Meet the players!: Yan
Last week I sent a questionnaires similar to the one here to my 5 players. I got 2 responses so far and I’m posting the 1st one today, along with editorial comments on my part.
What character do you play in our current D&D campaign? (Name, Race Class)?
Lillie, Female Pixie Shaper with a one and a half page long background story. 
(Chatty DM: I kid you not, that guy needs a serious creativity outlet)
What Quote would best summarize your Character?
“The trees are my frien… oh! Look at that! Shiny!”
What other Role Playing games have you played other than D&D 3.x?
I have been playing RPGs for as long as I can remember. As a kid I would always have a story in my games. Playing with Legos with my nephews (We’re about the same age) our characters had all kinds of weird stories. Later on, with the influence of those You-are-the-Hero books, we made our own systems of rules to create and play adventures.
Mostly because of these books, we found out about our first ‘official’ role playing system: The Dark Eye (the French Version). We played for a short while until we were introduced to GURPS. That game defined my role-playing experience for many years. Having one system that allows you to play from future setting to the past and enough rules to customize your character to reflect the exact personality you wanted was just so cool. I’ve GMed that game a lot more then I played. I even had the guts to try a twelve player game… It was hell from a GM point of view but incredibly they liked it and asked for more. (Chatty DM: with Gurps? I’m impressed! I ready my axe! Now how long for my next turn? ). I was applying the rule of cool in this story without knowing it…
I did try some other systems during these years AD&D, Rolemaster and Paranoia but none took me away from GURPS long. Being a world-builder and improve-heavy GM, the flexibility provided the rules always made me come back to it. It’s only with the event of D&D 3.0 with its unified rules (and me not being a DM anymore that I made the shift…
What do you look for in a game session to make it a great session?
A moment of tension followed with success definitely makes fora great session. I’m intentionally vague because it can take all kind of forms. It could be an ultra cool fight with crazy maneuvers to attack a Big Bad or a brain-wracking session of roleplay to argue against a Modron diplomat.
What do you look in a multi-session adventure to make it a great adventure?
I think character and plot progressions are crucial in a campaign so the characters get immersed in it. As a player, you must feel that you’re part of this world, not just some bystander that could easily just walk away from it all. In other words, you must be in deep s… but not so much as to feel overwhelmed by it all.
What tends to decrease your fun the most in a single session?
Falling everything you attempt. I think the felling of incompetence is about the worst thing a player can have in a session. I mean we’re playing heroes not some schmucks. We expect to have more successes then failures. (Chatty DM: Yan has bad days with dice, real bad ones and that can make him somewhat frustrated. But we know why that happens don’t we Yan?)
Tell me about your best RPG memory as a player?
Oh boy… Let’s see…
- Being used as a club by a Dracolich? nah… (Chatty DM: Good times)
- Being blasted to smithereens by a Demon Lord? Had better days… (Chatty DM: I can still see the charred boots)
- Being thrown like a cannonball from the back of a Dragon? humm… nope…
- Jumping through a Blade Barrier spell from a tree to attack a flying angel? Now where’ getting there… (Chatty DM: We watched The Matrix way too many times).
- Using an artifact to summon the Fallen Angel of Death to take care of an Elder White Dragon? That was a mighty session, but not quite my top… (Chatty DM: Talk about player-triggered Deux Ex Machina)
- Preparing and executing a break-in Pelor’s Cathedral’s to retrieve the church’s most sacred book. Complete with a round by round execution for the complete session without being detected? Well that was just the most awesome session ever… A trill like no other! I was shaking just by rolling the freaking dice. You could have cut the tension in the room with a knife. (Chatty DM: One of my top 5 adventures I DMed).
Chatty DM’s take on the player:
Yan is the other chatty player around the table. He’s that rare occurrence of Detail-Oriented Intuitive person. He over analyzes everything and then gets impatient. He goes from happy to frustrated to elated in the course on a few die rolls (or turns at Magic the Gathering). He’s the group’s main Brilliant Planner and Maverick. When he jumps from a cliff to land on the back of a Dragon, he knows he’ll probably kill off his character. However, he has a secret mastery of the Player’s version of the Rule of Cool that makes the DM go ‘Oh, so cool, it has to work!” Like all my other players (and friends), it’s an honor for me to have this guy around the table session after session.
Tweaking Classes for Cooler Characters
The following is a Crunch-heavy post on tweaking the mechanics of D&D 3.5 character classes. As D&D 4e draws nearer I feel more and more comfortable with playing under the game’s hood. Something I would never had dared with previous editions of the game.
One of the things that came out of last Friday’s game is that there appears to be imbalances in the power level of the characters of our campaign. Some of it is because of sub-optimal player choices such as Multiclassing: Math’s Duskblade 6/Arcane Archer 1* and Yan’s Pixie 3/Sorcerer4. But a lot of it stems from a paradigm shift in class design that came around the time that Iron Heroes and the Book of Nine Swords came out (Both of which were either written or developed by Mike Mearls).
Aside: Iron Heroes is a low-magic variant of D&D 3.5 that replaces all core classes with classes based on various archetypes of Western medieval Fighters (The Archer, The Hunter, The Men at Arms, etc). All classes are balanced to be on par with the power level of Geared up vanilla D&D characters of the same level, except that Iron Heroes do not have (nor are supposed to use) any magical gear at all. All powerups are class- or feat-based. Although word on this gaming forum is that the characters are a bit more powerful than their D&D equivalent (and I agree, after having played such a campaign for a year and a half).
Aside #2: The Tome of Battle: The Book of Nine swords features 3 new fighting core classes with a distinct West meets Anime + wire-fu feel. All classes have fighting stances that provide permanent bonuses (individual or aura based). They also choose a certain number of Maneuvers that are akin to a spell effect and that are triggered by succeeding on an attack. These maneuvers are usually reusable at least once from encounter to encounter (This is a great departure from the usual x/day philosophy of D&D and the main source of power creep I think). It is, by the way, incredibly cool.
As I was saying, these 2 products created classes that are significantly stronger than those from other sources. I don’t believe them to be broken per say, they seem to have been designed slightly above the power curve by someone who did not mind the creep. I certainly don’t .
So after the last game. It became clear to me that Cixi (The Iron Hero Archer) and Cruger (The Book of 9 swords Crusader) were destined to be in a league of their own. With the three other characters risking playing second fiddle or at least, not have as much fun with their character’s abilities. (You know the feeling: you’re 8 years old and mommy gets you a Vanilla Ice Cream cone at DQ. You enjoy it… until Brent comes in with his dad and HE gets a Rocky Road Special with extra fudge).
So here I am, the DM with the fabled Power. I can either take away Brent’s treat or offer you to dip your cone in Chocolate, roll it in candy Sprinkles, dip it again in Caramel and put a cherry on top. So thinking, yet again of the Rule of Cool , and something I read on Treasure Table about never having to say NO, I set out to awesome up the 3 other classes.
Please understand the following when you read my tweaks:
- I’m not doing this to re balance the character classes against some philosophical ideal, I’m only doing this to increase my 3 player’s enjoyment of the game without penalizing the other 2.
- I do not mind the power creep at all. I’ll probably end up considering the complete party as 1 level higher and plan my games as such. To control XP progression, I’ll downgrade monsters, on average, one Challenge Rating.
- Its quite possibly our last D&D 3,5 game, let’s go out with a Bang!
Pixie/Sorcerer:
Weaknesses:
- Having traded 3 levels of Sorcerer to gain Flying, Damage Resistance, Invisibility and a few decent Spell-like abilities, Yan has a real hard time with Spell Resistance
- Traded away 3 level’s worth of damage on his spells
- Forever lost his 3 highest levels of spellcasting.
It arguably remains a good tradeoff, but it could be tweaked to give Yan a little better.
Solution:
- Give the character 3 bonus caster levels without giving him the spells. He can now deal more damage and punch through Spell Resistance more easily.
Tradeoff:
- Yan accepted to never take the 4th and 5th Pixie levels that grant his character Spell Resistance and the Irresistible Dance spell-like ability.
Dragon Shaman (Arguably the character who needs the tweaks the least and whose player would never think of asking for them):
Weakness:
- Cleric base attack progression
- Limited to simple weapons and Medium Armour.
Solution:
- Give the character a fighter’s progression
- Give access to Martial Weapons and all armors and shields.
- Add a ‘Draconic Swiftness’ at low level to cancel the speed penalties of wearing heavy Armor.
- Possibly increase Draconic Swiftness to increase speed at higher levels.
Tradeoff: None.
Duskblade/Arcane Archer:
Weakness:
- Other characters in the party are more efficient at doing everything Math wants this character to do. Major unfun alert here
- Multiclassing always sucks!
- All Duskblade abilities are restricted to Melee weapons.
- Character needs to take a few more levels in Arcane Archer to see some synergy between both classes. Note, it still is better than the original path of Fighter/Sorcerer/Arcane Archer.
- Some of the Duskblade’s niftier abilities are x/day abilities.
- 6 of the 20 Duskblade levels give the character no additional class features or upgrades.
Solutions:
- Get rid of the Arcane Archer class.
- Make all Duskblade abilities usable with Melee and ranged weapons.
- Change the class ability to cast a quickened spell from x/day to x/encounter.
- Add some of the Arcane Archer’s class features in the empty spaces on the Duskblade level progression.
Tradeoff:
- Possibly drop a higher level Duskblade class ability that would allow the casting of one touch spell to affect all targets of arrows fired in the same round.
There we go… I talked to both Math and Yan today and they were way cool with that. I don’t expect the others to have any trouble with that either. If not, well they know where to find me.
Ahhhh, I believe a fresh dose of awesomeness was served. Can’t wait to see how it turns out.
*So Math’s character concept is an hybrid of an hybrid… you can smell the potential waste of efficiency from here can’t you?
Game Prep: The Mental State
Preparing an adventure represents about 80% of my game prep process. This includes stating the Bad Guys, setting the difficulty of the various Non-Combat challenges and creating loot that the players will appreciate.
Aside: One of my last D&D 3.5 purchases was the Magic Item Compedium. This book is phenomenal and a preview of what 4e will be about. A very small part of it are Treasure Generation charts that are 10X easier to deal with than the one in the DMG. And any magical loot generated by them are now always on par with current character levels. It is part of my D&D 3.X top 5 list, along with the 3.0 Dungeon Master Guide, The DMG II, The Tome of Battle:Book of Nine Swords, Dungeonscape and the Fiendish Codex 1.
That being said, I often use published adventures, but when I do, I tweak the plotlines to fit the campaign. I also significantly alter encounters to make them more fun to the players (I get rid of unfun monsters and lame traps, I modify the loot for stuff the players will find more useful, etc). It still takes a lot of my free time (but DMing is my main hobby so I don’t mind).
The other 20% is not related to the actual game, but my mental state. You see, I really dig DMing. Preparing a game is one of the few activities that brings me to the Flow state of mind (creating clever simple quality processes, or resolving a lab incident are also Flow inducing, but this ain’t a Job Blog).
I don’t know if any of you have reached this state but it can get scary. The High Energy thing the Wikipedia mentions is spot on. So much so that I can’t for the life of me have a good night sleep after a good prep session because I feel so energized. This week’s session killed me and I spent a lot of Thursday as a Zombie at work.
So to recuperate, I always try to finish Prepping 2 days before the game. It gives me a good night sleep on Thursday night. I also allows me one evening to watch some Battlestar with my wife (which I worship , she takes over parenting duty for my 2 kids during my game nights). I take one hour (no more) on Thursday evenings to clean up my gaming room (the place is buried in Rulebooks, Notes, Post Its, Maps and Minis), putting minis into little encounter boxes (put map on table, Dump box on map, combat starts! How neat is that?) and wiping the latest artistic masterpieces my 4-year-old daughter left on my Vinyl Battlemaps (You should see the Butterfly men and the Mean Big-headed Ogre she drew… She’ll make a good DM I swear, she’s bossy enough for that).
Then, before the game, I visualize each encounter, think up clever quotes and phrases for the NPCs. On Friday evening, I open a bottle of beer to socialize with my work-tired players as they arrive, order food and shoot the breeze until we feel we are ready to start the game.
Its a good life I tell you.
Ending a campaign
Last night we played the last of a 2 sessions Nostaligia-ride that is the re-visiting of an old campaign. About 5 or so years ago, we started our second vanilla D&D campaign with level 1 PCs. Now I don’t exactly remember what players and what characters were there when we started. It started out as a 3.0 game and was morphed into a 3.5 game as the new version was released.
We played a lot of published adventures with that game and we went from level one to the lofty and seldom-reached 18th level. It was a great campaign. Not perfect mind you, we had boring stretches, long arguments and I even managed to lose a good friend somewhere in there. But it was a good campaign. The players beat the Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil which was such a massive adventure that it covered level 4 to 14 by itself.
We left the campaign about 2 years ago. For various reasons, chief among them the desire for newness and because some characters (not players mind you) had evolved to a point in their stories that the party’s integrity could not be maintained. It happens pretty often in long games, and I would not want it otherwise. It’s a role playing game, the players are free to choses where the character goes and to push the character’s psyche in the direction they need. I’m not that much of a failed novelist that I wish to impose party unity. (Although to be perfectly honest, I did try to shake things up at the end bring the characters back together). Regardless, the campaign had run it’s course and we all agreed to leave it and start anew, with a side agreement that characters would be kept and we could return to it someday.
We did just that this summer. We played one last adventure with these old characters. It was really fun for me and I think the players liked it too. It was nice to see the mix of fond memories and wonder when each players were looking at their character sheets to review their capacities and items. On top of it all, the adventure was a classic effort-to-frustration-to-satisfaction arc. The characters were apparently severely outmatched and limited in their resources to address the problems at hand : negotiate with interplannar masters of deceit and bargaining. They spent a lot of mental energies to resolve the numerous non-combat challenges of this adventure.
As an unexpected bonus, the 3 fights seen in these 2 sessions were short, if somewhat anticlimatic. Thanks to Save or Die effects (or vastly superior tactical advantage in one case) all fights were very short. I say bonus because returning to a high level game after 2 years of low-to-mid level gaming (our recently abandoned campaign), there is a high risk of stalling the game while reading spells and rules and playing out the fights, and this breaks the fun. (I’ll have a rant one day against save or die effects, but this time I’m glad we had them).
Bottom line, the players ‘won’, the characters are off to new adventures in far off realms and the players are letting them go, apparently happy and satisfied. I know I am.
Thanks for the great game guys. Let’s hope the next one is even better!
Cheers, see you all in 2 weeks.
Time to start a new Campaign
I have been playing structured Role playing game like D&D and Gurps since I was barely 10. During the 1st year of playing that game I’ve discovered how much I liked being a DM.
24 years later, I’m still geeking out at the idea of starting a new campaign. We’ve been playing D&D 3.0/3.5 more or less every 2 weeks since 2000. We’ve played a total of 5 campaigns, some long (level 1-18 in 3 years) some much shorter (less than 3 months).
This fall, after a 2 year campaign characterized by many missed games and a DM that finally decided to tackle and recover from a severe depression, we decided that we needed to start a new one.
I’m pretty excited by the new campaign. Everyone seems to have made a character they really want to play and I’ve got a few ideas about the campaign’s backstory that are promising.
