The Fighting-Man, Magic-User, Cleric, and Thief
This was the beginning of Dungeons & Dragons, a game that truly gave birth to the entire RPG industry. No other such game would be around without D&D and to claim such would be a gross deviation from truth and reality. [Read the rest of this article]
Comic Books, Franchises & Reboots Oh My!
Allow me to take you on a small adventure through my life of the last few months. With more spare time than I’ve had in the last six years and a cornucopia of neglected hobbies crying out for attention, trying to choose what to do next can be rather difficult. Between getting back into Warhammer and dedicating more time to my D&D campaign I’ve found that reading my varied library of comic books is one of the most enjoyable ways to spend my time. So far I’ve revisited the incredible Hush storyline in Batman and a long run of Daredevil written by Brian Michael Bendis for the Marvel Knights imprint. As a result of this I have also started keeping up a bit more with current comics online and I have to say I’m immediately disappointed in what’s been done.
I stopped buying comics shortly after Marvel’s Civil War crossover that piggybacked directly from the House of M crossover, and the best that I can tell is Marvel hasn’t stopped with crossovers since. Obviously as a child of the 80’s I have some romanticized concept that a crossover is something done only rarely and to be treated as a special event. I imagine the original charm of the crossover was the interaction of different heroes and intellectual properties, but in this day and age when characters like Daredevil, Spiderman, and (for the love of god) Wolverine are regular members of the Avengers I feel that the crossover has lost nearly all of its unique appeal. Guest starring characters and teamwork are so prevalent that the crossover can easily be seen as simple money making schemes by the comic book companies. [Read the rest of this article]
Gears of Ruin: Session 1, Revolutions per Machines, Part 3
First Contact
This combat encounter had 3 goals:
- Give players a fairly challenging fight to give them a better feel for their PCs’ powers.
- Set a hostile first contact with mechanical monsters, in this case some undead warforged (you read that right)
- Spring a surprise on the player by playtesting something for a future gaming magazine article.
Freelancer aside: My very first magazine article was published in Kobold Quarterly #12 earlier this week. I wrote a piece on combining skill challenges with combat encounters. For a first successful stab at such high writing requirement, I think its pretty decent, thanks to Ben McFarland ‘s editing support. Go and get it!!!
I used the D&D Miniature Games pre-drawn Field of Ruin battlemap. It depicts a battleground featuring debris from a busted airship, siege towers in various state of disrepair and several Siege-Engine boulders. While we had used that map before, the players later told me that it really worked for this encounter, lending it the perfect feel for the fight.
As the PCs entered the battlemap, a group of derelic warforged, surrounding 2 better-built knights poured out of the remnants of an airship. All the warforged seemed to be animated by some sort of necrotic energy. Holy Clank could also hear the psychic commands of the mind behind the rebellion. It was a strident, enraged mind shouting psychic commands semi-incoherently. Clank’s inhabiting spirits (the source of his sentience) protected him from the enticing commands.
Minions for the controller? Check. Undead for the Avenger? Check. High Target environment for butt kickers? Check. Absolutely no status effect attack? CHECK!
The Warforged Derelicts were the level 6 minions of the same name in the compendium database that I upgraded to level 14. The Warforged Death Knights were simply Helmed Horrors that I re-skinned to deal necrotic damage only.
It’s ridiculous how 4e is easy to customize from behind the screen.
The fight was predictably easy, even though Stef (playing the Dwarven Druid) was absent and things were all fine until the 5th minion was killed on Round 2…
Watch that Rock!
During the next round, I described how 2 of the siege-engine boulders that were shown on the map started making noise, the top of the boulder lifting to form some kind of turret. Then a panel slid open and a blast of necrotic energy shot from each to blast PCs, dealing lots of damage.
Yan (channeling a certain Mon Calamari): It’s a Trap!
The fight progressed for another round. At one point an area attack hit monsters and one boulder-blaster, the players asked me if the attack affected the trap. It should have (I had one countermeasure specifically saying the trap could get hit by a power) but I was too scared to reveal the upcoming punch that I committed this DM sin. Fortunately it wasn’t a really important issue.
Did you just pull an Ed-209 on us Phil?
By round 3, both Knights were bloodied. (Or oiled? Or boned? I’m confused with an undead animate monster) and that’s when the ‘fun’ started. Both turret Boulders opened up further, turning into humanoid mechanicals made of stone and metal! Picture the turret as the head and the rest of the body unfolding into an Ogre Sized piece of artillery that shoots you then runs to punch you in the face.
In essence, I had created a Lurker Blaster Trap Artillery Brute…Try to say that 3 times real fast… 
That’s not all, when the Boulder Crawlers (as I called them) activated, other nearby boulders opened up to release swarms of ‘Mechanical Death Cockroach Swarms’ (Adapted from a high level swarm). They were mostly there to allow nerf PC defenses and provide combat advantage to offset the brutes’ horrible attack bonuses.
While cool in theory, the fight kind faltered after the few rounds with the boulder crawlers. First, as brute, they didn’t hit really often, even with the help of the swarms. My players are top notch strategists and work well together and with a Warden, a Figther and a Swordmage, being a threat is going to be a challenge.
Thus, with 2 brutes and 4 swarms to fight and no controller, the fight became grindy. Players stopped describing what their powers did and I even caught myself getting bored enough (alert!) to start getting distracted other stuff on my laptop. When I realized I was doing so, I tried to snap myself back into focus.
Earlier in the fight, I had described how the boulder-crawlers had this large button thing on their torso… but until the energy level of the game dropped significantly, no one thought it necessary to do so. That’s when I knew my monsters were too weak for the encounter.
I did a ‘patch upgrade” (informing my players) to give the boulder-crawlers more attacks per rounds and increase their damage output. When a player decided to pop the button with an athletics check, I described how the monster popped back into a Boulder and could be disabled with a Thievery check at the high difficulty rating for DCs.
No one was trained in thievery… yet they succeeded… for both boulders. I said it before, I’ll say it again, the revised DCs are way too easy.
Yan: That was a bit anti-climatic…
He’s right, I had a few design flaws in how to deactivate the trap/monster which I identified. I’ll rewrite it and keep it for that potential gaming magazine article. For example, I made popping the button a minor, which allowed a PC to disable the trap permanently with a standard in the same round.
Still the fight was cool… my players have all given excellent feedback on the session.
Franky: Dude, it felt like the later Terminator movies! I really felt like we were fighting machines!
Epilogue
After the fight, they found the wounded intelligence agent who gave them direction to find his second colleague, inside the factory where the psychic signals came from. Also, looking over the remains of the Boulder-Crawlers, they saw the insignia of House Falkenstein on them…
Lessons Learned
- The key to challenging players who perform above the power curve is to exploit the range of damage, attack bonuses and non-XP encounter elements (Puzzles, Damaging terrain) allowed by the game to increase challenge without increasing monster HP, Defenses or level.
- Maintaining high focus on the game will likely always remain a challenge for me, the beer I drink during the game doesn’t help either.
- Using a party creation template works! Those PCs are awesome!
- Starting a campaign with a teaser and then skipping the next game so the DM can go to Florida with his family might be construed as cruelty to players.
I Hate Magic Items
Alright, so I’ve already ranted about encumbrance rules and how much I don’t like them. (Then, I had all my annoyances about them repeated in Dragon Age: Origins.)
Here’s the thing I’ve come to realize: I don’t like magic items, period. Sure, they are a staple of fantasy literature. And I have a soft spot for certain classes of magical items, like the strange artifact or consumable item that has to be used at just the right time. +1 Swords? Fiery Platemail? Rings of Jumping? Never a fan.
Let’s walk backward through the three editions of D&D I played the most so I can complain some more: [Read the rest of this article]
Inq. of the Week: CH-CH-CHanges
Last week, we asked about the new year, and are pleased to report that the majority of you are choosing to live in The Future and will pronounce it “Twenty Ten.” Second place of those of you still trapped in the Aughts. Third place went to those gamer optimists who would like to pioneer the year of 2d10- the year we roll percentiles.
With this new year, big changes are in store for Critical Hits. (Now the title of this post makes sense, eh?)
The biggest of which many of you know about already: we will, most likely, be taking Phil the Chatty DM himself onboard. I have long wanted to move more into the realm of editor, and I enjoy the parts of blogging that Phil does not: the management, design, and so on. These are all things that he grew tired of, so by me taking that on (not a significant increase in my workload) it gives him more time to write.
Hey, do you think that doing all this counts as a birthday present? How about imitating his style? Happy Birthday ChattyDM!
Anyway, this will cause some more changes, like a new design to facilitate there being more columns. Musings of the Chatty DM today, maybe tomorrow a regular podcast, and other columnists! So this is where you all come in. I’m looking for two things going forward: one, feedback on some of our regular features, and whether you think they should go or stay.
Loading ...Two, we’re looking at bringing on some more writers. Talks are already on with a few people (Matt James just did his first great guest post), but we want to know if anyone else out there is interested in writing for us. Whether it be on a guest or regular basis, more writers are needed to provide even more content to the readers.
Let me stress this first: this is not a paid position. However, we’re happy to have you plug your own sites. And if the arrangement works out, it might lead to other benefits (WINK). If you want more information, drop me an email.
That’s it. I promise, it’s the last meta post for a while.
Gears of Ruin: Session 1, Revolutions per Machines, Part 2
See part 1 here.
Get me some Competence Porn, stat!
The first scene had a few goals. Introduce the PCs to the first important NPCs of the campaign, give them a quest for the night, but more importantly, make them look good!
The scene started with the PCs waiting to be summoned to show up before their employer, Baron Ezechiel von Falkenstein. The baron is the tyrant (in the Greek sense of being a commoner rising up to supreme ruler) of the sky-human kingdoms. His HQ was the airship-city of Castle Falkenstein…
Yes, I’m totally ripping off Mike Pondsmith’s Castle Falkenstein, the 90s Steampunk RPG. Hell if you guys haven’t gotten that this campaign is shamelessly stealing from tons of settings and novels, I have a bridge to sell! 
This is not a setting I intend to publish, at least not without some heavy duty serial numbers filing off first.
In my defense, I’ve never read Castle Falkenstein, and I think I ended up mimicking Pondsmith’s name selection process. You see, in tribute to the Girl Genius Clockwork webcomic (another source I’m stealing from), I decided that I’d base the sky-humans on Germanic tropes (i.e. mostly names and the “We’re very industrious and serious” stereotypes). Thus, I started researching Germano-Austrian nobility names and the coolest one I found to my French ears was Falkenstein, by far.
Where was I? Ah yes! The PCs were awaiting the summon to see the Baron, sharing rumours of possible revolt and armed conflict on the surface, not an uncommon occurrence on this water-poor, high-resource dying world (I should get around to naming it soon).
I was careful to pass across that they where honored guests, explaining how they were always escorted by highly polite, white-gloved marines. A new campaign lives of dies on how players feel about their characters and how they connect to the setting. At level 14, it no longer was necessary to have PCs prove that they were badasses, the whole world knew already.
They were rapidly brought into a military briefing of some sort. The room had “3″ NPCs. The Baron, in his military regalia, facing the PC at the end of a planning table looking pained and bored. There was the Colonel, a bespectacled man, siting quietly, away from the table. And then there were the Admirals…
I don’t know why I set it up like that, but I pooled all the Admirals sitting around the table into one gestalt NPC. They had one description, one agenda and one role: Be pompous asses and make the PCs look good. It worked out perfectly as the players caught on rapidly and interacted with them as an unnamed mass of overweight clueless twits.
The admirals were a bunch of anime-inspired officers (think Castle in the Sky). They were crowding the table, shouting at each other, trying to blame one another for the mess on the surface. A few weeks ago, all the machines of the Baron’s mines and factories had rebelled at the same time, seizing the means of production and churning out mineral and weapons feeding the rebellion! The Admirals had been unable to break the revolt and were at a loss.
As the PCs entered the room, an admiral leapt up!
Admiral (pointing Holy Clank): What is that THING doing here? It should be dismantled and studied to prevent others from developing ‘ideas’!
Holy Clank (Taking is weapon out) : Interesting! Does that mean I can also dismantle you to see what makes you so noisy?
Admiral: Baron! You see! It’s threatening me, have it destroyed!
Baron: Sit down and shut up admiral. Please sheath your weapon sir. Colonel, brief them.
Goal…achieved.
The shade-wearing, suit-adorned officer introduced himself as Colonel Zeitgeist, the baron’s Minister of Intelligence and Security. He briefed the PCs on the situation, telling them that two of his agents had infiltrated into machine-held territory and reported (he tapped his clockwork watch) that a strong psychic signal was emanating from somewhere in the vicinity. He said that both agents were still alive as their Watch signal was still being picked up.
He also informed the PCs that the machines were stronger and more coordinated the closer to the psychic source the Baron’s soldiers got. Currently things were at a stalemate as the armies could not safely penetrate the perimeter of the baron’s mines/factories megacomplexes.
He then lowered his voice…
Colonel: The baron has a few prototypes of super weapons, called Clanks, that could fight the rebellious machines, called warforged, but the actual means of productions are in the factories down there… that’s what’s making the admirals so nervous.
Admiral: We need to throw our elemental portal bombs in there and quick! We can always rebuild after!
Magma: Hmmm? What are those?
Colonel: They’re high-powered magical explosive devices that open a portal to the Elemental Chaos, bringing forth elemental vortexes and demons that destroy everything in sight before winking out of existence a few hours later… sucking everything back in… at least in theory.
Magma: Cool!
Vorian and Wrath of Melora (in unison): Are you crazy?
Baron: I will not use these devices unless I get better intel. (To the PCs) Gentlemen, I believe that you may succeed where those half-wits have failed. Can you infiltrate this area and bring back more info in what’s happening down there?
Magma (moving to the table’s edge, drawing his sword, making generals scatter like bowling pins): You mean here?
Baron (smiling slightly) Yes, exactly. Also, if you happen to find the source of the revolt and solve it without my intervention, I would be most pleased.
Eric: Did he have a question mark on his head?
Yan: No, it’s an exclamation point now.
(World of Warcraft quest inside joke)
Colonel: You have any questions?
Holy Clank: Just one. When can we start?
The players LOVED that scene and so did I!
Up next: Rocky Turret Surprise!
Gears of Ruin: Session 1, Revolutions per Machines, Part 1
Last Friday we started our Clockwork D&D campaign. We spent about one hour completing the Party Template I wrote about here then we played a 2 scenes mini-adventure I dubbed ‘RPM’.
Here’s the 1st game report of what I hope will be yet another awesome campaign.
Dramatis Persona
- Nar-Beth:
- Female Dwarven Druid from a long established dwarven colony. Water-seeker that seeks to adapt technology to heal her adopted dying world.
- Player: Stef. Motivations: Butt kicking, Storytelling, Casual playing
- Vorian:
- Githzerai Monk. Student of a great Gith monastary in the Elemental Chaos. He was sent by his Sensei to this world to fight Chaos.
- Player: Mike. Motivations: Butt Kicking, Story Telling.
- Magma:
- Earthsouled/Firesouled Genasi Swordmage. A wandering soul from the Elemental Chaos that fled an unpleasant situation with his Swordmage master (and, more importantly, his wife)
- Player: Franky. Motivations: Storytelling, Butt-Kicking, Exploration
- Rod Stone :
- Goliath Warden, another wanderer walking the world, fleeing some past secret. A creature of few words, The embodiment of the KISS principle and voted ‘best character concept named like a porn star’.
- Player : Math. Motivations: Supercoolness, Butt Kicking, Specialist (Subverted, he plays one of his first non-arcane, non-ranged PC)
- Holy Clank:
- Warforged Cleric/Fighter Hybrid (a Dragon magazine option to fuse class features of 2 classes). The first self-aware machine of the world. Fascinated with squishies as he calls it.
- Player: Yan. Motivations: Butt Kicker, Brilliant Tactician, Storyteller
- The Wrath of Melora (Awesome name chosen by Eric):
- Deva Avenger Eco-terrorist. Has been on planet since the war with the Primordial was narrowly won. Believes that technology corrupts the world further. Wants to Nuke it all and start over.
- Player: Eric. Motivations: Butt Kicking, Instigation, Psycho-Drama
I have to confess… these are possibly the coolest characters I’ve seen in recent memory. Not just the mechanistic aspects of them, I mean they are fairly normal, if exotic PCs mechanically speaking. Yet, the added dimension of filling the party template together (and nudging players to conceptualize everything in terms of simple, powerful one-liners) has given each PC depth that would take months of gaming to achieve.
The only one that worries me a bit is Rod Stone because his ‘thing” is to play the silent, simple type. I hope Math develops some sort of ‘Native Warrior’ feel to his PC that will transcend his tame baseline.
Game Report, Cliff Notes
As is now my usual practice, I’ll summarize the adventure and go in more details in later installment of the report. It was a very good game yet it ended on a downward curve in terms of participant energy and climax, nothing dramatic, just something I know I can fix.
Here goes:
Amid rumours of massive revolt in the surface mines and factories of the human holdings , our heroes are summoned to the war room of the City-sized airship Castle Falkenstein (yup a tribute). They are mercenary agents of Baron Ezechiel Von Falkenstein, lord of the Skyhuman realms. There, through the chaos of panicking incompetent generals, they learn that indeed, an out of control machine revolt is ongoing in all mines and automated factories in the Baron’s surface holdings.
Before generals get the green light to start dropping something called ‘elemental portal bombs’ on the various points of revolt, the Baron wants more data and assumes the PC can succeed where normal soldiers and intelligence agents have failed. The adventurers accept to investigate what seems to be a strong psychic signal coming from a large military factory.
As they approach it, on a battlefield of ruined airships and siege engine boulders, they clash with a continent of remote-controlled warforged warriors powered by some necrotic source. As the battle progressed, the heroes are surprised by the transformation of 2 Siege engine boulders into war turrets that blast necrotic bolts of energy!
Stranger still, as the strongest warforge warriors falter, the turret boulders unfold into very large humanoid mechanical constructs while other nearby boulders open up to release swarms of mechanical insects.
The battle raged on until the adventurers figured that the constructs could be crunched back into turret mode by poking them in the chest with a weapon or a rock. Thus were the machines eventually disabled and dealt with. After the confrontation, all machines, including the boulder-crawlers were found to belong to the Baron.
The adventurers found and healed a lost intelligence agent and, following his instructions, moved deeper in the occupied zone…
In Part 2: Competence Porn, D&D style!
Critical Bits for the week ending 2010-01-09
- RT @obsidianportal: Congrats to @cwgabriel & other Pursuit of Destiny players. PoD is our Featured Campaign of 2009! #
- RT @funagaingames: The new fancy version of Twilight Struggle is out: http://bit.ly/5R2Vt5 #
- Figuring Out Doctor Who's Lingering Mysteries http://io9.com/5439138/ #
- RT @dmyax: Puzzle your players: Scrolls of Destiny Vol. 2 now available http://aweber.com/b/28ZXf #
- Discovered by @newbiedm, Orcus is finally coming in "miniature" form http://bit.ly/8nizEE #
- RT @gameplaywright: Should your board game play itself? A new Gameplaywright post. http://gameplaywright.net/?p=1113 #
- Gamasutra's 99 Best Free Games of 2009 http://is.gd/5MTle #
- RT @rdonoghue: My 2 bits on RPGNow 20 for $10 for 2010 sale – http://rdonoghue.blogspot.com/2010/01/20-for-10.html #
- RT @Wizards_DnD: Heard of Greg Bisland's "Fun List"? He's published a fine spreadsheet of bonuses to give your party. http://bit.ly/87Ek2i #
- "Dune" remake finds new director http://is.gd/5N2JA #
- RT @ChattyDM: Posted next Nerd Project. Seriously considering merging my blog with @criticalhits. Details here: http://bit.ly/7Holsg #
- Winter Encounter Report from @Trevor_WotC http://bit.ly/8RhjeW #
- RT @gamingpaper Big Mini Giveaway! Retweet this for a chance to win 3 cases of D&D minis! http://www.gamingpaper.com/giveaway.php for details. #
- And of course, @gamingpaper is a great gaming tool anyway, and one of our sponsors. Have you seen their YouTube channel? http://is.gd/5OkFV #
- Anybody hear the sound of Ars Ludi crashing? RT @cwgabriel: New post about D&D on PA: http://bit.ly/V65zZ #
- 100 Cupcakes, all inspired by Board Games and Video Games http://is.gd/5PFMM (via @wilw) #
- RT @majornelson: News: Project Natal is coming this Holiday 2010 for #Xbox360 owners #
- RT @FFGames: Created by Gamers, For Gamers – Announcing the Fantasy Flight Games Event Center! http://bit.ly/6Mts6w #
Cooperative Play, Cooperative Characters
First, I want to say that this editorial was inspired by one that Editor-in-Chief Chris Youngs wrote on 1/4/2010 for Dragon/Dungeon magazine regarding being a team-player at the table. This is a great piece to read and one that I highly recommend for anyone that is a fan (or not) of D&D. We all know those who fit the bill of going overboard with their character, sometimes so much that it detracts from the game and story being presented. This is by no means a slight (I have been-there-done-that myself), but is meant just as advice to people to self-reflect on their own character development in order to create a creative environment that everyone at the table can enjoy. [Read the rest of this article]
Friday Chat: Zen and the Art of Dodging Dead Ends
A few weeks before X-mas, I mentioned on that “When failure is not an option in a scene, don’t roll any dice”. I think I coined the expression first when I Jedi Mind tricked my Mutant Future GM at a local con into saving me a roll that would likely derail the game if I failed.
I reused the expression more recently. Of course, this made my friend Chgowiz twitch because he espouses a completely opposite philosophy which is “Failure should always be an option”. After discussing it, we decided to make this an He Said/He Said double post about the subject. And to talk from a common point, we woulduse the same example as a source, a recent post that appeared on the Retro-gaming blog (we decided to keep the blog private to spare the guy unasked for attention. The blogger in question is free to pipe so I can link to him).
You can see Chgowiz’s take on the subject here.
The Situation:
In his adventure, our Retro DM has players that are new to tabletop RPGs and can only play a 3 session adventure. They start their second session with an open ended plot: “Track down a key in the hands of a a group of guys led by a lvl 5 Magic User” I assume the game system is either OD&D, 1e or a clone.
The NPCs stop for the night in an abandoned Guardhouse and the PCs catch up to the bad guys. There the DM is stunned by the party’s decision to knock on the door of the guardhouse. Totally caught by surprise by what I suspect the DM considers suicidal folly (flag), the blogger tries to avoid a TPK (flag) by ‘unrealistically’ (in his opinion, flag) having the much stronger bandits make no noise to convince the party to leave. Then the party tries breaking down the door, forcing the DM to act.
The DM finally came forth and told the players they were too outmatched to survive this (probably breaking immersion in the DM’s opinion) and requested they come up with an alternative plan.
The Analysis
Before I turn the situation to you, I want to mention a few ground rules. All GMing situations are easy to judge and analyze in hindsight. When you are away from the GM screen or when it’s not your screen, no situations seems difficult. So I’ll try to keep all this in mind when I share my insights in this and I ask you to do the same .
The flags I raised in the situation have one common element:
- Totally caught by surprise by what I suspect the DM considers suicidal folly
- Absolutely Avoid a TPK
- Make the Bandit act ‘unrealistically’
In this situation, I think that the ‘Can’t afford to Fail point’ is that the PCs could not be killed by the bandits (further reading of the comments shows another ‘can’t fail’ that I will leave to Chgowiz). It would have brought the game to a screeching halt too early for the new players to sink their teeth in the joy of D&D.
But that’s a dead dnd only in the DM’s mind because he decided that only logical consequence for player failure/sub-optimal strategies/stupidity in this adventure is death…
Guys! Stop doing that! That’s NOT true!
Yet I understand the DM, i really do. I’ve been there hundreds of time. There’s something about having bad guys with weapons that make it seem logical and almost inevitable to try to kill PCs whenever they meet.
Here’s an alternative: If the PCs decide to knock on a lair filled with more powerful NPCs, make a memorable fight where PCs feel they may have a chance but ultimately fail to the whiles of lady chance. However, don’t tell the PCs that the Bandits are fighting without trying to kill them. I know OD&D and 1e have no/broken subdual combat rules, but screw that! Use 4e’s “at 0 HP your PC is KO if the NPC wish it so” and move on (if they complain, kill their PC as the rule demand).
Then have them all wake up at dawn, tied up and have them plead for their lives with the bad guy, possibly sending them on a side-quest.
Thus, the main quest may be post-poned and a new one starts.
Oh and if the PCs kill the bad guy? Well, lady chance can be a bitch, I hope you don’t grow too attached to your NPCs.
My Conclusion
Plot dead-ends happen for 2 reasons.
- The adventure is planned too inflexibly to allow for creative player input, in such case, break the adventure, you’ll fix it later.
- The DM has a series of pre-ordained consequences for failure that he’s not actually comfortable seeing through. In such cases, change the consequences to cooler, more appropriate ones.
And if you’re really stuck, call a break, take 5 min and ask yourself the 4 questions of improvisation.
Your Turn
Plot Dead Ends, Retro DM’s or yours… How do you deal with them? Are they an issue? Come on, be honest… Heaven knows I have been in my game reports.
