New players? Use premade characters.

Dominic Matte

After years of introducing people to D&D and seeing where people want to engage and struggle to do never involve creating a character.

so, I've come to the conclusion that a person's first ever RPG session should

When you want to try something new, you want to actually try it. A new player who wants to try D&D wants to start roleplaying, experience awesome action and tense encounters and root out intrigue - not spend an hour referencing rules and copying text and doing math and cross-referencing. I ran a session for a new group recently, and even 5th edition's very simple and streamlined character creation took over an hour because none of the players had ever touched a tabletop RPG and every rule and many basic concepts were new to them. In fact I've actually watched potential players get bored and leave the table during character creation who never got to actually try the game.

When a newbie tells you they want to be a dwarf wizard who used to be in the military, it's much better to hand them a sheet and get started than it is to sit down and explain how Vancian spellcasting works and ask them to choose from a vast list of spells with no frame of reference. Handle the rules as they come up - don't say "before we get started, here's a quick overview of how combat works". Do say "you are ambushed by a foul-smelling gang of orc marauders! Roll initiative! Which means..."

In fact, new players are often more creative before they know how the rules work. When you have a list of options you tend to choose from the list, even if the list items are suggestions and not your only choices. A player who has no list of combat options is more likely to say "Can I do this crazy thing?", in which case your job as DM is to reply either "Yes, and here's how that works" or "No, because of X, but you could try Y".

This is all a long way of saying that over the years I've become a big fan of pre-made character sheets. Don't fuss over choices the new player doesn't understand and filling out numbers that have no meaning yet. Hand them a complete level 1 character (or the system equivalent) with a minimum of backstory and get started.

What I have learned about D&D

I have been playing D&D for 5 years now and between the rules, feats, and monsters, I have picked

Dallas Kasaboski

up a few experience points, learning the strategy behind D&D. If you haven't read it, I recommend The Player's Strategy guide as it's a great way for players, veteran and novice, to gain tips into how to play this game. Here are a few of my own personal highlights, things I've learned about the game simply by playing.


Resourcefulness
Between the combat and the roleplaying often lies skill challenges and problem solving. D&D is a game of imagination which forces you to constantly question and examine your current situation. Sometimes, this abstraction makes things difficult but just as often the abstraction keeps you from forming solid opinions or bias which allows you to dream up a myriad of solutions. If you want "outside the box" thinking, ask a D&D player. The lack of taking anything for granted causes you to constantly find new and interesting ways of seeing things, and this can allow for some unorthodox thinking. I have come across a few tests and puzzles designed to promote creativity, teamwork, or unconventional thinking, and when I took those tests to any of my fellow D&D players, they were able to spin the puzzle around, and come up with a variety of solutions.

Tactics
While we all enjoy D&D combat, my friends and I especially delight in the strategy and tactics of it. Often, our combats involve us standing over the battle grid, examining possible courses of action. Like a more complicated game of chess, we plan several moves ahead, considering all the pieces on the board.

While resourcefulness is a useful trait, allowing for some interesting uses of equipment and the environment, tactics allow an efficient use of actions which allows a party to become a serious threat, sometimes to the DM's chagrin. We've had some interesting balance challenges in our latest game because our three players are able to easily take out a solo 5 levels higher than us.

Never ask a question unless you want the answer to be yes
Since the rules of the game are flexible and much of the game is left to the imagination, contribution, and leeway of the players/DM, anything can happen. With that in mind, if you don't want a bad thing to happen, don't ask if it happens. Don't mention it, don't talk about it. Even if you have an awesome, and benevolent, DM, you don't want to give them ideas.

It started out as an inside joke, when one player failed a skill challenge roll and asked, "Do I lose an eye for that?" The DM thought it was a good idea and went with it. Now when I play, I only ask questions to find out information or to casually ask the DM for something special.

Don't roll, just say and do
D&D is an odd game as it can be equal parts rules and imagination. Sometimes, we get caught up in the rules and rolls. One example which seems to come up a lot is coup de grace. According to the rules, if a foe is defenseless (unconscious, tightly bound, etc.) one could attempt to end the foe's life quickly and yet still fail. While this makes sense it it seems odd that a character can't just cut a defenseless ruffian's throat and be done with him. Other instances include doing simple things. As a friend of mine recently said, "Your skill points are to help you be awesome. Your character can likely do anything you can do, the points are to help and see if you can do better." This is a good philosophy to play by as, far too often, I'd fallen into the trap of, "I leap on the table, oh I failed my Athletics check, I guess I don't leap on the table." As long as it's not too important or outrageous, a good DM will let it happen and a good player should know to just do it.

Use ALL THE ROPE!
My first encounter with D&D involved watching others play. During these sessions, I would often whisper suggestions, ways to overcome certain challenges, and the solutions often included rope. It has so many uses and I have become known, in my D&D group, for being able to use rope to win the day. I have used rope to save characters' lives, find my way through mazes (thanks Perseus), and to seal friendships. It is my #1 recommended piece of equipment to have and I would not leave home without it!

Know your limits, and challenge them
While there are many ways to imply the above, I'm talking about creative, character limits. I recently realized that while I enjoyed flavouring my actions, I wasn't too comfortable making up elements of my characters's past. I even went so far as to make a character with amnesia so as to avoid a backstory. My hesitancy stemmed from a reluctance to step on the DM's toes, so to speak. To use another idiom, too many cooks may spoil the broth and I did not wish to inconvenience anyone by my creations. When I did think of something, I ran every detail by the DM to make sure it would work out and that they were prepared. I realized this was limiting my gameplay so I worked to trust myself and trust my judgment.

On the other hand, I've seen what happens when people ignore or fail to consider the limits imposed on their characters via the fictional world the DM has created. D&D is a collaborative game so keep on being creative, but work together to make things enjoyable.

And that's about all I can think of right now. I am sure there are lessons I'm taking for granted, and I hope that D&D continues to offer new challenges and new lessons. Thanks for reading.

What I have learned about myself by playing D&D

Dungeons and Dragons has one of the most rewarding "you get out what you put in" ratios of

Dallas Kasaboski

anything I've ever experienced. It can be an intense battlefield, or a quiet mystery, and a game can take place in 1 town, or an entire world. The things your characters experience not only level them up, but also level up the players. Often, while you're exploring the deep dark caves, or deciding what to do next, you're exploring yourself. Here's what I have learned/emphasized about myself since playing.

How I would act in certain situations
D&D is a role-playing game wherein you act the part of a character you create. Often, you must decide how to react in the face of situations which usually go beyond what most of us consider reality. As a player, you are constantly confronted with decisions and while your character may be very different from you and is in fact not you, these choices resonate both with player and character alike. When my character decides if he should kill that tyrant, steal that loot, or save that town, my inner monologue considers what I would do in that situation. Regardless of heroics or villainy, the choices my characters face interact with my own personal moral code. Fantasy is a great way to expand upon reality and while I'm not likely to encounter such extravagant circumstances, having thought about them prepares me and has made me reconsider what I thought I knew about myself.

Appreciation of my senses 
I have always been aware of my senses, but nothing makes you appreciate something as suddenly not having it. In one campaign, my character was struck blind by an axe swing. While 4th edition D&D can go a little overboard in making a character diehard, this was an incurable blindness. I spent a lot of time in and out of game thinking about my other senses. I paid attention to the smells and sounds around me and became more acutely aware of taste and touch. Thinking about how my character would get around and function gave me an insight (see what I did there? See what I did there?) into the life of a blind person. I'm not saying I know what it feels like, exactly, but I've studied it, imagined it, and even tried it to a minute extent. Now, I'm aware of smell and sound as quickly and nigh-accurately as sight. I can get a decent idea of my environment without seeing it and have trusted to navigating blindly. It has made me mind my surroundings (thanks Liam Neeson) and know when something's amiss. I can now track smells and sounds with pinpoint accuracy and getting around is a lot easier.

A side effect of this is that it helped improve my mental map. Forced to demand descriptions from other players and ask for details of non-visual senses from the DM, I became quite good at mental map generation. I can now navigate a room easily after 1 look and don't need light to get around, provided it's not a busy, or changing, area.

Whether it be getting around in the dark, down a glare-filled street, or finding a store or library by its smell, playing blind has taught me to appreciate and use all of my senses.

How I feel about gods
In Dungeons and Dragons, the gods are legendary, as part of the world and its history as anything else, and their existence is often confirmed by their actions. The gods intervene, give power, take sides, and so belief in their existence isn't as important as it is in our world. I like to think of them as a lens or filter, as they offer a unique way of seeing and acting in the world. A player who denies the existence of the gods would be thought stupid or insane and so, non-belief comes in the form of not trusting the gods for help.

So where does that leave me? Well, the first thing I noticed was that I was carrying my agnostic/atheistic perspective into my characters without realizing it. I played a Runepriest who didn't know which god his powers came from, a fighter/paladin who believed his god only helped those who helped themselves, and recently, a paladin who demanded verification, direction, and even an audience from his god.

I wanted to do something different with Kalgar, my Kord-worshipping paladin. (Whose adventures can be followed here) I wanted him to have faith, to believe, and to have his devotion be as clear and absolute as possible. I wanted to explore this side of myself and this side of spirituality. I had to take a step back from my own beliefs and think more about the gods and my character.

And what have I learned? Kalgar is a divine warrior with a strict moral code who is unflinching in the face of danger or religious hardship. I have come to realize that I too live by a strict moral code and that I have more in common with the faithful than I first suspected. I have learned that faith has its rewards and that any belief must be checked, challenged, and allowed to change.

And that's it for now! We here at D4sign love D&D for all that it has to offer. Whether it be coming up with cool character concepts, fighting combats, or exploring a dark corner of ourselves, Dungeons and Dragons has much to offer and I hope to continue growing, learning, and playing in the future!

Dungeons & Dialogue: Advanced Wordplay Edition

Alex Adams

If combat and exploration is the heart of D&D, dialogue is the soul.  Communication and exposition are the myriad paints by which players streak across the textured canvas of the DM’s phantasy.  A word can change a siege into surrender, a murderer into martyr, or victory into villainy.  It’s key that players learn how to communicate effectively and excitingly and elevate inter-party and world dialogue to its rightful position beside knoll-stomping and jewel-snatching.

For your consideration:

Enter the Demon (devil!): Creating Tong zi Gong

Throughout the campaigns I've been involved in, my two biggest in-party philosophies continue to be:

Alex Adams

     1)  Have a reason to be where you are, but also have a reason to keep                                                                                  moving.
    2)  Always create character chemistry. Rub your personality against other player characters and see what happens (gross).

     This removes two major roleplaying bugaboos that face a lot of new players (myself included).  Firstly, their characters grow stronger on paper but don't evolve and grow as people, becoming flat and sterile.  Tied to this, PCs often run out of motivation in the world of the story, or forget what they have learned through character interactions and don’t know, on a personal level, why they are doing what they are doing beyond mechanically chomping on story hooks.

Developing Kalgar's motivations...

In our last post, our party of 3 had traveled to the Doomguard's Headquarters, learned about the

Dallas Kasaboski

structure of this secret society, and set off to Aes to find out more about their development of superweapons.

I also expressed personal concern over the lack of depth to my character Kalgar. Last week's session was great, but because I was still finding the character, I felt lost, or at best, unsure. Before we get to what happened this week, I want to share how I overcame this feeling.

4th Edition Science Fiction

Dominic Matte

I randomly had a couple of fun thoughts on how to reflavour the D&D 4e classes to fit into a science fiction setting. These ideas are by no means complete, so I'd love to see anything you might come up with in the comments.

Character Sheets as Monster Stats

Dominic Matte

Everyone's ready and excited for this week's session... except the one guy who can't make it today. Or perhaps your zombie-hunting paladin is making a guest appearance for a session, helping the party as an NPC ally.

While it's easy to simply say "Telia was knocked unconscious in the first fight", it can make more sense and be more enjoyable if you find a way to keep the character involved even when the player isn't present. It can also be great fun to use a character you've played as an NPC in another game. Of course, you don't want to be making roleplaying decisions for an absent player - it's their character, after all.

One of the simplest ways to keep a character involved is to create a monster stat block based on their character sheet. That way they can participate in combat and contribute to skill checks without worrying much about breaking character.

Legend of Korra's Pro Bending in D&D

Dominic Matte

Pro bending is a small-team sport that focuses on coordinated and cooperative combat. Sounds like a perfect fit for D&D, right?

At its simplest, pro bending involves two teams (3 players each in the show, but up to 5 or 6 for a D&D party) trying to push each other out of the arena. To make things work in D&D, we'll allow any class to play – you don't need to adapt Avatar's bending into your game. However, keep in mind that due to the nature of the game, some classes will be stronger than others.

Without using bending as it is in the TV show, some rules have to be modified, and others have to be added or considered because of how combat works in D&D. This way you can drop the sport into any existing game without needing to introduce new classes or change your campaign world to include bending.

Note: pro bending and D&D combat each use the word “round” to mean something different, so I'll make a distinction between the two:
a Round (capital R) is a sports round, ie you play for a certain amount of time and the Round ends.
A round (lowercase r) is the turn measurement in D&D combat rules, ie one full initiative rotation.

Cartoon images are from Avatar: The Legend of Korra and are copyright Nickelodeon.

Necromancer: A 4e Warlock Build

Dominic Matte

The necromancer is a classic character archetype featured in countless fantasy stories, but for some reason, it hasn't made its way into 4e D&D as a player option. You might think that 4e's focus on heroism naturally excludes necromancy as a player option, but on the other hand, lich is available as an epic destiny, so...

I decided to fix this gap in the available options. My solution was to use the wizard's summoning rules to create a master of undeath. But, of course, necromancy encompasses a lot more than summoning zombie minions, so I also included some simple rules for blood magic, which are entirely contained within a single keyword, as opposed to creating a whole new subsystem.

This is a full build writeup, containing new class features, at least one power for every level, feats, paragon paths, and magic items. 

Want to play a necromancer? Download the PDF from my Dropbox here, and read on if you're interested in the design notes!
(I apologize for the lack of images; I didn't want to risk any copyright issues)

The Ultimate Zombie Hunter Part 5: Tactics & Wrap-Up

Dominic Matte

You've built your ultimate badass paladin who can totally kick the crap out of zombies. Or maybe you haven't and you're looking for a completed example. How should this paladin actually behave in combat, given the mix of powers and feats available to you? Read on for some tips, as well as some sample characters to show you what I'm talking about.

The Ultimate Zombie Hunter Part 4: Weapons & Future Tiers

Dominic Matte

So far I've only really talked about the heroic tier. That's because Posse McToes never made it past level 11, so I never really got to continue expanding past there. I'll provide a quick overview of some of the standout options for paragon and epic tiers, but it won't be as comprehensive as my heroic tier coverage.

The Ultimate Zombie Hunter Part 3: Feats

Dominic Matte

The paladin's powers are cool and all, but perhaps surprisingly, the feats are where you can make your zombie hunter really shine. That's because they'll give you specific bonuses and abilities against undead, or augment your best undead-killing powers, rather than simply dealing a chunk of radiant damage.

The Ultimate Zombie Hunter Part 2: Powers

Dominic Matte

Hopefully I've convinced you that paladin is the right class choice for killing zombies in 4th edition D&D. So now let's move on to power and feat selection.

The Ultimate Zombie Hunter Part 1: Class and Race

Dominic Matte

If you know you're going to be facing a lot of zombies, or if you just hate them, the idea of creating a character who hunts the undead may have crossed your mind. In D&D, the cleric is typically seen as the undead-killer, with its ability to turn undead. But in 4th edition, the Paladin, ordinarily a tough defender, is really the best equipped for fighting zombies, and can actually exceed the damage output of a typical striker against the undead. And if you're playing a paladin, you'll want to choose the race that best complements its abilities.

Follow along as I provide some tips on how to build the best zombie-hunter, using my oddly-named human paladin Posse McToes as an example. But do keep in mind that overspecializing in zombie slaying will leave you a bit weak against other creatures.

4e Conversion: Raptoran

Dominic Matte

I keep mentioning my ongoing Dark Sun game here and there, but I just realized that I haven't really talked about the race of one of my players. She's a raptoran - a race I first encountered in 3.5. Raptorans are bird people with feathers instead of hair, talons on their feet, and huge wings. The 3.5 version of the race was a real one-trick pony: it was a race purely designed to give players flight on their own capabilities instead of relying on magic or class.

Raptorans also have an interesting cultural tradition that makes them perfect adventurers. The coming-of-age ritual is known as the Walk of the Four Winds, in which a young raptoran leaves the flock and can return only after they have learned to fly.

Since mountains are of major importance in Athas (there are lots of them!) I thought that the raptorans, as cliff-dwellers, would be a good fit in the world. So let's take a look at how I brought this race into 4e! You can download a PDF copy of the racial stats from my Dropbox.

Dice Stacking Like A Pro

Mike

Alright.  Lets talk dice.

The game’s been going for almost two hours.  You’re waiting for your turn to come up in the initiative so you can lay the smackdown on those filthy orcs. Your drink is empty.  You’ve had your fill of cheetos.

 

What do you do?

Party sizes: A Player's Perspective

Dallas Kasaboski

So, I've been thinking about this topic a little bit, and I realized I had more than a little to say on the matter. In this post, I will outline my thoughts on how the size of a party can affect the experience and offer some tips for players and DMs alike for running parties of varying sizes.

D&D is a fascinating game for many reasons, but the one thing which makes it so fun, for me, is the interaction of people in entirely new and unexpected ways. The way a group of players interact is just as important, if not more so, than the way the characters mesh together. One factor which can seriously affect this experience is the size of the party and here's how, as outlined in different party sizes.

Metagaming: A Player's Perspective

Dallas Kasaboski

This is in response to Dominic Matte's article on Metagaming, or using knowledge of game mechanics to influence character choices. In this article, I will attempt to give some advice and perspective on what a player should consider involving Metagaming.

Metagaming

Dominic Matte

If you're new to tabletop gaming or you don't spend much time on RPG forums, you might be unfamiliar with the term "metagaming". At its most basic, metagaming means using knowledge from outside the game to influence events inside the game. In practice, this typically means that the players are using information that their characters couldn't possibly know to affect their characters' actions.

Metagaming, while useful in some ways, can potentially be a very negative and destructive practice in your game. Read on for tips on how to recognize various types of metagaming.