Original Post I recently dissolved my other playgroups for the summer/fall, because I have a new job and cannot DM two campaign and do all new lesson preps at the same time (I'll be teaching, obviously).
Thus, to get my gaming fix, I'm going to be gaming, about once a week, with my girlfriend. Up to this point, she has NEVER gamed before, and is not even a fan of the fantasy genre (no Tolkien, Jordan, or even Harry Potter).
The purpose of these articles, then, will be to relate to newer DMs some of the new lessons I am learning from this unusual gaming situation, as well as some of the tried and true lessons all DMing requires. Apart from that, I also hope they will be entertaining and possible spawn some adventure hooks of your own.
STARTING THE CAMPAIGN
I started the campaign, like I do all others, with a list of questions about what type of game that your group would like to play. Why? Because DMing is like refereeing a game. It is fun, but you are not part of the game. Too many DMs want to think of themselves like the coach, tellling others what to do by dictating a world to them, or heaven-forbid, like a player, by inserting their own uber character into the world to play along (the dreaded DMPC or uber NPC). The game world should reflect what your players want to play in, NOT the super detailed world you drew out in algebra class you want to show off.
DM RULE: There is no room for pride in DMing. The game is about the players, not the campaign world.
So, here are the questions I ask (and you might think of others): All of the questions are ranged on a scale 1) Role Playing --- Mix --- Roll Playing (GF picked Role Playing, likely because it was the least rule intensive, making it the easiest to jump into cold) 2) High --- Mid --- Low Fantasy (Think high as Narnia, where animals talk and everything is exotic, mid more like classic D&D, and low being more like Robin Hood or King Autur) She picked Mid 3) High --- Mid --- Low Magic (She picked Mid) 4) High --- Mid --- Low Power (She picked High) 5) Dark --- Average --- Light Tone and Mood (She picked Light, so no "Night of the Living Dead" or Serial Killers in the Town, instead, more "rescue the child from the Ogres, who have not killed or molested it") 6) G --- PG --- R Rated descriptions and content (She picked PG13)
You will probably be surprised by what your group picks. You will be amazed at how few players really want to play in that gritty low fantasy, low magic, low power campaign you have drawn up. After all, isn't that just another way to make your PCs more fragile, giving you more control to stroke your fragile ego with?
Moving on, since she chose high power, I let her roll 5d6 and pick the top three (I was also going to let her reroll 1's, but since her first two rolls where 17 and 15, I decided against it. I wish I had her luck on the dice.) She came out with 17, 15, 15, 18, 14, 13. Much better than the 18,18,16,14,12,10 spread I usually give in high power play (4 points higher, if more spread).
She chose to play a Female Elf Druid, and put her stats like this ST 15 DX 14 (+2) 16 CN 18 (-2) 16 IN 13 WS 17 CH 14
She didn't know the Elf's changes until after she set her scores, and was dissapointed by the loss of CN. She also didn't put the 18 on WS, like most people would.
DM RULE: Resist the urge to maximize. You are probably the most rules familiar of the group, so you can munch up your NPC and their PCs much better than they can. Let them make "mistakes" since non-optimization adds a flavor of "reality" to their characters. Your "hints" and "aids" are going to be taken as rules, and it makes the player feel less in control of their character, and afraid to make further "mistakes."
So, we began stating out the character. When she heard about the animal compainion, she got very excited and asked "Can I have a Penguin?" She LOVES Penguins (we had to drive an hour away to go see March of the Penguins). Of course, I said yes, because it was a reasonable request that was not metagamed in any way. Also, since she would love a Penguin in real life, she will make sure her character takes care of and protects her Penguin Companion like a Druid should, rather than as a 24 hour replaceable piece of battle meat. If the penguin dies, she will cry. You should always encourage that kind of passion in your playgroup.
At that, the session ended (we only had 45 minutes that day). Next time, I'll let you know about my prep work for the first real session of play. Until then, happy gaming.
Oakspar77777]So, here are the questions I ask (and you might think of others):
Out of curiosity, is that the entirety of what you ask? I game with a fairly established group that is having some problems right now, and soon I will be taking over DMing. I would really like to make sure everyone's all on the same page...The last time I tried to do something like this, it got long and unwieldy, and they all answered different things. (Every option was picked at least once, but never more than by about half of the 6 person wrote:
So, here are the questions I ask (and you might think of others):[/quote] Out of curiosity, is that the entirety of what you ask? I game with a fairly established group that is having some problems right now, and soon I will be taking over DMing. I would really like to make sure everyone's all on the same page...The last time I tried to do something like this, it got long and unwieldy, and they all answered different things. (Every option was picked at least once, but never more than by about half of the 6 person group.)
UltimateReality]Out of curiosity, is that the entirety of what you ask? I game with a fairly established group that is having some problems right now, and soon I will be taking over DMing. I would really like to make sure everyone's all on the same page...The last time I tried to do something like this, it got long and unwieldy, and they all answered different things. (Every option was picked at least once, but never more than by about half of the 6 person group.)
I would say if you had 6 people, and they were evenly distributed between 5) Dark --- Average --- Light Tone and Mood Then this is when the DM can step in and make the decision, as a tie breaker. Since the DM is the one going to be doing the prep they should at least get some kind of choice as to the type of game.
I mean personally if I had players that wanted to all play rapists and murderers, I'd probably tell them that they need a new DM as that is a type of game I prefer not to run. The DM must be comfortable playing the game and can always step down if everybody wants to play a game they don't want wrote:
Out of curiosity, is that the entirety of what you ask? I game with a fairly established group that is having some problems right now, and soon I will be taking over DMing. I would really like to make sure everyone's all on the same page...The last time I tried to do something like this, it got long and unwieldy, and they all answered different things. (Every option was picked at least once, but never more than by about half of the 6 person group.)[/quote] I would say if you had 6 people, and they were evenly distributed between 5) Dark --- Average --- Light Tone and Mood Then this is when the DM can step in and make the decision, as a tie breaker. Since the DM is the one going to be doing the prep they should at least get some kind of choice as to the type of game.
I mean personally if I had players that wanted to all play rapists and murderers, I'd probably tell them that they need a new DM as that is a type of game I prefer not to run. The DM must be comfortable playing the game and can always step down if everybody wants to play a game they don't want to run.
First, responces. Yes, that is all I asked, and it being one on one gaming, it made it very easy. When playing with more people, I ask those same questions, though sometimes I have them put their choices as a 1 to 10 rank on paper. Then I do the averages. That way people don't try to influence each other, and often, I won't even tell them what won, that way if it is close (since all these distinctions are subjective) they will think that they did. If I have one person looking for a totally different type of game than the rest of the group, I generally will let them know, since they might want to find another playgroup (depending on the size of the local gaming community).
Side bar on drawing up characters: Characters or often refered to as being drawn from the "concept up" or "story up". Concept would be "I want to be an archer type character" or "I want to be a mage focues on electricity spells". The mechanics are worked out, and a backstory is created to flesh out WHY the character wants to be that. Story would start with the character's story and lets the mechanics be dictated by that story. This usually results in weaker, less synergistic characters. Some would say that this is an extension of power gaming or roll vs role playing, but I would disagree. The real key is having a full developed character, since even the most story based of characters are usually created with some background decisions already made, such as martial, aux, divine, or arcane based character.
That said, a fully developed character should have all of the following before the campaign begins:
Gender - Duh Race - Duh again Class - Tripel duh Appearance - Elf female is not an appearance. A green eyed elven female with shiney brown hair and a stout build for her race, wearing a deep purple hooded cloak and the brown leather work outfits common to most northern villages IS an appearance. Origin - Your character needs to come from somewhere (or have a distinct reason for why he does not know where he came from). Background - Where you came from is not everything about you. Why are you still not there? What are your relation to that area? What, if any, adventuring caree have you already had? Where are your parants and family? Do you have any friends? Insertion - Each character MUST have a reason for being where they are in the campaign world. This is much harder with a larger group or even a small group with major regional or ethnic difference (ie, a Halfling from the Southling Swamp, a Human Monk from the far north land of Ishgar, an elf from Syvanistad in the east, and a northland half-orc barbarian originate thousands of miles from each other). Motivations - Why is your character adventuring? Goals - What does your character want to acomplish? (these last two are super important for DMs to know. If you want your character to be a Paladin out doing good while seeking to avenge the death of his father at the hands of the Blackguard who murdered him, you have a motivation that will help the DM build story and adventures. If you let your DM know that you hope for your character to slowly grow more obsesced with revenge, rather that vengence, you DM can plan for your eventual goal of becomeing a Blackguard yourself and timing it with the eventual slaying of your father's murderer. Personality - How will your character relate with other characters? Chiper? Gloomy? Moody? Morose? Happy? Energetic? Lethargic? etc
A fully developed character not only helps with role playing, it also helps the DM craft the campaign arround the characters by session 2.
On with the story: Prepping for session 2
So, with characters primarely drawn up (and ideally, session one is all about drawing up a detailed character), I figure that the session will get to actual play time, after skill and feat choices are made. Since my GF is new to the game, I am packagaing her equipment to save time (she already let me know what she wants her weapon choices to be: bow, backed up by spear).
I drew up her animal comp, the Penguin. I looked at the stats in Frostburn, and was sorely dissapointed. They made for a nice tiny penguin for a familiar, but an animal comp needs to be a little bit more, so I decided to advance the stats for a Small sized Penguin (Emperor Penguins can reach 4', so small size is within reach). The stats given, however, were still pretty sad, since the Penguin is a CR 1/6 creature. Therefore, I borrowed stats from the Owl (not quiet as good as the eagle, but still better than the penguin). I then advanced size, as per the normal advancement rules. I also increased the land speed with the size by 5' so that it was not a total hinderance, but left its superb swim speed alone. Thus, what you are left with is an animal comp that is slightly less powerful than the eagle, but with a focus on swming rather than flying (meaning that I am going to need to make sure the campaign has pleanty of water encounters).
So, water encounters and cold environment are great, as I set the campaign to open in a small fishing village "Shmelt" in the Northlands. Since she had not fully developed the character, I let her in on these decision, allowing her to work arround them. What we ended up with is a High Elf who was found abandoned in the snow, which is unusual, since High Elfs usually live far far far to the south. Raised by a then young, now old, Ranger named Uncle Jack (Ranger 3), she became a Druid by studying nature under him. She is the only druid (or divine caster) in the village, and Jack is the highest level character in the town.
DM Advice: A great way to make low level play exciting is to make sure that they start in an isolated low level area. If the highest caracters arround are level 3-5, they can do important things arround town from the beginning. Later on, as they grow, they will naturally outgrow their starting location and move on (if for no other reason, than to find economies able to bear their coin and goods).
There are several subtle advantages to her starting out in her home town. First, she already knows the townsfolk, meaning that everyone's reaction is naturally "friendly" making roleplaying interactions more friendly and dynamic, since it is easier to have a conversation with the blacksmith who saw you run arround in pig-tail than the total stranger you are hoping to cut a sharp deal with. Second, it gives her free room and board as well as general security for resting without having to worry about rent, inn fees, buying food, or being robbed. Third, it gives me a place to totally bury in a blizzard later on, for a dramatic shift and a reason to take up the wandering adventurer life (since you can't go home to a pile of rubble where your entire childhood died). The GF won't really like that event (shift from Tone/Mood light to dark medium for a moment), but it will make other parts seem lighter in comparison.
So, at this point, I needed some starter adventures. Luckily, the first few where easy.
1) Animal Companion. Since the GF is going to love and protect her AC (she told me today that she (her character) would die before she let the penguin get hurt (die), which is a breath of fresh air to hear from a Druid player), I figure that the 24 hour prayer for another companion thing is pretty much bunk for this character. Therefore, it seemed fitting that she should find her companion in her first adventure, rather than just have it be part of her backstory.
I am going to prep her for this adventure a little (heavy handed DMing, I know, but she shouldn't notice) by letting her know that she should have Endure Elements as one of her spells for the first day. Being in an artic area in early spring warrants that as being a good choice anyways, and it is going to take her some time to get up to par with all of her spell options. She is, after all, totally fresh to the game (never even seen me play, even after three years of dating....just always avoided the guys' nights out).
After having her walk arround town (getting introduced to all the people she already knows) and having the blacksmith give her a spear (made for a short tradeship guard who didn't reture with the boat, it is ideal for an elf girl who is not as big as the large and bulky Northland humans), she will be "reminded" that one of the local fishers was going to let her ride along as they go shmelt fishing.
While fishing, there will be an encounter with a leopard seal (Frostburn) attacking several Penguins resting on an iceburg. Of course, the leopard seal must be driven off. Either she can use EE on herself, and swim over to the iceberg, or she can use her bow. One the seal takes some damage, it will flee. When she gets to the iceberg (by swimming, or convincing the fishers to row over) there will be two penguins down. One is stable at -1hp and can be healed with magic for extra hp if she has any healing spells for the day, the other is hopelessly dead. It will have an egg that is in great danger of freezing and dying now that it is on the open ice. If she has EE left, she can cast it on the egg. If she does not, she will have to come up with some other way to keep it warm (which will be hard, since she is soaking wet if she cast it to swim). There are blankets on the boat, however, and she can likely talk one of the fishermen into holding it close, if she rows for him.
If she does kill the seal (critical hit or something like that), then it will have a market worth, and the fishermen will be happy to reture at that moment. Otherwise, it is going to take some talking to convince them to return to town (however, if she is soaking, they definately will, and try to cover her the entire way there, since EE is not something they will fully understand nor know the limits of).
She will then have an egg to use her Handle Animal skill on (DC 16 to raise, ie make the egg hatch (15+HD)). It should be an easy check, since it will be at +10 (4 ranks, +2 CH, +4 for Animal Companion). She can then start teaching it tricks, and will likely have more fun raising that bird than any three normal players have slaughering Goblins.
DM Observation: There are more fun things to D&D than just combat and hacking stuff to get the phat loot. Raising a penguin, creating the perfect magic staff, building a castle, running a theives guild, playing a game of dice in the tavern, there are tons of "games within the game" other than combat. I once heard some decry a D&D game that became E&E (empires and economics), because the character's stronghold and lands became a game within the game that took up most of the play time, with only a little time put to the side for combat and adventureing. That is PERFECTLY ACCEPTABLE!!!! (So long as the entire playgroup is involved and having fun). In fact, I suggest you search out these little mini games as diversions to help keep your game interesting.
The egg hatching will introduce downtime, though I will likely let her get to know the town better, and throw in an "Ice Rats in the shmelt shed" find and kill encounter as well, to further introduce her to combat and skills (trying to make sure she uses EVERY open use skill possible early on, to understand their uses).
The next adventure after that will be a lost child, to get her to use some more skills (Gather Info, etc), as well as work in some problem solving (on the GF's part), but that will likely be session 3, and you don't want to work too far ahead, as that tends to create more "leading" than you want).
Thanks to those that replied. Good to know someone is reading this.
I have to say, this is the first lengthy post I read fully! Nicely written, and I can honestly say it's given me many ideas on how to become a better DM.
Do you mind if I take that little character application thingy to use in my campaign?
Thanks to those that replied. Good to know someone is reading this.
It sounds like an interesting campaign, to be honest. And I'm interested in how to run good one-on-ones too.
Oakspar77777]If I have one person looking for a totally different type of game than the rest of the group, I generally will let them know, since they might want to find another playgroup (depending on the size of the local gaming community).
It still baffles me how our group literally picked ALL ENDS of the spectrum and yet we still manage to play together somehow.
I got my copy of the DMG II today and was surprised to see that a lot of the gamer style archetypes from "Robin's Laws of Good Games Mastering" (until I saw that Robin Law was one of the authors of the DMG II :P). Anyway, I've been busily trying to figure out where everyone in the group fits. This is a lot less easy to do than it was six months ago. It seems that everyone is a bit of two or three, or none at all.
If I have one person looking for a totally different type of game than the rest of the group, I generally will let them know, since they might want to find another playgroup (depending on the size of the local gaming community).[/quote] It still baffles me how our group literally picked ALL ENDS of the spectrum and yet we still manage to play together somehow.
I got my copy of the DMG II today and was surprised to see that a lot of the gamer style archetypes from "Robin's Laws of Good Games Mastering" (until I saw that Robin Law was one of the authors of the DMG II :P). Anyway, I've been busily trying to figure out where everyone in the group fits. This is a lot less easy to do than it was six months ago. It seems that everyone is a bit of two or three, or none at all.
Characters or often refered to as being drawn from the "concept up" or "story up". Concept would be "I want to be an archer type character" or "I want to be a mage focues on electricity spells". The mechanics are worked out, and a backstory is created to flesh out WHY the character wants to be that. Story would start with the character's story and lets the mechanics be dictated by that story. This usually results in weaker, less synergistic characters.
Our group doesn't do this, except possibly for me and my fiance. And even then a fair bit of our concepts come from looking at a prestige class and saying "hey, I could make a really cool character who...". I dunno, I find the pictures and concepts embodied by the PrCs make it real easy for me to jump to a concept. I've noticed other players don't seem to make that leap.
I posted this in another thread, but I think it's clever so I'll repeat it here: I don't care whether the chicken (concept) or egg (mechanics) came first, just so long as they're both there...or at least the chicken, so she can keep laying eggs. Or something. :P
On with the story: Prepping for session 2
You know the first thing I thought about this was that parts of it were kinda railroaded, but if she's brand new to the whole thing and she's been your gf for 3 yrs then you should know her pretty well so it's not a problem.
You seem to have a handle on what kind of style of play she'll like, which is very very useful. (Now I'm scurrying off to ask my fiance if he'll let me run a solo campaign with him.)
Your posts are insightfully written and very clever. They cause laughter all the while teaching. It is rare to find a well-written and properly spelled post from a player that still values imagination and fantasy in a rapidly growing population of power-gamers. Thank you very much and keep them coming!
My daughter plays a druid and has an owl as her companion...she even had it awakened. She role plays everything with her owl: feeds it treats, makes sure she gets out to fly and hunt, asks her if she's ok, etc...and she too said, "I'll die first before I let her die!"
Funny story about that: The party got attacked by some were-rats, and her owl was sitting on her shoulder when it happened...and I rolled and her owl got hit. My 10 year old daughter teared up, made sure the owl was ok, "casted cure light" on her...then turned and went into "vengence" mode!!
The joke now in the part, "if you're losing the battle, pretend that her owl gets hurt, we'll win!!" Yeah, she basically wiped out the were-rats on her own!!
Good luck with your sessions...I'm interested in seeing how it continues.
You know, I am going to post to this just so that it gets imbedded in my subscription box and I can continue to follow the adventures of the "Druish Princess and her Mighty Penguin".
In all honesty, very well done, and very well written. Keep us informed.
Yeah, she basically wiped out the were-rats on her own!!
Yeah, druids are perhaps one of the most powerful classes (if not the most powerful), I had a druid take out a liche of the whole party's CR/EL by herself. Two disingrates didn't stop her, but she was glad to see the cleric before she shifted back.
(Now I'm scurrying off to ask my fiance if he'll let me run a solo campaign with him.)
