Review: "Revenge of the Giants"
Revenge of the Giants is the first WotC “mega-adventure” for 4e. It’s also the first adventure put out by them for 4e that comes in hardback book form (with a double-sided flip map attached in the back) instead of the double book folio style. The book is 160 pages and takes characters from 12th to 17th level.
This is a review based on one read-through and has not been played in any part by me. This review contains some minor spoilers as well.
As you can probably tell from the title, this adventure features giants, giants, and more giants. You get hill giants, frost giants, fire giants, the possibly friendly astral giants, and their bigger brother titans. The overall picture is that the PCs are trying to stop the unified giants as they try to free an imprisoned primordial, and the PCs (inducted via the two last defenders of an ancient order who hang out in a ghost town) are the only hope to stop them. The structure resembles the classic Against the Giants series, and anyone who is familiar with that original module will see much in common. [Read the rest of this article]
This is Why I'm Not a Journalist: Andy Collins Interview
On the last morning of Gen Con 2009, I, along with my good friend Graham, were given the opportunity to sit down with Wizards of the Coast’s 4e head honcho Andy Collins and perform an interview.
He was gracious enough to grant a little more than one hour of his precious time to answer our questions. You can follow Graham’s part of the Interview here.
A fair bit of warning, we decided to release this interview with minimal editting to give you the complete exausted, friendly but excited, English as a second language Chatty DM treatment.
I hope you enjoy!
Finally, a thousand thanks to Graham and Christine who slaved for hours to transcribe more than 13 pages of text to produce these interview posts.
ANDY: Let’s do it.
PHIL: First of all, thanks for seeing us. It’s Sunday, and we’re all super tired. So I was basically thinking we could spend the next thirty minutes just sitting around in silence, basking in the awesomeness of the game.
ANDY: Sounds great to me.
(Laughter)
PHIL: And so I was basically thinking we’d do a 2 parts interview. I will do the first part, focusing on DMing, and Graham will do the next one, focusing on some questions about the game and whatnot, whereas mine will be more general vision type of stuff. I’m not much of a news or scoop blogger, but I’m very interested in GMing.
GRAHAM: The questions that I have are actually from members of the forums. We thought we’d give them a chance to ask some questions too.
ANDY: Absolutely.
PHIL: And so the first questions are going to be a round-table thing about DMing.
ANDY: Alright
PHIL: I know you’ve been around D&D for quite some time. I was interested to know how you became a DM, the funny stories about how that, and what you really like about DMing.
ANDY: I became a DM really from day one of owning the game. I got the Basic Set of D&D for my tenth birthday, had never heard of the game, didn’t know anyone who played, so it was a complete mystery to me. But I puzzled over those rules for months. Finally almost a year after I got the set I finally sort of said, “Alright, I really don’t think I know how this game works, but we’re going to try it anyway.”
So my brother, my best friend and I retreated to one of our bedrooms and just started playing. 9 hours later we emerged from the room, having missed lunch and missed dinner, and I think it was that moment I said, “Well, this is the greatest thing ever” right? “I’m going to play this game forever.”
It just seemed natural for me to take on the role of dungeon master. I like being the organizer, I like being creative and helping in storytelling. I think it’s… you would not be hard-pressed to peg me as the dungeon master of the group cause I’m also the guy who’s “Hey we should go to a movie tonight!” or “Hey where are we going for lunch today?” I just tend to be the guy who organizes things or brings people together to have fun. I love bringing people together to have fun, whether it’s D&D or anything else. I like playing and I think it’s important for dungeon masters to be on the other side of the street now and again, because it really reminds you of how different those two experiences are. But ultimately
I can’t imagine not being a dungeon master, and I think that’s true of the vast majority of them. It’s sort of like being a writer or an actor. You do it because you have to. You couldn’t imagine not doing it.
PHIL: So based on the love you developed, the passion you have for DMing, how did you infuse this into the new version of the game? What parts of all those things you loved about DMing have you shunted into D&D?
ANDY: Sure. We tried, when we were thinking about dungeon mastering for Fourth Edition, we tried to really focus on: what are the obstacles that prevent people from becoming Dungeon Masters, prevent people from having successful campaigns, and just from having fun around the table.
I think third edition was really successful in many ways, including empowering players to have more options and more choices for their characters. I think some of that came at the expense of the Dungeon Master. The complexity of the rules required to know what characters could do, to know what monsters could do, how to build adventures, really hindered the Dungeon Master from maybe spending as much time as he wanted on other elements of the game: building the story, thinking about how the characters interweave with each other and his plot lines.
So we tried to remove as many boundaries as possible for the DM building his game. Making monsters easier to run and easier to read in the stat-block. Making encounters simpler to build, it’s much more like sort of assembling a very simple puzzle, just put these pieces together and we give you a lot of models to follow. Making characters easier to understand from the dungeon master’s perspective, so that you have a better sense of what the group is capable of and how we can scale these encounters to them. All of those things are about letting the DM spend less time fiddling over the minutia of the rules, and more time developing his own story.
PHIL: I’m pretty sure I speak for ninety-nine percent of the 4e DMs out there, and I’m sure you guys get that all the time, when I say that those who’ve touched 4e as a DM don’t want to go back to prepping earlier editions of the game, unless they’re so much earlier that prepping was actually very easy.
ANDY: Right
PHIL: I totally agree, with the approach you took. I got from the DMG that a lot of the tools you just described in the DMG provided a lot of hard skills for DMs to make their game better. What about soft skills? One thing I am noticing at Gen Con this year from my own experience and those of my friends who have played in different games, and it’s a truism that’s still very important, is that the DM or the GM makes the game.
ANDY: Yes, absolutely.
PHIL: And with the experience I’ve got, I’m pretty sure that soft skills probably account for eighty percent of what makes a good or bad DM. So are you working on, I know the DMG2 is coming out, but are you working on a vision to help… actually, I’ll rephrase that: Should a game like Dungeons & Dragons help provide DMs with soft skills?
ANDY: I think so, yeah. I think that’s another thing that we tried to bring out even in the first Dungeon Master’s Guide for Fourth Edition and again in the second one, is remind dungeon masters that it’s not just a game about rules and building mechanical things, but it’s a game about managing personalities and knowing what your players want and how to provide that. I really like the section in the first DMG inspired by…
PHIL:(interupting rudely… It won’t be the last time) Robin Laws
ANDY: Exactly, Robin’s stuff about player personalities. It was very illuminating for me, because I’ve read articles like that before, but this was the first time it really clicked for me, among other things I saw my personality in there: “Oh, I’m the instigator, that’s me.”
PHIL: Oh, we’re all instigators!
GRAHAM: I think every DM has a little bit of instigator in him.
PHIL (Getting excited, his Frenchiness starting to show in his speech and attitude): Because we make the game… okay, but that’s another question about DMing…
ANDY: So I think those sort of things… In a lot of ways I see the Dungeon Master’s Guides, and I couldn’t have made this analogy ten or even five years ago, it’s like a collection of great blog entries about dungeon mastering from all sorts of <Drowned out by Phil. Transcriber’s Note: Shut up, Phil.>
PHIL: That was my exact comment on my review of the DMG.
ANDY: Yeah, I mean it’s, you know: here’s two pages on this topic, here’s four pages on this one. And that was very deliberate in our approach: to enter a topic, treat it with the amount of space it needed, but no more than that. And speak much more plainly to the dungeon master as another DM like “Hey, we’re taking you aside DM to DM: here’s something you’re going to run into, here are some ways you can solve it.”
I think previous editions of the game and many other roleplaying games have sometimes treated those sorts of skills almost like secret knowledge – you can only get this if you earn it the hard way. And that sort of elitism is… is fun, because it makes you feel sort of better than other folks, but it doesn’t help other people come into the hobby. And without new people coming into the hobby, it dies. It atrophies and withers away, so I’ve never been very sympathetic to folks who maybe express… contempt is too strong a word, but there’s a sense of it in there, that “oh I don’t like… we shouldn’t cater to new players,” or that we shouldn’t make the game easier to learn…
PHIL: Or DMs should be the ultimate tyrant…
ANDY: Right. That’s… hey, if that’s the way you want to play your game, then certainly we’re not going to stop you, but we’ve got to have more people coming into this hobby.
PHIL: And bad GMs hurt the hobby more than anything else.
ANDY: And a good GM helps it more than anything else. If you have a good dungeon master at your table, it makes you want to play more. And maybe even sometimes makes you want to be a GM yourself. Then you’ve spun off and created a whole new group.
PHIL: And the cream of GMs will basically help that player. “You want to GM? I’ll lend you my group and I’ll become a player for a few sessions.”
ANDY: Yeah, absolutely.
PHIL: Alright so that’s actually very interesting because we were talking about personalities. I’ve been a huge fan of player motivations and personalities. I actually met with Robin Laws at the airport and we discussed it. I’m starting to think that the players’ motivations are actually reflected in your DMing skills. In fact, I don’t think we need new types for DMs, they’re exactly the same. Do you believe it shows, like that?
ANDY: I think so. I mean, it would be interesting to sort of reverse that perspective, and look at the kinds of DMs and what styles of… it’s almost like we need to write a player’s guide for knowing your DM.
PHIL: There’s actually an old Dragon article that Robin told me that was written a few years ago about that, but I’m pretty sure that they almost mesh one to one. So for an Instigator DM, it’s more important to get the action moving than to actually explore every nooks and crannies of your story.
ANDY: Yes. I like building intricate plotlines for my games, but I don’t like building vast worlds. I know there are some DMs who can run their games as sort of a giant sandbox. I can’t do that. I don’t have the time to be ready for anything from the players. I like to give them options, but I like to have a general sense that I know “Okay, they’re probably going to go in this direction. This is where I put the biggest carrot.” But yeah, there’s no substitute for a monster kicking in the door and attacking when things get quiet.
PHIL: Alright, so I’m winding down to my last question before I give the interview over to Graham. So the game will evolve in time. The game will likely change, so how does your original love of the game and the things that you’ve done out of love for the game influence how the game will be shaped in the future? Now, I’m not asking for what you’re going to implement, but what will be your principles towards helping DMs out in future books?
ANDY: I think my guiding principle is always making sure that we are empowering fun for the table. Everybody at the table, not just the players or just the DM. Again that’s someplace where the game has sort of yoyo-ed back and forth at times, but I think we have to remember that it’s not about the DM lording it over the players, or coming up with a killer dungeon that’s going to annihilate all of them. It’s easy to kill characters, it’s not actually a measure of skill. The measure of skill is in creating…
PHIL: Is nearly killing them!
ANDY: Yes! Exactly. Creating just enough tension that the players at the table look around and go “I don’t know how we’re going to get through this” and then somehow they manage to. Because afterwards, they go “Oh, it was so hard, but we actually killed it… Do it again!” And that’s the moment, when I’m sitting at a table, when I go “Ah, this really worked.”
So, I think it’s about managing the complexity creep of the game to make sure that everything we add is for a good reason. It’s a very difficult design principle to adhere to. Just because you can design something doesn’t necessarily mean you should. And that’s a discipline that we’re working hard to distill in ourselves through practice, through trial and error, and experimentation. Really, even since the middle of third edition, we’ve been experimenting a little with the game.
I mean, third edition itself was a bit of an experiment, but we’re always going to keep pushing those boundaries and asking “Where else can the game go? Where else should it go? What are the players looking for? How is the player mentality of 2008 different from what it was in 2000, and what is it going to be like in 2015?”
PHIL: And it’s going to change, because now that we’ve had about 20 years, from my perspective as I look back, you can see the shifts from late ‘80s, to ‘90s storytelling, the settings, and then going back to the super-crunch, putting the rules in the hands of the players, and now this new shift, which is really about team playing, with the DM as part of the team.
ANDY: Exactly. And that’s something that we think tabletop roleplaying can really benefit from its setting. There are a lot of games out there, particularly computer games, that cater a little more to the solo activity, but allow for group activity. We think that D&D is strongest when it is that group activity.
PHIL: Is that your euphemism for World of Warcraft?
ANDY: Oh, well, I love those games! And we play them with our groups, but there’s always that sort of tension between, is this game for solo play, or is this game for group play? And even group play can be a little solitary at times.
PHIL: LEEEEEERROOOOOOYYYYYY JEEEEENNKINNNSSSS!!!!!!!!!! (Chatty, Editting: Did I really shout that? Oh my.)
ANDY: Yeah. We really want our game to be about the folks, about the friends, sitting around at a table, rolling dice and telling a story together. And as long as D&D continues to deliver that experience, I think it’s just going to continue to grow and thrive.
PHIL: For what it’s worth, when I started playing 4e, I played published adventures to learn the system. They were cool, but I was “Eeehhh…”, I wanted more. Once I started making my own adventures, my players and I went “Oh my god!” and we can’t wait for me to play again.
ANDY: Excellent.
PHIL: Alright, thank you very much, I have one last question and it’s over. Look, I’ve got this 100% fail-proof project, okay?
ANDY: (Unsure) Okay?
PHIL: It’s about a magic item recycling plant, based on rust monsters with taps in their abdomens! Would you be willing to invest in that?
ANDY: (Laughing) I think you need to send a submission to Dragon magazine, submissions@wizards.com, and you send that article in…
(Laughing, transfer of interview to Graham.)
GRAHAM: Okay, first off, now you know why he’s called the Chatty DM.
PHIL: Yes!!
And there you have it, Andy was nice enough to go with the flow and I think it turned out into a great interview. Now hop on to the next part of the Interview over at Graham’s blog.
Inq. of the Week: On Reviewing
Alternative titles for last week’s poll: “Blood, Sweat, and Tiers”, “Tiers of a Clown”, and “Tiers for Fiers.” 91% of you have played lowish level D&D recently, 27% in the mid to high range, and only 3% dare to go EPIC. Some interesting stories in the comments too! Whatever levels you’re playing (or not playing with something with levels at all), I hope you’re having fun with it!
Earlier, there was some controversy over a statement criticizing a review of an adventure module where the reviewer did not play through the module before reviewing it, but (as we here at Critical-Hits have done many times before) instead wrote a review based on reading it through with a critical eye. The manner in which the argument was presented lead something to be desired and caused some considerable debate, especially amongst those of us who do regular reviews on adventure modules and other products.
I would say there are two main schools of thought on the issue (which can extend to game rules as well), with plenty of gradation between them:
- Adventures/Games need to be played to be properly reviewed. Many adventures and games play better than they read, so the only way to really give them a shot is to play them. These kinds of reviews represent everything about the product, from beginning presentation to execution.
- Adventures/Games can be reviewed without running them. These kinds of reviews can tell you how the product is put together and constructed, and aren’t influenced by external factors (like the skill of the GM running the adventure or the group playing the game with.) Additionally, more reviews can be produced since it takes time to actually play the game/adventure in question.
Both clearly have their supporters, since this kind of debate rages often. Plus, people argue about reviews and reviewers in general all the time without even getting into the exact style. Sounds like the perfect time for a poll!
Loading ...Your answers may guide how we do reviews. If absolutely no one wants a review based on a reading, we may stop (even though they’ll take longer to come out), and if no one cares about how a game plays and just wants first impressions, that helps us too.
Roleplaying games as a teaching tool
Hi, my name is Michael Wolf, author of Stargazer’s World.
Some time ago, Barb, a homeschooling mom from California contacted me. She had read about my background in physics and asked me if I ever had ever thought about combining D&D and science.
For some time she has paid DMs with backgrounds in different scientific fields to run D&D adventures for her son. These adventures were always designed in such a way that they were not only fun to play but also taught the players something about disciplines like biology or computer technology.
She asked me if I would be interested in running a game that would combine D&D with physics. I have to admit that I never thought about the possibility of using roleplaying games as a teaching tool, probably because I am no teacher and I don’t have any kids of my own either. But the idea intrigued me, so I asked her if I could ask her a few questions about her concept.
When I talked with Phil the Chatty DM about this, he immediately offered me to write this post as a guest post for his blog. And I believe that there’s probably no better place on the RPG blogosphere for talking about RPGs for kids than Chatty’s blog.
As a father of two he already introduced both his kids to roleplaying games and his reports about his sessions with Nico are enjoyed by RPG fans all over the world (including even by people without kids).
So without further ado, let’s have a look at what Barb had to say.
Stargazer: Please tell my readers a bit about yourself and what your interest in fantasy roleplaying is.
Barb: I’m a California mom who has homeschooled her son since he was 6. He’s now 13. (I had no intention of homeschooling—I loved school myself and was quite nostalgic for him to start—but teachers, including those in our own family, said homeschooling might be our only real option due to my son’s extreme precocity.) For example, he was reading at age 3, and had quiet an interest in science by age 5. So homeschooling allowed him to pursue his passions at his own pace.
I’m a writer, so of course reading was always a big deal in our house. My son read The Hobbit at age 5, and was reaching for The Lord of the Rings immediately after! I actually put LOTR on a high shelf at that point because I thought the themes were a bit dark for a 5 year old! I also wanted to wait until he was more emotionally mature, so we read it out loud as a family last year, then listened to all the audio versions (unabridged and dramatized) and just finished watching the films–the extended editions. We’re now on about our 30th hour of watching the amazing back stories behind the filming of LOTR and once that’s done we’ll probably watch the films again!
The funny thing is, I loved The Hobbit as a young teen, but like a lot of girls I know, I never got through the Lord of the Rings. I think I stopped part-way through The Two Towers–too many battles for me at that point. But reading it now, with my fantasy-loving son, makes it so much more special and I’ve gained a deep appreciation for Tolkien and his work. But prior to this, I was not a fantasy fan by any stretch–I didn’t even know what D&D or RPGs were until my son discovered them a few years ago. In fact, the first time I saw The Fellowship of the Ring on the screen, I’m embarrassed to say I nearly fell asleep! To me, it just seemed like too many hours of special effects. Funny how much my perspective has changed since then!
Stargazer: As a home-schooling mom you have hired several DMs before to run roleplaying games for your kids that not only were fun but contained certain elements that were supposed to teach them about topics like biology or computer programming, can you tell us a bit more about how you got that idea?
Barb: Through the years, I’ve definitely developed a “whatever works” philosophy in regard to homeschooling, and in our family we’ve found that giving our son the freedom to follow his interests seems to lead to the most positive results. There’s a lot to it (you can check out the work of John Holt if you’re interested) but basically it comes down to the belief that we are all born curious and hungry to learn, and being respectful of what a child wants to learn and how he wants to learn it can go a long way in helping a child’s overall education. I’ve found that letting my son follow his passions often leads to the deepest learning.
Stargazer: How did your kid react when you told him, that you wanted to use D&D as a teaching tool. Did he fear that would ruin the game or was he thrilled to learn while playing?
Barb: Never told him!
Stargazer: Did your son play D&D before or was he introduced to the game by you?
Barb: He discovered it at a friend’s house. I’d barely heard of it! And like so many parents, I was initially concerned by the gruesome images, etc. and the oft-told stories of negative influences. But I could also tell my son was hooked, big time, and so I invested some time in research to find out what it was really all about. Once I talked to a number of adult D&D players, many of whom said it was D&D that got them through their teenage years, I felt good about throwing my support behind my son’s interest in it. From that point, I just did what I could to help him find D&D groups. That, of course, and providing the books!
Stargazer: Do you play or have you played any roleplaying games in the past? And if so, what is your favorite game?
Barb: Nope. I’ve never played RPGs and I’m very ho hum about games in general, though I enjoy Scrabble from time to time. I much prefer to ride my skateboard!
Stargazer: You currently use roleplaying games as a teaching tool for in an homeschooling enviroment? Do you think something like that could be used in public schools, too?
Barb: I have heard that there is a school in Denmark (or is it Sweden? sorry!) that uses RPG as a large part of its curriculum. We’ve also gotten to know Becky Thomas at The Roleplaying Workshop in Oakland, Calif. Becky was a teacher who used RPGs to boost science instruction. She ended up leaving teaching and set up her own business (www.roleplayingworkshop.com)
I also recruited a Stanford doctoral student who is studying educational gaming. Unfortunately, he lives 400 miles from us, but I helped set him up with other families I know in that area, and now they are doing a D&D group based on number theory. Very cool.
Stargazer: When we first talked, you told me that some DMs you contacted were opposed to the idea of using their hobby to teach science etc. to kids, why do you think they reacted that way? Did you expect something like that?
Barb: Well, I can understand any purist’s point of view. I mean, there were Tolkien enthusiasts who never wanted The Lord of the Rings to be turned into a movie. Apparently they couldn’t bear to have anyone visually interpret Tolkien’s work. Everyone’s entitled to an opinion!
So it didn’t surprise me all that much to have D&D fanatics react negatively to the idea of me want to (gasp) pay people to DM for my kid and his friends. They saw it as a corruption kind of thing. That’s fine. But the way I see it, I treat it like a tutoring job. I pay people to be professional, to show up on time, to take the situation seriously. Just as I would a music teacher or a sports coach or a math tutor. Plus, frankly there aren’t a lot of adults who want to volunteer 4-5 hours each week to work with kids. So, while our DMs don’t make a fortune, they walk away from each session with enough pocket money for a nice meal out for two.
Stargazer: Thanks for answering a few questions for us.
So Barb’s concept not only allows kids to learn something while playing their favorite roleplaying game, it also provides an income opportunity for GM with a background in science and/or teaching. When I first heard about this, I thought it was a great idea. But I have to admit I have no idea how I would for example pull of something like a D&D game that teaches physics (Chatty DM: Make puzzles and traps based on the laws of Mechanics and Optics for starters).
But I believe teaching history for example would work great in the roleplaying enviroment. You could easily set your game into ancient Greece or Rome for example. When you try to get all the historical details right you automatically teach your players about that time period without forcing something on them.
In a modern or SF game, scientific topics or computer science could play a major role of your adventure. Barb mentioned that in one Star Wars game someone ran for her son, the players had to use a simple programming language to give orders to some droids to perform certain tasks.
The possibilities are endless and as long as the teaching part is not distracting from the fun, this could be a perfect combination if you run games for kids.
So, what are your thoughts on that matter? Have you ever tried to combine teaching kids with roleplaying games? Would you consider running a game for Barb’s son or are you opposed to using your favorite hobby for anything else than having fun? As always I am very interested in your thoughts, so please let your voices be heard in the comments section.
By the way, Barb is still interested in getting in touch with DMs that are willing to run educational roleplaying games for her son. If you are interested, let me know, I will try to get you in touch.
Review: "Dungeon Master's Guide 2"
Overview
For Dungeon Masters of all stripes, new and experienced both, the DMG2 is a must-have and will challenge the ideas of even someone who regularly dispenses advice on running RPGs (such as myself). This is the first 4e book that I can recommend to non-4e players for the strength of the first chapter alone. Plus, for 4e DMs, you get an extension of all that came before in the original DMG.
I must admit that I wasn’t impressed with the DMG from 4e, especially compared to its predecessors. I was told by other reviewers who liked it (and disliked the other two books) that it was a great primer for new DMs, and that may very well be true, but for someone who has as much XP as I do on running games, the only highlights were page 42, up-leveling/down-leveling monsters, and treasure parcels. The DMG2 builds on all that information and brings a lot new to the table while developing the concepts established in the original book.
Chapter 1: Group Storytelling
This chapter is worth the price of admission alone, and from what I understand, is primarily the work of Robin Laws, no stranger to the world of writing about game mastering. Highlights of the chapter include the section on “Branching”, which talks about how the success or failure creates different options for how to progress with a story, and by introducing interesting complications into a story even when the PCs fail. There’s some resemblance to the GUMSHOE RPG, which should come as no surprise as it was also written by Mr. Laws.
The chapter continues with collaborative ways with your players to structure your campaign. There are suggestions on how to tie your PCs together with a theme and get motivations out of them, as well as establishing interrelationships between the PCs. (All things I did when starting my last campaign.) There are also suggestions on how to creative a collaborative plot with your players, and how to avoid a lot of the pitfalls of such a game. (You’ll hear that idea done a little at the beginning of one of our podcasts.)
The chapter closes with some more mechanical options for making “Companion Characters”: those characters that can fill in missing roles from a party, act as henchmen, or represent that random NPC who joins up for just one quest. There’s also some mechanical guidelines for temporarily adjusting a PC’s level to fit in with a group of a level more than two levels higher or lower.
Chapter 2: Advanced Encounters
“Encounter As Story” represents something that I’ve long advocated in 4e combats as a way to cut down on “grind.” However, they don’t just give “outs” to ending combat early, there’s plenty to work with when planning out your stories.
“Player Motivations” continues developing the list from the DMG (and explored elsewhere, even if the motivations had different names) by providing more tips for appealing to that player type, as well what kind of encounter types those players enjoy, and somewhat oddly, where the ideal seating is in relation to the DM. Many of the player types are backed up by a sidebar of how that player type can be appealed to in the adventure from the first DMG, “Kobold Hall.”
Amusingly, there’s also a sidebar in this section for “Achievements” ala Xbox or WoW.
Also addressing the long combats, there’s a section on “Encounters and Attrition” that talks about pacing, dissecting the flow of an encounter, and ways to push encounters forward by using momentum, rewards, deadlines, and prohibitions. There’s also a sidebar for making long fights… not about extending the length of a standard 4e fight (that few would want) but for tying together situations where there are reinforcements, time-sensitive chases, and so on.
Getting back into the mechanics, there’s a bunch of terrain (mostly magical) that spices up a battlefield, then “terrain powers” which are terrain features that can specifically be activated by PCs or monsters… from the classic chandelier to a rope to swing on.
Notably missing from the first DMG, we get trap creation rules, which reprints page 42 for reference, and some more sample traps (including new trap roles that mirror monster roles: elite, minion, and solo.) My favorite new trap: the infamous rolling boulder. It includes this line: “Tactics: This trap is straightforward. The big boulder rolls down, crushing all in its wake.”
“Pulling it all together” finishes the chapter by giving you a sample encounter that has monsters, terrain, and traps.
Chapter 3: Skill Challenges
It kicks off by reprinting the basics, which has all the post-errata skill challenge DCs. We also get to see an example skill challenge as if it were in play, which should help some struggling with the idea. This is followed by some ground rules for designing skill challenges from a plot perspective, and some alternatives to skill challenges.
“Skill Challenges in depth” gives a number of different models of skill challenges that definitely complicate the mechanic and make them sort of a skill-based minigame for complex scenarios. Examples include skill challenges that evolve in stages and that branch off, as well as skill challenges that don’t just use skills for successes. There’s also a sidebar on “Transparency and Skill Challenges” which covers the same ground as my article on Overt vs. Covert Skill Challenges and comes to the same conclusions.
“Skill Challenge examples” is, as expected, more pre-made skill challenges, almost all reprinted from other sources. It does include my favorite skill challenge from Through the Silver Caves. The last example is truly impressive, which states up front that it stretches a skill challenge to the extreme, and takes up a massive 4 pages.
Chapter 4: Customizing Monsters
“Monster Themes” are like mini-templates that can be applied to a linked group of monsters. For example, a dungeon full of cultists of Demogorgon could all get two heads or lashing tentacles, or a you could use “Those who hear” to represent a group that has been touched by Far Realm entities.
There are more templates too, and not just the traditional “X mixed with Y” types, also ones for humanoids like Grizzled Veteran and Mad Alchemist. There are also templates for all the PHB2 classes for when you really want your PCs to bash a Bard. The end of the chapter has corrected rules for making elites and solos based on the MM2 monsters, as well as rules for making new minions (hooray!)
Chapter 5: Adventures
“Alternative Rewards” is a system for mechanical benefits for characters that enhance their abilities that are NOT magic items: divine boons (gifts of the gods), legendary boons (benefits of having a destiny or other story based events), and grandmaster training (training from more experienced masters, like kung-fu techniques.)
“Item components” give suggestions for divvying up a a treasure parcel into components that can be used for making specific items, in case you want to give more of a “recipe” feel to magic item creation.
“Artifacts” give you more suggestions on using artifacts in the game, as well as MOAR ARTIFACTS. There are some new ones, but also old favorites like the Cup and Talisman of Al’Akbar and The Rod of Seven Parts (which includes a new explanation of what the Wind Dukes of Aaqa were and what Miska the Wolf-Spider was to fit into 4e.)
“Organizations” are suggestions for putting factions/groups into play for your games, and a few (but not many) examples.
“Campaign Arcs” gives some suggestions for campaign models that make suggestions for overall arcs, separated by tier. Some are traditional (there are rifts opening to other worlds) and some are more out there (time travel!)
Chapter 6: Paragon Campaigns
“Paragon Status” gives advice on running Paragon-level games and what themes are appropriate. Let me say it again because it also appears here: Time Travel! Also epic wars, world-hopping, and alternate realities. That’s the kind of crazy stuff I love in my D&D and love to see it supported in print- there was support in 2e but I don’t remember much in 3e for meeting evil versions of yourself on an alternate fantasy world. The masters of war section in particular will be useful to many since it gives multiple ways to resolve battles in the 4e framework, including skill challenges (an idea we’re familiar with.)
“Sigil, The City of Doors” is a write-up of the iconic city that first appeared in Planescape in a similar fashion to how the DMG described Fallcrest. This is my one big disappointment with the book: it may be because I was spoiled by the original setting, but the amount of detail here of the city pales in comparison and feels incomplete and fairly lifeless. Additionally, one cast-off line destroys my favorite part of Sigil, as the factions are completely done away with. There’s also little Sigil art, though there is a pretty good map, yet I’m left wanting some DiTerlizzi. There are a few sample urban encounters, but they are fairly generic and certainly don’t seem unique to Sigil.
“Gate-Towns” describe all the locations that sit on the edge of portals to other planes, the concept of which should be familiar to Planescape fans, but adjusted for all the new planar locations.
The book finishes with “A Conspiracy of Doors”, an 11th level adventure centered in Sigil. Just as with “Kobold Hall”, there’s not a lot of story to the adventure, focusing on helping the Planar Trade Consortium.
Conclusion
That’s a lot packed into this book that I’ve described, but I’ve got news for you: there’s more than what I’ve described in this review. There’s sections that I didn’t describe, and tons and tons of useful advice crammed into the sidebars. This is a book packed with all kinds of advice and tools for Dungeon Masters (and game masters of all games) that could give something to even the most experienced of dungeon masters. Even though I consider myself very well read through Dragon articles, blogs, and so forth, and even though there is plenty in the book reprinted from other sources, I consider this a must-have book for the way it’s presented. The DMG 1 may never come to my game table again with this around.
Also, as a personal side note, big congratulations to Yax of Dungeonmastering for his contributions to the book. It’s really awesome to see a blog that you followed from the start lead to something as exciting as getting your name on sidebars in a Dungeon Master’s Guide.
Previews
You can read some exclusive previews from other bloggers if I haven’t yet convinced you:
Critical Bits for the week ending 2009-09-12
- DMG2 and Revenge of the Giants have been released into the wild
- Revamped Dead Gentlemen site is up, with new videos
- A rough take on the One Ring as a D&D 4E artifact (via @wordwill)
- FIVE DRAGONS and DAMN FINE PI on sale now (via @BerinKinsman)
- Apply to be a beta tester for the Settlers of Catan iPhone app
- WOTC has a revised Fortress of the Yuan-Ti to incorporate into 4th Edition. (via @RPGHub)
- Read about Chatty DM’s marriage of 4e’s encounters and Mouse Guard’s complication design (with some 5×5 too)
- Warner Bros. Restructures DC Comics (via @CBR)
- Read Robin Laws on exposition and interactivity in RPGs (vital stuff in here, people) (via @wordwill)
- Interview with Beatles: Rock Band lead designer Chris Foster
- Here’s an article Monte Cook wrote for the Escapist on the early days of rpgs. (via @MonteJCook)
- EVERYTHING you need to know about Marvel/Disney and DC Entertainment (via @Comixace)
- The Bruce Campbell Watch 2009
- The 4 things gamers need to know about Apple’s Rock ‘n’ Roll keynote (via @offworld)
- Assassin Heroic Tier class up (DDI Sub Required) Shadow Striker that uses “Hexes” as their powers and has two guilds
- 4e NPC Generator (via @gnomestew)
- A bardic revolutionary A would-be demigod A mad mutation A champion of the people An unyielding ruler (via @unclebear)
- Fantasy Football vs. D&D (via @profpope)
- One Bad Egg to go dark, cites difficulty in the 3p 4e market and low sales
The 4th Power Project: Background and Kickoff
I am happy to announce a new series of columns here at Critical-Hits, authored by myself. It represents something we’ve never tried doing here before, coupled with a project that I’m quite excited about, and I hope you will be too.
If you’re an old, old fan of ours, you’ll remember how I mentioned the d20 Modern variant that I was working on while running a campaign of it at the same time. The genesis of that game was now 8 years ago when I ran Call of Cthulhu d20 set on the college campus that I was attending that ranks as my favorite campaign I’ve ever run. Then d20 Modern came out and it seemed like a natural fit for the next installment of the same campaign, but I could not help but tinker with the system and come up with my own advanced classes, feats, and so on. Then I moved on from that college and that group of players and moved back to Maryland. It would be a few years later when I would seriously try to resurrect the project by once again running a campaign of it. I wouldn’t call any of them failures, but none of them lasted long enough to tell me what I needed to know about the game overall, and moreso, I never devoted enough time to complete the game.
Well, flash forward a few years, and we have a mostly dead d20 Modern brand (updated by the excellent Modern20 but receiving little overall support) and a new system to play with in the form of D&D 4e.
That’s my long winded way of saying this: I want to do a new version of d20 Modern but updated with 4e-style rules. And I’m going to share the process of making it with all of you, and get your feedback as I go. [Read the rest of this article]
Primal/Within Chronicles: City of the Overmind, Part 4
See part 3 here.
Oh noes! Failure!
After recovering the key part from the Merchant “Prince” the players consulted the Map.
Math: All right, the next closest thing is the Vats, let’s go!
Eric: No, let’s do the Vats last, we’ll be able to bust them after and then go do Rocco, Franky and Mike’s goals while the whole place burns down.
Yan: Whoa, When did you become a Brilliant Planner?
This game session went from surprise to discovery for me. Players were obviously ‘in the zone’ to a point I hadn’t seen in a long time. Of course, they had near full control of their PC’s destinies and could make significant choices that drove the game. All doubts I had about the Mouse Guard method evaporated at that point.
Once the players arrived near the entrance of the Re-Education camps, I described how it was enclosed behind stonewalls with only one apparent access point, heavily guarded by Foulspawns. The players discussed for a few minutes and agreed to the following plan: The PCs would investigate the surrounding neighborhood to try to find the best possible way of entering the compound undetected.
Chatty: All right then, I’ll call this a Streetwise check DC 30, representing you gathering the intel and trying to infiltrate the compound the best way you can.
The party failed the roll by a few points (finally!). Looking at the time (it was about 9h30 PM) and gauging the energy level (still high), I decided on the following.
“Okay, based on the best tip you could get, you decide to infiltrate the sewers. Unfortunately, you entered at the wrong time and were caught by a patrol of the Overmind’s Amphibious thrall: a pair of Chuuls! Now here’s a battlemap of the sewers. You start here (pointing), the monsters are here and here (putting minis on map). Your objective is NOT to fight the monsters, but to exit the map here (point opposite exit), although killing the monsters is fine too.
The PCs made their way toward the exit but were unable to dodge the patrol and eventually killed them off. During the combat, one player pointed at an enclosed space near the edge of the map, asking what it was and jesting that I was probably hiding monsters in there.
Say Yes? Sure!..
Since the PCs were nearing the last stretch of the fight, I fished out a bag filled with my little ‘zombies’ (from the Zombies board game, awful game, great minis) and I dropped 6 of them on the map.
Chatty: You see corpses rise out of the Sewage or ‘unstick’ themselves from the walls
Franky: Oh, like in Pirates of the Carabean scene on the boat!
Chatty: Exactly! Also, like Davey Jones, you notice that the heads on the corpses are kinda squidy, like a Mind-Flayers’ They all shuffle toward you.
Group: WTF?
The party engaged them too. Then Nanoc the barbarian killed one with one hit (Yay, minions!)
Chatty: As the zombie-like creature falls down, the squid-like head detaches itself, showing a long, phlegmy proboscis being retracted from the corpse’s mouth.
Yan: Ewww
Chatty: But that’s not all… the squid-thing launches toward your face (clatter clatter) and hits you, giving you the full Alien Spa treatment.
Yan: Wah?
Chatty (Noticing a joke that my assistant DM John had written in the stats): But after probing your brain for a few short seconds, it snorts in frustration, falls off your face and starts running away. It seems your wisdom and Intelligence scores are too low to properly feed it.
Yan: Hey, I’m actually insulted by that!
Har har har!
The fight was eventually won by the PCs (thanks to a great maneuver from the Invoker, who fried all Squids whenever they attacked). Fangs, whose brain was tastier than Nanoc’s, even got some private face sucking time with the squid-things (modeled after Half-Life’s Headcrabs), failing a save and getting close to complete domination.
The party then made their way deeper in the sewer, ready to enter the Re-education camps.
Roll credits to an awesome session.
Lessons Learned
- This session was the culmination of my efforts to develop into a better improv DM. Having Encounters and battlemap ready helped a lot. I’ll do this again for sure.
- When a crazy idea seem like it may work, go for it and try it… just prepare the floor first.
- It’s not a lesson anymore, but more of a mantra: Always find a way to Say Yes.
- Giving players control of the goals of an adventure, within the frame of the DM’s Main Quest allows players to more easily achieve setting immersion.
Post Script: Two-hit minions? Tell me more!
(Bonus feature!)
A few weeks ago, while playing a Barbarian in Yan’s game (which I never got to write about, sorry man, great game!) he introduced us to a new type of monster he called ‘two-hits minions’.
Basically, it’s a monster that gets bloodied on the first hit and dies on the second (or dies when hit by a critical hit) regardless of the amount of damage done. This allowed Yan to mobilize monsters that were credible threats (they still rolled for damage) but that didn’t need any special book keeping except tracking their bloodied status.
It worked real well.
So well in fact that I ended up adapting his concept and serving it back to him. So here’s the creation that my assistant DM Johenius and I came up with. It worked brilliantly!
Presenting the 2-stage minion:
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| HP 1; a missed attack never damages a minion. | ||||||
| AC 25; Fortitude 26, Reflex 22, Will 22 | ||||||
| Resist Psychic 10 | ||||||
| Speed 8, Climb 4 | ||||||
| M Slam (Standard; at-will) | ||||||
| +16 vs. AC; 7 damage. | ||||||
| R Launch Debris (Standard; recharge 56) | ||||||
| Ranged 10/20; +16 vs. AC; 5 damage | ||||||
| Time for a new Host | ||||||
| When the HeadSquid Zombie is reduced to 0 hp, replace it with a HeadSquid. It acts immediately. | ||||||
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| Skills Endurance +15 | ||||||
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and
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| HP 1; a missed attack never damages a minion. | ||||||
| AC 25; Fortitude 20, Reflex 26, Will 22 | ||||||
| Resist Psychic 10 | ||||||
| Speed 4 | ||||||
| M Shin Slam (Standard; at-will) | ||||||
| +13 vs. AC; 5 damage | ||||||
| m A Face Full of Alien Wing-Wong (Standard; at-will) | ||||||
| The HeadSquid shifts up to 5 squares and makes an attack: +15 vs Reflex; 7 damage, target is dazed and blind (Save ends both)
First Failed save: Target is immobilized and blind (Save ends both) Second failed save: Target is dominated (until headsquid is killed), at the end of the Encounter if target is still dominated, it turns into a HeadSquid Zombie Special: Any damage done to the target is also dealt to the HeadSquid. |
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Interview: Joshua Stevens of Open Design
Open Design is the Wolfgang Baur-led studio effort for designing roleplaying game adventures, primarily for D&D. Open Design uses a unique model to make the adventures: instead of the traditional single designer or corporate team effort, Open Design uses a patronage model where anyone can contribute to a project by paying in and then weighing in to shape the design.
Recently, Open Design launched three new projects: one for 4e, one for Pathfinder, and one called “The Red Eye of Azathoth” that is currently undergoing discussions over whether it will be in a modified form of Pathfinder or the Basic Roleplaying System (the game engine that powers the original Call of Cthulhu RPG). Being currently in something of a Cthulhu phase myself and always having been interested in Open Design projects, I signed up to be a patron of the adventure (and immediately set about campaigning for it to be in BRP).
I sent over questions to Joshua Stevens, the lead designer of “The Red Eye of Azathoth”, to talk about the adventure itself and the Open Design process.
Critical-Hits: What’s the “elevator pitch” for Red Eye of Azathoth, to entice potential GMs to run the adventure?
Joshua Stevens: Basically, the Red Eye of Azathoth is “Cthulhu through the ages.” Call of Cthulhu games are almost always written in a 1920′s or 1930′s setting, whereas this anthology aims to take players to 5 very different time periods spanning 1,000 years (887 to 1887 AD), while combating Cthulhoid monstrosities and solving an overarching mystery. The five adventures can either be played as standalone pieces - allowing the players to play vikings, samurai, characters in the midst of the Spanish Inquisition, colonists from Roanoke, or even rough and tumble adventurers in the Old West, or the scenarios can be linked together into a greater story arc. [Read the rest of this article]
Primal/Within Chronicles: City of the Overmind, Part 3
See part 2 here.
Stealth and the Art of Not Getting Killed in a Hostile City
Chatty DM: So what do you want to do first?
Yan: Well, we’ll start my goal of trying to find rumors about the possible location of the key pats.
Chatty: All right then let’s make this a 5 part quest…
I drew 5 squares on the battle map sitting underneath all our gaming paraphelia, each representing one mini-scene:
- Sneaking out in the City to the Slave Pens to find the Warden Cleric’s doppelganger ally.
- Negotiate with the ally to obtain the likely emplacements of the remaining 3 key parts.
- Investigate piece # 1, then #2, then #3
Interestingly enough we organically ended up fusing two goals together and replaced ‘Investigate’ with ‘recover’ from the above list. I quickly realized that I didn’t want to play out 5 skill checks to find key parts and then do another 5 series of check to recover them..
I started by telling them that the first part of the challenge would be a Stealth check to move from the Warden’s tower to the doppelgangers’ house in the Slave Pens, where it posed as a slave handler.
I told Stef that his PC Rocco would be the leader of that particular scene and asked him to tell us how the group would move around the city. Stef, getting used to the concept, eventually managed to describe how Rocco would instruct all PCs about dressing in somber clothes and about avoiding detection. He then described that he would keep the group from main avenues and stick to low population areas while making their way to the Slave Pens.
I then asked for a Stealth roll, DC 30 (Hard) but allowed all PCs to roll Stealth vs 10 to ‘aid’ Rocco. The roll was made by a slight margin and I described the successful infiltration of the pens and the shapeshifter’s house.
Notice how we rolled just one skill check but we hand-waved everything else (Entering the pens, finding the house, entering the house)? Had they missed the Stealth check, I would have been free to make any of those implied successes a failure by having the party spotted at the most importunate moment.
The next scene was played straight. The players went in full role playing mode with the doppelganger and so I didn’t think it necessary to roll dice, I called the scene a success and gave the players the approximate location of all three other key-parts.
One emerging element of this exchange was Rocco, usually a ruthless killer, starting to badger the shapeshifter about it’s involvement…
Rocco: You say that you’re an disciple of the Warden Cleric? You’re supposed to help the city? How can you stomach playing the Slave Lord all day long then?
Changeling: You make the dangerous assumption that I care about any of this Halfling.
He he he!
Seeing Stef come out of his usual reserved shell was a nice surprise. We’ve known that he was shifting from Butt Kicking Casual Player to Butt Kicking Storyteller, but it was very interesting to see him care so much about the citizens of the city and defend his stance so eloquently. You rule Stef!
The game was already a hit!
The key parts were rumored to be (I made it up as I was telling the players):
- In the hands of one of the Overlord’s servant called ‘The Alchemist’ in the Vats (I linked some goals)
- In the possession of a Merchant Prince in the Market quarter near the city gate to the Underdark leading to Thunderspire Labyrinth.
- Somewhere in the Overmind’s Re-education Camps (making an involuntary opening for Rocco’s goal).
The House of Glass
So the player chose to make their way to the Market near the city gates and started investigating. I didn’t roll for Stealth again, I just assumed that the what the PCs did kept on working.
Math: Corwin is going to start hustling everything that looks like a merchant to find who the Merchant Lord with the key part is.
Chatty: Huh, shouldn’t the Barbarian do the Intimidation and you the Diplomacy?
Math: Screw diplomacy man! I don’t have the time to be nice and this is a city filled to the brim with freaking monsters!
Yan: Yeah, I’ll help the halfling!
Chatty: Ah, I see, you’re basically doing the classic Bad Cop, Worse Cop technique.
(General Laughter)
So after we played that scene the PCs learned of a very reclusive Merchant Prince who didn’t see anyone and who made a fortune selling a jewel that kept returning to him again and again (Yes, there’s a definitive Fridge Logic moment here, please close the fridge and ignore, that’s why the Rule of Cool was created).
The PCs started plotting the invasion of the house.
Chatty: Huh… I think it’s very unlikely you’ll convince anyone of the Merchant’s retinue to sell you the part?
Math: Don’t worry man, we’re going in to take it, by force if necessary.
Translation: It’s time for a fight Phil…
Here’s the second strength of the model. During Prep, I had printed out a Far Realm themed level 11 adventure from Dungeon Magazine called Depth of Madness. From that I took out 4 or 5 encounters that I found could be useful in the adventure. I also brought all the battlemaps that might be useful in such a underdark/urban setting.
So when the players told me they were playing house invasion, I picked up a Drow Enclave map showing an apartment and an encounter featuring a female Cambion Hellsword (The Merchant Prince), a Shadar-kai Warlock (her lover) and 3 Shadar-Kai knights (her guards).
Voilà! Instant encounter.
Interestingly enough, as the PCs progressed from room to room, looking for the opposition, I had the inspiration to describe how everything was spotlessly,unerringly clean. So when the combat started…
Merchant: (To guards) Kill them! (To PCs) Please excuse the mess, it’s not usually like that.
Instant groans!
I had just channeled that clean freak mom we all knew from our childhood!!!
The fight was somewhat short. As soon as the guards were bloodied, they surrendered. When the Warlock was bloodied by a vengeful barbarian (she beat him up real bad), the Merchant called a stop to the fight and yielded the key part.
Warlock (Bleeding everywhere, limping back to her lover): I’m…. all right.
Merchant: Good! Now go fetch the mop and clean this whole mess!
Matt: Dude! When did you create that freak of a NPC???
This was the second high point of the night… the players were unable to spot the difference between what was prepared and what was improvised. There’s no higher praise for a DM who’s been afraid to improvise games.
Up next: Final scene and new type of monster: The 2 hits Headcrab-Zombie!
