The Long Game: The Iron Tower Part 3

Deep within the bowels of the Iron Tower, Alvyn, Tong, and Kalgar continue their ascent, searching for the Iron Dragon and discovering its motives. 

Dallas Kasaboski

The Long Game: The Iron Tower Part 2

The Long Game returns!

Welcome back! When last we left our adventurers, Alvyn, Tong, and Kalgar had settled down by the Iron Tower, a mysterious obelisk in the wilderness of Ferrum. The tower had drawn many a curious eye but, despite its long-standing presence, had never been breached.

After facing some threats around the tower, the three, the Vanguard of the Night, stand above a hole which seems to go under the tower.

Dallas Kasaboski

Is 5e's Monster Design Still Crappy?

Dominic Matte

Before the 5e Monster Manual came out and all I had to go on was playtest material and previews, I wrote a post talking about how boring and lame 5e's monster design was compared to 4e's. Now that I've had my hands on my Monster Manual for a couple of months, has that opinion changed?

Not really.

In fact, it's taken a major step back in one important area. In at least one playtest, spellcaster stat blocks included quick summaries of their spells so you didn't have to switch to a whole different book just to see the monster's capabilities. Which was good - that's what 4e did, and it made stat blocks entirely self-contained.

Well, too bad, that's gone from the full MM. 

I mean, I guess I can see why they did it - the lich has 27 spells and I assume a 3-page stat block was not something the designers were thrilled about. But at the same time, holy crap twenty-seven spells! You're telling me I have to read twenty-seven spells from different pages of a different book if I want to be prepared to run a lich? What the hell. That's worse than I expected.

On the other hand, more monsters are more interesting than I expected from previews/playtests. Not as interesting as 4e where monsters usually had several unique or tactical abilities, but at least monsters tend to have at least one ability that elevates them above being just a set of numbers.

That said, dragons are a huge disappointment. The five chromatic dragons are literally the exact same stat blocks except for some numbers and breath weapon type. And since they're all so close in challenge ratings, even the number differences are tiny. The legendary actions would have been a great place to add some differences and unique abilities, but those are all the same too.

The book itself is great. The art is fantastic, and there's a lot of interesting flavour text that presents some intriguing ideas to work monsters into a game. But dragons are boring and spellcaster stats suck.

An easy way to create "original" adventures

Dominic Matte

I wrote this as a reply to a reddit post about how to come up with original story ideas for D&D games. I got a little carried away. Thought it would also apply well to this blog, so here we go!

It's been said that there are no original stories.

If you subscribe to this idea - or even if you don't - the easiest way to come up with something that feels original is to take ideas you like and reskin them to fit the D&D world.

Here are four examples off the top of my head:

• You like Indiana Jones? The PCs are action archaeologists racing to plunder a dragon's tomb before their mercenary rivals sell the loot to the highest bidder.
• You like heist stories? Have your PCs break into a bank with all kinds of traps and wards and guardians, and give them time to plan and investigate the bank's blueprints and defenses by scouring city records and stealing information from the dwarven architects and archmage that built the place.
• You like Die Hard? The PCs are visiting an eccentric wizard's tower for a demonstration of a cool new spell when the thieves' guild seizes the building and activates the magical lockdown and safeguards. PCs need to use guerilla tactics to take down the thieves before they complete their objective, while safeguarding the hostages.
• You like Jurassic Park? The PCs are part of a small private tour of a new monster zoo on an island when something goes wrong and the monsters are set loose. As they try to make it to the ship on the coast, they uncover a conspiracy to sabotage the island for profit.

If that's not good enough, smash two or more ideas together and reskin them to be consistent with each other. Let's mash all four of those previous ideas together:

The party works for a museum that wants to recover a long-lost solid gold holy symbol of the sun god from a long-deceased dragon's hoard. Recently discovered maps place the dragon's lair on an island off the coast. They'll have to move quickly, because their rivals - a dwarf/gnome duo of mercenaries - got to the information first and plans to sell the holy symbol to the highest bidder.

But that's not all. The island has recently been bought and reworked by an eccentric wizard as an arcane zoo, featuring dangerous monsters from across the realm. It's not open to the public yet and security is very high - but there's a private tour for wizards only, and that's an opportunity to sneak in. The name tags for the tour group allow access to the park's teleportation circle network. Turns out that the mercenary duo had the same idea, and are also using the tour group as cover.

The park's security centre should hold all the information the party needs to bypass the wards and find the dragon's lair, but the building is heavily guarded and protected. The PCs will need to slip away from the tour group and find the park's plans in the security centre without being spotted, then decode the arcane script piece by piece as they make their way through the defenses. Once the players access the dragon's lair, they'll have to carefully pick their way through the ancient traps to find the hoard. The dragon was so greedy that the final trap animates its skeleton to protect is loot even after death. This is probably a good area for a confrontation with the mercenary archaeologists - they can either steal the holy symbol and force the party to chase them down, or the party gets the artifact and the mercenaries will hound them the rest of the adventure.

Upon exiting the tomb, all hell has broken loose. The zoo has been sabotaged and the monsters are roaming free; the network of teleportation circles is shut down. A few of the park employees have defected and are in the process of stealing the unique ward spells the wizard wrote to build the park. A group of thieves has taken the tour group and the wizard hostage and is sending out men to try to find a treasure hidden somewhere in the zoo - the artifact of the sun god. And to make things worse, a major storm is brewing.

The party's objective is simple - escape the island with the artifact. But now they have a whole slew of complications in their way: hungry roaming monsters, rogue employees, a coordinated thieves' guild, a rival archaeologist team, and a big storm. They also have two additional opportunities for heroism or loot in the wizard's spellbook and the hostage scenario.

Damn, now I actually want to run this adventure.

The Long Game: The Iron Tower Part 1

Hello role-players out there! It occurred to us recently here at D4sign that we neglected to post our last adventure which we played last December. With some opportunities coming up to play more of The Long Game (which you can read about by clicking the link on the right side of the page), we thought it a good idea to bring you, and us, up to date!

Dallas Kasaboski

Recommended Media

I have been out of the D&D racket for some time, away on a quest to increase my skill points in Space Engineering, but I have come across two sources of media which I think are worth passing on. The first is Tabletop Audio and the second is the Critical Hit podcast. This will be a short post with my thoughts on how these two pieces of media can help you with your RPG adventures!

Dallas Kasaboski

Tyranny of Dragons miniatures

Dominic Matte

I went to Fan Expo today. In addition to attending the D&D 5e panel, I also got suckered into buying a few of the Tyranny of Dragons miniatures.

Well, okay, eight boosters and the ancient brass dragon. But they gave me a $30 discount on the dragon because I bought an eight-pack, and the eight pack saved $20 off individual booster price, so I'm going to pretend I didn't actually just spend $145 on more miniatures when the second Reaper Kickstarter shipment is on its way soon.

Click through for photos and impressions!

How To Build A Campaign

Dominic Matte

I think I've talked a bit before about how I approach worldbuilding and designing a campaign, but a thread on the D&D subreddit asking how DMs prepare their campaigns got me thinking about a concise summary of my approach. So here's a slightly-longer-than-I'd-intended list:

• Start with an idea for a story or world. Something like "dragons secretly run every country and are playing a game for control of the world" (which will be the working example for the rest of this post), or "the king has declared that all magic-users are to be executed".

• Outline some backstory on how and why the world came to the state it's in now, but no more than a few paragraphs to a page. Example: a slightly more thorough version of "there were three ancient empires with dragons as their allies. Eventually the dragons decided they deserved the world and burned the capitals to the ground. But the remainders of the empires banded together and hunted down all the dragons. The handful that survived agreed that they needed to be more subtle. Hiding their existence, they now play a political game for control of the world - last dragon standing wins".  

• This is where things get more complex. To flesh out the world I start skipping back and forth between a few areas because they tend to feed into each other. If I write in a country I'll add a few bullet points of its history, which creates interactions and political considerations with other countries, which need their own rulers, some of whom hold old grudges, etc.

1. timeline of pivotal events in history
2. rough map with countries and important locations
3. overview of the current major countries and organizations
4. major NPCs and their goals/allegiances

• Once I've got a decent working idea of the world I'll start writing out story arcs for the campaign. Again, not too detailed to start; primarily major events and themes. Since I've been running 4e I usually plan an arc for each tier of play: heroic (1-10), paragon (11-20), and epic (21-30). I might start with "heroic is about resolving personal quests, emphasizing that PCs are little fish in a big pond, and learning about the game the dragons are playing; paragon is about the party as a cohesive group starting to influence global politics, get involved in the war, and start throwing wrenches into dragon's plans; epic is about confronting the dragons head-on at a massive scale and choosing the destiny of the world".

• Finally, when I have a solid base of the world and the campaign arcs, I start planning individual adventures. I almost never plan more than one session ahead since my players are quite unpredictable (unpredictable as in "scout out the elaborate stealth heist scenario I've set up and then knock on the front door and announce their intentions"). But sometimes if I'm really excited about a particular event I'll plan that scenario well in advance - like the big setpiece battle for the transition from heroic to paragon (level 10 to 11). The PCs had just learned about the dragons' game, and though they'd fought a few low-level dragons, the idea was to really drive home the stakes and how much work needed to be done. The PCs joined ten thousand mercenaries and renegades for a bounty of a hundred million gold pieces to slay the dragon in the north, which turned out to be an epic-level threat that massacred the entire force in mere minutes... except for the PCs.

Usually I'm so thorough that no matter how unpredictable my PCs get I always have something to work with. That heist scenario I mentioned earlier? I had detailed patrol routes so I knew when and where they'd be spotted. I had personality profiles and histories for the garrison commanders so I knew how they'd react to a challenge. I had a map and inventory and mini-sidequests for every room in the garrison, so when a duel broke out and rolled across the entire base I had plenty of fun environmental effects and attacks to throw in. It turned out to be a great session even though I anticipated exactly none of the party's actions, because I had an answer for every crazy thing they tried.

So I guess the outline of my process might be helpful but the overall message works out more like, if you want to be ready for anything, overprepare to the max.

But this all turned out longer than I initially anticipated, so here's a TLDR summary of the summary:

• start with an idea for a story or setting
• quick and dirty backstory on how the world got to where it is now
• Hop back and forth between mapmaking, NPCs, countries, and timeline, adding detail as I need it and without focusing on a single thing for very long
• lay out major campaign themes, arcs, and events, typically divided into heroic/paragon/epic for 4e
• write adventures on an as-needed basis since PCs are unpredictable

Brachiosaur Artillery Crew

Dominic Matte

In one of the D&D games I'm running, The Long Game, there's a country - Aurum - whose military makes heavy use of the large exotic animals and monsters that exist in a fantasy world. Since it's my game and I do what I want, Aurum's artillery units are armoured brachiosaurs with massive cannons strapped to their sides.

I've been meaning to sketch one of these artillery brachiosaurs for some time, and finally got around to it today. But as I was drawing I started thinking about exactly how these things would work in combat, so I ended up writing stat blocks for the brachiosaur and its crew.

click to embiggen

Gryphon mini

Dominic Matte

Painted this majestic gryphon miniature from my Reaper Bones set the other day. Think it turned out well.

D&D Next has crappy monster design

Dominic Matte

I had an argument a conversation on reddit today that really helped me solidify what I don't like about

Next / 5e's monster design. In one word, it's boring. It lays the work of building interesting combats solely on the DM when the monster stats should be doing at least half the work. There's some potential, but it's not being used properly.

Let's use black dragons as an example. I'll compare a 4th edition black dragon with a 5th edition dragon. Before I get started, I'll point out that yes, Next is still only in playtest; the point was to get the rules down and then focus on the extras. If monster stats end up being improved, just take this article as an examination of what makes a good monster stat block and what doesn't.

Dynamic Encounters: Monsters Ate My Money

Dominic Matte

Today I ran the first D&D session I've done in months! Hooray! Two of the three encounters were relatively simple compared to what I've been used to planning for The Long Game, but for the third I decided I'd try something different: tying the party's pay directly to their performance in combat.

Here's the setup: rust monsters are attacking the mining camp, and the party is charged with defending 10 stacks of pure steel ingots scattered across the battlefield. For each stack that survives the fight, the party earns 250g - or for those not inclined to simple math, 2500g if they manage to protect every stack. The catch is that the rust monsters can break down an entire stack of ingots with one standard action, so the party needed to control the bugs' movement and burn them down as fast as possible.

As the PCs were surprised by the attack, the first couple of rust monsters managed to consume a couple of piles of ingots in the first round or two. This group of players is pretty strong on damage - despite rusting weapons and the barbarian's loss of his greatspear, they managed to down the beasts pretty quickly. They were a little light on control, though, so despite the warforged fighter blocking access to one group of ingots, the party ended up losing a couple more stacks as the fight went on. They ended the battle with six stacks surviving, and so they earned 1500g as their reward.

Probably the high point of the battle was the heightened tension when a swarm of baby rust monsters latched on to the warforged and started eating away at his steel plating. Fortunately he survived relatively unscathed.

D&D, finally!

Dominic Matte

After a very long time it finally looks like I'll finally be running another D&D game! (The Long Game isn't over, but Dallas is over in France and we've only played one session since then)

A friend asked me if I had any material I could run. I told him it's not a matter of whether I have material, but which of these seven campaigns he'd like to play. I'm pretty excited and eager to get working on a new campaign, but first the group is going to have to pick one. I narrowed the list down to be a better fit for this group - we may not play super regularly, and we may be missing one or two people in any given session, so it'll have to be fairly episodic.

So here are the three options I sent over:

_________________________________________________

THE FLOOD

The campaign is set in a single city experiencing a devastating flood. Trapped in the isolated city, you'll have to deal with the immediate consequences - ancient protective seals are washed away, waterlogged magical artifacts malfunction, monsters escape from an exotic zoo, soft ground lets coffins float to the surface and release undead... As time goes on and isolation continues, new gangs, organizations, and cults will form, and people will start to wonder what caused such a huge flood in the first place... 

This campaign focuses on a single city and how it copes with a major disaster, and looks at some unexpected problems that such a disaster might cause in a world full of magic and monsters, as well as the rising pressure of diverse groups trapped in one place.

_________________________________________________

THE NEW FRONTIER

A prosperous, isolated kingdom is running dangerously short on resources. The king and queen send out a call for adventurers to explore the unseen lands beyond the borders to create maps and claim new resources, with pay based on map accuracy and richness of finds. But not all adventurers are honourable - competition is fierce and rivalries develop quickly. 

This campaign is focused on exploration, discovery, and rivalry. Do you go for the most claims or the best claims? What are you willing to do to secure your discoveries? What happens if someone steals your claim? What if your discovery already belongs to someone?

_________________________________________________

HIGH SEAS

Over a thousand years ago, the entire continent sank beneath the ocean, and now the former mountain tops are the only solid land. Explorers and pirates make their fortunes rediscovering lost ruins and artifacts, both above water and below. Monsters and storms ravage ships and islands indiscriminately. Cities and small empires are made or broken by naval strength and cannon fire. Fragile alliances are forming for the first time in hundreds of years, and peace may finally be on the horizon... but so might all-out war. 

This campaign features a lot of naval play, including ship-to-ship and underwater combat. Diplomacy is important, but when it fails, so is strength at arms. There's plenty of room for a mix of exploration, politics, and naval warfare.

_________________________________________________

Once the group decides on a campaign, I'll get to work. I'm excited - haven't worked on D&D in a while, it'll be fun to get back into it.