, here is a real-life skill challenge, inspired by this quandary:

Photo curtosey http://www.flickr.com/photos/captaintim/ / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Take an item rusting in the party pool and exchange it for free with anything available in DDI; go! You have to make 5 successes before the DM decides to punish you all for taking too long or for fighting.

Arcana: You remember about a useful item from a Dragon magazine, get a +2 to your next History or Diplomacy roll.
Athletics: wrestle the Adventurer’s Vault out of your teammate’s hands.
Bluff: You get a party member to advocate for an item that really helps you although he thinks it helps him.
Diplomacy: You make an impassioned speech about why your character really needs an item and how much better off we’d all be if you had that Horn of Summoning.
Dungeoneering: The party is headed into the Underdark. Vote for an anti-Drow ritual.
Endurance: Everyone else is too tired to keep arguing with you. You automatically win.
History: You’ve been bitten by a Medusa the last time you played a 9th level Fighter. Argue for a mirrored shield.
Insight: Why does the wizard want a gem of soul trapping? He swore he wasn’t playing an evil character.
Intimidate: Let me have that Waraxe +2, or else!
Perception: You see that Deck of Many Things up the rogue’s hand. Call shenanigans, and he gets a -2 to Charisma-based checks.
Stealth: Where did Brad go? He must be a ninja. Give him a magic katana before he flips out and kills us.
Streetwise: How thoughtful of you to bring the DM glazed donuts. How’d you know they are her favorite?
Thievery: Steal all the handbooks. Now only you get to decide.

Of course that describes a hypothetical situation. What really happened was 20 minutes of us searching the books for the best item of that level for our characters in the current situation. I headed off the potential argument of which character should get it by suggesting we get a wondrous item that would benefit the whole party. Not only can such items be passed between players, but they are versatile: prone to creative uses in sticky situations.

Original photo courtesy http://www.flickr.com/photos/mararie/ / CC BY-SA 2.0

The item we chose was the Map of Unseen Lands [DDI] from Adventurer’s Vault 2. This map draws the nearby surroundings at the large building/geographical feature level. I thought it would be useful for tracking down the rogue wizard we are hunting in her secret temple lair. It also shows potential danger/xp zones like monster lairs and known and secret travel paths, which make for great escapes from bad places. Unfortunately I think my party-mates still think this is the Marauder’s Map from Harry Potter. This particular map doesn’t show people or fine building details, but I think this will be a great thing to have story wise. I guess we still need to come up with an explanation as to why we have it. The only downside mechanically is that redrawing the map counts as a magic item daily.

I wonder how other parties figure out up-for-grabs wish-list treasure?