Corw1n - I'm still 3.5 (and likely will stay there, for reasons already stated). From what I've seen of 4th, however, there is nothing to keep a Z-ged campaign from working. Here are some of my thoughts.
1) Most of your Zed will be minions, which means one hit drops. This is okay, IF you keep the number of zeds streaming in constant. Occasional swarms to get them to pop their once a day abilities, then steady streams that will keep the action hot. Also, the longer you keep them engaged, the more you attrition through their once per encounter moves. 2) What you cannot do is let them fort up. A ritual for food/water, and it is like a party of Warlocks in 3.5 - endless blasting (which turns boring after a few turns). Make sure you Zed can climb, jump, tear down buildings and barracades, etc. 3) Go play Left4Dead. I can think of no better model for a 4e game. Steady streams of one hit Zed, occasional swarms that make even those 1hp Zed frightening, special Zeds to add variety (and some more than one-hit kills, so that damage matters as well as accuracy), constant action (except for occasional temporary safe spots), and no-where the players can get that the Zed can't follow.
I wanted to ask for advise on a story idea I came up with
First: (don't kill me) make a DMPC to help the low level party. Second, make that same npc into the enemy of the party as a betrayer.
I think if they really know their enemy (plus he was mister uber helper for the first bit of the campaign) it will really get them thinking about who their future villains are.
"Against logic there is no armor like ignorance. Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something." - Laurence J. Peter
"D&D is a sort of simulation. A simulation of living in a fantasy world where fearless heroes and dreadful monsters clash daily in spectacular battles. A world where you are a great champion, and the creator of the universe is frequently disorganized, highly distractable, and alarmingly vague on the rules of the universe he’s trying to run." - DM of the Rings
"No matter how difficult or absurd you make a puzzle, your players will find an even more impossible and preposterous way of solving it." - DM of the Rings
I intend to do something similar - it is a familiar trope, but one that should motivate the players to take on this bad guy more than just sending them after him in the first place.
What I would say is don't make the DMPC too powerful when he's helping the party. The game is still about the players, and you shouldn't let the 'uber helper' steal the glory early on, or your players may become disillusioned with your game before they ever get betrayed.
Also, it might not be a great idea to build it as a full-on PC. If you're playing 4e, I would recommend you use the companion character rules from the DMG2, or the NPC creation rules in the DMG. This will give you a character who can be of some genuine use to the party without outshining them, and will stop combats from dragging on too much by giving the companion character less options for whoever is running them at the time.
I'm using a 3.5 variant called Pathfinder (it is much closer to 3.5 then to 4e). I actually don't have the 4e books, but if she doesn't end up at least more powerful then the party average then won't she be no challenge as a villain?
"Against logic there is no armor like ignorance. Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something." - Laurence J. Peter
"D&D is a sort of simulation. A simulation of living in a fantasy world where fearless heroes and dreadful monsters clash daily in spectacular battles. A world where you are a great champion, and the creator of the universe is frequently disorganized, highly distractable, and alarmingly vague on the rules of the universe he’s trying to run." - DM of the Rings
"No matter how difficult or absurd you make a puzzle, your players will find an even more impossible and preposterous way of solving it." - DM of the Rings
A million voices from DMs around the world are calling out that DMPCs are a BAD idea.
Well, most of the time.
If the player's party is missing a critical element that cannot be replicated, then filling that role is a reasonable place for a NPC (hireling).
Now, hopefully, if the party lacks, say - healing, then it is only reasonable to show them that need. If they are unwilling to invest (or it is taking most of the party's wealth to invest in) healing, then they can see the need to hire a cleric (which is a NPC that the DM runs).
That character functions like any other hireling, only their cost of hire is an equal share of XP, GP, etc.
I know you are thinking - that is just a DMPC in disguise. Exactly - it is in disguise. That way, the party is the party, this guy is filling a role, but the story is not about him. He has no vested interest in the party beyond doing work and getting paid.
Note that this should NEVER be a rogue (who by nature resent real work - and because their abilities are directly tied to what you, the DM does or does not know - traps, lock DCs, Hide v. Spot, Move v. Listen, etc.
It should also never be a Wizard/Sorcerer. Nothing takes the spot light like the guy who blows things up.
A Cleric who buffs (the party) and heals or a Fighter who is built to take punishment rather than deal it (focused on AC and HP) are the only two reasonable chocies if you, the DM , cannot get past the idea that you are vested in that character.
After all, you don't choose your friends the way you choose your employees.
If you party needs, say, a Wizard, have them contract for the needed spells. Hireing a Wizard and having him come along is fine - just put a $ on what they do. Have them contract for the spells they need (10gp X SPLV X Caster LV) and then have a higher charge for spells used that were not contracted for (say 15gp X SPLV X Caster LV - the cost of using a Wand). Put in a contengency clause for damage taken and make sure that the caster has Expeditious Retreat, Fly, or Teleport ready to use to beat a hasty retreat if things look dangerous. That way, the Wizard is never "stealing the day" with a fireball - the party is using a Wizard as a tool - making it their good planning (and exspense - paid in advance, including a sizeable insurance deposit to be returned only when the Wizard is returned unharmed).
Firstly my compliments to Oakspar's insights in DMing.
My question: how should a DM portray NPCs of the various fantasy races without either every member of a race behaving in a stereotypical way (Scottish dwarves, aloof elves) or the race being just an informed attribute (i.e. tell it’s a dwarf and then roleplay it like one would roleplay a human)?
Deep dwarves, mountain dwarves, gray elves, wild elves, wood elves, forest gnomes, talfellows and deep halflings are often considered redundant (consider Eberron) and aquatic elves, gith, locathah and merfolk do not fit into every campaign setting, but that still leaves (hill) dwarves, duergar, (high) elves, half-elves, drow, bugbears, goblins, hobgoblins, gnolls, (rock) gnomes, svirfneblin, (lightfoot) halflings, humans, orcs, half-orcs, kobolds, lizardfolk and troglodytes. And that’s not even counting the beings that are not unlike humanoids in sense of behaviour and culture, like giants and centaurs.
Also, I was wondering what insights (if any) Oakspar had to offer on running campaigns in the different commercially available campaign-settings, like Forgotten Realms, Eberron, Planescape and Dark Sun. (Especially insights into Eberron would be welcome, as I am running a game in Eberron at the moment.)
I'm not Oakspar but I have been DMing for four years now and I've done a lot of unusual races and the thing to remember is a culture does not make a person. The racial stereotypes in d&d do exist, but most members are exceptions. Treat the other races as people, with their own backgrounds and motivations. You don't need to detail them but playing every dwarf differently should be no more difficult then playing each bartender differently. Insert different quirks to differentiate from the norm.
As for the second question, there are a couple things to do. One, avoid a "Tour de Realm" just visiting important figures and cities gets really old in most cases. Sometimes you might want to show off the really awesome Eberron NPC but I've found this usual detracts, rather then adding to the game. two (this depends on your players degree of knowledge and to a lesser extent, your own) warn them that your world is based on Eberron and the feel and geography should be the same, but the specifics should be up to you, not the books on the setting. That way you can avoid the whole "but the tavern is on the west side of X, we are on the east side" or "x 20th level character really hates necromancy, lets go get him to help us on our quest to destroy the necromancers guild since he lives in this city."
The second also helps you avoid the first. Good luck
"Against logic there is no armor like ignorance. Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something." - Laurence J. Peter
"D&D is a sort of simulation. A simulation of living in a fantasy world where fearless heroes and dreadful monsters clash daily in spectacular battles. A world where you are a great champion, and the creator of the universe is frequently disorganized, highly distractable, and alarmingly vague on the rules of the universe he’s trying to run." - DM of the Rings
"No matter how difficult or absurd you make a puzzle, your players will find an even more impossible and preposterous way of solving it." - DM of the Rings
It seems that I'm already on the right track then in relation to nukiju's advice regarding campaign settings.
The other day I found a rather insightful post on the GitP forums regarding my question on fantasy races. Although it doesn't answer my question completely, I still considered it insightful enough to post it here:
The thing that makes different races fun is using different personalities and mindsets. My orcs have an entirely different sense of what a "joke" is than a human does (sudden revelation of weakness), as does a Gnome (clever manipulation) or an Elf (surrealist humor), and correspondingly won't find the humor in many human jokes even if they understand the inversion or wordplay involved. My dwarves can laugh in a sort of jovial way, but the concept of a "joke" is culturally pretty foreign to them.
Similarly, more exotic races should be more and more alien. My lizardfolk don't understand mammalian genders, my maugs don't comprehend boredom or impatience or even put much note by the passage of time, and my gnolls have a whole mythos of "the eaters" and "the eaten" with interspecies dominance determined almost solely by who can eat whom (thus putting Solars and some of the most powerful undead surprisingly low on the totem pole, and lithovores fairly high up).
Exotic races, then, become a way to fuel really interesting and dynamic RP, and make the game a richer experience for everybody.
1) Ask yourself why the stereotype exist. Often there is a reason for it, and removing it feels unnatural. Your players also come with a certain level of expectation, and while that adds a certain level of metagaming, it also fits, since players born and raised in a world would know more a good deal about it (knowledge:local to know what a Dwarf is? Hardly.) If it isn't broken, don't fix it.
2) Make sure your NPCs are individuals. While one Orc doesn't need to be that different from the next Orc, each NPC that is not getting Cleaved through does. You don't want a rude, taciturn Dwarf? Great! Have the Dwarf welcome the party in for a warm ale and a sit by the fire - after all, the roast badger is almost done! Still a Dwarf, still lives in a cave, still likes ale, but instead of being rude and hostle is friendly and welcoming to strangers - and still acts like a -2CH creature, since he lacks the social skills to realize that warm ale and badger taste like urine and greasy rat to a human.
3) Nationalities and cultures can often trump individual and racial tendencies. Humans and humans in RL fight over land, religion, and nationality. Why not have Elves and Hobgoblins fighting together against Humans and Orcs over the boarder of a great forest? Why wouldn't Dwarves hire some Ogre Barbarians to augment their war against the Halfling caravan that disrespected the shring of Morriden?
4) Create new stereo-types for your campaigns. I have seen dwarves as Scottish, German, and Russian in accent and habits. I have seen stoner-hippy Elves, effiminate Elves, stolid Tolkien-esque Elves, Native American Elves, etc. Often that stereo type will let you (1) make the entire race unique to your campaign world, and thus, more memorable (2) continue to roleplay the stereo-type rather than develop 100 different personalities for the 100 different NPCs the party might face.
So I just spent a week reading all 140 pages in this thread. I have learned more about DMing from you than I figured out on my own over the past 6 years of DMing on and off. I will be the first to say that I am not the greatest DM in the world, I might love doing it but I'm not very good. Everything you (and quite a few others) have posted has taught me how to become a better DM, how to make sure my players are having fun, and how to have fun myself.
All in all, I just wanted to say thanks and that you are awesome. THANK YOU OH SO VERY MUCH!
I can't believe it's finally here.
