Showing posts with label session preparation. Show all posts

The Hidden Stress of D&D

By RJ on 6 May 2023.

I imagine I'm not alone. Without fail, D&D night excites me. Oftentimes I'll think about the upcoming session days beforehand, meandering through my mind about the possibilities, but never putting pen to paper until the night before or the day of. In these winding paths in my head, I'll explore where the party might go, what might excite the players, and why their characters will be challenged and tested.

Ideas flow freely.

The demon the party released and partially defeated? It ravaged a nearby city, creating its lair in the temple of a lawful, good, but absent deity. Might they venture there, or the collapsed cove layered with mysterious treasures they heard about from their talkative tabaxi friend?

Natalie really enjoys love stories, and she's built a great one into her character! When will Mia be reunited or have the chance to meet her lost love? Will he be the same person she remembers, or forever changed by the war he was forced to fight in?

The Bannerless is beginning to make a name for itself, a dangerous idea in this dark land. As a budding organization, others see it as a threat, though some may seek to ally with it. Who will try to take out the party and their faction before it grows too large, and how might that excite the players? Who will reach out and try to build an alliance, calling out enemies before they show themselves?

While I think about what might be fun for my players, I become excited.

I write these ideas down, I weave a loose narrative for the session almost assured it will go off the rails immediately. That's how most of my sessions go, but I love it.

Yet, when the day arrives and the hours pass by, I start to panic.

D&D Day

What if the party doesn't want to go to any of these places? What if they want to go nowhere? What if my world isn't interesting enough?

What if Natalie hates what I try to give her and pushes back. Will I react well enough and find something else to satisfy her and her character's story?

What if any resistance to the party's faction growing is met with anger or disdain?

The "what if's" mount in my head. I stress. I try to be rational, I know my players enjoy the game I run, that's why they play, but I stress regardless.

The clock continues to tick and the session nears. People begin to arrive. I've already set up the table, they move to their chairs. I take mine and begin the music and a brief recap.

Then...

Euphoria. Storytelling comes with ease. Characters ebb and flow in my mind. Plots grow organically and reactions to character actions and antics are quick. Everyone's laughing and engaged. If someone's not, I immediately pivot to something I know they enjoy or address the faltering fun swiftly.

The session goes well and everyone has fun. However, the next week, I know everything will repeat.

Why?

Dungeon Master Panic

It's all mental, really. I've been running games for over a decade now, but this phenomenon continues to occur. The day of a game, I seem to dread it the closer the game gets. Then, when we all sit together and begin, all the hidden stress washes away.

I cannot place it. I don't necessarily have a fear of public speaking or social interaction. I'm not its biggest fan, but people tell me I'm decent at it. I always shrug at that.

It's not a lack of prep. I've tried preparing oodles of content and seeing if that fixes my day of fear: it doesn't! I know my world well, understand my players, and have a firm grasp of every system I play.

At the end of the day, I think it's ingrained in me. Maybe it assists me in some way? In the face of this huge Dungeon Master panic that climbs throughout the day, I always perform at the table. I succeed. Perhaps the day I fail all this panic will subside? No, I doubt that.

Really, I'd compare this to a feeling I have before a huge presentation at the workplace or a speech I'm supposed to give somewhere. However, all three environments are so dissimilar.

In one, I am paid. I know what I'm doing and everyone else must understand I have a firm grasp on the subject. Usually, I'm teaching others about the topic and there's minimal reaction. Beforehand, though, tension builds throughout the day and breaks once the presentation is over. That's happening less and less as I present more and more and truly learn the subject material. I've been at my current job for four years and I'm almost never nervous anymore.

For the other, speeches, I'm usually asked to give one. People enjoy what I can say or improvise. The same with workplace presentations, the more I do this the less worried or stressed I am beforehand. They're always fun during and I feel great after.

Why is D&D so different? I've been doing this for a decade, but I get that Dungeon Master panic every session without fail. Is it good? Is it bad? Is it hurting my game or my psyche? I don't know!

Am I alone? I don't think so. Let me know in the comments below.

If you missed the last article, give it a read. You have permission to break the rules you set if it's needed to save your game.

Want More RPG Tips & Tales from RJD20?

As always, thanks for reading. Please send all inquiries to rjd20writes@gmail.com or leave a comment below.

Monsters Abound!

By RJ on 2 February 2018.

Friday night. The Altarin campaign group is diving into the depths of Highkeep, the stronghold of the eccentric halfling wizard, Kenric Shallowren. Within, they hope to steal from the maniacal wizard’s vaults, which hold two items they need to reforge a legendary artifact. However, between them and the vaults is a labyrinth created by Kenric. Populating the dungeon are cruel traps, unfair puzzles, and mutated monsters taken from the nearby jungle. Unabashedly, they travel into the labyrinth. Inside, they battle a medusa with a serpentine body and a humanoid head, sacrifice valuables to massive-chested, sentient gorillas, and fell a winged, scaly monstrosity with four burly arms and venomous, regenerative flesh. At the end of the night, they emerge from the depths of Highkeep, items in hand, but bodies and minds scarred by these strange, new creatures.

Every battle beneath Highkeep was unique, every interaction new; this was because the creatures encountered were unknown the players. As a consequence, they had to rely on hints found in Highkeep to overcome the mysterious foes. That night was the first time I’d used creatures not found in the various Monster Manuals of D&D. Every creature I used was my own creation, and my players and I had an absolute blast.

Many folks play Dungeons and Dragons strictly by the books. This is perfectly okay, yet I posit that these people are missing out on an opportunity provided by the loose ruleset of D&D, fifth edition specifically. The rules are a framework, meant to be twisted and changed by those who create campaigns and adventures.

By altering the rules or making creations of your own, you’re able to weave far greater stories and moments that you could by simply going by the rules as written.

Isn’t that what we all strive for?

Today, we’ll discuss how this applies to creating monsters of your own, whether by putting unique spins on existing monsters, mixing monsters together, or creating totally new creatures. By the end, everyone reading will have the means to create limitless monsters for the D&D multiverse! Let there be monsters abound, folks.

Let's begin.

Familiar, Yet Different

My first tip for customizing creatures is simple: Put unique spins on familiar foes.

Otherwise known as reskinning, this tip is quick, easy and only limited by your imagination. The spin or change can be as minuscule as altering the number of arms the monster has, or as drastic as reworking its signature action.

Let’s use a medusa as an example.

A medusa is a classic creature, originating from Greek myths of yore. Everyone who reads, writes, or plays fantasy understands what a medusa is, which makes this snake-lady a less threatening or exciting D&D encounter.

Alas, we’re going to change that.

When my group encountered the medusa of Highkeep, it wasn’t a typical, humanoid medusa. Yet, all the tell-tale signs surrounded her lair. Statues lined the halls, locked in visages of bravery and terror. Sinister snakes slithered around, hissing as the adventurers explored the corridors.

Thus, my players knew: Alright, there’s a medusa here. They were prepared for the typical D&D medusa: a snake lady with a bow and arrow trying to petrify you.

They found something entirely different.

Instead of humanoid and lithe, her body was fat, slimy and serpentine, like that of an anaconda, and only her head was human in shape. She still had writhing hair made of snakes, and she was able to turn PCs to stone, yet changing her from human to beast made the fight quite different. She slithered around the room, utilizing her ability to climb walls and deliver massive, venomous bites with her fangs to wear down the party.

If she was a typical fifth edition medusa, she’d simply use a bow from afar, attempting to gaze at the various PCs, which is NOT what I wanted from the encounter. I wanted something brutal, something bestial and terrifying. I accomplished this by changing the medusa from a humanoid to a serpent. A quick and easy change.

Now, let’s change something more substantial, one of a medusa’s signature abilities: Her petrifying gaze.

Usually, a medusa’s gaze turns those who look into her eyes to solid stone. But what if we altered that? Instead of stone, the medusa’s gaze turns people to sapphire, emerald, glass, or coral. In essence, this doesn’t even change the monster mechanically, but it opens up a plethora of storytelling opportunities.
Say, a fish-like medusa that lives in a cove. Instead of snakes composing her hair, she has the lure of an anglerfish that hangs from her head and turns foes to coral.

How about an accursed medusa of the Elemental Plane of Fire? Her skin is dark crimson, her blood boils, and snakes of fire coil and hiss in her hair. When she is seen, her foes are immolated.

Both of the above examples are far more interesting than a regular medusa, and only took a few minutes of brainstorming, a few minor changes, and a tad of creativity!

Here are three other examples of small alterations you can make to spice up a few creatures:

A goblin or kobold with four arms. They’re proficient with all of them.
A white dragon’s breath forces PCs to make a save or be turned to ice for a certain amount of time.
Vampires are able to instantly kill their own spawn to gain an amount of health back.

In essence, changing details of a creature can drastically change the experience of encountering it, and make the encounter more memorable.

Mixing and Matching

Another approach to creating creatures is to combine pre-existing ones.

This tactic is also incredibly quick and easy. Sometimes, you don’t even need to change any stats or abilities. You can just pick two monsters, and mash them together!

For example, my current group is fighting against minions of Yeenoghu, god of blood and savagery, racing these minions to an ancient gnomish prison they’ve not yet divined the location of. I’ve used an assortment of creatures: Cultists, lycanthropes, gnolls, and demons, but for the next climactic encounter with the Yeenoghites, I wanted something fresh.

As I flipped through the Monster Manual, one of my favorite demons caught my eye: The marilith.

However, I had a dilemma.

I see mariliths as main antagonists, foes who’ve been foreshadowed throughout the entire campaign. These many-armed, serpentine creatures were formidable, intelligent, and too elegant to just be thrown into a campaign.Yet, I realized I had an opportunity to use this beautiful but terrifying demon.
I could simply mix the savage brutality of a gnoll and the combat mastery of a marilith to create a monster of my own: The gnollith.

Now, I have a horrifying monstrosity that awaits my group. The gnollith is not intelligent, instead, the demonic creation of Yeenoghu himself is an entity of pure anger and strength. The gnollith must be controlled by a cabal of gnoll priests of Yeenoghu, else it will annihilate entire gnoll tribes, hungry for blood and the thrill of battle. Combined with this innate gnoll savagery is the combat mastery of mariliths. The gnollith has the upper body of a great gnoll with six arms, each wielding a blood-stained flail, and the lower body of an enormous, white-scaled serpent.

Using this simple method of combining two creatures, I’ve made a monster that is worthy of its own entry in the next Monster Manual or Fiend Folio (crosses fingers).

To get your creative gears started, I’ve included a few other examples of mixing and matching creatures:

A fire giant vampire who forges weapons cursed with negative energy from his Shadowfell lair.
An ice devil and a girallon, forming a bestial, four-armed, insectoid devil of chilling frost.
A dracolich dragon turtle. Need I say more?

Once you’ve created a few creature combinations, doing this becomes almost second nature.

Limitless Options

Remember what I said earlier: The rules for D&D are simply guidelines. Go wild when creating monsters! Make new and wacky creatures with interesting abilities. After all, that’s how most of D&D’s craziest monsters were made in the beginning.

You shouldn’t limit yourself when preparing for your campaign or adventure. In D&D, you have limitless options when it comes to monsters.

Do you need a type of demon that doesn’t exist in the Monster Manual? Create it!

Are none of the dragons in the Monster Manual pleasing you? Birth a new breed!

Do you want an ultra-powerful antagonist with abilities that are unparalleled, and truly challenge even the highest tier of adventurers? Make them!

This is far more difficult than it seems. The process of creating a completely new creature is long, arduous, and, more often than not, requires lots of trial and error. Yet, it’s totally worth the effort.

In Summary

Don’t misunderstand me: I’m not saying to throw out the rules when creating new or edited creatures. Instead, use the rules as guidelines. In doing so, you’ll make an utterly unique foe, built within the confines of the game we all love and enjoy.

This process can be exhilarating. As we discussed, you can create creatures of your own using these three methods:

Put spins on existing creatures, small or large.
Mix different monsters together, creating completely new creatures.
Create creatures that don’t already exist; the only limit here is your imagination.

Go forth, and create a plethora of new creatures, my friends. Let there be unique monsters abound, rampaging across the D&D multiverse!

Want More RPG Tips & Tales from RJD20?

As always, thanks for reading. Please send all inquiries to rjd20writes@gmail.com or leave a comment below.

Here's to greatening your game and world: cheers!

A Tome of Creation

By RJ on 19 January 2018

Thursday night. I’m wide awake at 11:45PM, unable to corral my thoughts for tomorrow’s Dungeons & Dragons session. The group has finally reached the apex of this act: They’re about to do battle with Chieftain Legrogg of the Gorecrown tribe. The corrupted frost giant heads a horde of goblins, ogres, and hill giant that has been rampaging across the snowy landscape of Bassel’s Vale, alongside a cult of lycanthropes. Once they slay Legrogg, the lycan cult will lose their most valuable and powerful local ally.

Tomorrow night’s session is going to be grand and intense. Yet, I’m having trouble coming up with a few aspects of it. Where should the battle take place? How will Legrogg act? Should the tribe’s name, ‘Gorecrown’ have any significance? Aaagh!

With all these thoughts stampeding through my mind, I turn to my bookshelf and pull out a binder. Scribbled on a white piece of printer paper slipped under the binder’s sleeve are four words: The Tome of Creation. All of my questions, I know, will soon be answered.

At some point, everyone experiences a creative stampede, during which there are so many different thoughts and ideas charging through their brain that they’re unable to properly think. This phenomenon happens quite often to me during school, but it also occurs when I’m preparing for a Dungeons and Dragons session or campaign. When my brain refuses to cooperate, and my time is limited, I pull out a special binder I’ve deemed a tome of creation.

You might be asking, what is a tome of creation?

Today, we’ll be discussing exactly what a tome of creation is, how to make one, and why everyone who plays D&D should have this inspirational item.

A Tome of Your Own

With the influx of new D&D players, some of them thrust into the fray, others slowly immersing themselves in the wonderful world of roleplaying, I’ve seen questions about how people get their inspiration, particularly dungeon masters.

That question is easy to answer. Inspiration is everywhere, you just have to pay attention. Need a unique accent for an NPC you’re creating? Listen to the accent of your friendly local grocery store clerk for ideas. Looking for encounters to fill up your next game session? Pull a book off the shelf and start reading, fantasy, history, informational, anything. Oftentimes, I’m inspired by real-world events, such as the dominant personality of Genghis Khan for an orc warlord, or the absolute brutality of trenches of the Great War for a battle in the mud pits of a jungle.

However, I’ve come to understand you need a place where you absolutely know you can look to get inspired. Sometimes, you don’t have the time to stroll through the gritty villages of the Witcher III to prepare for your party’s trek through a war-torn grassland. You don’t have time to generate the personality of the victim of a foul lycanthrope using the Dungeon Master’s Guide.

Players new and old, dungeons masters experienced and green, I have a solution. I have a time-saver. I have flint and steel that is guaranteed to make a spark, and perhaps a flame.

I present to you: The tome of creation.

A tome of creation, in short, is an amalgamation of all of your favorite pieces of inspiration. Roll tables, artwork, advice, absolutely anything and everything you get inspired by. Instead of condensing information people need and enjoy inside a single binder, I often see players scrambling through their wide array of sourcebooks, journals, and partially crumpled sticky notes. Once, I was a part of that group.

That’s no longer the case, my friends.

To give everyone an example of what the binder can hold, I’ll list the tabs of my tome of creation. My binder contains the following sections:

Tips and Tricks: Various pieces of advice from people I admire, such as Matt Click, Christopher Perkins, and Matt Colville.
Personal Notes: Information about my homegrown world, Aelonis, that can be inserted into a story to give it more depth.
Names: Dwarf names, kobold names, dragon names, thri-kreen names, halfling names, temple names, you give me an NPC, I’ll provide you with a name.. When I end up using one, I cross it off, and make a note of where he or she appears.
Random Scribings: Unrelated paragraphs of lore and adventure concepts usually written when I wake up in a cold sweat in the middle of the night, or during class.
Awesome Concepts: Locations, monsters or encounters found in the core D&D rulebooks and adventures that I love and am inspired by. For example, the absolutely amazing river-den of the hill giants from Storm King’s Thunder, and almost every single NPC blurb from Curse of Strahd.
Maps: For when I’m drawing and need inspiration.
Roll Tables: Almost everything can be found in this section, ranging from random encounters to magical side effects to drinking a potion.

Spending an hour or two to create the binder is all it takes! Pick up a decent binder of your favorite color, a few tabs (sticky notes will do, my friends), and create a cover that says, “Tome of Creation. Then, print off or copy everything and anything you like into the binder. Print off roll tables and adventure ideas. Photocopy NPC tables from D&D adventure books, such as the dramatis personae page of Storm King’s Thunder. Drop in a few maps as well. Finally, organize the material with your tabs.

Now, you have a source of material that you’re fond of, material that is special and pertinent to your interests. I understand this sounds simple, even silly, but having a tome of information you personally care about amounts to more inspiration than poring through random books (most of the time).

As an aside: If you're not fond of carrying around a binder, then you can make a tome of creation using Google Docs or a flash drive. Personally, I love feeling the binder in my hands and being able to quickly edit or flip through pages during a session. To each their own!

I’m telling you: Just try it.

When your mind is running amuck, your inspiration dead, or you simply need some quick ideas, your tome of creation will be there, ready and filled with inspiration.

Unlimited Utility

Generally, I use my tome of creation while preparing for a D&D session.

If I’m struggling to figure out an enemy’s motivations, I flip to the vast collection of NPCs I’ve written myself or photocopied from another D&D adventure. In my aforementioned game session, the corrupted frost giant Legrogg ended up being mind-controlled by a faraway beholder because of the magical Gorecrown attached to his head.

This added mystery and tension to the battle because the party finally discovered that the crown atop his head was some sort of conduit from yet another faction, which they ended up allying with and attuning the Gorecrown to one of their own heads. This crown, in addition to allowing a crazed beholder to control its wielder, also allows the beholder to see through the wielder's eyes.

When I opened my tome, I had zero clue what the climactic battle would look like, if the name "Gorecrown" had any significance, and that another faction would be added to the campaign. By the time I was finished, I had added another layer of depth that would have never been disposed to me. The battle took place overtop a canyon with a bridge of bone and skulls.

The Gorecrown was now a mystical artifact created by an eye tyrant to partially control Legrogg and spy on the lycanthropic cult's activities. Now, I knew I had an amazing session prepared.

The tome is also useful during live play.

If you’re like me, sometimes you’ll have trouble coming up with evocative NPC names on the spot. Nearly every time a PC asks an improv’d character what their name is, and I don’t have my tome handy, I stutter out something like Gitro Stormshone (rambly human researcher), and Boarhead (a goblin who was previously afflicted with wereboar lycanthropy).

Fortunately, I now have the tome with me at all times, so, if needed, I can quickly pull it out and pick an NPC name from the vast array within. At other times, you might need an entire NPC. If you do, simply choose one from the pages copied from D&D adventures of yore and reskin it to your liking.

Other ways to use it during live play include:

Creating encounters out of thin air with roll tables or previous adventure notes. For instance, I've pulled an amazing airship battle encounter from Storm King's Thunder on the fly, and it worked incredibly well! If you need to generate an encounter quickly, using one previously created works far better than rolling on the random encounter table.
Generating interesting items on the fly. You can do this with roll tables made specifically for items, or you can keep a list of self-made artifacts and those found in other adventures. I've done this, and had Blackrazor suddenly appear in my campaign. Crazy stuff.
Whipping out already made maps. They don't have to be made by you, simply print some off the internet, or photocopy them for modules such as Rise of Tiamat and Princes of the Apocalypse.
Giving your campaign a bit more depth using unique bits and pieces of your world located within the tome. For example, my world has two moons, one blue, one red. I often use this piece of information to immerse my players in nighttime battles or journies.

In Summary

I recommend everyone who plays D&D should spend a few hours to build a tome of creation: A binder full of your favorite pieces of inspiration. If you’re stuck preparing for a session, simply grab the tome and pore through, and you’ll assuredly find that one of your preferred ideas latches onto you. Plus, it can be used during play to do a plethora of acts, such as quickly inserting a new character or encounter into your world.

The tome is easy to make! Simply grab a binder, a few tabs, and printed or photocopied pieces of paper and voila, you have a book of your favorite sources of inspiration.

What's your opinion on this, folks? Leave a comment below, and we'll discuss if this item is a boon or a curse!

Next week, we’ll be discussing ways to physically immerse your players in your game.

Here's to greatening your game and world: cheers!

Want More RPG Tips & Tales from RJD20?

As always, thanks for reading. Please send all inquiries to rjd20writes@gmail.com or leave a comment below.