# The Dungeon Masters' Foundation Mk.II



## ChaosEvoker (Jan 17, 2005)

Hail and welcome to a glorious foundation:
The Dungeon Master Foundation
The purpose of this Guild is to provide a place for DMs to complain, share ideas, get ideas, and generally have a blast with our omisience Ah yes...the beauty of omnipotency.
This is an oasis of sorts, an oasis in the desert of players. New DMs can find advise from wise and aged ones. The counsil will review applicants and make decisions. I will serve as a Overseer of the Counsil of sorts. I will make sure that the counsil is serving the DMF well. If any counsil member becomes disruptive, they shall be removed after careful consideration by the other counsil members and myself. Now for the requirements for applicants

Member Requirements:
1) Be a DM or have a desire to learn how (No freaking duh!)
2)We have removed our rating system. we will only review the experience of those applying for counsil membership. Please admit though if you are inexperienced, one of the POINTS of the DMF is to help out those who are new to being behind the screen.
3) We request that all members have a link to our thread here.

Rules for All Members
1) Be respectful to EVERYONE. EVEN INEXPERIENCED DMs, YOU were inexperienced once. Violation of this rule will get you kicked out
2) No discussion of any novels.
3) No RPing in message board

Note Bene: Anyone who has a suggested rule may present it to the counsil where it will be reviewed and either accepted of vetoed.

The Dungeon Master Counsil:
1) Mordmorgan the Mad
2) Xen155
3) Nightcloak
4) BardStephenFox
5) DungeonmasterCal


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## ChaosEvoker (Jan 17, 2005)

*Members List*

MEMBERS LIST
1) ChaosEvoker (Creator and Overseer)
2) Xen155
3) Mordmorgan the Mad
4) LilMissKittyn
5) Dyne
6) DungeonmasterCal
7) Grunk
8) BardStephenFox
9) Acid Crash
10) Frukathka
11) velm
12) Y.O.Morales
13) Azul
14) The Cardinal
15) Nilhgualcm Leahcim
16) khyron1144
17) Woas
18) Imret
19) francisca
20) beldar1215
21) Nightcloak
22) John Q. Mayhem
23) siege72
24) Lady Firehawk
25) Nilhgualcm Leahcim
26) IamTheTest
27) Blade of Desecration (Previously Chosen of the Dark Sun)
28) Stone Angel
29) ender_wiggin
30) themind
31) deClench
32) derbacher
33) Aris Dragonborn
34) Cerubus Dark
35) Shuffle
36) Morbog of Ghetto D
37) wolf70
38) Kashell
39) Daesumnor
40) Raloc
41) XCorvis

Anyone who wants to join may, just post your request!


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## ChaosEvoker (Jan 17, 2005)

Sorry for the long wait, I know some of you must have noticed, but I got DCed from the Internet and jsut now got the chance to reboot so here is our second thread! You may continue talking about DM stuff...

BTW
To new people looking here you may find the DMF Mk.I here


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## Nightcloak (Jan 17, 2005)

ChaosEvoker said:
			
		

> Sorry for the long wait, I know some of you must have noticed, but I got DCed from the Internet and jsut now got the chance to reboot so here is our second thread!




Obviously, the amulet war between Xen and MtM backlashed and knocked you out of the system. Dangerous thing those green amultes. I think I'll just hang onto my trusty big stick here for disputes   


On a serious note: Lets kick off the new thread with a fun topic...

Calling all DM's.  

What was the most Rat Bastard thing you have pulled on your characeters? What plot, scheme, or event went off perfectly and caused gapes of horror and wonderment from the players?

Come on, admit it! We have all done it at one time or another. Come clean. We know you loved every minute!






And to you players, don't worry. You'll get your shot later. You'll have to wait thou, this is the DMF after all...


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## Blade of Desecration (Jan 17, 2005)

@CE:  About that charm on Xen, you could always take a few levels in the new Mindbender PrC in Complete Arcane.  It's incredible.  Also, about the _Staff of Racanath_, remember I stole one too. *Starts laughing maniacally while throwing vast hordes of newly created undead at Dyne*  "Zombie fight!"


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## Mordmorgan the Mad (Jan 17, 2005)

Nightcloak, how did you know I'm the king of Ratbastards?

Hmmm...worst one, huh?

Must have been the most recent Ravenloft game. One of my two PCs's characters (a warlock) has a little sister with the True Innocent PrC (basically a mini paladin, but no smite and has to remain innocent). He's very, very attatched to her, and would rather see his character dead (or worse) than to see her bleed from a papercut.

Anyway, a rash of disappearances had been plaguing the town, and (over several sessions) the PCs finally figured out that the victims were taken by unusually agile zombies. After a brutal and very nearly deadly melee, the PCs managed to force the zombies to retreat, albeit with little girl in tow (they were instructed to take the hostage and flee with them). The PCs tracked the zombie to a large mausoleum in the graveyard. They find a small dungeon beneath it and after several battles, they reach the final chamber, where the high priestess waits to sacrifice the kidnapees.

Just as the PCs are about to strike, the priestess reveals her hidden ghoul servitors and the PC's sister (just kidnapped personally by the cleric). The Cleric says that if the PCs even attempt to attack her, she'll kill the girl. Most of the PCs charge, but are stopped by the Warlock, who says anyone who attacks will recieve an infernal blast of eldritch power (his eldritch blast). The party rogue uses a scroll to cast Hold Monster on the warlock (who fails his save), then everyone attacks. The ghouls are quickly dispatched, and the Cleric turns to fight the PCs. She slaps the sister hard, knocking her unconcious.

The Warlock makes his save, and the spell is broken. Seeing his sister unconcious on the floor sends him into a murderous rage, so he charges headlong toward the Cleric. In one hit he runs his dagger thru her neck (critical hit). As she choaks on her own blood, the Cleric's voice begins to cackle from the warlock's unconcious sister. The wounded Cleric slowly transforms into his sister, and promptly dies. The "unconcious sister" transforms back into her normal Cleric form and mocks the PCs.

She died laughing a few turns later, but it was well worth it.

(Hope that made sense, that last hit from the amulet left me frazzled   )


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## Dyne (Jan 17, 2005)

*Uses his Staff of Racanath to create a skeleton*
*Dyne's skeleton and BoD's zombie approach each other, ready to tear each other apart*
*The two undead begin slapping at each other in the girliest fight you have ever witnessed*
 "Stupid skeleton. That's the last chance I give you!"
"No, Master please! Give me another chance! I can prove myself!"
"Nope. That's your last chance. You'll always be a failure of an undead minion."
*The skeleton breaks down, sobbing*
*Dyne waves his hand, and the skeleton dismantles*


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## Cerubus Dark (Jan 17, 2005)

What was the most Rat Bastard thing you have pulled on your characeters? What plot, scheme, or event went off perfectly and caused gapes of horror and wonderment from the players?

Players had gotten ahold of several magical items that I did not intend for them to get ahold of, well I had to fix the situation before they found out what the real use for them was.  So as they chased a enemy rouge down some tunnels his sorcerer partners readied several Disjuntions.   They ended up only having 1 heal potion among them after that.    Of course the finks actually went after them after that, and won!  (lucky dice rolls on their part, and the rouge couldn't hit for crap!)


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## Dyne (Jan 17, 2005)

I've never actually done anything bad to my PC's. I've made bad mistakes as a DM that might have negatively affected the PC's, but that's another matter that I'd rather not talk about.

About the DMF Campaign: What about the campaign? Is anyone else interested? When will we start? Anything else along that line?


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## Morbog of Ghetto D (Jan 17, 2005)

*Me Want Join*

I have subscribed as indecated.  Please note I am an idiot...

When do i get to make my post?


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## DarrenGMiller (Jan 17, 2005)

ChaosEvoker said:
			
		

> Hail and welcome to a glorious foundation:
> The Dungeon Master Foundation
> The purpose of this Guild is to provide a place for DMs to complain, share ideas, get ideas, and generally have a blast with our omisience Ah yes...the beauty of omnipotency.
> This is an oasis of sorts, an oasis in the desert of players. New DMs can find advise from wise and aged ones. The counsil will review applicants and make decisions. I will serve as a Overseer of the Counsil of sorts. I will make sure that the counsil is serving the DMF well. If any counsil member becomes disruptive, they shall be removed after careful consideration by the other counsil members and myself. Now for the requirements for applicants
> ...




I would like to be a part of this.  Please consider this post my application.  May I post immediately or do I have to wait?  As for experience, I have been DM'ing since 1982 (with time off for good behavior from 1993-1997).

Even my initials indicate that I belong here.

DM


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## Nightcloak (Jan 18, 2005)

*Attention Dungeon Masters' Foundation*

NEW MEMBERS!!!

Morbog of Ghetto D
wolf70

Welcome! You are amongst friends!


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## Nightcloak (Jan 18, 2005)

Morbog of Ghetto D said:
			
		

> When do i get to make my post?






			
				wolf70 said:
			
		

> I would like to be a part of this.  Please consider this post my application.  May I post immediately or do I have to wait?




Just as a matter of record, anyone can post here. It is an open forum as all of the rest of ENWorld. However, joining the DMF does give you some nice perks:

1. Recognition
2. Prestige
3. Application to the multi-PbP D&D game Chaos Evoker is developing
4. Tickets to the illegal zombie fights in the back room!


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## Nightcloak (Jan 18, 2005)

wolf70 said:
			
		

> As for experience, I have been DM'ing since 1982 (with time off for good behavior from 1993-1997).




I've been fighting the good fight since '79. I understand your journey


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## Mordmorgan the Mad (Jan 18, 2005)

Nightcloak said:
			
		

> 4. Tickets to the illegal zombie fights in the back room!



Shhhh...keep it down! The clerics are looking for us!

I'm still waiting for Nightcloak's R-B story


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## Kashell (Jan 18, 2005)

Hey there. I would love to join the Foundation here.

I'm a long experienced roleplayer and a short experience DM, so most of my learning thus far has been purely orginizational techniques and the difficulty of playing several NPCs at once.

I've been "DMing" for roughly a year now, under the apprenticeship of my own DM (a very good one, I may add) but I have always been creating fantasy RPGs in whatever game I play, from creating custom RPG scenarios in Starcraft, to creating my own RPG systems before I even knew what D&D was.


Consider this my chainmail application.


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## DarrenGMiller (Jan 18, 2005)

Nightcloak said:
			
		

> NEW MEMBERS!!!
> 
> Morbog of Ghetto D
> wolf70
> ...




WOOT!

I promise I will make you regret this!

Wait, I think that was supposed to say, "will NOT make you regret this."  Oops...

DM


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## Nightcloak (Jan 18, 2005)

Mordmorgan the Mad said:
			
		

> Nightcloak, how did you know I'm the king of Ratbastards?





Oh... Just a hunch...




> Must have been the most recent Ravenloft game.




A big hunch! There is a reason my players run from any good fog or mist flavor text. 
"Just in case!" my a$$.     

_** No, they don't anymore, but they still go through the motions and complain about any random fog or mist text!!! **_


And to Mordmorgan the Mad. I bow deeply to that awsome story. If you ever buy an account here, "King of the Rat Bastards" _so_ needs to go in the custom title.

I gotta know. Did the Warlock make a madness and/or horror check and did he fail? Did he buy a ticket to straight-jacketville!


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## Mordmorgan the Mad (Jan 18, 2005)

Nightcloak said:
			
		

> And to Mordmorgan the Mad. I bow deeply to that awsome story. If you ever buy an account here, "King of the Rat Bastards" _so_ needs to go in the custom title.



Oh, definitely!



> I gotta know. Did the Warlock make a madness and/or horror check and did he fail? Did he buy a ticket to straight-jacketville!



Yes, he failed, but no, the character doesn't know it yet. The player has an idea, but I wanna toy with him some more. His character's physical body landed in Dr. Illhousen's (sp?) Sanitarium, and his mind found its way into the Nightmare Realms. He's going to have some fun with the Nightmare Man   

The other PC is going to be playing a variety of temporary NPCs while her character is tending to her friend and her ailing father. The warlock will probably recover within 3 years (IG) or less, if he plays it right. Should take about a year RL to play out.


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## Nightcloak (Jan 18, 2005)

Mordmorgan the Mad said:
			
		

> I'm still waiting for Nightcloak's R-B story




Thanks!   


But sadly, it may have to wait a day or two. 

Off topic/spoiler to keep from hijacking the forum:

[SBLOCK]I'm running out to pick up our eldest cat. He has had surgery to remove two cancer tumors today and is ready to come home. The vet says he is out of it and needs supervision for the evening and some basic TLC. Not to mention the wife who is broken up (We already lost one cat of 18 years this summer). Sad night at Nightcloak's home  [/SBLOCK] 


On the upside! I have two stories to bring that are personal favorites: 
1. The first is a 2E Ravenloft story in honor of Mordagan the Mad (When good PC's make Van Richtens's most wanted list) 
2. A 3E adventure involving a Beholder Lich-Mage!

Hopfully things go smooth and I'll be back quick!


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## Mordmorgan the Mad (Jan 18, 2005)

I think from now on, off-topic stuff should be exclusively contained within spoilers (using [ sblock]).

[sblock]Sorry to hear about the cats   . Hopefully the other cats are doing well[/sblock]

I'm toying with the idea of starting a homebrew setting. I've got a few notes about a town and the surrounding forest, etc. If I run into any snags (or just get something really good) I'll post it.

While I'm thinking about it:

Our Newest Member: *Kashell*

Hey, does that chainmail come in bikinis?


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## Kashell (Jan 18, 2005)

No, the chainmail only comes in the form of email or letters.


I was actually wondering... what is considered a large dungeon?


Relatively speaking of course, as some dungeons are very vague "30 rooms of bugbear homes" and as some are very specific, "5 rooms of a barracks, three consisting of secret rooms, and the remaining two rooms with poison traps on the doors"


I am working on a rather large dungeon (very very specific, running 70+ rooms).


What is considered a small dungeon and what is considered a large dungeon?


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## Blade of Desecration (Jan 18, 2005)

Holy crud, so many new members!
Welcome all new members!


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## Mordmorgan the Mad (Jan 18, 2005)

Kashell said:
			
		

> What is considered a small dungeon and what is considered a large dungeon?



I think it's fairly subjective. I consider a large dungeon one that the PCs should take 3 or more sessions to complete. A small dungeon can be completed in one session or less. (My sessions are at least 4 hours, just for reference).


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## Daesumnor (Jan 18, 2005)

I wish to sumbit myself before the glorious DMF for membership. I am only a new DM (have so far hosted 3 D&D sessions, but created everything from scratch). I Hope that I will grow and exapnd in experience under the watchful eyes of the council =)


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## Mordmorgan the Mad (Jan 18, 2005)

We're happy to have you among us.

New Member:

Daesumnor


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## Xen155 (Jan 18, 2005)

Hmmm, Lets see. Worst thing I've done to players. oh man, wow.
Well, at night I once metioned to post watches (no caster) so a couple 2nd level rouges dont take all of their amazing Items (one of wich was the Solars Sword), but did they listen no (quite literaly they didn't any of them invest skill points in listen!) So I had a couple rouges still EVERYTHING they owned while they were asleep, Including the High Holy Symbol they were returning to the church of Bane. Man, good times.

Campaign
[sblock]
We should decide, once and for all, how fast we are gonna actually play the game[/sblock]


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## Nightcloak (Jan 18, 2005)

*Back into the frey!*

First off:
[SBLOCK] What a night. The poor cat has its side shaved with stiches sticking out in the center. At least the tumor is 99% removed. He's all wobbly and keeps giving me that "How could you look". The tumors are off to MSU and we'll know more in a week when I take the little guy back in for a follow up. 

Thanks Mord, and yes the other two cats are doing well. [/SBLOCK]


Back on topic!

Welcome Kashell and Daesumnor to the DMF!

39 members and counting!!!


@ Kashell: Size of dungeons are subjective depending on what you and your group likes. Personally, I run games sessions of about 4 hours like MtM and consider a one session dungeon to be small, 2 to 3 session dungeons to be medium, and 4 to 6 session dungeons to be large. Anything larger goes into the "Undermountain" catagory of the dungeon being the campaign.


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## Nightcloak (Jan 18, 2005)

*Rat Bastard Dungeon Master Story #1*

Warning! Long post…

Let me pull up a chair, place the trusty staff known as “Big Stick 2000” by the fireplace, pull out my pipe and hobbit weed and contemplate some great tales of yore. *Puff* *Puff*

So many great stories, so few hours to closing time. Fine memories all. To what tales dare be told at this fine hour? *Puff*

Ah… Laerethen the Souless:

A fine group of five characters of 17th level find themselves on an epic quest to rid the land of a great curse. They learn that to reverse the curse they need mighty magics lost to man for the final battle with a Fendish Great Wyrm that presides over the font of the curse. Further, they will need a rare elven magic of lore, known as soul magic, to reverse the curse. The good news is that one place holds all they need to complete their quest! The bad news is that such awesome power resides in one locale: The Tower of Madness. The Tower is a prison hidden by gods and fiends alike in the middle of Limbo. A rare and uncharted branch of the river Styx can lead you there if you can justify your cause to the boatman. This prison was designed in a rare moment of cooperation by the hosts of heaven and hell to lock away that which was truly criminal or powerful in nature. The characters learn that the artifacts they seek are hidden in sub-complexes in the dimensional tower known as “cells”. Also, the worst of the worst monsters have been locked away do to ghastly crimes. At the very top of the tower rests the library where the soul magic resides. 

Many quests, one tower in limbo, and a fully decked out and very experienced group go heads in. Many battles they face. Much blood is poured. Mind flayers so criminal they scared their own kind. Fallen Solars. An arachnomancer that failed to overthrow Lolth. But then the group arrives at the holding “cell” of Laerethen the Souless.

A fairly empty complex gets the characters laughing when an eye tyrant floats in. The confident high-level characters casually roll initiative and wonder off to grab a few drinks.

The first round goes something like this:
PC1: I won initiative! I tumble out of the eye arc and to its side and dice it.
Me: There is no central eye, but you tumble to its side. You hit. Roll damage.
PC2: No central eye? What kind of weird spin-off is this? But that’s fine, I’ll lightning bolt it.
Me: You cast the spell, but it doesn’t go off. It literally dies at completion.
PC2: WTF? I spend my hasted action on a spellcraft check. What happened? Am I in an anti-magic field?
Me: No, you’re not. It used its ready action to counter the spell.
PC2: !?!?!?!?
PC3: I spend an action doing a knowledge check (don’t remember which one)
DM: You don’t know, but I’ll give you the knowledge (Undead) check instead. It’s missing its front eye because it is quite dead. It’s skin sags and there is an evil glow of red from within the empty socket.
PC3: NO! That cannot be a lich!
Me: Eye #1, magic missile 
PCs: What?
Eye #2, Lightning Bolt 
PCs: Hey!
Eye#3: Empowered Haste
PCs: WHAT?!?!
Eye#4: Horrid Wilting
PCs: WTF!

It got ugly after that. But the PCs prevailed! Yes, they defeated the 8th level mage (MoF Prestige Class) Beholder Lich. Lots of cheering ensued. Along with that “You Bastard” look I was getting accustomed to in that tower. Time to loot the dead! The PC’s clean out the place, including many gems, much gold, ye ole’ portable hole, a fancy magical sword with a silver blade etched with elven runes and leather pommel cover. The beholders spell book, and a ring of gold set with a glowing ruby.  

Then the cleric came upon a most troubling thought. That was a lich. His phylactery is somewhere about, and if we don’t destroy it, it’ll comeback again. A hunt ensues but nothing extra is found. The Archmage then hits upon the idea of casting see invisibility and scans the room. Lore! An invisible body sits in a corner. He searches the body and finds a diamond the size of a grown mans head! 

Surely, that is the phylactery. But a fight erupts over what to do. The rogue appraises the diamond and finds its value to be 250,000 gps. Half the group does not want to destroy the diamond and lose all that wealth only to learn it was not the phylactery. Finally, the wizard (after a long debate in RL) decides to cast detect magic. The book is magical, so is the ring, the sword, one of the gems, but not the diamond. A spellcraft check reveals the diamond would be the perfect phylactery. But there is no magic. More debate. More arguing. 

Finally, to keep the piece, the diamond, the glowing gem, the ring, and the magic book are put in the portable hole for safe keeping. The treasure is given to the rogue (also know as the treasure monkey) while the sword is thrown to the dwarven fighter.

The group leaves the “cell” and journeys on to complete their quest (but as they say, that is another tale)

* * *

Several months later, the group is still questing back in the Prime World. They know that the ring was a RoP +4. The gem was a unique gem of wisdom. The sword was an undeadbane ("now we find out!") the book has hidden mysteries on it and the diamond seems plain enough (beyond its value). Unfortunately, the group still doesn’t trust the book or the sword so all that knowledge and wealth sits in the other dimension of the portable hole. 

After leaving a crypt, the group passes the entrance were some undead lie in a state of road kill (the sword finally did its job). One body looked to have exploded from within. One Knowledge (Undead) check later reveals that a lich raised from the body recently.

Complete silence. 

The group panics then looks at the diamond, the ring, and the book. Everything is fine. A spot check reveals the fighter’s sword no longer glows. The Archmage does a full knowledge sweep of the weapon. Nothing. 

Archmage: Hey [fighter], what does this pommel cover protect?
Fighter: * Shrugs* I don’t know. Doesn’t matter. It’s just a magic sword with fluff text.
Archmage * Shudder * I pull the pummel guard off.
Me: There is a darkened gem held in place by silver claws.
AM: * Horror * Spellcraft check please.
Me: * Evil grin * it use to be enchanted to act as a phylactery. But it was a limited one that would channel the trapped soul through the blade when specific conditions were met.
Players: D’oh!!!

Oh… but is gets better.

PC1: What have we done?
PC2: Helped an insane epic level abomination find a new home. Ours.
PC3: Wait a minute, why did it want us to carry it around?
SEVERAL PCs: * Groan * Because it couldn’t leave! It was a prisoner! It took a dive and used us to escape.

And that’s how 5 high level characters helped a beholder lich mage escape from his prison of millennia. 

I almost cry when I think of the looks on their faces…

God I love this game!


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## Mordmorgan the Mad (Jan 18, 2005)

Undermountain is too big to be a dungeon, it's a demiplane! I have to say that I really hate mapping dungeons. I really should buy a mapping program, but funds are short right now   . I prefer forests, chasms (sp?), and pretty much anything outdoors. I'll do dungeons occasionally, but I tend to keep them short (no more than 3 sessions).

[sblock]My fiancee really wants to get a cat. I haven't had the best experience with them (apparently my fingers taste like catnip), but I'll have to warm up[/sblock]


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## Mordmorgan the Mad (Jan 18, 2005)

Must....sblock....severely....derailing....post....


[sblock]







			
				Nightcloak said:
			
		

> The bad news is that such awesome power resides in one locale: The Tower of Madness. The Tower is a prison hidden by gods and fiends alike in the middle of Limbo. A rare and uncharted branch of the river Styx can lead you there if you can justify your cause to the boatman. This prison was designed in a rare moment of cooperation by the hosts of heaven and hell to lock away that which was truly criminal or powerful in nature. The characters learn that the artifacts they seek are hidden in sub-complexes in the dimensional tower known as “cells”. Also, the worst of the worst monsters have been locked away do to ghastly crimes. At the very top of the tower rests the library where the soul magic resides.



 I'm so tired of everyone talking **** about my house!!!! So it's not in a great neighborhood, but the APR is only 6.7%, and I've got a door man.



> The beholders spell book, and a ring of gold set with a glowing ruby.



 That bastard! That ring was mine!




> SEVERAL PCs: * Groan * Because it couldn’t leave! It was a prisoner! It took a dive and used us to escape.



 Laery was getting really annoying. I'm glad they got him out of here. You know those relatives that show up for a week, and then never leave? Yeah, that's Laery.[/sblock]

...AHHH! Made it!


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## ChaosEvoker (Jan 18, 2005)

First off:
Welcome to all new members! i hope you find the DMF to be a great help and source of amusement as well.

@Campaign
In order to insure that everyone has time to get characters made and such I am starting the campaign the first of february. I'll be selecting characters a few days before that. So get your characters up!

@RB Stories
Well this one will take a long time explaining so if you guys can wiat till my violin lessons are over I'll be glad to post this one.


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## Nightcloak (Jan 19, 2005)

Mordmorgan the Mad said:
			
		

> Must....sblock....




And I thought I was the only one smoking Hobit Weed...



Oh, and...



> severely....derailing....post....


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## Blade of Desecration (Jan 19, 2005)

Alright, I surrender.  I've got _nuthin'_ on you guys!  I _gotta_ start pulling more tricks like those.

@NC:  I bow before your evil might!


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## LilMissKittyn (Jan 19, 2005)

I suppose I don't have a great story, but if you guys are interested, a nice little twist that got played on me....
I'll have to sblock this, since it's not exactly relevant and just my pitiful attempt to say: "Hey, look at me, I have experience!"

[sblock] In my first campaign, we happened to stumble across a deck of many things. Of course, my being an idiot and only being lvl 1 in the first place, I coerce my adventuring partner into drawing...over...and over....and over. Cool thing; it kept on drawing REALLY in my favor and against my partner, who, due to classes, races, and alignment, I didn't like very much in the first place. We did this for maybe an hour and a half until I drew a few really, really bad cards in which I died (I was resurrected) and lost all my gold and exp and items. At the same time, my adventuring partner drew awesome cards and somehow wound up with an enormous army with which to conquer the nation.
Dang.
Anyways, somehow he got the power to give me commands and I became his woman-slave and wound up with a kid a year later.
Double-dang.
I don't use decks of many things anymore. [/sblock]

Maybe I'll come back with a better story of my own later.

Oh yes. And NC, very, very nice. Though I'm surprised nobody quietly killed you afterwards.


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## LilMissKittyn (Jan 19, 2005)

Agh. One more.
@Mordmorgan
[sblock] Be grateful that it's only fingers that taste like catnip. My cats have some very odd habits, such as the need to be hand-fed and watered, the need to be carried around on your shoulders while rubbing at your cheeks and ears, and the need to claw you perpetually for a full twenty minutes before they sit on you. (That's the very dense one. She's twenty-five pounds, but only the size of a half-grown kitten and not fat at all).
Explain to me why I love cats again...[/sblock]


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## ChaosEvoker (Jan 19, 2005)

*Much stuff*

@LMK
[sblock]idk why you love cats, you shouldn't   [/sblock]

@RB Story
Well this has to go way back. You oldies remember the _Staff of Racanath_? Well, I had a character named Racanath Xiltyn. he was a CE grey elf and the entire purpose for his life was to commit genocide on Drow. Well, teh guy was very cunning, though about as evil as evil gets. There is quite a bit of adventuring and he convinces the good-aligned party that he is also good aligned. (good thing I had high skill in Bluff!) Even when he became a lich, a nat 20 against a nat 1 (my bluff vs their sense motive) even let me pass as a good lich (which there are in Faerun)

Anyway, we have a very clever DM, but not clever enough. He put us in a room filled with _Mirrors of Opposition._ My character, not wanting to have is opposite aligned duplicate starting handing out gold and serving the weak and such, steered clear of them. Though a freak accident due to the way the room was set up, there ended up being at least 50 copies of each alignment for everyone except Racanath, who had none. Well, in the dea of night, Racanath woke up one evil copy of each of the other PCs and they proceeded to assasinate the other players by slitting their throats while they slept. Including the other evil ones.

Over the course of time, my lich became a demilich, forged the _Staff of Racanath_ which, in summary, allowed Racanath to _Animate Dead_ at will and that any undead he raised with the staff did not count against his limit of controllable HD. (Yes my own character created a major artifact) He raised an army of undead and set out to conquer faerun so he coudl have an undead army to ravage the Underdark to destroy all the drow. He ended up destroying everything from Baldur's gate to the Entire nation of amn. (both of those nations and now an udnead wasteland) He eventually was smitten by Mystra (violating a divine law against direct intervention) since no one else could kill him, and failed to accomplish his goal.

Well, I became DM after that. in my campaign, Ao decided that Mystra's actions woudl be partially reversed (not fully since Racanath HAD been hunting down her Chosen...since most are wizards and he is immune ot magic...) Racnath was resurected as a grey elf again, but he woudl have to become a lich once again on his own. He did. And got his staff back. And got an army. And started conquering. So I had my PC's go after him. After acheiving to sub-epic level from first level, and acheiving magic items intentionally created to destroy demiliches, they went after him. I was nice enough to give them a break and let them kill him basically (even though he woudl have blown them to smitherines if I had played him like someone with an IQ above 42.) However, since I went easy on them, i pulled the RB trick. Since Racanath was an epic level Wizard/Shadow Adept/Archamge Demilich. he had god-liek poweress. In order to destroy his phylacerty they had to sacrifice theri souls. They were unressurectable though they passed on to a wonderful after life. So basically their characters either died fighting Racanath and his evil continued, or they died finishing him off. Actually his spirit just possesed the _Staff of Racanath_ but now it will be nearly impossible to ressurect him, but he makes the Staff alot more powerful. so there's my RB story. Not the best, but it's the only one I can think of.

@Deck of Many Things
Oh...so many stories...definately the best minor artifact, or even posssibly magic item in the whole game.....


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## DarrenGMiller (Jan 19, 2005)

Worst thing I ever did to my players?

Well, I have one of the dry sense of humor and when "Castle Greyhawk" came out, I ran it, with tongue firmly planted in cheek and played up ALL of the one-liners, puns and in-jokes.  I also ran "Nogard", an April Fool's adventure that was printed in Dragon Magazine MANY years ago that was aimed at retiring the characters.

I also had a long running campaign with a recurring villain named Spongy.  I used the Smeagol miniature from LOTR (this was back in the 80's) and drew up his stats amazingly powerful.  He could beat ANY demon-lord in any book handily, but I gifted him with a horribly low animal intelligence and a ravenous appetite.  He would eat until bursting (he was only about 4' tall) and then sleep it off on his layer of the abyss.  I also added a bedraggled party of adventurers whose members he was always eating and who were always running from him.  Eventually, when the party saw this lot in an adventure, they started running too.  Nobody wanted to find out what Spongy could really do.

Sorry, that is the best I can do right now.

DM


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## siege72 (Jan 19, 2005)

Nightcloak said:
			
		

> What was the most Rat Bastard thing you have pulled on your characeters? What plot, scheme, or event went off perfectly and caused gapes of horror and wonderment from the players?



I put my players up against a bone naga (MM2). It's an undead naga with the spellcasting ability of a *14th level sorcerer*, and immune to cold. Not only did it have excellent knowledge of the dungeon (and could teleport and dimension door with ease), but it had a stash of Inflict Light Wounds potions and wands (for "healing"). Bone Nagas also have very high Spellcraft and Concentration checks (great for figuring out what the PCs are doing, and casting on the defensive).  It's spell list included Fireball and Delayed Blast Fireball (energy substituted for cold), Finger of Death, Mirror Image, Invisibility, Teleport, etc. And... Bone Nagas can Detect Thoughts _at will_.

The players weren't able to hurt it easily, and when they did close to melee range it would just drop a cold-Fireball at "ground zero" to liven things up. If it did get hurt, it could just teleport away. If the players rested to regain their spells, it would get its back as well. And since the naga could read their surface thoughts, it knew their plans. At the end It was literally a battle of attrition: the group was on its last legs and barely capable of fighting, but didn't dare rest until they killed it.


The other Rat Bastard thing I've done is put the screws to an NPC. One player's character was searching for her brother, who'd been captured by the drow. When she finally met him, he'd already been rescued and... changed. Although he still looked like an elf, he was closer to a green slime internally. Months later, the group ran into him again, when the NPC was almost finished his transformation. A brief battle followed (the players started it!!), and the group was running for their lives in very short order (14th level characters against a CR 19ish monster).


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## Dyne (Jan 19, 2005)

CE, perhaps you could put a link to the campaign in the beginning post.

The group for my first campaign was made up of a Half-Orc Barbarian, a Human Fighter, and a Human Cleric. I was the DM and ran the Cleric at the same time because we were short on Players, and I knew that the other characters would get themselves killed because they were new to the game. Needless to say, our group was always more straightforward and like the combat-focused style of play.

At one point, I decided to go away from this style and see what would happen. The group was in search of a certain artifact, and they were on their way to the ruins of a temple that housed this artifact. But, their enemies had found the site first and began excavating it because the temple was actually totally underground. By the time the group discovered where the temple was, the enemy had already dug into the temple, and they began working their way to the artifact.

The thing was that a large mass of men stood between the characters and the entrance to the temple. The enemy had set up a rather large camp around the entrance, and they had watch towers to keep watch over everything. Well, the characters thought that they were so big and that they could handle all of the men themselves. They waited until night, then they charged into the camp and start attacking soldiers. The men atop the watch towers immediately spotted them and sounded the alarm to alert the rest of the camp. But, most of the soldiers were off duty at this time, so the characters proceeded to enter their tents and kill them while they were trying to get their armor on.

The PC's had managed to take out a good number of the soldiers before they all got their armor on. Then, things became hell. Soldiers swarmed around the PC's. The PC's were several levels higher than the soldiers, but they didn't stand a chance against all those men. My Cleric almost died, and the Barbarian had to give him a healing potion. My Cleric also had to save the other two PC's several times in that battle.

We barely escaped with our lives. Then the Fighter remembered his ring that could teleport us, and we teleported straight to the entrance.


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## Morbog of Ghetto D (Jan 19, 2005)

*Sympathy for the Devil*

Greetings and salivations,

So heres the topic that has been killing me for 3weeks.  And you are the only people I can turn to. 

First I have Dmed/Refereed rpgs since 1990, and have played since 78'.  My "old" gaming crew retunred to D&D after a 3 year break.  Im running the new D20 system, 3.5 with the various asssociated problems etc.    We were all 2nd ed. players.. 

Anyway.  Seems to me that the campaign is just getting out of hand with non stop meta gaming, arguments, of all things 2nd GUESSING THE DM!  

You see we're all 29+ in age and I now believe we're too smart for our own good.  we only play once a month (which sux) and we play for 4-8 good solid hours...

As we all know DMing is a thankless job, and requires a big investment in time.  
Sadly I have players counting move squares and telling me what i can do and cant do.  Of course its all through the players perspective, and they assume that the rules are applied 100% the same for monsters and such.  

My response has been a swift dismissal of question or concern, mainly because If I indulge the player,  we have 5 arm chair DMs (who have never dmed) hypothessizing about decisions that they arent required to worry about.  

Primarily, its caused me to be very defensive and my patience is shot.  Seems like there isnt a single encounter that some one doesnt say "wait a minute?!?!?" Right in the middle of me describing the action/environment.

Im a "narative" minded DM, and several of the players are heavy "mechanical" players.
its to the point where Im saying," Well youre so F%$#@#$% smart why dont you run the game!.  Buy the books,paint the leads, draw the maps, create the prestige clasesses..etc.etc.etc. 

But I know the game will die a slow death under another DM.  The other player that has run games, was Module Man, literally reading the module while we played, and setting down the map, with players pointing where they go... A lesser experience than what Im used to.

They so badly want to apply 2nd edition knowledge, it kills them.  especially with "known" monsters.  I have therefore started using "non Traditional" monsters, or archetypes.  3.5 rules give old monsters new capabilites as feats... The players just want to know WHY?
My thinking is"well solve this problem in game, and in character.  Maybe the PC can research undead types in the church/librabry.  Maybe you can seek out a sage?"...It just blows my mind. Especially when a PC is telling me how to run a MONSTER that I CREATED!...

My plan is as follows.

1. Meta game penalty increased to 1000 Xp or 1 level per offense!!
2. Only use non standard monsters, and change up the old ones
3.  Outline at the beginning of the session that NOONE should tell the DM how to run a encounter
4.  More closely enforce the "table the argument" till the end of the session...

Any hints would be helpful.  I really like running the game, and its just reaching a nice point in the campaign.  But with the Fun:non fun ratio  changes   it will self destruct anyhow.


Many of these issue are soooo rudinmentary.  1 player even believes that he should have a chance to see enemies approaching from BEHIND?!?!?  

One of my players even called me a M.F.er which is totally out of hand...

thx


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## LilMissKittyn (Jan 19, 2005)

Straight off, know that I've never DMed, but I think I can give you some advice on how to deal with the people.

Some advice on your rules:
1. Meta game penalty increased to 1000 Xp or 1 level per offense!!
This may work, but it may just create more demands and contention. You've got to be careful. 
If they ignore the penalty, you might even resort to public humiliation. But be careful, because this can get you in a lot of trouble if not done with....how do I say this..? Tact.

3. Outline at the beginning of the session that NOONE should tell the DM how to run a encounter
This is....risky, at best. Again, it will get people angry. In addition, everyone is wrong sometimes, but you should explain to them that it's your campaign, you've outlined it and spent hours on it, and ask them to think twice before they object. Just be wary of over-controlling, it just worsens the problem. 

4.  More closely enforce the "table the argument" till the end of the session...
Another very legitimate possibilty, but you'd have to outline several penalties to enforce this....

Some other ideas I came up with:
1) Talk to the players. After all, it's a really good game, but it's still just a game, and they shouldn't second-guess everything you do. They may not even realize they're doing it. 

2) Find a player within the group that you might be close to. Get them to "infiltrate the system," so to speak. Have them spread a few words in your favor, talk to individuals, whatever it takes.

3) What's your playing enviroment like? There may be some factors involved, such as space or temperature, that is easily fixed.

4) Do your players know the rules as well as you? Maybe suggest that they go back through the handbook again. They might even go out and buy their own DMG if they REALLY want to know what's going on, and THEN have them look up the rule before they challenge you. Your justification for this would be that you don't want to interrupt valuable gameplay.

5) Are there IRL problems between two or more players in the group? You might try to prod them to resolve this issues, if there are. If they can't be resolved, see if you can get one of them to graciously step out of the campaign. Space is a good thing.

6) You could also set up a system, such as "you get this many protests in a game play session" or something similar. Set limits.

7) If all else fails, take extreme measures. Kill their characters. Kick them out of the group if you have to (it sounds like you have a fairly good-sized group, so you could frame it in the terms of "well, we could just keep going without you." It sounds like if it keeps going as it is now, the group will eventually disband anyways. Or you could just threaten to find another group, unless there's some big interpersonal relationships involved within the scheme.

I'll save the technical stuff for someone with more gameplay experience. I hope these suggestions help. Good luck.


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## Nightcloak (Jan 19, 2005)

Morbog of Ghetto D said:
			
		

> So heres the topic that has been killing me for 3weeks.  And you are the only people I can turn to.




Wow. There is a lot to discuss so I'm going to address specific issues over several posts today.



> First I have Dmed/Refereed rpgs since 1990, and have played since 78'.




Testify!!! *Insert organ music and a James Brown:! "HEY!

Old schooler here, except I've been mostly DMing fron the beginning. The great thing about the DMF is the full range of styles and ages present  



> As we all know DMing is a thankless job, and requires a big investment in time.




NO. DMing is a rewarding job! You're frustration with your group has soured your feel for the "job". Doing a good job does take time. It is a labor of love. And it is easy to get discouraged when you don't think it's appreciated.

Your feeling like a person in a one-sided relationship. Your doing all the work and the other person shows up and complains or nit-picks. Makes you say "What's the point?" and "I'm better off staying home and watching a movie".

As the mission statment in the first post says, "This is an oasis from players". Chaos Evokers' statement isn't targeting players - it's targeting you, the DM. You are amongst peers who do appreciate the hours and understand the frustration of being a DM.

I've been where you are at. I've walked away and have taken a "DM vacation" before. But it's a vacation. Why? Well, because...



> But I know the game will die a slow death under another DM.  The other player that has run games, was Module Man, literally reading the module while we played, and setting down the map, with players pointing where they go... A lesser experience than what Im used to.




And that is the crux. You want more out of the game. 


So, my fellow DM. We're going to get your game back. Because it is your game.

*Motions to the DMF* 

Charge!


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## Mordmorgan the Mad (Jan 20, 2005)

Well, before I get into this, I'll let you know that I've been DMing since roughly 1993. I can't say that I've specifically had this kind of problem, mostly because I'm a fairly heavy-handed DM, and my players are (generally) easy-going and trusting.

I think that all your current game problems can be traced back to a lack of trust. The Players don't trust you (or are unable to trust you) to run a fair game. Please don't take this as an insult, because it's not meant to be. Many players enter the game with a "Me vs. the DM" mentality, which can be very hard to overcome.

I move around a lot, and as such, I often play with people who've never held a PHB before. When getting new people into the game, I always tell them: "Just remember that this is just a game. My job here is to make sure that everyone has fun. The way I DM isn't always fair, and it isn't always by the books, but it will be fun. If you can trust me to have that goal in mind when we play, everything will go much smoother".

One of my long-time players has a habbit (which greatly annoys me) of counting HP damage. He doesn't own any of the MMs, and doesn't often take into concideration things like DR and Fast Healing, and so every once in a while, he'll ask "How the hell is this thing still breathing?", to which I always reply "Trust me, it is". After one of those "Trust Me's" he always tries to think of some new way to drop the beast, rather than complaining that the monster isn't what he'd thought it'd be.

I think that you really need to sit down with your players and just talk about the game for a while. Ask them what they expect from you and what they want to see in the game. If they're just looking for Hack n Slash, and you're more interested in RP, maybe you all can agree on a suitable balance.

Tell them that they shouldn't assume the monsters they encounter will be carbon copies of the ones in the MM. They won't necessarily be the ones they remember from 2e. NPCs may have PrCs they've never heard of and abilities that aren't in any book. They should understand that these things will be par for the course, and that you don't want to hear complaints every time a monster does something they don't expect or understand.

As for being called a MFer, correcting that is simple. Tell anyone who (verbally or other wise) insults another player (including the DM) like that again will be asked to leave and possibly won't be invited back for X number of sessions, if at all.

I hope I've helped a little, or at least gotten your gears turning. Please let us know how things progress.


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## derbacher (Jan 20, 2005)

> Testify!!! *Insert organ music and a James Brown:! "HEY!



Echoes James Brown "Hey!" and jumps into the hot tub!  

Been doing the DM thing since '79. I can agree with everything Mordmorgan said. You seem to have a long term relationship with this group. That can be a difficult thing to overcome when things start to go downhill. Always the first thing to try: talk to the players outside of the game. Explain that this is your creation, and the world revolves according to your rules. There will be (many) times when they cannot know the whole story, just to keep the suspense of the campaign and give them challenges worthy of their abilities.



> One of my long-time players has a habbit (which greatly annoys me) of counting HP damage.



Wait, this player is in my group! (I think this player is in every group...)

[sblock]I've been away for six days. Complete system failure after a two-second power surge. All passwords and data lost. No back ups. Such fun, you would not believe![/sblock]


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## DarrenGMiller (Jan 20, 2005)

As an "old schooler" myself, I am going to take a whack at this problem. I want for us to be able to "give you your game back" but I doubt it is going to happen exactly that way. Whay do I say this? Because I have been there before... several times... even recently (there is a thread here somewhere). It turned the hobby I love into a chore.

DISCLAIMER:  From here on out, I am not going to humor you or "pull any punches."  Some of what I have to say might hurt and seem unfair.  I am attempting to help (as requested) and do not intend to coddle.  If you want this situation resolved, you are going to have to make some tough choices.

A gaming group is a complex set of interwoven relationships. Everybody comes to the table for their own reasons and your job is to make sure they all get out of the game that which will make them enjoy the game the most. Or is it? At any rate, let me address some of the specifics of your post:



> Seems to me that the campaign is just getting out of hand with non stop meta gaming, arguments, of all things 2nd GUESSING THE DM!




I have been on the receiving end of that myself.  The second guessing may just be human nature, but the way it is being handled...



> You see we're all 29+ in age and I now believe we're too smart for our own good.




I identify with this too, since I am in my early (or is it now mid) 30's.  Our group is part 30-somethings and part 18-20 age group.  The younger players seem much more accepting of the DM's rulings (that's me BTW) and the older folks are more skeptical and jaded.  They tend to try to interpret the rules in a way that will most benefit their character.



> As we all know DMing is a thankless job, and requires a big investment in time.




Yes, it requires a time investment, but does give a huge return on that investment (as has already been pointed out).  If it is so thankless, then why have you been doing it for so long?  First of all, if you find no joy in it, then stop now.  If you enjoy it when the game goes well, then admit it and stop playing "sour grapes."  I do NOT know it is a thankless job, or I would have given up long ago.  It only seems that way when the relationships at the table have become "dysunfctional" (I hate that word, but they are truly no longer functioning beneficially for anyone, like it or not)



> they assume that the rules are applied 100% the same for monsters and such.




You are assuming that they are not?  That is no problem, especially since you run a narrative style game.  However, it sounds like they have different assumptions than you about the kind of game they are playing in.  I wonder if you have clarified that for them.



> My response has been a swift dismissal of question or concern




Sounds like you need to confront the basic assumption of what kind of game you are all playing.  I am wondering if you were once a mechanics DM with these players in an older version of the game and have switched to narrative as you matured.



> If I indulge the player, we have 5 arm chair DMs (who have never dmed) hypothessizing about decisions that they arent required to worry about.
> 
> Primarily, its caused me to be very defensive and my patience is shot. Seems like there isnt a single encounter that some one doesnt say "wait a minute?!?!?" Right in the middle of me describing the action/environment.
> 
> ...




Have you discussed your style preferences with your players?  It REALLY sounds like the kind of game they want is not the kind of game you want and they are attempting to make you give them the kind of game they want, one way or another.  Hey, I do really understand.  I like to avoid conflict with my players until it MUST be dealt with or the game will fall apart.  I am determined to change my ways though.  It sounds like you are at this point.



> They so badly want to apply 2nd edition knowledge, it kills them. especially with "known" monsters. I have therefore started using "non Traditional" monsters, or archetypes. 3.5 rules give old monsters new capabilites as feats... The players just want to know WHY?




No.



> My thinking is"well solve this problem in game, and in character.




Also, No.  It NEVER works for the players to metagame continuously (or seemingly sontinuously) and it does not work to solve it in game.



> 1. Meta game penalty increased to 1000 Xp or 1 level per offense!!




This only treats the symptoms and not the disease.  It doesn't work and it makes them resent your game more and become more determined to derail it.  As I stated, I have been through this before.



> 2. Only use non standard monsters, and change up the old ones




This is the equivalent of hiding the medicine inside something they will swallow, only to have them spit it up when they discover they have been duped.  It is not necessary.  You should not and don't have to do this.



> 3. Outline at the beginning of the session that NOONE should tell the DM how to run a encounter




At the beginning of a session is too late.  At the beginning of the campaign.  If they don't trust you to run the game, they should find a new game.  More on that later.



> 4. More closely enforce the "table the argument" till the end of the session...




Okay, this is the one that really caught me.  Either it is a rule or it isn't.  There is no degree of enforcement.  If a mechanics argument arises, stop it.  Restate the rule (that they have all presumably agreed on, since they are adults?) and declare said argument tabled.  If it continues, end the session.  They will not notice as you quietly start packing your stuff until you fold up the screen or whatever, then they will wonder what is going on.  They will start asking at some point.  Tell them you have to go.  In no way further the argument.  Do NOT even address its validity.  Remove yourself.  When you walk out, they will be shocked, then angry, but they will eventually discover the reason you left.  They will either be more careful or need a new DM.



> 1 player even believes that he should have a chance to see enemies approaching from BEHIND?!?!?




I am not a mechanics-nut (rules lawyer), but I believe characters do have a chance, since in 3.5E, they are technically aware from all sides.  Someone please correct me if I am wrong.



> One of my players even called me a M.F.er which is totally out of hand...




It is more than totally out of hand.  It is inexcusable.  Even more inexcusable is you hanging around to tolerate more of it.  The point at which my players resort to blatant verbal abuse is the point at which I say, "Game over" and walk out of the door.

Now we get to the crux of the matter.  LilMissKittyn is attempting to address it from the same point of view that you are trying to address it and that is "in-game."  There are no table rules, rules of order, house rules, or rules of any kind that are going to solve this problem.  This needs to be addressed outside of a regular gaming session.  Might I suggest (GASP!) not gaming until it is resolved to your satisfaction (and theirs).  If this is not fixed, it will only progress to the point that you and/or they will walk away from gaming and not come back.

This is not "their problem" or "your problem" (as DM) it is the problem of everyone at the table.  There seems to be several problems that need to be addressed.  These include:

1.  Lack of a shared vision of what the game should be like.  Is it story or is it mechanic?  These are two very distinct styles and a recent Monte Cook article helped me decide that this was a major problem in my game.  I (and one or two players) were expecting one type of game and the rest of the players expected (or wanted) something else.  I (we) tried to "legislate it" with table rules, etc. but had the same problem you are having.  I realized that I was running the style of game I was running to satisfy a very small percentage of players.  I switched over to an "old school" game and left the narrative approach behind.  The majority are extremely happy and I am happy as well (this is how it was when I first started playing after all).  The role-playing has never been better and we are not trying to manufacture the environment, instead, it is being spontaneously created.

2.  An avoidance of conflict is present.  This is a tough one.  If a player is an a$$ to you or others at the table, then solve it.  Either remove the player, resolve the situation through conversation, etc. or whatever.  This is NOT easy.  The situation needs to be addressed though.  It is never fun to remove someone you have been gaming with for a long time and it makes that person unhappy/angry/resentful, etc.  Realize that they are not really having fun in the session, they are just fulfilling a "fix" and going through the motions.

3.  I always hated it when I asked for suggestions about player problems and the first response was to either remove players from the group or find a new group.  Neither is easy andI though it could be done another way (like solving it in-game)  There is a reason why people respond with this solution right away.  First, let me say that removing a player or dissolving a group should be done with care and tact.  These are committed relationships that you are destroying.  I have been with one of my players through most of his marriage, the births of both of his children and all of his troubles and travails since.  A few years ago, we removed him from the game for a few months (and we didn't do it the correct way).  Terminiating these relationships is a painful thing for all parties involved.  Sometimes it is the only way to fix the problems with the game.  If the friendship is more valuable, then change the game... or stop gaming for a while until you all sort things out.

I am sorry to be overly harsh, but drastic times call for drastic measures.  Later, you will only regret what you haven't tried.  Do not allow the verbal abuse to escalate or become physical.

I wish you the best.  I am here to do what I can to help you.  We are fraternite.

DM

My apologies for any and all grammatical or typographical errors.


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## Y.O.Morales (Jan 20, 2005)

Allright guys, Morrus gave me the greenlight to start the hosted forum and its billing cycle from this month.

But before setting up the forum, I REALLY want to know what original (a.k.a. not redundant) uses it could have. I do NOT want to pay for the first year only for a group of people to continue an already-long thread or do other activities that could be done in other ENWorld forums (like the Play by Post).

So, any suggestions to get the ball rolling?


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## Blade of Desecration (Jan 20, 2005)

@MoGD:  I feel your pain.  My players argue about everything with me.  My reaction is usually "Alright, lets continue playing, and later on if you can find where it says I _can't_ do this, show me."  None of my players are willing to spend an hour looking for a quote they know doesn't exist so they leave it alone.  If a quote about the rule does exist, I stand corrected.  But what your PCs are doing sucks half the fun out of the game.  Tell them that if they wanted to do everything exactly as it says in the book, then they should never have tried playing RPGs.  If you want strict rules, stick to computers and an XBOX.  Otherwise, it's the DMs call.


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## Nightcloak (Jan 20, 2005)

Wow. Walk away for a few hours and some really great advice hits the boards. It would appear that I have distracted the patient with a motivational speach and the Wolf came in with the hard medicine. But it is good medicine and needs to be said, and was said very well I might add. 

A few points to add (or agree with as the case way be)

First:  Handle this outside of the game. Small issues can be handled in game. This is not a small issue. 



> I’m a "narrative" minded DM, and several of the players are heavy "mechanical" players.




The Wolf and Mordmorgan are right, you need to step back and analize what you want out of the game and what your players want. You both need to be playing the same style of game. If it ends up being you, don't despair. You already seem frustrated by only playing once per month, so find a second group that does enjoy the same style you do. If their style of game enmass is different then yours then you may need to meet them on there playing field and find an additional outlet for what you want. That's what I ended up doing. I still play with my original group of years, but I realized that the game for them over the years has become less about Role-Playing and more about getting away from the kids and having a few drinks without the day to day RL issues. I realized I still wanted a story, role-playing, and serious adventuring without "break-out" conversations interupting the game. So now I play once a month with another group of friends I looked up to do the "serious" game with. I'm enjoying the "less serious" game much more now I understand the "metagame" and have an outlet for what I want.

ENWorld is another outlet   

Yea, it can be hard to find players, but its worth the effort. Check out the "Players Seeking Players" thread here in ENWorld. I'm not recommending you drop your players, just realize they are there to have fun also and you may need to let that group be, well... themselves.



> Outline at the beginning of the session that NO ONE should tell the DM how to run a encounter




Indeed. Better is what some DMs do. Have a hand out at the beginning of the campaign that details your: house rules, world specifics, and table rules. Be up front, consistent, and enforce those rules. You have a right to enjoy the game as much as they do and they cannot complain if you are up-front with the facts and consistent.

You can compromise on style but you don't need to be frutrated by poor behavior. Drop the hammer. You'll feel better and so will they if they want to play and get to do to less interuptions.

Final advice after reading these threads.

1. Take a deep breath.
2. Go find a cool drink and enjoy it.
3. Say: "I will enjoy my game again!"
4. Come back and re-read Mordmorgan's and Wolf's posts again. They said it the best.
5. Start enjoying your game!


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## DarrenGMiller (Jan 20, 2005)

Thanks Nightcloak.  Two months ago, I wouldn't have posted what I did.  I would have been the one asking for the advice (and often was).



> Drop the hammer.




I call it "breaking the conestoga wagon."

You see, I am a teacher.  During my first year of teaching, I knew an eighth grade social studies teacher with a last period class that gave meaning to the word incorrigible.  He had, on his desk, a wooden conestoga wagon.  It was the kind that was made of hundreds of tiny balsa wood pieces and took forever to build.  When asked, he would tell how a student in one of his classes several years earlier had painstakingly constructed it for him and given it to him as a gift before moving on to the high school.

When his class got TOTALLY out of control one day, in a desperate attempt to regain control and re-establish some semblance of order, he hefted the fragile wooden model in the air and smashed it on the floor.  Tiny wooden splinters went everywhere and the crash could be heard all over that part of the school.

The next day, my students told me of the incident (some of them had been present) and I took it upon myself to visit my co-worker and share my consolation over the loss of his treasured desk-piece.  I will never forget what happened next.  He told me, "Sometimes you have to break the conestoga wagon."  With that, he unlocked a cabinet in his storage closet and opened a drawer for me to peek inside.  What I saw shocked me.  There were about four more identical wagons in the drawer.

DM


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## ChaosEvoker (Jan 20, 2005)

MoGD said:
			
		

> My plan is as follows.
> 
> 1. Meta game penalty increased to 1000 Xp or 1 level per offense!!
> 2. Only use non standard monsters, and change up the old ones
> ...




1) I can tell you this will NEVER go over well. It will tick off your players and makes them more close minded and very not amiable.

2) There is no reason for this either, ultimately they shoudln't be questioning you, the DMG clearly states that you as the DM have the ultimate (almost god-like) powers over the rules. While you shoudl be REASONABLE, they have no right to tell you how to DM as long as you are being reasonable.

3) Or anything else for that matter.

4) I dont' fully understand this one sorry

Actually, after your campaign is over I STRONGLY suggest you have one of your players DM. It's easy to criticize until you get into the job. Once they have tried (and miserably failed) they will have more respect for you as DM. Now, I WOULD give them the option of questioning a call or something. If there is a dsipute let the RULEBOOKS be the END ALL to all arguments. Barring the rulebooks, due to house rules or issues not addressed by the rulebooks, the DM is the END ALL. If your players can't accept this they need to figure out how or stop playing the game.

I came up from 2E too and I can see what they might think. Just as humans grow and change over time, so do the monsters. They evolve. If your players have a problem with the new monster, use the correct and totally valid blanket answer of "It's evolved or changed over time." Each new edition (this is said outright by WotC in the FRCS) is a passage of time in the worlds.

Don't appear to be some kind of dictator either, talk honestly and straightforwardly (is that a word?) wth your players. Discuss it with them with civility and understanding, as long as they can do the same. hopefully, (being in your 30s and all) they will be reasonable and listen and compromise/give in.

Finally:
While I'm not an advocate of cursing in any situation, if your players are resorting to cussing the session needs to end, or be put on hold. Anyoen who is that angry over a game needs to calm down. Beign that rude to your friends ever is just unacceptable and ridiculous.

Ok I'm done...next post is to Y.O.Morales


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## ChaosEvoker (Jan 20, 2005)

@Y.O. Morales
Ok what you suggest I don't see as possible. Virtually anythign even remotely related to D&D or RPGs is taken care of by ENWorld. The purpose for the forum would be to allow us to have moderators, and allow us to do things that could be taken care of elsewhere on ENWorld but would be lost in the masses of other posts and make it difficult. The forum is to make the DMF extremely conveinent and organized, other than that, what CAN we do that isn't somewhere else on ENWorld?


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## Dyne (Jan 20, 2005)

Morbog of Ghetto D said:
			
		

> Greetings and salivations,
> 
> So heres the topic that has been killing me for 3weeks.  And you are the only people I can turn to.
> 
> ...




I'm gonna start with that I am fairly new to DMing, but I am very familiar with these problems. I've been DMing for almost 2 years now, and I encountered some of the same problems as you when I began.

First off, make sure you talk to the Players about any and all concerns you might have. DM-to-Player communication is the solution is the problem to most any DM-to-Player problem. You may be able to work something out with them.

It sounds like your Players are trying to be back-seat-drivers of the game. Since they seem compelled to run the game themselves, you might try letting people take turns behind the screen. I'm not sure how experienced the others are as far as DMing goes, but Players often misunderstand the difficulties of DMing, including preparation time and the ability to actually run a game session well. And if your Players see how crummy some of the others are at DMing, they might respect you as DM more.

1. In-game repercussions for out-of-game behavior should be done very rarely, if at all. If there's a problem out-of-game, it's best to handle it out-of-game. So, this might not be the best idea, and could add more tension.
2. I'm not sure of the purpose of this. If your group likes and is more familiar with the 2E monsters, you might just use those monsters, and adjust them a little to fit with 3E.
3. Be careful how you say this. You don't want to come across as a dictator of the game. You could explain to your Players that they need to just trust your judgment as DM, to do their jobs as Players and to let you do your job as DM. You could explain to them that this would be best to avoid tension in the game.
4. Not sure what you mean with this. If it regards arguments at the table, perhaps this may be best for your group. You could explain to them that there should not be arguing at the table, to prevent tension and to keep the game moving. Then again, there are some groups that prefer to discuss things with the rules on the spot. If it's out-right challenging your decisions as DM, they shouldn't ever be doing that.

Again, you might allow your Players to try out their DMing skills every once in a while. Or, you might get them more involved in the adventures, letting them control some of the NPC's. It might be interesting for the Players to be controlling the PC's _and_ the group of orcs that they are fighting. That is, unless your group will blame each other for what damage an NPC they control inflicts to their character.

In short, tell them to knock off all the crap. It's a game, and it needs to be fun. Tell them that they are making things unfun for you and probably each other.


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## Nightcloak (Jan 20, 2005)

Y.O.Morales said:
			
		

> I do NOT want to pay for the first year only for a group of people to continue an already-long thread or do other activities that could be done in other ENWorld forums (like the Play by Post).




While I cannot speak for the whole "vision thing", I can point out that you should not be paying for this yourself - we are a group. You've done a lot in getting this set up as is. I for one, and hopeful others, will help reinburst you for any costs.


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## Nightcloak (Jan 20, 2005)

wolf70 said:
			
		

> "breaking the conestoga wagon."




That story is great on multiple levels  

I'm not a teacher (kudoos to you!) but I am a business manager and I can relate in some ways to the frustration of training/teaching and leading people.

I'm going to tell people that story for years...


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## Mordmorgan the Mad (Jan 20, 2005)

Something I didn't think of yesterday: You may want to start a new campaign. One in which the OOC rules will be enforced. Take Nightcloak's suggestion and create a list of rules and give each player one. (This'll sound silly, but...) Make sure they read the rules, and make sure you see them do it.

I like to have each player make a binder that contains:
1. List of the Current House Rules and the OOC Rules (includes stuff on Metagaming)
2. Character Sheet and Notes (illustration optional)
3. Character History (both before the character became an adventurer and the character's journal/views on what's happened since that time)
4. A small folder containing DM notes on the character (I keep these folders at my house and remove this section before play. I also tend to at least skim over this part about an hour before the dice roll).

Creating a new campaign will sort of "reboot" everything and let them know that things have changed.

Basic Rules (at least the ones that really work for me):
1. No rules arguements during play.
     -All rules disputes will be handled after the session is over and one-on-one with the DM.
2. No swearing, threats, or generally bad OOC behavior at the table.
     -If you wouldn't say it infront of your kids, don't say it.
3. Everyone speaks in turn
     -Go clockwise around the table, starting with the DM, and state actions, ask questions, etc. (I don't use this much in my games, since my groups are no more than 3 people, but in larger groups I've found it's remarkably useful)

Hope this helps


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## siege72 (Jan 20, 2005)

A lot of great advice has already been offerred, so I won't jump on that bandwagon...


			
				Morbog of Ghetto D said:
			
		

> You see we're all 29+ in age and I now believe we're too smart for our own good.  we only play once a month (which sux) and we play for 4-8 good solid hours...



I guess the question is, who's schedule is the problem? If you want to play more than once a month, you can always start a second campaign, choose days and times convenient for yourself, and tell anyone who's interested when they need to show up. My group is almost exclusively "over 30", and some of the players can't play two weekends in a row. So I'm running two campaigns on alternating weekends (plus a weekday game for the diehards).

Another group I knew had a similar issue, but could only get together 4-6 times per year. They used a message board to handle all non-combat interactions, so that game time was completely focused.


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## ChaosEvoker (Jan 20, 2005)

Has anyone here even tried running the World's Largest Dungeon?


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## Xen155 (Jan 20, 2005)

*Ahem.*

Well, Chaos Evoker, I was considering running that particular dungeon, but I wasn't sure if I could Find any players man enough to play it. Oh well I guess I'll see......


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## ChaosEvoker (Jan 20, 2005)

You know I'm more than man enough for that one. Punk. <_<  >_>   O_O  What?


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## Blade of Desecration (Jan 21, 2005)

Anyone else got one of those vinyl grid pads?  They are by far the most useful gaming tool I have.  If you don't have one, get one.


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## Y.O.Morales (Jan 21, 2005)

Nightcloak said:
			
		

> While I cannot speak for the whole "vision thing", I can point out that you should not be paying for this yourself - we are a group. You've done a lot in getting this set up as is. I for one, and hopeful others, will help reinburst you for any costs.



Well, the actual story is that I'm not *paying *it; I already *paid *it.  Around April 2004 I bought a forum that I never used, and since I still don't see a use for it (until now), then I decided to donate it to the DMF.  Don't worry about paying me back; worry about getting the  thing done and maintaining the forum.   

@ ChaosEvoker:
What you say is actually true.  It is a matter of whether I want to donate the forum or not, instead of whether it will have a use (which will have).  *Still, I would like to read other opinions from DMF members and even EN Moderators about this whole forum idea.*


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## Mordmorgan the Mad (Jan 21, 2005)

Re: New Forum, I honestly don't care where the DM Foundation goes as long as our members move with us and we're able to attract new members. I've noticed that with each jump we've made (from the FR boards, to the Guild House, to Enworld threads I and II) we've lost a few members, but we've managed to keep the most dedicated and helpful ones. I guess I'd be for moving again if everything goes well.




Re: World's Largest Dungeon: I have a hard time believing they've created a believable plot line for that whole thing. It seems like it'd just be a massive series of rooms and monsters without any real connection to eachother.


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## Shuffle (Jan 21, 2005)

Just asking for opinions here, 
        What do people here think about DM's running PC's?   Personally I disagree, but I'm entering a campaign where the DM wants a PC to stay interested.  Just curious


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## Mordmorgan the Mad (Jan 21, 2005)

Let's apply the Triangle to the DMPC problem. The three sides of the triangle are: DM, PC, and Fun. You can only have two of these things at any one time.

Basically, the DMPC is a great way to get a DM to do a half-assed job. It destroyes combat because the DM is more worried about what the DMPC will do than running the monsters effectively.


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## Dyne (Jan 21, 2005)

Mordmorgan the Mad said:
			
		

> Let's apply the Triangle to the DMPC problem. The three sides of the triangle are: DM, PC, and Fun. You can only have two of these things at any one time.
> 
> Basically, the DMPC is a great way to get a DM to do a half-assed job. It destroyes combat because the DM is more worried about what the DMPC will do than running the monsters effectively.




Not necessarily. I've run a DMPC in times when we were short on Players, but my DMPC was more of an NPC to support and keep the PC's alive. Then again, this sounds like different circumstances.

You might tell the DM that if he wants to run a DMPC, then all the PC's should get a part in DMing. It's not fair for a person to have two roles simply because he wants to, and exclude everyone else from doing the same.

Now that I'm thinking of it, the whole thing sounds like a _really_ bad idea. If the DM wants to run characters to "keep his interest," then he should run NPC's. That's what a DM does. That's what I really like to do is create loads of different NPC's to keep my creative ideas flowing.


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## derbacher (Jan 21, 2005)

> If the DM wants to run characters to "keep his interest," then he should run NPC's.



Agreed. I have around five dedicated NPCs that are well known to my players. They have their own lives and goals, and only occassionally do they intersect with the PCs. I currently have a half-orc Ranger accompanying one group on a quest to stop an evil druid. With the other characters all being elves or half-elves, it makes for an intrersting evening of role-playing! Had the characters gone a different direction, they would not have re-encountered this ranger, and would not have known about the druid and his plans.



> Anyone else got one of those vinyl grid pads? They are by far the most useful gaming tool I have. If you don't have one, get one.




Yep, but I tend to cover it with clear plexiglass and draw on that with dry erase markers. Easier clean up, doesn't ruin my mat, and I can print out rooms and other areas and slide them under the plexi if needed.

NEW TOPIC:
Does everyone use minis or some other type of counter? I have taken to using Paint Shop and printing out counters for all my little creatures, and giving the players their choice of my collection of hand painted minis. (All my figures are the old lead kind, mostly Grenadier from the early eighties.)


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## Mordmorgan the Mad (Jan 21, 2005)

derbacher said:
			
		

> NEW TOPIC:
> Does everyone use minis or some other type of counter? I have taken to using Paint Shop and printing out counters for all my little creatures, and giving the players their choice of my collection of hand painted minis. (All my figures are the old lead kind, mostly Grenadier from the early eighties.)



In 12 years, I've never had to use minis or counters or anything. We tried using a whiteboard while playing CotSQ, but none of us really liked it. I used to play WH40K back in the day, so I have had some XP with using minis. I just find that, at least with D&D, I like to focus more on the roleplaying aspect, and using minis turns into more of a war game than anything else.


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## Treebore (Jan 21, 2005)

Mordmorgan the Mad said:
			
		

> Undermountain is too big to be a dungeon, it's a demiplane! I have to say that I really hate mapping dungeons. I really should buy a mapping program, but funds are short right now   . I prefer forests, chasms (sp?), and pretty much anything outdoors. I'll do dungeons occasionally, but I tend to keep them short (no more than 3 sessions).
> 
> [sblock]My fiancee really wants to get a cat. I haven't had the best experience with them (apparently my fingers taste like catnip), but I'll have to warm up[/sblock]





Get Autorealm. The free download works great, especially considering it is free, or was when I downloaded it.


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## siege72 (Jan 21, 2005)

derbacher said:
			
		

> Does everyone use minis or some other type of counter? I have taken to using Paint Shop and printing out counters for all my little creatures, and giving the players their choice of my collection of hand painted minis. (All my figures are the old lead kind, mostly Grenadier from the early eighties.)



Yup. My players all have their own minis.

For counters, I have a several different colored sets of glass beads (aka glass blobs, glass gems, etc). I have them marked/numbered in different ways for single and multi-square creatures.  At $2-$3 per bag, it's cheap to make an army   

Although for one creature, I did use a square coaster due to its size (5x5).


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## Dyne (Jan 21, 2005)

I've slinked to use ratty pieces of paper to represent creatures on the grid before. In any case, we've always used minis in some form or another.


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## Nightcloak (Jan 21, 2005)

Shuffle said:
			
		

> Just asking for opinions here,
> What do people here think about DM's running PC's?   Personally I disagree, but I'm entering a campaign where the DM wants a PC to stay interested.  Just curious




I've only seen this done once is a situation I thought was acceptable in theory... 

I played with a group who took turns DMing do to RL time issues to run a long term campaign. So when it was each DMs turn he would just "NPC" his character while running the game.

But in practice...

It still was bad IMHO. Either the DM didn't pay attention to the adventure (like combat!) enough to run things properly and eventually made mistakes. Or they ran the combats properly and ignored the "NPC" to much and accidently killed themselves. Nothing like the look on a DMs face who just off'd himself.   

Different groups may very results, but I would avoid it personally. However, you are not the DM so it is a matter of how acceptable the game is to you under the circumstances.


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## Nightcloak (Jan 21, 2005)

derbacher said:
			
		

> Yep, but I tend to cover it with clear plexiglass and draw on that with dry erase markers. Easier clean up, doesn't ruin my mat, and I can print out rooms and other areas and slide them under the plexi if needed.




Nifty idea. When I get some time, I'll have to try this.



> Does everyone use minis or some other type of counter? I have taken to using Paint Shop and printing out counters for all my little creatures, and giving the players their choice of my collection of hand painted minis. (All my figures are the old lead kind, mostly Grenadier from the early eighties.)




I let the characters choose from some of my limited mini collection or get their own.  I, however, use tokens - like the ones from Dragon and Dungeon magazine or the ones from Fiery Dragon. When I get time (always with the time) I scan odd stuff into the 'puter and photoshop it into a counter. I store and carry them in an organizer I bought from Michaels that was designed for beads or some-such.


Oh, and derbacher: glad to see you survived the meltdown and made it back!


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## DarrenGMiller (Jan 22, 2005)

I have only recently begun to use mini's every session.  They really help with battles in 3.x, way more than they were ever useful in 1E.  I have an extensive collection of classic poison... errr, I mean lead minis and a growing collection of the new plastic thingies.  I am nostalgic for my old hand-painted Ral Partha and Grenadier minis (circa 1978-1987), but when I have to transport literally hundreds of them (never know where PC's are going to end up really now, do we), I find throwing the plastic ones into a sealable plastic bag a whole lot easier, plus there is the whole lead issue.

DM


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## Blade of Desecration (Jan 22, 2005)

About DMPC:  It depends on the DM.  In that "bloodlines" campaign I was talking about earlier, everyone gets to DM their own stuff and campaign arcs (though I'm MDM).  Because of this, PCs often become DMPCs.  For instance, I am currently DMing, and my bard is basically a DMPC.  However, it doesn't matter in combat much, since his tactics are pretty straight-forward.  I built the entire character around RPing, so that is the field in which he really shines.  I don't give him special treatment, and I don't have him "accidentally" be the first one to know something.  So long as a DMPC is played well, it can work.


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## Aris Dragonborn (Jan 22, 2005)

On the DMPC: Currently, I'm going to be running a game with only two players, though they will be using Gestalt characters from the Unearthed Arcana. In this situation, if I'm missing a certain class (such as cleric), I'll stat up a quick NPC. He'll technically be a PC, but I'll run him as more of a henchman, where he doesn't make any decisions, or take any actions unless the PC's ask. This way, I won't be tempted to give away to much information (and yes, if I think that I've written a particularly good adventure, or found a good module, sometimes I want to share the coolness with my friends so much that I blurt things out).

On Minis: Limited funds and space. I do have a few of the D&D minis, and I hope that I'll be able to use them as something more than decoration in the future.

On Battlemats: Any good sites out there that carry any, preferrably dry-erase mats or something similar? Thanks.


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## Mordmorgan the Mad (Jan 22, 2005)

Blade of Desecration said:
			
		

> So long as a DMPC is played well, it can work.



As is the way with all things. Unfortunately, very, very few people have the ability to play a DMPC well. Personally, I avoid using the DMPC at all costs. I'd rather adjust everything else in the game than attempt to sit on both sides of the table. Of course, the amount of detail and complexity in my games makes it difficult to even DM, let alone worry about what "my" cleric or fighter is trying to do. I dunno. Maybe I lack the ability or insight needed to effectively run one of these monsters. (but I doubt it)


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## derbacher (Jan 24, 2005)

Well, the server move is over, and I seem to be the first one to check in here.   

Did everybody survive the weekend without Enworld?


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## siege72 (Jan 24, 2005)

derbacher said:
			
		

> Well, the server move is over, and I seem to be the first one to check in here.
> 
> Did everybody survive the weekend without Enworld?



Having it offline was a blessing for me... because of a snow cancellation I'm running _three_ games this week.    A few minutes here and  there add up...


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## derbacher (Jan 24, 2005)

> Originally posted by *siege72*
> Having it offline was a blessing for me... because of a snow cancellation I'm running three games this week.  A few minutes here and there add up...




Wow... I ran the normal sunday game for the kids (5 hours). I don't think I could write enough for three games a week!


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## siege72 (Jan 24, 2005)

derbacher said:
			
		

> Wow... I ran the normal sunday game for the kids (5 hours). I don't think I could write enough for three games a week!



Fortunately, two out of the three have enough inertia that I just need to freshen them up: new enounters, new monsters, and dropping more storyline hints. The one that needs the most work is this coming Sunday, so I have a little bit of time.

But I get to pull my favorite NPC out of "retirement", so I'm happy. Not that my players will be...


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## LilMissKittyn (Jan 24, 2005)

Wow. I think I just died (from server loss) and went to heaven (from server return).

YES, IT'S A JOKE! *fidgets nervously*

@Siege
What do you do for a living? Even if the other campaigns don't need a lot of work....heh...that's still a lot of time.
Just curious.


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## ChaosEvoker (Jan 24, 2005)

I have arisen from the ashes of the old ENWorld...AND HAVE BEEN BORN ANEW!!!!

Good to see it's back up.

@DMPCs
Ouch I HATE those. I have never seen that even remotely done well and will do virtually anything to avoid it.

@Minis
When we really started getting into the tactics we reallized that we ahd to have some kind of minis, we are getting there, but we only have a few figures. soon we'll get some more and it will be alot better.

By the way has anyone seen any good engines for massive combat? (as in large scale battles army vs army)


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## LilMissKittyn (Jan 24, 2005)

[sblock]Oh yeah, and I took that personality test on the dragon again and it came up white. Is that a CG alignment?....Just curious, since I thought it would be LG but apparently only gold and platinum are.
I'd look it up if I knew where to look....[/sblock]


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## LilMissKittyn (Jan 24, 2005)

post deleted


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## BSF (Jan 24, 2005)

Been crazy busy at work lately.  Knew the boards would be up/down a bit too.  But I am back and trying to participate a bit more this week./  



			
				Nightcloak said:
			
		

> Calling all DM's.
> 
> What was the most Rat Bastard thing you have pulled on your characeters? What plot, scheme, or event went off perfectly and caused gapes of horror and wonderment from the players?
> 
> Come on, admit it! We have all done it at one time or another. Come clean. We know you loved every minute!




Huh, not really sure.  But I will pick some of my favorite moments from my last campaign.  No spoilers to any of my players that way.  

So one of my players writes up this kinda wacky, convoluted history and I keep checking with him that he _really_ wants to have a history that sad.  He tells me he likes characters with a twisted history so I say "OK".  Tell him a few things to change in his background to fit with the game world a bit better and have at it.  

Get this, one portion of his history deals with his sister disappearing during a goblin attack on his home town.  His father dies in defending the town.  After the attack, some monks come down from the hills and take his brother for priest training.  In the next couple of years, his mother goes insane.  PC ends up running away from mom and asks the monks at the temple to take him in too.  

OK, pretty wacky so far.  Not a happy childhood.  As he gets older, he has weird dreams of his sister playing in a white dress and then suddenly being covered in blood.  Player wants a twisted background eh?  His older brother is out one day when a bunch of ... unknown creatures come in and slaughter all the clergy.  This propels his brother into position of the high priest.  

So far so good right?  Player wants a twisted background.  Here is one of the kickers - I haven't changed any of this.  This is the Player's writing so far.  

As the PC tries to become a cleric, he undergoes this trial where a bunch of the acolytes have to fight some goblins and then climb up to this shrine at the top of a mountain.  Several of the acolytes don't make it.  The general consensus is that they were too weak.  It's a shame, but these things happen.  The weak don't deserve to be blessed.

Here is another kicker.  The PC is supposed to be worshipping Pter the Crusader.  Pter's other titles include Pter the Protector.  Let's talk about my homebrew for a moment here.  I don't use one published god.  My entire cosmology and the gods are all homebrew.  I also don't adhere exactly to the rules.  Pter is a god of War, Good, Protection and Strength.  He is very good.  His followers include LG, NG, CG.  Though, anybody that fights evil can call upon him.  One of the aspects of Good in my games is compassion.  Pter fights evil.  He despises evil.  He expects his priests and devout followers to always fight evil.  Hey, Pter is popular amongst Paladins that want to worship a god.  But don't forget that Pter is good and thus he is full of compassion.  So we have these acolytes who are supposedly worshipping Pter and dying during their trials.  The official response of the church is that they were too weak and they aren't a loss if they are weak.  Umm, where did that compassion go?  (Good question.)

So I look at this background and the Players says he likes it to be twisted.  Hey, who am I to not cater to my audience.  I tell the Player that his PC hasn't received blessings and spells from Pter. He is a wannabe cleric.  There will be a RP event that he will need to work toward to become a cleric.  In the meantime, I might suggest fighter as a class.  Player is cool with this.  (Good players.)  His brother became distant and would often disappear after he became high priest.  Nobody else seems to notice, but the PC does.  After all, he is his brother.  Brother finally has a "revelation" and sends the PC to the campaign location as an emissary of the church and because he will have the opportunity to finally receive Pter's blessings.  Player writes in all appropriate changes.  Makes a cool character.  

I am looking at it and I have a minimum of one story arc to work from with his background alone.    I begin some history on what happened behind the screen.  I keep looking where I can integrate the missing sister.  Why you ask?  Well hell, she is missing since she was 5 and the PC has dreams about here.  Sounds like a good reason right?  Oh wait, there is one more detail I forgot to mention.  The Player named his mising sister Evilynn.  

I kid you not.  He even wrote it that way more than once in his background.  Evilynn.  And she appears in his dreams wearing white and then weraing blood.  You tell me, could you pass up this opportunity?

Excuse me?  Oh, you want to know where the Rat Bastard part comes in?  OK, I can see where that might be a bit interesting.  What did I do with this material?  Yeah, that makes a good story.  After all, there were a lot of events in the entire campaign that hooked off this background.  Nah, I don't mind if you take a seat.  Probably a good idea.  I'm gonna hit a chair myself.

Where do I start?  What the heck, I'll just pour out the background story for starters.  You know, the stuff the Player, and the PCs, didn't know as the game started.

OK, the PC's name is Aaron.  So Aaron's dad did something to get on the wrong side of a vendetta with a devil lord.  This devil lord is a creature simply called the Lord of Deception.  Actually, there are thousands of names it has been called over the eons.  I mean, soembody who makes their entire existence revolve around tirckery and deceit is going to have a lot of aliases.  Anyway, this devil lord decides to spend a bit of it's existence making some trouble for this family.  A curse on you and your children, and your children's children throughout all time.  Blah, blah, blah.  This devil lord has an order of monks that follow it.  Yeah, I know it sounds weird that somebody focused on trickery would be lawful, but this is where we insert bad lawyer jokes.  Yada, yada, yada.  The monks orchestrate an attack on the town using goblins as a way to take out Aaron's father.  Afterward, they take Aaron's brother, Jack, back to the temple to be trained as a priest of "Pter".  In this case, "Pter" is the Lord of Deception.  Yep, a Devil Lord impersonating a god of Good.  This is the type of thing that is the real Pter's nightmare.  Jack falls for the fake dogma, but Aaron doesn't.  

Oh, did I mention that Evilynn was actually abducted by a Nalfeshnee during the goblin raid?  That will be important later.

Aaron, the PC, retains too much actual goodness to ever become a false cleric of Pter.  That's why he can't become a cleric.  I set it up so he will become a cleric when he finds the true Pter.  Hey, don't worry.  I don't screw a player over just for the sake of doing so.  The campaign includes a Paladin of Pter as another PC.  (Actually a Hero, which is another homebrew thing.  But that's another story.)  There is also a Cathedral to Pter in the campaign location.  There are also smaller chapels that the PCs will find all over the place.  In short, Aaron is not going to have any lack of ways to find the true Pter.  

My thoughts were that the PC would figure out that something wasn't cool at home pretty early in the game.  The joke was on me though.  It took them a long, long time.  

Jack kept sending monks to bring Aaron home before he was contaminated by the bad temples of Pter that Aaron was encountering.  The party would fight these guys off and Aaron would scratch his head and try to figure out what was happening.  *sigh*  Aaron did figure out how to become a cleric around 4th level.  Even then, he wasn't entirely sure that Jack was wrong.  He thought that maybe Jack just had a slightly different perspective on Pter.  

So the group is cranking along around 7th level.  They have just accomplished a major victory that had some kickin' RP as well.  They are happy and cocky.  Aaron has had another (GM inspired) dream about his sister.  They come back to the home location for the game and find out an army of undead is on the way.  They pony up to offer to help fight the undead army.  OK, this actually segues in with an event that transpired with the first adventure of the game.  It is also one of the major story arcs.  Suffice to say that the PCs were indirectly responsible for the army of undead and they kind of knew it.  It wasn't a big surprise.  What was a surprise was the leader of the army.  

During the battle, every single soldier that wasn't a follower of Pter broke morale and ran.  It doesn't become apparent until much later that there was a custom built magic affect to cause that to happen.  The army was here to kill every follower of Pter that it could.  Heck, they were almost successful too.  There were only two followers of Pter left at the end of the battle.  Both were PCs.  Go figure.

The PCs have made a stand on a hill and done a damn fine job of it.  The battle is nearing completion and the undead swarm around the hill.  It's all heroic and the players are both excited and a little scared.  The undead stop advancing and part to allow two demons passage.  Following the demons is a girl.  She has blond hair, she is wearing a white dress, with little frilly gloves.  She is dainty, and cute as a button.  She snaps her fingers and has an imp deliver a letter to Aaron.  

This is classic.  We are dealing with a cleric who also has a high wisdom right?  Decent Will save right?  I have an actual prop of the letter.  Partway into it, I have a spot that says "Make a Will save".  He rolls a 1!  Muhahahahahah.  It couldn't have worked any better since I didn't want him saying anything when his missing sister calls the paladin out for a little one-on-one combat.  

Let me tell you a bit about Evilynn.  At this point, she is a Sorc 7, Ftr 4.  Yep, she alone outclasses most of the party.  She is also insane.  She has three personalities.  The Nalfeshnee that kidnapped her has been feeding her stories about how Pter failed her father.  He has also been telling her stories about how her brothers worship a devil.  (Hey, he was half right.)  Evilynn hates Pter.  She has orchestrated this entire attack to wipe out the followers of Pter.  She also hopes that maybe her brothers will see the light and will come help her.  Sure, they would then be following a demon, but that's just a minor detail.  Evilynn is also a buff monkey.  By the time the fight with the paladin started, she had an AC into the 30's.  The poor paladin never even hit her.  She would taunt him one round, dance around, then occasionally swing and hit him.  She told him before the fight began that she would "Kick his --- and kiss him."  She did too.  She brought him to staggered, kissed him, then knocked him out.  She then got all sad about the "poor paladin", then got mad and started kicking him again.  Then she cut off his shield hand, and left.  She had the imp grab his hand and leave.  

Yeah, the rest of the party was busy with other things while this was happening.  I'm just covering the interesting parts.

Aaron was not pleased that his sister had been "found".  The paladin was not pleased that she had cut off his hand and taken it away.  I was thrilled that I had tied up one PC's history into two major story arcs and personally goaded the players to find a way to figure out that the hell was happening.  

One PC's family was responsible for 2/3 of the bad things that happened in the campaign.  The PCs personally intervened and gave Jack the artifact that their father had died protecting.  They chased Jack down into his sanctum and Aaron personally watched his brother cast the Plane Shift spell that took Jack (and the artifact) to the home plane of the Lord of Deception.  They did manage to save Evilynn and even repaired her broken mind so that the non-evil personality became dominant.  This gave them a lot of information in story arc #1 and allowed them to actually save the world.  

The campaign had both success and failure.  Both drive character growth.  Aaron's player loved it.  Most of the other players had a damn good time too.  It was a good campaign and it is too difficult to run over every interesting highlight in the span of a single post.  But I had many, many nights where the players would look at me from across the table and curse me.  All with a smile.  We had a blast, and that is what it is all about, right?


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## Darkness (Jan 24, 2005)

Shuffle said:
			
		

> Just asking for opinions here,
> What do people here think about DM's running PC's?   Personally I disagree, but I'm entering a campaign where the DM wants a PC to stay interested.  Just curious



 I disagree with the very concept.
If a DM "needs" a PC of his own to stay interested, he shouldn't be DMing in the first place.

In a perfect world, that is. In reality, sometimes a group has nobody who's both willing and able to DM and so someone who'd rather play has to DM.[sblock]Tangent: Personally, I've never run into the problem, given that I want to entertain people (thus, DM) rather than play, while almost all role-players I've met IRL much prefer playing. When I play, I tend toward support roles (tactical advisor, sniper, party leader if nobody else is, etc.).
The thought of a DMPC never occurred to me until I heard other people talk about it some years ago.[/sblock] If this person's desire to play is very great and they want a DMPC so they can play too, this can be a quandary:
1. Not allowing them a DMPC can be detrimental to the game. (Bored/frustrated DM = less good DM.)
2. Allowing them a DMPC can be detrimental to the game. (Due to a conflict of interests.)
 It's best if this problem can be solved indirectly, e.g., by rotating the DM position, or if the involuntary DM can find the good things about DMing. Only if that's not viable should a DMPC even be considered (IMNSHO, YMMV, etc.). Also, getting someone else to DM who's not quite as suitable can be a good option instead, as necessary splitting of the DM's attention between DMing and running his PCs will more often than not impact his DMing ability anyway.

So... If one is necessary, how does one go about running a DMPC without a conflict of interests?
IMO, when you create a DMPC, you should go in _expecting_ to sacrifice this character's life for the well-being of the PCs. And then do exactly that, should it become necessary. Play a martyr. Or someone madly (and preferably secretly and hopelessly, to prevent intra-party conflicts involving the DMPC) in love with another PC. Or a suicidal person. Whoever this character is, he must be absolutely ready to die for the party at a moment's notice.
Sounds harsh? Only if you don't like a challenge. Being a (reasonably) impartial DM is more important than personal gratification. Also, the PCs are the stars. The DM's character shouldn't overshadow them and going in with the right attitude (see above) kinda takes care of that problem.
Besides, if you're a role-player, a suicidal/fanatically loyal character is just one role among many. The certainty of death is also very liberating. If you're going to die anyway, you have nothing to lose, right? So play your character to the hilt. And if you've done a good job, the PCs just might get you _raised_ when you die to protect them. Even if they can't (no money, no body, etc.), they'll remember your character. And that's what counts, right?


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## Nightcloak (Jan 24, 2005)

Mordmorgan the Mad said:
			
		

> Personally, I avoid using the DMPC at all costs. I'd rather adjust everything else in the game than attempt to sit on both sides of the table.




Exactly my line of thought, which is scary... you must be my long lost evil twin.



> Of course, the amount of detail and complexity in my games makes it difficult to even DM, let alone worry about what "my" cleric or fighter is trying to do.




Ditto... Er, I mean: Show Off!   



> Maybe I lack the ability or insight needed to effectively run one of these monsters.




Lack off aptitude from the man residing in Barovia! I think not! 




> (but I doubt it)




Busted!!!

Don't ever change


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## Nightcloak (Jan 24, 2005)

BardStephenFox said:
			
		

> Been crazy busy at work lately.  Knew the boards would be up/down a bit too.  But I am back and trying to participate a bit more this week./




I can relate to the RL issues. Great to see you back! 




> So one of my players writes up this kinda wacky, convoluted history...




I'm glad to see your players so involved in the story process. It really does take the game to a different level when the players get involved. 

Odd choices for a background, but I certainly can’t fault the commitment to role-playing. What a great storyline to unfold! You need to bottle that role-playing enthusiasm and sell it those of us with kick-in-the-door players.


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## Evilhalfling (Jan 24, 2005)

DMPC

I have played a DMPC, 14 yrs back, but have run several NPC’s with the party on adventures. From the easily incapacitated patrol leader, to a deathless psionic Halfling who the party dragged along as squire, as part of an atonement quest that would release him into death.  Like Darkness suggested the Halfling lasted two games before sacrificieing himself to save a PC’s life.  Not to beat the adventure, as that would have seemed like taking away the limelight. 

I have a related question, which do you think is the best way to handle a shortage of players ?
say you are down to 1or 2 PCs 
1. DMPC 
2. 2x PC's per player 
3. Henchman or followers 
4. take a break, recruit more players 
5. Alter the adventure to fit 2 characters


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## Xen155 (Jan 24, 2005)

*The DMF Seperate Forum*

One thing I think would be nice about the DMF Forum is that good questions and disscusions wont be lost. Like Y.O.'s request for opinions on the seperate forum (which btw I like and will support). And old descusions can be brought back up quickly and easily by just posting in that discussions threads. When anyone had something like the DMPC it could have its own thread and go without interuptions.


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## Darkness (Jan 24, 2005)

Evilhalfling said:
			
		

> I have a related question, which do you think is the best way to handle a shortage of players ?
> say you are down to 1or 2 PCs
> 1. DMPC
> 2. 2x PC's per player
> ...



I tend toward higher-level PCs, weaker opposition, and/or making it easy for the PCs to recruit allies, hire mercenaries, or start with (and later replace lost) followers.
Giving the PCs higher ability scores than most NPCs have (the ones with PC classes, that is) helps too but I do that in any case. 
UA offers a few other options as well: Gestalt characters and Action Points both help to make PCs more effective. So do some other options (e.g., reserve points).
Further, you can just make life easier for the PCs. For example, you can put a temple into your campaign where they can get healing very cheaply (or even for free). Same thing with merchants (though if they're giving the PCs stuff for free, it probably should be the king's armory or some such instead).


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## BSF (Jan 24, 2005)

Nightcloak said:
			
		

> I'm glad to see your players so involved in the story process. It really does take the game to a different level when the players get involved.
> 
> Odd choices for a background, but I certainly can’t fault the commitment to role-playing. What a great storyline to unfold! You need to bottle that role-playing enthusiasm and sell it those of us with kick-in-the-door players.




It is a mixed bag of results.  I think some of the players enjoyed the last campaign, but are afraid of having their backgrounds become so integral to the story.  For the current campaign, one of them wrote up a nice background, then decided his PC was an amnesiac.

So I just changed the reason for his amnesia a little. 

A couple of weeks ago, he finally got a brief snippet of the history as to why he doesn't remember anything.  He wasn't pleased to find out that an NPC considered him a toy and erased his entire memory when she got bored with him.  

I always hated the amnesiac background.  That and  the "I am an orphan and I have no friends" story background.  If I pick on a PC, those are two background styles that increase the odds it wil be your PC.


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## Belen (Jan 24, 2005)

ChaosEvoker said:
			
		

> Hail and welcome to a glorious foundation:
> The Dungeon Master Foundation
> The purpose of this Guild is to provide a place for DMs to complain, share ideas, get ideas, and generally have a blast with our omisience Ah yes...the beauty of omnipotency.
> This is an oasis of sorts, an oasis in the desert of players. New DMs can find advise from wise and aged ones. The counsil will review applicants and make decisions. I will serve as a Overseer of the Counsil of sorts. I will make sure that the counsil is serving the DMF well. If any counsil member becomes disruptive, they shall be removed after careful consideration by the other counsil members and myself. Now for the requirements for applicants
> ...





How about a spelling foundation?    In a land where council is not spelled counsil.


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## BSF (Jan 24, 2005)

Hoo boy!  This is a doozy.  OK, the problems exist on many levels here.  I am going to try  to snip liberally because this is going to be long as it is.



			
				Morbog of Ghetto D said:
			
		

> Anyway.  Seems to me that the campaign is just getting out of hand with non stop meta gaming, arguments, of all things 2nd GUESSING THE DM!




At the core, this is an issue of trust.  The players don't trust that you know what you are doing, or that you won't arbitrarily screw them over, or that you are not interested in running a game that will cater to their desires.  Unfortunately, trust is generally earned, not arbitrarily given.  This is why it is so important that the first adventure or two of a new campaign are top notch.  



> As we all know DMing is a thankless job, and requires a big investment in time.
> Sadly I have players counting move squares and telling me what i can do and cant do.  Of course its all through the players perspective, and they assume that the rules are applied 100% the same for monsters and such.




Well, see this is part of the problem.  Why aren't the rules the same for NPCs and PCs?  3.x gives you a great toolkit to twist and break the rules when you need to.  Namely in the category of feats.  If there is something that is "broken" about your monsters/NPCs, be sure you back it up with a game mechanic that allows it to be "broken".  Arbitrarily applying different rules to NPCs than you do to PCs breaks the trust that you know what you are doing, or won't arbitrarily screw over the PCs, or both.  

Allow me to reiterate.  Apply the rules exactly the same.  Just be sure you provide an in-game reason why this particular NPC can twist those rules.  Just be prepared for your PCs to look for a way to do the same trick if it was a particularly interesting gimmick. 



> My response has been a swift dismissal of question or concern, mainly because If I indulge the player,  we have 5 arm chair DMs (who have never dmed) hypothessizing about decisions that they arent required to worry about.




Agreed, this is very annoying.  Make it a habit of spending a little time out-of-game to address these concerns.  Do not dismiss the question, postpone it until a non-game time.  Heck, you have a month between sessions?  Make a yahoo group and delegate all rules questions to there.  This does not mean you need to spill all the secrets in answering them.  It can suffice to say "It's a feature of a PrC you are not aware of."  Or "There are certain feats that are available which allow something like that.  Unfortunately, many of them have a prerequisite of being undead."  

Arbitrary secrecy creates distrust.  Once your players trust you more, they will question things less.



> Im a "narative" minded DM, and several of the players are heavy "mechanical" players.
> its to the point where Im saying," Well youre so F%$#@#$% smart why dont you run the game!.  Buy the books,paint the leads, draw the maps, create the prestige clasesses..etc.etc.etc.




It sounds like you also have some playstyle differences.  Narrative styles do not preclude a strong mechanical understanding of the game.  DnD 3.x provides a very strong mechanical baseline.  Some deride this as being too video-gamey.  Whatever.  There is a  strong benefit to that baseline in that it provides a baseline that we all begin from.  With that baseline in place, you can empower the players by delegating many tasks off to them.  Previous editions were a bit more open-ended and it wasn't uncommon for players to develop a habit of arguing their perspective  so they can do nifty things.  With 3.x, there are the rules.  Then there are feats, which can break the rules.

Classic example:  You can only use one AOO a round.  Combat Reflexes gives you more AOOs if you have a higher dexterity.  You have your rule.  You have your feat that breaks the rule.  If a PC wants to be fast on their feet and always able to take advantage of an opening when an opponent drops his guard, that PC had better have a good dex and take combat reflexes.  



> They so badly want to apply 2nd edition knowledge, it kills them.  especially with "known" monsters.  I have therefore started using "non Traditional" monsters, or archetypes.  3.5 rules give old monsters new capabilites as feats... The players just want to know WHY?
> My thinking is"well solve this problem in game, and in character.  Maybe the PC can research undead types in the church/librabry.  Maybe you can seek out a sage?"...It just blows my mind. Especially when a PC is telling me how to run a MONSTER that I CREATED!...




First, you have a copy of each PC right?  Including skill bonuses right?  Start each encounter with a brief description.  Then ask everyone for a d20 roll.  If they ask why, and they will, tell them it is for a knowledge check.  Remind them that Knowledge skills can't be used untrained.  Do *NOT* tell them what kind of Knowledge check you are looking for.  When they roll, and give you the results, then apply any applicable skill bonuses and tell them what they know about the monster.  They may buck the idea initially.  "Everyone would know what that is."  Why?  There is a mechanic in the game to reflect that knowledge.  If you want to know what "everyone" would know.  Take a rank, or half-rank.  One skill point is enough to get you a die roll that would tell you the basics if you roll high enough.  

Use odd monsters.  Might I suggest the Tiefling template on your trolls?  That energy resistance 5 is pretty tasty.  Half fiendish is nice as well.  Hell, make all your trolls tieflings and make it a campaign element.  Is it fair?  Maybe not.  But it does emphasize how 3.x allows you to easily change monsters.  



> My plan is as follows.
> 
> 1. Meta game penalty increased to 1000 Xp or 1 level per offense!!
> 2. Only use non standard monsters, and change up the old ones
> ...




1 - Nah, if you really feel the need to penalize them, then just don't give them exp for that encounter.  But why do that at all?  Change your style a little bit and the problem goes away.
2 - Non-standard monsters, templated monsters, monsters with class levels, advanced monsters and the like are all good options.  Take it step further though.  Stop using monsters entirely.  Why not use humanoids?  It's hard to metagame what an evil humanoid can do.  
3 - Better yet, laugh when they tell you how you should run an encounter.  Politely remind them that you are not a video game server and they aren't the DM.  You have NPCs that they have not learned the capabilities of yet.  
4 - Definitely!



> One of my players even called me a M.F.er which is totally out of hand...




Don't invite this player back.  Explain that you put in a lot of time and effort into the game and if he can't respect that, you don't need him at the table.  

I have had players say similar things to me, but always in the manner of jest.  Within one of my circles of friends, when I was younger, we all spoke to each other like that.  I occasionally get similar responses from my players.  They are always in the same vein as a rat-bastard DM exclamation when I have pulled off something they did not expect.  Especially when it was with thier unwitting help and they now have something new to deal with in the game.  I have never had a player say something like that and mean it.  

To be honest, you hold the solution to many of these problems in your hands.  Yeah, that sounds harsh, but it is true.  It isn't always fair that the DM has to handle these things.  But there you have it.

As a final suggestion, I would encourage you to frankly speak with the players.  Tell them how you feel.  Tell them why they are wrong about some of the monsters.  Tell them that they need to seek ways of applying knowledge in-game and that metagame knowledge will either change the encounter (It's easy to slap a template on something if you need to) or will result in no exp for the encounter.  All the risk with none of the reward.  Explain that the game isn't you vs them.  Then sit back and *listen* to what they say.  If you are lucky, they will be honest with you and you will be able to quickly determine where the problems stem from.  Have a thick skin (Natural Armor bonus of +3 or more) and don't get embroiled in an emotional outburst.  If you really want to make your game better, then you need to know what the players really think.


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## BSF (Jan 24, 2005)

Mordmorgan the Mad said:
			
		

> Let's apply the Triangle to the DMPC problem. The three sides of the triangle are: DM, PC, and Fun. You can only have two of these things at any one time.
> 
> Basically, the DMPC is a great way to get a DM to do a half-assed job. It destroyes combat because the DM is more worried about what the DMPC will do than running the monsters effectively.




This is good general advice, but it isn't always true.  

*shakes head in disbelief*  
Let me share with you a little experience I had.  Last campaign, I wanted the main PCs to have more downtime.  I also wanted to show off different aspects of the game world and have a fallback position if a player couldn't make a crucial session.  Since one of the early PCs had left the group in-character (Player brought in a new PC when this happened), I revisited that PC.  This PC had volunteered to serve the local lord, thus taking her out of the adventuring group.  I decided the local lord would set her up special-forces style.  So, what I did was talked with the player, then setup a thread on the messageboard I was running at the time.  Basically, it was a thread asking for volunteers for a special task force.  They would have to interview with the established PC.  OOC - I told the players to make a PC that would pass muster, create a new account, login as that new PC and post in the interview thread.  I made it clear that I didn't need to accept PCs, the established PC had to accept them onto her team.  

The player posted the general questions the PC would ask and much fun was had with in-character interviews.  Actually, it was great!  One Player tried to get a questionable character in and was rejected.  They did some great scene painting.  The group ended up with 10 total memebers out of a 7 member group.  

Eh?  What?  The math doesn't work out.  Oh yeah, I threw a couple of ringers into the group to try to keep it lively.  (I hate the PC halo affect where you accept any other PC just because the guy sitting at the table won't have anything to do if you reject him.)  I was surprised when all my NPCs were accepted.  

I was even more surprised when the players wanted me to keep them in the game.  

We had a good time with it and those NPCs turned out to be some of the groups favorite NPCs.  But it was a little bit of work to pull it off.  First of all, once it became clear that they wanted me to keep the PCs in the game, I statted them out and always kept them 1 level below the party average.  They were good at what they did.  Good enough not to be a liability, but not so good as to outshine everyone else.  Two of the NPCs were easy to run being a rogue and a fighter/rogue.  The third was a cleric.  Fortunately, the party took care of the cleric in the first adventure the group went on.  He got caught KO'd in a friendly flamestrike.  Oops!  He didn't make his save.  I didn't even roll.  He just didn't make a save.
For the remaining two DMNPCs, I was able to run both of those NPCs quicker than many of the opponents.  They weren't stupid, but the range of options kept it easy.  I was also never afraid to hand them off if necessary.  If it was going to be a large, complicated combat, I would offload those two NPCs to any player that wanted to run them.  They all knew what the personalities were like and I would summarize quickly as well.  Even when the NPC was in somebody elses hands, they were pretty much true to character.  (OK, that is a testament to my players as well.)  It worked out well.  Better than I ever expected.   But it was a bit of work and I specifically did everything I could to make the DMNPCs useful resources.  I didn't need them to "keep interested in the game".  It was an experiment that went off in a direction I didn't expect.


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## ChaosEvoker (Jan 24, 2005)

*Stuff*

@BelenUmeria
If your going to drop by this place just to criticize the spelling (which btw is NOT wrong) then don't post. Please don't be a jerk.

@LMK
Yeah becuase I'm sure the Total War company is just going to hand me their engine that they spent year upon year developing....


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## Treebore (Jan 24, 2005)

On the DMPC thing, I don't see how a DM can have a PC and be DMing. What are they paying attention to? I have seen plenty of DM's, myself included, who run NPC's as members of the party, but they are NOT ran like a PC would. Simply because a DM doesn't have the time to pay that kind of attention to the NPC to have it be a "PC".

I think you might be referring to those DM's who run a NPC, who is really their favorite PC, and the game/adventure/campaign somehow revolves around what this "NPC" says and does, despite what the players and their "PC's" do. 

Otherwise I have been fortunate enough not to ever run into a DM who runs a "PC" while they are DMing. Since I have been playing for 20 years this March, and have played with 100's of people (ahhh, gaming in the military!), it sounds like I have been very lucky.


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## Blade of Desecration (Jan 25, 2005)

@BSF:  BardStephenFox, you're my hero.  Damn, why don't my PCs make that indepth histories?


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## Mordmorgan the Mad (Jan 25, 2005)

Nightcloak said:
			
		

> Exactly my line of thought, which is scary... you must be my long lost evil twin.



Hmmm...maybe, but I killed him years ago. Back from the dead?



> Don't ever change



 


P.S. Is anyone else having problems seeing the smilies? None of mine come up.

@BSF: Unless I specifically know the person I'm speaking to, I try to give fairly general advice. Everything has an exception, even the things I say (sorry to shatter your world, Nightcloak   ).


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## BSF (Jan 25, 2005)

Mordmorgan the Mad said:
			
		

> @BSF: Unless I specifically know the person I'm speaking to, I try to give fairly general advice. Everything has an exception, even the things I say (sorry to shatter your world, Nightcloak   ).



No problem.  Two, maybe three years ago I would have offered the same advice.  that campaign made me, um reappraise my thoughts.    The original poster of the question didn't provide much info and I thought I would buck the trend and point out that it _could_ work out well.  I think the key phrase in all of this is that the DM needs a DMNPC to "Keep interested."  That phrase right there is _probably_ an indicator of what a player can expect out of the game.  

But still, this is the DMF right?  Might as well turn the question into a way for other DMs to look at a scenario and find a way to plot around it.


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## Gundark (Jan 25, 2005)

could I join as well? please


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## Darkness (Jan 25, 2005)

ChaosEvoker said:
			
		

> If your going to drop by this place just to criticize the spelling ... then don't post.



 Right, there's thousands of other threads in EN World you can read instead.


			
				Mordmorgan the Mad said:
			
		

> Is anyone else having problems seeing the smilies? None of mine come up.



 I have the same problem.


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## Mordmorgan the Mad (Jan 25, 2005)

Gundark said:
			
		

> could I join as well? please



But of course!


Announcing the Dungeon Masters Foundation's Newest Member:
Gundark


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## Mordmorgan the Mad (Jan 25, 2005)

Evilhalfling said:
			
		

> I have a related question, which do you think is the best way to handle a shortage of players ?
> say you are down to 1or 2 PCs
> 1. DMPC
> 2. 2x PC's per player
> ...




I find that #s 1 & 2 tend to cut roleplaying down significantly.

Henchmen/followers can be a good idea, especially if the PC has Leadership. The most important part of this feat is for the DM and PC to agree to run the NPC Cohort/follower together (i.e. alternating control when appropriate).

Taking a break, at least in my experience, can be a bad thing. Unless you've got players who are unusually dedicated to playing (which a few of mine aren't), you might actually lose people.

I think it's fairly obvious which choice I use (#5 for those not paying attention). I find that this method gives me license to tinker with a few other things while I'm at it. Whenever possible, I like to customize the game to my PCs.


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## ChaosEvoker (Jan 25, 2005)

Yeah I can't see teh smileys either :-/

I think my question got lost, but I'd really like to know, does anyone have or know of a good engine/rules system for large scale war-liek combat?


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## Nightcloak (Jan 25, 2005)

ChaosEvoker said:
			
		

> Yeah I can't see teh smileys either




Me neither.




> does anyone have or know of a good engine/rules system for large scale war-liek combat?




I own Cry Havoc, which looks good. But I haven't used it yet. Also, Testamant - by Green Ronin has a large scale combat system in it. 

One book I've read a lot of good things about but haven't picked up yet is Fields of Blood: Book of War by Eden Studios.


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## Yair (Jan 25, 2005)

ChaosEvoker said:
			
		

> Yeah I can't see teh smileys either :-/
> 
> I think my question got lost, but I'd really like to know, does anyone have or know of a good engine/rules system for large scale war-liek combat?



 See here


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## Yair (Jan 25, 2005)

*DMing advice*

So, I got bored and wrote an article on DMing. I would love some suggestions, comments, or any interaction really 

*Running a Great Game*
DMing is not difficult – anyone can grab the core rules, flip to some monsters in random and be a DM to the other players. Being a great DM, running games that will be remembered and cherished and enjoyed, is of course much more difficult. There is no single answer on how to accomplish this, but here are my thoughts on the subject.

A great game is composed out of great sessions. Each session is several hours long, and is supposed to be *fun* or all players (that includes the DM), that what's makes it great. It is the DM that directs the session, and you should plan it accordingly. That's right, you should plan not just the *adventure*, you should plan every *session*. Try to make each one a complete story, with the plot structure, accessories, ambient music or NPC acting to elicit the desired effects. Design each session to provide an emotional rollercoaster for your players – a rollercoaster sometimes speeds crazily in mind-boggling heights and turns, but sometimes all but stops or builds up speed towards a looming turn – and so must your session provide a good, varied, emotional ride.

Different players enjoy different things, as do DMs. If your players want to play a high-octane action-packed game and you plan for a romantic comedy, you may be in for a surprise. Talk to the players before and after sessions (not just before the campaign) to try to get what they want, what they like, and what they dislike. If you feel it would be useful, there are those that categorize players into different groups of needs (Gamers, Simulationists, Drama Queens, and so on) – you can google it or buy a book like *Robin's Laws of Good Dming* to help you understand your players' needs. Fit the plots and adventures to this, and try to include elements that all players will enjoy. If the differences are too great consider breaking the group, you can't have everything. I'm always puzzled by players or DMs playing games they don't enjoy.

A d20 adventure uses the d20 rules, and with that comes the excellent CR and EL system. Use it. EL allows you to measure the depletion of the character's resources. Keep it in mind as you plan the adventure and session. An encounter that would be a walkoever for a fresh party can provide a real danger for an exhausted one, and a tough encounter for a fresh one could very well end in a total party kill (TPK) after they have been through some others. Provide safe places for the characters to heal and rest, to resplendish their resources. The hard part is to fit this together with the plot flow. I suggest you first figure out the plot, then assign ELs and arrange resting points so that together each day will be challenging, and finally assign CRs and build NPCs according to the EL.

Finally, an adventure spans several sessions, and a campaign several adventures. It helps to keep a blurry idea of the campaign's main plot line in mind, and even that of a few future adventures. You can then sprinkle hints and foreshadow them in the current one. Sprinkle some red herrings too, it's always fun to see the player's stumble around aimlessly following one and their fears often give rise to your greatest ideas. Don't let them fumble in the dark too much, however – keep a tight squeeze on your current plot structure, and use the wild goose chases as diversions, interludes, comic relief, or other elements *within* the overall structure. Above all,the players will invariably make a mess of your long-term plans (probably your short term ones too), so DON'T invest too much into them. This is an easy mistake to make – don't fall into that trap. You have limited creativity and time, use them to enhance your current adventure and leave future adventures flimsy enough so you can abandon them without great loss and sorrow.

Weaving all of this together is a difficult and complex matter. But there is a trick to handling complex matters – you break them up into little chunks until each chunk is small enough to be handled on its own. With that in mind, let's take a closer look at each of these parts: starting a campaign, writing or adapting an adventure plot, designing a session emotionally, designing and picking combat encounters in d20, and weaving sessions into adventures and adventures into campaigns. Fortunately, we are not the first to struggle with any of those issues and there are tools to help you out, you don't need to invent the wheel here.

*Starting a Campaign*
Perhaps you have this great idea for a campaign – “ninja pirates fighting off the evil general Chu-Mi-Li!”, you have all the plot set right down to the general's last words in the climatic ending. Or perhaps you have no idea what you want to run. Don't worry, both can lead to a great game. Really! The important thing about a campaign is NOT the initial grand idea, it is how the campaign is played out.

Even if you don't have a campaign idea, you probably have a “what I want to do” idea – you want to play a certain kind of game. Don't sweat the campaign setting then – just choose one that you think will be easy to implement and stick with it. Some prefer well-detailed settings for this, such as the Forgotten Realms, while others prefer undefined homebrews so that the only things known and decided are those that were important enough for the game and they have lots of leeway. Choose your preferred option, and go for it.

It is a good idea to devote one session to brainstorming with your regular or intended group, or at least to talk things over in some other medium. Make it very clear what the mood of your game will be - “I want to run a standard D&D game, you know, hack, slash, take the loot” or “I want a wuxia-movie style, with flying-like acrobatics and ninja-fu!” or anything like that. Don't say “In this particular campaign I would like to emulate the baroque stylistic aspects of Titus Groan, in a clever allegoric tale that will teach us about our moral beliefs and deepest desires”; that kind of stuff just doesn't wok in practice (in my experience), all you can really promise is how you intend to game in terms of mood and how your games usually are. Maybe you will manage to weave a fantastic moral epiphany out of it, but things rarely turn up as planned and you'll often just won't tell the tale you intended to.

This is also a good point to ask about character backgrounds, decide on campaign issues, house rules, generate characters, and so on.


Don't fall into the house rules trap. You don't need as many house rules as you think. Try to stick to the ones that actually make a difference large enough and improve the game for the players enough to make them worthwhile. As much as it bugs you that Dodge provides only a +1 bonus instead of +2 (for example), it isn't worth fiddling with it. If on the other hand a player complains that he never remembers to apply Dodge and it annoys him that he almost died because of it, it might be wise to have Dodge as “+1 dodge bonus to AC against all opponents”, even if that makes it “too powerful” slightly. Make the changes that improve your actual game or are necessary to the world (“no teleporatation magic”), not the changes that will make it a better game. And above all, try to keep them to a minimum; long documents of house rules are generally only read by the persons that wrote them. And that's a fact.


You may not be great at coming up with names (I'm not). You may have trouble portraying NPCs, or adjudicating rules, creating believable worlds, or something. Don't sweat it – everyone has his weaknesses, this isn't that bad. If you want to work on your weaknesss fine, you can purchase books on the matter, delve deeply into rules discussions to become a rule guru, or whatever. But in my experience this isn't all that important. Delivering a good fun game can be done by everyone, everyone just naturally does it differently.

You can consider appointing a beta-DM. Perhaps you can annoit one of the players as a Rules-Lawyer, to judge all rules questions unless you say otherwise. Or have someone else design the geography of the world, perhaps working together on the cultural background and stuff. Or have someone be the Greyhawk Encyclopedia, answering questions about the world unless you say otherwise. Make sure you ARE the final authority (or have some method of working together), someone needs to be the last arbiter and it better be you or your adventures may run into problems.


By now you should have a good idea on the type of stories you want to play in the campaign, and maybe even an overarching story arc for it all. You should now choose a few adventures you want to play in it – one to begin it with, and preferably a few more. They don't have to be consecutive, and you don't need to know them well. You just need to know their basic premise and decide there are tales you want to explore in your campaign.

You can do worse than browse through published adventures. Even if you don't like them or the levels don't match or something, good ideas always help. Or you could quickly jot down possible adventure ideas for the future; make a list of 10 or 15 adventure ideas. Lists help, you'll be surprised at your own creativity.

Don't delve deeply into any of them at the moment. Just have a rouge idea, don't memorize them or anything. You have limited time, the whole idea here is to get an idea of what future adventures would be LIKE and to decide on the first adventure.

*Adapting an Adventure Plot to Play*
You'd think that if you purchased an adventure all you have to do is to read it and then play it out, and you're all set. You'd be wrong. While that can work if you're pressed for time, it really is better if you adapt the adventure to your particular game. Hardly any experienced DM plays an adventure as-is (from my experience), even ones he wrote himself! If you plan your own adventure, keep it very loose at this stage – just the general hook (preferably several!), main idea, and perhaps some great scenes you want to try out or some rules you want to test/exploit or some future plot element you want to insert (“you find the One Ri... errg... an unassuming golden ring. Yes, that's it.”). 

Consider your players, of course, and try to see what in the adventure will interest or upset or bore each. Try to remove the boring or upsetting stuff, even one such player can ruin a session. Try to make sure each player has something grand, some great moment in the adventure – feel free to modify it to include one! Even if it never comes about, it often will and the players will enjoy those times. Now weave in the backstory – change the story to reference the character's background, and link them to it if at all possible. Change the place and names to fit your setting. Insert foreign elements from your own setting and previous adventures to make it fit within the world. And sprinkle a few clues or hints of those adventure ideas you had earlier. A few red herrings off the top of your head too, you never know what these will develop into.

Don't redesign the published adventure or completely write down your original one, that's way too much work and as you'll see below wasted work. Instead, just jot down the ideas on how to adapt it all. Even ideas that don't sit together. That way you have a toolkit of solutions to go to when you run into the unexpected in-game. And you will.


If you purchased an adventure, read it thoroughly. Preferably twice. Take note of the little details on that second read though, but you don't need to know it all by heart – you're not going to run it all in one go! If you create your own adventure, you can skip this stage of course. You'll discover this actually can SAVE time – sometimes it's quicker to whip up an adventure then it is to adapt an existing one.

When you do this, take a hard look at the adventure and try to sum up the plot. Just the main plot. It helps to abstract it, for example “Party hired by Mysterious Agent to find the McGuffin, travels to Exotic Land and gets captured by Bad Guys, make deal and help them against second Bad Guys, then get McGuffin as reward”. Something along those lines – just enough to give you the twists and turns of the plot, but abstracted enough so it will help you see beyond the specific details of the adventure. The plot structure is more important than the actual details. By keeping the plot structure in mind you can more easily change or add details without disrupting the adventure.


You are not ready to play the adventure yet from start to finish, as you may have noticed. The thing is, you'll never do that anyways, so you never need to be able to. The same adventure should not be run the same way twice, after each session it should be altered to  better fit the next session so it's best to work with it on a session-by-session basis. The whole point in making all those notes and adaptation ideas is to allow you to prepare for the next session. So let's get to that.


*Designing a Session*
Designing a session is actually harder than adapting an adventure or running it, at least to me. But without a properly designed session adventures will often fail. Fortunately, it isn't *that* hard.

A session is several hours long, so you MUST have diversity, and for that you need structure. I recommend going to some online site and looking up some script structure, there are several theories and they are all good (you can use different ones at different sessions, it helps keep the players off-guard). Find one that gives you an actual timeline (the hero discovers the Awful Truth at about 2/3 into the movie, he prepares for the final rundown at ¾, and so on); try to stick to it (ROUGHLY, you can't edit the players like a director can) during the session. You should also take into account the emotional impact of out-of-character things – presenting the players with  handouts, putting the huge painted mini out of the box, calming down as you eat the pizza, and so on; these are moments in the emotional “plot” just like any other.

Put as much of the adventure's plot that you think you can go through in the session into the structure. It won't fit. That's where all the adaptations ideas come in – change, warp, and mutilate the adventure until it does fit. (Of course, you might want to choose a different structure if it's too hard.) You're going to give the players a whole “movie” in one session, even if it kills the original adventure. 

The real difficult thing about this is that you never know what your players will be up to. That's why the plot structure is so important – if you have the plot structure in your head in abstract form, you can adapt to the player's delaying here or messing up there by dropping or adding elements as you go along while at the same time providing the same basic experience that you planned to supply. Even if they go on a completely different path the plot structure can help you wing it out of nowhere. (By “in your head” i mean “on a sheet”, of course.)

It helps if you have all the relevant Bad Guys ready at a draw, and perhaps some “random encounters” and surprises you've shored up from previous adventures or times. Having the monsters in the MM or a statblock doesn't really help here, you want THEMATIC ELEMENTS not meat grinders. A little note like “Gold Dragon fighting Blue in air (EL 12)” might be much more handy when you're frantically thinking how to introduce the Unexpected Ally your story needs. Of course, you should have some statblocks when they are needed, it's just that they alone aren't your salvation.

To properly design the session you need to know what your characters will be able to endure. In combat, character resources get depleted and it's essential that you plan accordingly. If your plot requires the characters to overcome several combat encounters in a row, make sure their ELs are right. If not, adjust the EL (by changing the numbers, levels, or type of opponents, adding templates or advancing monsters, or changing the encounter's role within the adventure by adding or subtracting elements from the adventure). Make sure not to rely on EL and CR alone – these are averages, and if your party has a means to circumvent DR, has no spellcasters, has few tough fighters able to dish it out in melee, or so on different beasties will be quite different to handle. It is best to know the key capabilities of your characters and plan accordingly (hmm, Fightus has +15 to hit, so he won't be hitting this guy much, but Magicus has 19 effective caster level and +9 to DCs so he'll probably punch through...). It's not easy. But the EL system DOES generally work (if you use Upper Krust's or Grim Tales system,t hat is) to judge attrition ASSUMING the monsters and party are fairly normal.

Another good point is to take a look at the character's capabilities and make sure they can utilize it in the adventure. If the character has the Great Cleave feat, provide low-level flunkies for him to cleave through. If the party's mage has teleportation, have them need to be at some far away place instantly. Try not to neuter their abilities, USE their abilities within the plot.


I stressed the importance of story structure a lot, but I want to make it clear that what's important is only the ABSTRACT structure. The details must be left to player discretion. If you force players to go down your plot and only your plot then you are guilty of railroading and while some enjoy that most don't. If you make sure that whether they choose to go to the King's Road or travel by sea to their destination they will have a quiet journey so they could heal towards the next series of encounters, you are doing fine.

Of course even such a wide plot has rails and can be derailed by adamant players. Let them. The idea behind coming up with a plot for the current session is to have a game-plan, you CAN try to game without it – it is just more likely to fail to be a great session. 
Every now and again (too often with some parties) your plans will just go kappoie, as the characters will for some reason decide they must enter the evil dragon's lair instead of infiltrating the Dark Monk's order. (The most annoying part of that will be later, when they'll look at you with cow's eyes and say “but you WANTED us to go against the dragon! Why else would [insert totally unimportant character's name] say [insert totally misinterpreted “clue”]?!!”. Players!) You are in a tough spot, there is no use denying that, but you still have a chance to get out of it in with dignity.

For one thing, you have your plot structure to fall on. OK, so the “Heroes Hired by Mysterious Figure” won't work, but maybe you can just let it slide with “Heroes Accept Dangerous Mission” as an abstraction and work from there? Try to see how you can whip up an adventure plot to fit the plot line you outlined for the session. Or maybe the one from last session, as long as you stick to a reasonable plot line all will be alright. You can use the prepared encounters and plot ideas from the session preparation, from other adventures, from a moment of inspiration, monsters from the monster manual – whatever works to save the day. Feel free to ask for 5 minutes to think things over, but it's best to actually not if you can disguise it as taking a break to order food or something). Don't rush into it without a plan, though – asking for time off isn't that bad, going in without a game plan can be. Don't plan on your feet while trying to DM either, you can't do it all at once.

It helps to have a list of prepared “diversions” lined up. Published *short* adventure (or collections such as *En Route*) are excellent in that regard – tiny adventures that are plug-and-play, you can just use them on the fly to save the day. It is still best to modify them to fit the mood and ideas of the adventure, and to tie in to the major plot somehow. DON'T just use a “wondering monster” or meaningless discussions or descriptions to fill up the session, it's the plot not the combat that drives the session and, ultimately, the campaign.

Finally, you can be frank and tell the players you aren't ready for them to storm the dragon's lair. “Timeout: I haven't prepared for that and frankly don't know how to run it, would you mind doing something else?” usually works. “Hmmm.... metagame moment here: the dragon is CR 26 and you are at level 2, are you SURE your characters are suicidal?” works too. Sometimes the characters will act differently, sometimes you'll all just play something else (sometimes the party will go in and have a TPK, but that's usually means you weren't paying any attention to what they wanted and they called it quits). But if you have no idea how to make the unexpected detour FUN (not how it will turn out, but how to make it fun) then it's best to not do it at all.

(I'm not saying here not to allow characters to make stupid choices. If they end up doing something foolish MOST players will want to suffer the results, including TPK, as it diminishes the experience if there is no price for failure. Make sure you talk about this, too, when you decide on your campaign. What I'm talking about is characters acting so far out of the planned story that you can't apply your preparation and that you can't come with a fun POSSIBLE plot to make out of it. )

It is hard, but actually very rewarding. The look on the player's face when they realize you've been totally unprepared for their actions the entire session and still provided an excellent session is priceless.

*Weaving A Campaign Together*
Now a campaign is just a series of sessions. If you prepare for each session to be enjoyable, modifying what's left of the current adventure or the beginning of a new one each time to maximize the enjoyment out of every session, then you'll do alright. There are, however, things that enter a long campaign that make it more than a collection of great sessions.

The most important thing is to use future and past elements in the current adventure. Always try to have something both of the past of the characters and something from their future in each adventure. It may be as simple as being hired by a past acquaintance and finding a magic item that will lead them to the next adventure. It may be as sneaky as having the character that they volunteered to aid in the  first adventure turn out to be the main villain in the last adventure. Generally, the sneakiest the better, with  people or things appearing time and again and often with plot twists.

Another important thing is plot resolution and creation. It is important to have resolution – if the character begins his life with a dedicated cause to fight Takhisis, the campaign should end in or include a defining moment in this struggle (perhaps he founds an order of knights, perhaps he fights her to the death, something). It is equally important to develop entirely new plots – this is more difficult. Try to get your characters to annoy new bad guys (fairly easy), alienate former friends (not so easy), and develop specific aspirations within the game world (hardest of all). Misdirection and misunderstanding or partial knowledge go a long way. Asking for specific aspirations usually doesn't work, but is still worthwhile for when it does; presenting random ones in-game as red herrings also works at times. Rewarding XP for background and plot hooks can also help.


*Bringing It All Together*
So, since I've written that much all my sessions must be great and my games a dream come true, right? No. Knowing what's the right thing to do isn't the same thing as doing it. I often fumble, come unprepared, fail to notice things, or just make mistakes. Most often, I just don't follow through on preparing properly and jump right into a campaign without thinking things through. But I do believe that to the extent that I kept to these guidelines I had good games, usually better then when I didn't. So I wrote it all down, and hope someone will find something useful in my ramblings and have fun with it.

Have fun at every session,
    Yair


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## Mordmorgan the Mad (Jan 25, 2005)

Whoa! Great article! I think I agree with nearly everything there (and the stuff I don't agree with is just a matter of style), so nice job!

@CE: Battlefield Adventures comes out in August of this year, and while it's a long time to wait, I think it'll probably be a decent system. That said, I'm also fairly sure that the system will be a more-or-less straight rip from the Birthright setting with a few feats and PrCs (possibly from the minis handbook) thrown in for good measure. I can't really offer any advice on 3rd party stuff, since I don't own much.


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## LilMissKittyn (Jan 26, 2005)

ChaosEvoker said:
			
		

> @LMK
> Yeah becuase I'm sure the Total War company is just going to hand me their engine that they spent year upon year developing....




Calm down. Just an idea, and since I don't know the games well and most games will let you build your own missions, I thought it may be possible. I know that if they did the situation would be a little...obvious, but hey, sometimes everyone needs the obvious pointed out to them. 
[sblock] Me more than anyone else, as you well know. I'll be on later tonight. Have fun playing WC! I love you![/sblock]



			
				EvilHalfling said:
			
		

> I have a related question, which do you think is the best way to handle a shortage of players ?
> say you are down to 1or 2 PCs
> 1. DMPC
> 2. 2x PC's per player
> ...




No comment on 1 and 2, I think enough's been said. (Though DMPC would cut RPing less than 2 PCs each). 

Henchmen....eh, that seems a bit burdensome. Mostly for the reasons Mordmorgan pointed out.

Take a break...I don't know about you, but the players I know don't take breaks. Speaking from personal experience, it's not a good idea (and I'm still the one trying to find a group  :\ ) Recruiting can also be difficult, because there are few effective ways to find experienced players.

Altering the adventure is probably my top choice as well. Admittedly, you have some skills missing from the group, but the game is a great deal more manageable this way and there are ways to compensate (multi-class, etc). 



			
				Xen155 said:
			
		

> One thing I think would be nice about the DMF Forum is that good questions and disscusions wont be lost. Like Y.O.'s request for opinions on the seperate forum (which btw I like and will support). And old descusions can be brought back up quickly and easily by just posting in that discussions threads. When anyone had something like the DMPC it could have its own thread and go without interuptions.




Thanks for the articulation of ideas. (My brain doesn't do that anymore). 
A few reasons of my own to have a seperate forum:
1) No harrassment about being a "clubhouse" group (or having bad spelling, for that matter).
2) Setting up not only sub-threads, but sub-groups as well
3) Having admin control will help a lot. We're getting to the size now that we need to start regulating a little better than just a single thread (personally, I get a bit confused when we're addressing 4 or 5 different topics at once). 
4) More attraction to the group than just a single thread. If we go out there and recruit, people are more likely to come, since we "have our own forum." Oooh, glamorous.
5) More visibility and selection of posts. Face it, not everyone can read every post, all the time. It would make it easier on people if they could just read the things they are interested in.
6) We could cover more discussion topics. One of the reasons that I gave for having the DMF in the first place was that DMs can come here to get answers, fast. Well, this is just another way to get more answers, faster.

I'm sure I'll think of more five minutes after I post this.

@Article
I'll post on this when I have the time to read it. Sorry for the delay.

Over and out.


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## Xen155 (Jan 26, 2005)

Thankyou Tiny Kitten Lady for supporting me on that.

And wow Yair, when im bored I ussally am LESS productive than when im not. 
[SBLOCK] Does this guy remind you of Shard?[/SBLOCK]


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## Mordmorgan the Mad (Jan 26, 2005)

Xen155 said:
			
		

> [SBLOCK] Does this guy remind you of Shard?[/SBLOCK]



This guy might *be * Shard.


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## Xen155 (Jan 26, 2005)

[SBLOCK]WOW! WHAT IF HE WAS SHARD BUT DIDN'T KNOW IT! That would be CRAZY! 
Kinda like me.... people are CONVINCED that im AO and I keep saying I dont think I am  but they just go right along worshiping me.... (We all can have dreams.)[/SBLOCK]


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## Mordmorgan the Mad (Jan 26, 2005)

Re: Large-scale combat: I never found these massive battles very much fun. They remind me a little too much of videogames (especially Warcraft), and I haven't found a way to make them even remotely interesting. If anyone has any comments or ideas about these large-scale combats, lets hear them!


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## BSF (Jan 26, 2005)

Large scale battles are a conundrum.  What I have actually done in the past is handwave it.  Shhhh!  

What I mean is that I determine what the outcome will be ahead of time and then I just focus on what impact the PCs will have.  I have had a battle where their impact was noticable only in the small perimeter around them.  I have had them crush the enemy leadership and rout the enemy entirely.  

That last was fun though.  It is neat, though somewhat disheartening to watch part of the group take down a NightWalker in less than a round.  As well as a Famine Spirit in a single attack sequence.  And a 19th level Divine Lich that had been imbued to act as an evil god's avatar on the Prime.  The lich lasted less than a round too.  On the plus side, the 30 spell-stiched ghouls that unleased magic missile at the barbarian was fun.    He was looking for some great cleave action figuring his DR 5/- would protect him from almost all harm.  

That battle also included another Night Walker, 3 Death Knights, a 19th level Arcane Lich and a bunch of other nasty stuff.  The city would have been hosed it it hadn't been for the PCs.  So, why bother rolling dice endlessly to see how many skeletons and warriors die?  Handwave it and let the PCs save the day, or not, with their heroic actions.


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## LilMissKittyn (Jan 27, 2005)

@ Article
If I had more time I'd recommend specific changes. As far as content, which is most likely what you're looking for, I won't comment but it looks pretty good.
It's a long read, though, and there are some things that might be condensed. Also - back to high school english - read it out loud. There are some sentences that sound wierd. (ex. the last sentence in the first paragraph, it really caught me off guard.)
But this is not english class, and I am not a teacher. Just my two cents on how to make it clearer.


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## Nightcloak (Jan 27, 2005)

BardStephenFox said:
			
		

> Large scale battles are a conundrum.  What I have actually done in the past is handwave it.  Shhhh!




Actually, I've always done the same thing. It's easier, keeps control in your hands, and advances the story how you choose. I usualy have multiple scenerio endings if the PCs are directly involved based on the "effectiveness" of their envolvement. 

I did by Cry Havoc for the my game when the players advanced to high level in case they went the Leadership feat or land-owner route, but it didn't come into play.


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## Blade of Desecration (Jan 27, 2005)

Xen155 said:
			
		

> [SBLOCK] Does this guy remind you of Shard?[/SBLOCK]



Yeah, your right!  I still wonder what happened to Shard...  .  We have so many old members who didn't make the switch.

War:  Yeah, handwave.  Definitely.


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## Yair (Jan 27, 2005)

I'm sorry to disappoint, but I'm not Shard. I'm sure he's a great guy, but I'm just not. Wait, that didn't came out right.... hmmm...

Thanks for the comments on the article. Regarding the english I am afraid it's my second tongue, not my native language, so I don't even know what the mistakes are.    I agree it needs condensing. And as for the notes in agreements - thanks 

On War: It depends on what you want to get out of the war out-of-game. I'd recommend something like Cry Havoc if you want to play a little miniature-game and have fun with it, but for a roleplaying experience winging it is quite alright. In the few cases where it mattered in my games I used ELs to evaluate things, and then adjusted by player actions. I believe the Slavelords of Cydonia system is based on that.


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## Mordmorgan the Mad (Jan 28, 2005)

Yair said:
			
		

> I'm sorry to disappoint, but I'm not Shard. I'm sure he's a great guy, but I'm just not. Wait, that didn't came out right.... hmmm...



*He* was a *she*.



			
				BoD said:
			
		

> Yeah, your right! I still wonder what happened to Shard...  . We have so many old members who didn't make the switch.



 Shard's happily doling out prolific advice on WotC's "What's a DM/Player to do?" threads.

I do miss a few folks from the old threads (mostly Shard and Student of the Mind), but we've got great members here (don't let that go to your head, Nightcloak   ), so it's no big loss.


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## BSF (Jan 28, 2005)

Yair said:
			
		

> On War: It depends on what you want to get out of the war out-of-game. I'd recommend something like Cry Havoc if you want to play a little miniature-game and have fun with it, but for a roleplaying experience winging it is quite alright. In the few cases where it mattered in my games I used ELs to evaluate things, and then adjusted by player actions. I believe the Slavelords of Cydonia system is based on that.



Opposing EL's?  Hmm, I hadn't thought of that.  That is an interesting idea.  

I have Cry Havoc and it is useful to determine what some of the effects of PC/NPC interactions on the battlefield might be.  But I haven't tried a Cry Havoc mass battle yet.


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## ChaosEvoker (Jan 28, 2005)

Mordmorgan the Mad said:
			
		

> *He* was a *she*.
> 
> Shard's happily doling out prolific advice on WotC's "What's a DM/Player to do?" threads.
> 
> I do miss a few folks from the old threads (mostly Shard and Student of the Mind), but we've got great members here (don't let that go to your head, Nightcloak   ), so it's no big loss.



Can't say I miss SoS or SotM too much, considering they bailed otu and betrayed us when things got rough. nevertheless:

@Large scale
if you could find some system that accureately and effectively incorportates both numbers AND tactics that would be great. We have a major cause for this in our campaign. though admittedly, LAST large scale we got into. It turns out our army had orders not to fight. It ws an assasination attempt. However, they though my warmage was a fighter. Imagine there surprise when I and my only help (a fellow PC Soulknife) slew over 20,000 orcs single handedly (I love failed Knowledge(arcana) checks when I cast _Cloudkill_ ) The enemy wasn't too happy about that.


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## Blade of Desecration (Jan 28, 2005)

Crap!  What level were you guys?!


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## ChaosEvoker (Jan 28, 2005)

I was around lv 10, about 2000 orcs charged me while I had a _cloudkill_ centered around me. All of them being 1 HD monsters, they were killed instantly. Plus, I had a _Ring of Blades_ spell on me. (_Compelte Arcane_ anyone who got within melee range took 1d6+lv+Int bonus each round) I used this cloudkill twice and they fell for it both times, stupid orcs. We got tons of XP.


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## Xen155 (Jan 28, 2005)

It was more an attempt for ammusment from are dark soon to be lord Rhim. And it was grand, they slaughter lots o orcs and I got a dukedum...... god I love that game.


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## Dyne (Jan 28, 2005)

First time I've been back since the upgrade. Kinda liking things so far, but I can't wait until I can change this background.  

It looks like not much has changed here, though.


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## ChaosEvoker (Jan 28, 2005)

Yeah you got a dukedome for talking to R-h-e-m while we did the work. Dirty traitor. I sence some PvP coming along soon....


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## Raloc (Jan 28, 2005)

Hey all.  Been playing for around eight years, DMing for slightly less than that though with large breaks (no players!) in between.  I'd like to join if you'll have me 


RE: Large scale battles.

Though I was playing in this last example, it turned out to be an awesome session.  We play via ORPG (it goes very well, we've known eachother for going on 6 years now and are all heavy role players(in regards to style of play I mean)) because our group is scattered all around Europe with me the only one in the US.  I also DM a game with them too, but we have scheduling issues so we usually only play once every couple of weeks, and every week at best.

Anyway, this battle happened two or three sessions ago.  The three of us PCs were headed North of Waterdeep to bring supplies to the Helmites' army.  They'd had their supply lines cut off while we were in Sembia trying to clear one of the character's names.  So it's late Winter and we're going through the hills with 40 wagons and we're attacked by around 300 orcs and a troll (which are part of the enemy army, which is headed by a black dragon that the Helmites are besieging).  Two of the characters are fighters (including mine, the other is now a fighter/cleric (sort of like a Paladin, but he's LN)) and the other is a wizard.  So naturally the two fighters go after the troll.  My fighter has slightly above average VP (we use VP/WP system) and the other one has way above average VP.  So my fighter gets the crap kicked out of him by this troll, and retreats off to try and recover.  He did some decent damage to the troll, but the wounds closed up fairly quickly, minus the burn marks because our swords are both Flaming (which is good, otherwise we would have been toast since our characters don't know anything about trolls hehe).  So the other fighter is going toe to toe with this troll and eventually kills it, and my fighter is off on the sidelines trying to recover.  He notices the Captain of the Tyrrans they are with getting his arse handed to him by what appears to be the leader of the orcs.  My fighter of course goes over and attacks this orc (my char has 12 VP at this point hehe) to stop him from killing the Captain.  Our mage his slaughtering orcs left and right, racking up the kill count and generally wreaking havoc in the orc army.  Eventually the orc general is chased away (we're slow, couldn't catch him, though now I think he dimension doored away or something).


So, with that done we assume that the orc general has reinforcements.  We are right, so we set an ambush, including fire pits, trip wires, fake tents and buried soldiers (in the snow).  The orcs come on, there are over two thousand of them.  The mage is holding a firewall in an arc on the rear of the wagon encampment and the other fighter jumps up out of the snow and starts killing orcs in the charge.  My fighter starts downing orcs with his longbow.  The Captain goes into melee to help the other fighter, who's in one on one with two of the general's lieutenants.  After seeing the other fighter get carried off, my fighter wades into the fray, surprises the general, misses completely.  Then the general attempts to trip my fighter.  My fighter wins the Str check, then successfully trips the general.  My fighter is next in init (hehe) and attacks with his greatsword.  Crit threat.  Crit.  He does 2d6+1d6(fire)+9 to the orc general in crit damage.  We're using the VP/WP rules, so the crit damage goes straight to WP and kills the orc general.  Now, keep in mind I had just told the orc general that he would die, then I stabbed him in the chest.  I ripped my sword from his chest and started screaming bloody murder at the other orcs.  They ran, and our mage opened a firewall right on them.

I will from now on play any large scale battles in descriptive style.  It was quite cinematic at the time.


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## Mordmorgan the Mad (Jan 28, 2005)

Raloc said:
			
		

> Hey all.  Been playing for around eight years, DMing for slightly less than that though with large breaks (no players!) in between.  I'd like to join if you'll have me



Hmmm... only 8 years eh?  
*
Announcing our newest member:
Raloc*


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## Nightcloak (Jan 28, 2005)

Welcome to the team Raloc!

Also, welcome to the boards as this was your first post!

Cinematic battles are great but not easy to pull off. Glad to see you had the oppurtunity to drench the Sword Coast in epic levels of orc blood.


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## Raloc (Jan 28, 2005)

> Originally Posted by *Nightcloak*
> _Welcome to the team Raloc!
> 
> Also, welcome to the boards as this was your first post!
> ...




Thanks, it is my first time on ENWorld.  I stumbled onto it from Monte Cook's site while I was looking for a particularly interesting tool that I'd downloaded ages ago.  It was a text editor for outlining campaigns.  It let you put in formatting and dice rolls and the like.  I haven't had luck finding it.  Anyone know what I'm talking about?   That is actually my first fighter (my first character being a thief named Bob XD back in 2e).  Originally the character was sort of a random no background chap, but I've had lots of fun getting into roleplaying him.  I won't bore you guys though.



> Originally Posted by *Mordmorgan the Mad*
> _Hmmm... only 8 years eh?_




Yeah, I'm a noob 

BTW all, great stories from your campaigns!  I enjoyed reading them.  I don't have anything nearly so interesting to share unfortunately.

I have a question for you all.  Would any of you be interested in doing a multi-DM PbP (or any other method really, ORPG, PbEM etc.) game, and have any of you had experience with multi-DM games before?  I've not myself, so I'd love to hear anything you might have to share.


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## Nightcloak (Jan 28, 2005)

Mordmorgan the Mad said:
			
		

> *He* was a *she*.




Easy mistake when posting. I have been frequently confused with someone who is responsible  and a well adjusted member of society. 




> I do miss a few folks from the old threads (mostly Shard and Student of the Mind)




[sblock]I think someone mentioned that the [original members] have bounced around twice before landing here at ENWorld. Sometime I would like to here the full story of what happened. Just out of curiosity. I realize this is most likely not the forum to get into history...[/sblock]



> but we've got great members here (don't let that go to your head, Nightcloak   ), so it's no big loss.




To late! It's in the title now!


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## Raloc (Jan 28, 2005)

[sblock]Just out of curiousity, is this thread supposed to be where we post all our ideas/questions/whatever for the DMF?[/sblock]


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## Nightcloak (Jan 28, 2005)

Raloc said:
			
		

> Yeah, I'm a noob




No your not. You're a DM and among colleges!




> BTW all, great stories from your campaigns!  I enjoyed reading them.  I don't have anything nearly so interesting to share unfortunately.




Yours was interesting. I'm sure you have more also. And as you continue to play you'll have many more.




> I have a question for you all.  Would any of you be interested in doing a multi-DM PbP (or any other method really, ORPG, PbEM etc.) game, and have any of you had experience with multi-DM games before?  I've not myself, so I'd love to hear anything you might have to share.




We are putting together a DMF PbP game currently. 

*Cough*

Of course, they have been waiting for me for several days to post my character. Work has bit me in the backside this week in a bad way. 

*Shuffles feet* *Looks innocent*

Stop by the PbP forum (while you're at it, check them all out) and see if you want to get involved.


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## Nightcloak (Jan 28, 2005)

Raloc said:
			
		

> [sblock]Just out of curiousity, is this thread supposed to be where we post all our ideas/questions/whatever for the DMF?[/sblock]




[sblock]Yes. There is discussion of getting a hosted forum here at ENWorld so the DMF can control multiple threads by topic and mod itself. But for now, this is the one thread to rule them all![/sblock]


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## Raloc (Jan 28, 2005)

I can almost certainly say I want to get involved.  I don't get nearly enough game time for satiate me as it is.  As far as interesting stories, I think as the current game I'm DMing gets under way (only had the first session, which was fairly good) I will have some proper stories to tell.

Here's some info on the campaign I'm running (infrequenly ) right now:
[sblock]
First session of mine saw the PCs depart from Waterdeep on a privateer ship 11 days prior to the start of the campaign (for various reasons).   The party is as follows:

1 Thayan wizard
1 Thayan fighter (they're cousins)
1 Sun elf wizard
1 Human rogue
With an undecided player joining later on (he missed the first session because of RL stuff so I'm merely going to introduce him later on).

The characters were all created with 4d6 reroll 1s.  They're fairly powerful PCs, so I'm going to make it particularly hard on them 

As they were sailing along on the ship near the Nelanther Isles, another ship (presumably a pirate ship) overtook them and they started a back and forth catapult exchange.  The "pirate" ship was manned by kobolds.  Eventually they boarded the ship and slew the kobolds fairly handily (as was intended).  Then the captain came out.   They had a fairly annoying battle with him (everyone kept missing, it took ages) and eventually grappled and tied him up.  I had been counting on them killing him, but I rolled with it.  He was a level one rogue with the voidmind template from the MMIII.  They questioned him and learned essentially nothing, though they now think that some sort of parasite was living in this chap's skull (because the illithids in control of the rogue eventually stopped being amused with the completely weird lines of questioning and just severed the link with the rogue (which I described as his expression going blank and green goo running out his nostrils and the holes in his head, followed by a glob of it rolling out of his mouth (which the PCs now think is the *creature* XD)).  They also found a note apparently written by this pirate captain(in illithid).  It had some sort of vague command for him to gather an army to march on the capital of Amn (though what they don't know is that it's a plot by the illithid hosts to trick the PCs into sending Amn's army into an ambush).  So, they decided in the spirit of reward they'd go with the pirate ship (which was Amnian) to Amn and see if they can get a reward (they were originally bound to Calimshan, as the privateer ship also does cargo, and I worked out things for them to do had they gone either way (had they not Comprehended Languages on the note, they likely would have gone to Calimshan)).   Anyway, since I'm sure Amn has no love of Thayans (and they are visibly Thayans, they made no attempt to hide it) and for sure no love of wizards either, the local populace is likely to assume that Izeer (the pirate captain) is the Thayan wizard's slave (which can go a number of ways, depending on what they do).  I needed to write this down anyway for the site I'm putting up, duelroom.net (duelroom being the name of our IRC channel) where we're going to keep campaign logs and the like.

Basically, if they disguise Izeer they'll not be bothered and will eventually meet up with either the local Captain of the guard or one of official types of the city which will send Amn's army marching into a death trap and the PCs off to find an interesting NPC I've made, named Molordane.  He's a human male cleric of Lolth (hehe, kidnapped at a yound age and engineered to as an experiment/plot to take Amn and see if humans could readily be corrupted at a young age).  I've given him Evil as one of his domains, and he has Profane Lifeleech, Corpsecrafter and Hardened Flesh as feats from Libris Mortis (he'll have desecrate and quite a few undead summoned when the PCs meet him, which I'm going to tie into further plots after the next session).
[/sblock]


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## Raloc (Jan 28, 2005)

Nightcloak said:
			
		

> [sblock]Yes. There is discussion of getting a hosted forum here at ENWorld so the DMF can control multiple threads by topic and mod itself. But for now, this is the one thread to rule them all![/sblock]




[sblock]How much do the hosted forums cost?[/sblock]


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## Mordmorgan the Mad (Jan 28, 2005)

Hosted forums cost $40 (American), if I remember what Y.O. said correctly.

Nightcloak:
[sblock]The history, or rather both the DMF's deaths can be found here  (for 1st ed) and here  (for 2ed). I'll note that the second death was much more...um...unpleasant than the first.[/sblock]


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## ChaosEvoker (Jan 28, 2005)

Unpleasant indeed...

Heh I just realized if we move to a hosten ENWorld forum that will make it the DMF version 3.5.....coincidence????

Welcome Raloc, I'll get the members list updated!


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## Nightcloak (Jan 29, 2005)

ChaosEvoker said:
			
		

> Unpleasant indeed...




Unpleasant and quite sudden. 



> Heh I just realized if we move to a hosten ENWorld forum that will make it the DMF version 3.5.....coincidence????




   

Upgrade the DMF to 3.5! 

Oh man, they better not nerf the counsil member prestige class!


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## Mordmorgan the Mad (Jan 29, 2005)

Nightcloak said:
			
		

> Upgrade the DMF to 3.5!
> 
> Oh man, they better not nerf the counsil member prestige class!



Ha! There shall be no nerfing of PrCs under Mordmorgan's watchful eyes! Such is blasphemy! Instead, we shall make all monsters more deadly and XP harder to get. Cling to your precious PrC's and hope for the future, bleak as it may be. Hahahahahahahahahaha   !


Er...um...sorry


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## Nightcloak (Jan 29, 2005)

*Revenge of the Players*

New Topic. Time to give the players a chance after the Rat Bastard DM stories. Judging from the stories, they could use a little illusion of security...

DM’s: Any tales of a great scheme gone awry. You sat chuckling in your fortress of solitude knowing that the plans you had for your players were just dastardly. They would stare in horror at you and curse your name. But game time hit and they totally blew it away. They ran right through your scheme and hardly noticed the twitch in your face. 
Come on, it happens. That is why they invented grudge monsters  

or 

PC’s: What great moment in gaming-history was scheduled by the DM and you totally hijacked that moment. By clever thinking and quick wit you stole the spotlight and made the man behind the screen twitch. D&D is supposed to be game without winners and losers. But for one shinning moment, you had won and it felt good.


So, one and all. Pull up a chair and tell us a great (or infamous) moment in PC history.


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## Nightcloak (Jan 29, 2005)

Mordmorgan the Mad said:
			
		

> Instead, we shall make all monsters more deadly and XP harder to get. Cling to your precious PrC's and hope for the future, bleak as it may be. Hahahahahahahahahaha   !




The DMF is moving to Barovia?


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## Raloc (Jan 29, 2005)

For the PC ruining encounter thing, refer to my above story of my fighter routing the orc army after slaying the orc general in the first round against him.  With the VP/WP system, crits are MIGHTY.  Very cool   Our DM basically went      "The orcs start to flee after you single handedly murdered the general and chopped off his head."


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## Mordmorgan the Mad (Jan 29, 2005)

*Barovia?*

*As the mists arrise, seemingly from nowhere* "Bad Mists! Bad! Go to your room! You know the DMF Members are protected! Sorry guys   "


As far as plans destroyed...In 12 years it's happened once, just about a month ago. Some of the older members remember my Waterdeep campaign during the Year of Rogue Dragons, where a Flight of Ancient Red Dragons (12 strong) attacked Waterdeep, nearly leveling it. The PCs tracked one of the dragons (the one who landed atop thier HQ and proceeded to batter it into oblivion) back to its lair.

I had this really cool dialogue planned where the dragon would mock the PCs and tell them how he would crush them and make them into jam and what not. Turns out, this particular dragon was about to have the world's mos catastrophic streak of 1's.

The party wizard cast Greater Invisibility on the party (6 members total, so she only had about 2 rounds [IIRC] of Invis left when they went in). They charged in and the Barbarian cohort got the crap knocked out of him in one hit (I think he was at about 4 HP), but no one noticed because he was invisible (although there was a big bloodstain where he landed). The druid wild shapes into a snowy owl and hides near the cavern's ceiling where he proceeds to summon fire and lightning down through the cavern's opening.

This didn't bother me so much because the dragon had loads of HP left and was making his saves. Now the wizard steps up. Her invisibility is about to run out, so she yells over to the dragon: "Hey! Sulfur-breath! Suck on this!" and lets fly a blast of Cone of Cold.

I didn't think much of it because she hadn't been able to overcome a SR of 12 all week, but this time she did. Not only that, but I failed my save (the dragon needed a 2). This was one of the rare occasions where I didn't feel like I needed to fudge rolls for cinematic effect, so it happened to fall in the open. The damage was past the threashold of the Massive Damage rule, but since his Fort save was phenomenal (again, I needed a 2 to succeed), I rolled in the open. Massive BOTCH!!!!

The dragon froze solid and shattered on the ground (it was flying at the time). This took all of about 6 rounds. Everyone just looked at me with a blank expression, and I just kept looking at the die. Finally I looked up, and the wizard said: "So...how much [XP] was that worth?"

Fortunately, we died laughing.


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## Belesarius (Jan 29, 2005)

*Nutty DM*

Hello. I'm Belesarius. I want in. I just got DSL and can actualy participate without spending 45 minutes to post a reply. I'm DMing about 3 groups off and on, but I'm mostly a player. That's because I don't know how to be a DM. The only relatively steady DM I have is the biggest rat bastard on the planet. So You guys give me some tips and I'll tell you stories about the worst DM on the planet. (No offense in case my DM gets on. Not so bad, just a lot of rat bastard stories.)


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## Mordmorgan the Mad (Jan 29, 2005)

*The True and Rightful King of Rat Bastards Announces:*



			
				Belesarius said:
			
		

> I'm mostly a player. That's because I don't know how to be a DM.



Being a DM is easy. All you need is a DMG, a silly hat, and the willingness to do something stupid infront of 4-6 of your closest friends.

Being a good  DM is much harder (thus the Foundation).

*Announcing our newest member:
Belesarius*


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## Nightcloak (Jan 29, 2005)

*A day of infamy*

Let me pull up a chair, place the trusty staff known as “Big Stick 9000” by the fireplace, pull out my pipe and hobbit weed and contemplate some follies of yore. *Puff* *Puff*

Ah… The tale of Rogue Roulette… *Puff*

Back in the “good o’ days” of 2E I ran a multi-level dungeon known as the Academy. Abandoned wizard school with attitude and starting to disturb the locals. Different levels were designed to allow each player or character to shine and show off his [player] skills or class abilities. One level was designed as a maze with lots of tricks and traps for the Thief. The maze was 3D with ramps up and down to convolute mapping, puzzles and weird traps like reverse gravity pits that would take you through higher levels and smack you into the ceiling of the top level. 

Great was my pride. This would keep the player of the Thief busy as a character and as a player! No more would I here how traps are the same-old same-old. 

My crowning achievement: The room I called the Rogue Roulette. 

No ordinary room. This one you entered by a normal door. But the room inside was circular and 40 foot across. There were eleven other doors evenly spaced. As the characters entered, the door shuts behind them and then the walls spin counter clockwise while the floor moves clockwise. The door the characters entered is now lost among the other door, each with there own fiendish trap. Each door had progressively nastier traps to punish cocky thieves with high % in detect traps, and only one safe door out.

But the last door was truly a thing of Rat Bastard beauty: It was a trick. When you opened it, all the doors would close, and the room would spin again! Rinse and repeat until the poor fools blundered into the one door out, if the survivors made it out. My wife could hear my laughter from across the house.

Several sessions later the characters enter the room:

PC1: Thank God! A room. 
PC2: Great, more choices. Just what a maze needs.
Thief: Easy XP, lets do it. Just get some potions of healing, these traps are killing me *glares at the DM*
NCDM (Nightcloak the DM): The door shuts behind you. The walls spin counter clockwise and the floor moves too. Your stomach lurches sideways and you now have now idea which way is which.
PC1: Oh, just great. I hate this place.
PC2: *Takes a piece of paper out of his note book labeled “@#$% I Hate”, and scribbles the words “traps” next to “undead”*  [Yes, that actually happened]
Thief: *Glares at Nightcloak* Alrighty then, lets do this by the book…

** The characters start going systematically door by door. Crunch! Boom! Sizzle! Impale! Then they come to the fifth door **

NCDM: The door snaps shut, as well as all of the other doors snap shut. The room again spins counter clockwise and the floor moves as well. Once again, you are in a room full of closed doors and you don’t know which is which. * I’m grinning  with great evil at this point *
PC1:   
PC2: * Puts down notebook. Wonders out to the fridge for a beer. Then hunts down Nightcloak’s wife and proceeds to complain that her husband “Has to much time on his hands” * [Yes, that actually happened also]
Thief: * Oddly quiet *

** Eventually, I fish the player back from the living room and let PC1 and PC2 vent. Then we settle in back to the game, were the Thief has sat the whole time quiet and didn’t get up at all during the break**

PC1: Were screwed.
PC2: At least we can rest here if it gets bad and recover spells.
PC1: Until the rations run out!
Thief: I pull out some chalk, walk up to the door in the 12 o’clock position and put a “1” on it. Then I do the checks and open the door.
NCDM:   
* Sizzle*
Thief: OK. That was the lightning trap. That means the two doors to the left are trapped * proceeds to mark them * and the door to the right is the spear trap * marks that door * and the door beyond that one is the reset button * marks that door with a skull *  Nobody open that door.
NCDM: * Twitch *
Thief: I go to the next-door, check it, and then open it. Repeat until I find the correct door out.
NCDM: * Twitch – Twitch * 

* Two doors latter the players are back in the hallway *

Thief: *Gives DM the same evil grin and walks to kitchen to finally get a beer *
PC1 and 2: Woot!
PC1: Well that was easier than I ever thought.
PC2: Yea. I’m taking traps off my list, they aren’t so bad.
PC1: Hey. I’m taking the chalk and marking the inside of the exit door with a big “EXIT”. This is great! Now we can come back to this room and rest whenever we want. All the monsters surely avoid it; after all, it’s trapped. They must know that since there were no bodies inside the room.
NCDM: * Bangs head on table *
PC2: Cool! What a great safe room to heal and recover spells. This is the best room in the dungeon. You think of everything Nightcloak. We can call this room the Hilton!
NCDM: Nooooooooo!!!!!!!!!
PC1: I cast a continual light on the outside of the exit door.
Thief: * returning with a beer and the grin * What the hell is that for?
PC1: Now it’s a Motel 6!
NCDM: * Gets up, walks to corner, and assumes fetal position *


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## ChaosEvoker (Jan 29, 2005)

Belesarius said:
			
		

> Hello. I'm Belesarius. I want in. I just got DSL and can actualy participate without spending 45 minutes to post a reply. I'm DMing about 3 groups off and on, but I'm mostly a player. That's because I don't know how to be a DM. The only relatively steady DM I have is the biggest rat bastard on the planet. So You guys give me some tips and I'll tell you stories about the worst DM on the planet. (No offense in case my DM gets on. Not so bad, just a lot of rat bastard stories.)




You had BETTER be reffering to our CURRENT DM or you head will be mine. (hmm my character is beginning to harbor violent resentments for soulknifes...............)

This woudl be anotehr member of my group guys. (Dude you missed member #42 by 1!!)


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## Evilhalfling (Jan 29, 2005)

*grin* ROL 

just lovely, stomping all over the killer trap I love it. 
Erm as a DM - This world kept track of its epic level heros, as gossip.  So every sseason a new set of rumors would start driffing around the cities about archmages, Warlords and highlevel groups. 
In about the second wave of rumors, the party hears about a buch of bards being killed and their heads stolen in a far away city.  So that game they ignore the actuall plot - which was going to involve mummies and citywide rioting, to go see this other city, which btw had not been designed.   Sigh.   Of course the new city was even more fun than the old and they managed not to get killed by the 17th lvl bard who was the assasin. 

Playing: 
Digging under a pair of beholders (See sig)  it helps that I have +11 in profession Mining 
we got underneith a hostile city the same way but I bet the DM has come up with a way to stop us before we skip most of the fighting and attack the center temple.


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## Mordmorgan the Mad (Jan 29, 2005)

Nightcloak said:
			
		

> Ah… The tale of Rogue Roulette… *Puff*



That may be the best story I've ever heard. Nicely handled, too!


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## LilMissKittyn (Jan 29, 2005)

That's amazing, Nightcloak. Absolutely amazing.
I'm sure CE has a story for you guys too - if he doesn't tell it I'll have to.


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## ChaosEvoker (Jan 29, 2005)

As a player:
Ah my very first character......Vorramion Xiloscient. He was converted from 2E into 3E. We were aobut lv 18 and we were trying to get some items that we were destined to have. Anyway the scene went something like this:
DM: You see a gargantuan worm wrapped around the enourmous columns in this large room. It is a deep purple color with a pink underbelly, its mouth is filled with many a row of sharp teeth. It doesn't seem to notice your entrance
Me: Alright knowldege(nature) to see what it is.
DM: Alright go ahead.
Me: I got a total of ## (some high number this was a long time ago)
DM: Alright you remember that this is a Fiendworm.
Me: Aww crap, this thing is like CR 24 or something like that. Well we have to go through here, might as well take the surprise attack. I'm shooting it with an arrow.
DM: Roll your attack roll.
Me: (20) YES!! (The DM is watching the rolls after this one)
DM: Alright see if you verify.
Me: (20) ....WOOT! Alright. (We are playing with an instant kill variant for only 3 20s in a row)
DM: ....Alright rolls your instant kill check.
Me: *not expecting too much* (20) ................................
DM: .....................
Everyone: ...........................
DM: It....dies.
Everyone: ..........................
DM: *withotu words get the DMG opens it up and begins flipping though, we sit in silence waiting to see what he says*
DM: ChaosEvoker (he used my name IRL here) you gain 14,750 XP.
Everyone: .................
Belesarius: (yes the one that just joined) THAT WAS AWESOME!
Me: YES!!!!!
Everyone: *general amusement and celebration*

Ah good times...fortunatly it ended well though the um level balance of the party was slightly off for a while, since I went to lv 19. (and was close to 20) BUt its not often that a lv 18 character instantly kills a CR 24 or higher monster.

so there's my story....


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## ChaosEvoker (Jan 29, 2005)

Excellent story Nightcloak, I hsould get a notbook labeled "Stuff I Hate" and do that, that's hillarious.


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## DarrenGMiller (Jan 29, 2005)

Nightcloak said:
			
		

> New Topic.
> 
> DM’s: Any tales of a great scheme gone awry. You sat chuckling in your fortress of solitude knowing that the plans you had for your players were just dastardly. They would stare in horror at you and curse your name. But game time hit and they totally blew it away. They ran right through your scheme and hardly noticed the twitch in your face.
> Come on, it happens. That is why they invented grudge monsters
> ...




Okay, this story is going to make me sound like a horrible DM (which some of my players and former players undoubtedly think I am anyway)...

A long time ago in the glory days of 1st Edition D&D, I was home for the summer after my freshman year of college.  Nobody on my college campus played D&D except for a few really strange guys in a back room in the basement of my dorm who were NEVER seen in any actual clases (true story), so I was desperate for gaming.  I got most of my players together, put out the word for a few new players to join up and drew up a homebrew (actually had been working on it in my spare time all year) high level campaign so that my players could get a change to play their old characters again (we gamed from 8th grade all through high school together).

When the time came for the first session, I 12 players showed up on my front porch for the first session (okay, huge screened porch... I loved that room).  Yes, 12 players!  I had gamed with 3 of them previously and several of them were a bit younger than I had hoped (including one 8th grade kid who had only played a few sessions).  So, we started the session after a quick (VERY quick glance at the character sheets... I mean, there were a LOT of players).

In my scenario, a trio of UBER NPC's kidnaps the characters from their home worlds and promises to send them home after performing a service for them (which would conveniently fill the three months of sessions before my return to college).  They tell the PC's a story revolving around some despicably evil bad guys who have taken over their world that can only be deposed by strongest heroes of other worlds.  They (the trio) had the power to bring the PC's there, but not kill the "bad guys."

In reality, the trio of NPC's were the bad guys.  I was counting on the PC's to go with my intro and slowly learn this.  One of my veteran players saw through this immediately and ordered the party into defensive positions.  This was not going well.

Keep in mind that the NPC's were powerful.  Also keep in mind that I hadn't counted on 12 players.  Keep in mind as well that I did a VERY QUICK scan of the character sheets and had several players new to my group.

A skrmish quickly ensued that saw the party outmatched, but just barely, since they had the advantage of numbers.  The skirmish resolves into a standoff, with neither side making a major move for several minutes of feinting and repositioning.

Then come the fateful, dreaded words...

"I raise the horn on the cord around my neck and blow long and hard."

Uh oh.  "What horn?"

"The one on my character sheet, right here." The player quickly hands back the character sheet and there it is, right where I should have seen it had my scan been more thorough.

"Okay.   You blow a fearsome note on your horn and... <rolling of dice> 00.  Oh crap (though I am sure my language was stronger than that)!  Many figures appear around the battlefield.  Directly behind your adversaries, you see a many beautiful figures and handsome faces.  One strong looking warrior rides a six-legged steed and another carries a huge hammer.  As you see the look of fear on the faces of your three opponents, you turn and see an entire tribe, or more, of frost giants advancing from behind you.  Roll initiative."

The PC had blown the "Horn of Valhalla."  It was right there on his sheet and I missed it!  Everyone was slaughtered.  We took a long walk (on which many strange things happened and one of my players caused a horrible auto accident... that is another story entirely) and came back and set up a time for the next session.  New campaign, fewer players (that was my only session with about four of them and one of my three vets left too)...  What a summer!

DM


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## Nightcloak (Jan 29, 2005)

Mordmorgan the Mad said:
			
		

> That may be the best story I've ever heard. Nicely handled, too!




Thank you! Although I don't know about how I handled it. I think I sat there in stuned silence at the time. At least the players had a great time! Of course, the one guy in my group from then and myself equally laugh about it now.




			
				LilMissKittyn said:
			
		

> That's amazing, Nightcloak. Absolutely amazing.
> I'm sure CE has a story for you guys too - if he doesn't tell it I'll have to.




[Puts on sage hat] All you new DMs out there, don't sweat the accidents and problems. They will one day be great stories to remember and laugh about. [/Takes off sage hat]



			
				ChaosEvoker said:
			
		

> Excellent story Nightcloak, I hsould get a notbook labeled "Stuff I Hate" and do that, that's hillarious.




Ironically, the one guy from back in the 2E days in my group is the one guy with the list. Although he doesn't have the list any more. He only used it to be a smart ass and protest the high level of undead I was using and the several side trips to Ravenloft I shoved them into at the time. 

* Nods to the evil laughter comming from Madmorgan *

Further, 3E made undead invulnerable to criticals and sneak attacks and has only increased his dislike of undead. Now I really hear about it when the undead show up, and even more if he rolls a 20. Great player, but I think he was a dwarf in another life. Shows up to the game with exotic microbrews and ready to give you his opinion  


As a side note, this happened before the beholder "incident" from my other story. In the end, history favors the DM!


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## ChaosEvoker (Jan 29, 2005)

Yeah my players complained about undead, especialy certian ones with the name of famous byzantine generals for a SN on ENWorld......

Anyways, I am so gettign a ntoebook for my next session, our group kind of take stuff liek that as comic relief so it'll be a godo stress reliever when things get tense.


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## Xen155 (Jan 30, 2005)

Belesarius said:
			
		

> Hello. I'm Belesarius. I want in. I just got DSL and can actualy participate without spending 45 minutes to post a reply. I'm DMing about 3 groups off and on, but I'm mostly a player. That's because I don't know how to be a DM. The only relatively steady DM I have is the biggest rat bastard on the planet. So You guys give me some tips and I'll tell you stories about the worst DM on the planet. (No offense in case my DM gets on. Not so bad, just a lot of rat bastard stories.)



Greetings Belesarious..... good to see ya around..Im typing between bouts of laughing.


[SBLOCK] *Deep Paladin voice* I ACCEPT THY QUEST![/SBLOCK]


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## Belesarius (Jan 30, 2005)

That rogue roulette thing was awesome. Reminds me of my favorite issue of KoDT. Ok, yeah. My name on enworld is the name of my best PC from D&D. He was origionaly spelled Belisarius, but NEVER Belesarious, Mr. Xen. You know Belesarius takes offense to that. He's arogant. Even for a paladin. Anyway, he was named after an obscure Byzantine general from the middle ages. And, no I don't mean the current DM, who if ever to get on these boards, would be Sidwyn or Jabogan. I mean Mr ChaosEvoker. Yes sir, you are indeed a rat bastard. Here's how Belesarius dies. (Though he came back later.) We had just gotten Xen into the group and were playing in my living room, when for some reason all our PCs were transported to this arena, where we were to battle one of two enemies to the death. One coice was an arcane archer. Now this was the eventual class of Vorramion, who by the way, was first named Furion Stormrage. Sound familiar? Yeah. The druid from WarCraft II. So he took some name some girlfriend gave him. Now he was an arcane archer, and didn't know how to use the class, as we were still trying to transition between 2E and 3E. So he was amazingly overpowered. And this guy was higher level, and he had a cloak of mirroring like the one in Baldur's Gate Two. It reflects all ARCANE spell damage back at the caster. So we decided there was no way. So we took the other choice, and you're going to enjoy this, two paragon tarrasques. You may be thinking to yourselves, "but there is only one tarrasque, and it might as well be paragon, as it destroyes everyhting in about two rounds!" Yes, well, there were two. And they were paragon. And not like the prestige class in Unearthed Arcana, like the template in Epic Level Handbook. So ChaosEvoker told us we were stupid and made us fight the arcane archer instead. Now Belesarius had a secret weapon, and after the monk charged and valiently died, Belesarius the great paladin (and master of ironic weapons) slamed his demon sword on the ground and threw a seriously beefed flame strike right down on the sucker, at the expense of most of my hit points and strength(temp), as to harness the power, I had to give some of my energy to the sword. And it reflected. And I died. Now first, this was stupid, because ChaosEvoker just wanted us dead. Second, the cloak was only supoosed to reflect ARCANE damage. This was divine! Flamestrike was always primarily a divine spell! And this was diffinately the divine version, because that's what was said about it when I got the thing. The arcone archer promptly killed the remaining characters, which I believe were only the rogue and Xen's character. I don't know which one it was. Anyway, from that day, I will always regard Chaos as a rat bastard, and there's nothing he can do about it. I still enjoy the game, but that made me mad. It was a final straw, if you will.


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## Xen155 (Jan 30, 2005)

Xen.... rest in peace..... *You shall be avanged.*


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## LilMissKittyn (Jan 30, 2005)

Belesarius, it would be handy if you used paragraph breaks, it makes it much easier to read. 

[sblock] Please remember that grudges do not enter into the realm of discussion at the DMF, and especially not aimed at the founder. The story can be framed in a comical light, no matter how angry you may be about it, and would therefore be much more enjoyable for members here to read. Thanks. [/sblock] 

Good to have you with us. I'm sure you'll be a good voice of logic and reason to the group when we get off topic (to council members: remember the fireball incident ).

Question and an opportunity for stories:
Where are the best places, in your opinion, to go looking for players and what's the wierdest one you've ever had in your group?

This was stemmed by my finding another player who can't find a group either, and we were wondering where the best place to go is to find reliable people. Thanks!


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## Belesarius (Jan 30, 2005)

*Bye*

Crap. Not you... I just realized who LilMissKittyn was. I quit. Bye.


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## Nightcloak (Jan 30, 2005)

Suddenly, I'm a spectator in a strange land.


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## derbacher (Jan 31, 2005)

And things just keep gettin' weirder.   

OK, anyone gonna play in the proposed campaign? As of right now, only 3 characters posted, with another promised...

I would like to play, but rehearsals have started, and between work and directing, I just don't see myself having the time.

[sblock]My wife and I are the directors of the local high school musical. teach 'til 3:30, build sets/arrange music/ design props 'til 6:00, rehearse kids 'til 8;30, home by 9:00. This is really killing my game time![/sblock]


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## LilMissKittyn (Jan 31, 2005)

[sblock] I feel your pain, derbacher. I played in the musical here and it killed everything I did for about a month and a half. Good luck, hope it goes well. [/sblock]

[sblock] Sorry for driving the new guy off...personal differences, IM me if you need to know.[/sblock]

I'm thinking perhaps we should set a definite start date for the campaign....say a week and a half from now? I'm not in it but it looks like it's not gonna get started unless we set a deadline.
Just my two cents.


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## ChaosEvoker (Jan 31, 2005)

@Belesarius
First of all, that was a mistake based on ignorance not intent, you sir have already roken one of the main rules, so had you not quit by this time I woudl have removed you.

Second of all, you have personal issues that seem to be getting in the way. Such things disrupt this organization and I will not have it

@On a lighter note
I said a kabillion times that the character cut off date was february the first. *sigh* But alas we have but a mere 3 characters, we seriosuly need more players.

@other stuff
Is there any new word on the forum?


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## Xen155 (Jan 31, 2005)

I guess to even out the fact that there is only 3 of us we should all be paragon.


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## Nightcloak (Jan 31, 2005)

*OK... Ok...*

A little last minute (Yes, I did know about the deadline - good thing to have one!) but I was able to kick RL to the corner this weekend and get a character posted. 

Please feel free to comment considering this is the first actual 3.5 character I've built.

Whew... What a week. Now there be 4 characters.


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## Mordmorgan the Mad (Jan 31, 2005)

Sorry all, but RL has been fairly hectic and it looks like I won't have time to do the PbP as much as I want to   

Boy, I'm gone for a day and already we've got people fighting. Naughty members!

Kittyn:[sblock]We like you better anyway  . Horray for readable posts![/sblock]


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## Nightcloak (Jan 31, 2005)

Mordmorgan the Mad said:
			
		

> Sorry all, but RL has been fairly hectic and it looks like I won't have time to do the PbP as much as I want to




[sblock]I can certainly relate. If it wasn't for having today off I would have missed the deadline. Sorry you can't join in.



> Boy, I'm gone for a day and already we've got people fighting.




Hey! With Xen and Dyne not around to conduct the Zombie fights, we needed something to do! Held a seat for you, but nooooooo. 



> Naughty members!




Standard Operating Procedure my man.[/sblock]


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## Evilhalfling (Jan 31, 2005)

I have lost the PbP DMF thread again. (sigh) 
willl if it makes it back to page 1 ill prolly keep playing. If it remains vanished I guess it was not ment to be. 
Im playing 2 other games and one is stalled at the same place as the DMF. 
I keep fighting the temptation to start my own, but the table game I am playing in is widing down, and I am the next DM.  While Grad School is widing up.


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## Nightcloak (Jan 31, 2005)

Evilhalfling said:
			
		

> I have lost the PbP DMF thread again. (sigh)




Hope this helps!  DMF Campaign 

Plus I posted to it twice tonight, so it should be back to page 1


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## Raloc (Jan 31, 2005)

ChaosEvoker said:
			
		

> @Belesarius
> First of all, that was a mistake based on ignorance not intent, you sir have already roken one of the main rules, so had you not quit by this time I woudl have removed you.
> 
> Second of all, you have personal issues that seem to be getting in the way. Such things disrupt this organization and I will not have it
> ...




I'd still like to play.  I can put up my character today. (Gah! Inadvertant rhyming!)


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## ChaosEvoker (Jan 31, 2005)

Alright well the character cut off is tomorrow so hurry and post your characters


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## LilMissKittyn (Jan 31, 2005)

Mordmorgan the Mad said:
			
		

> Kittyn:[sblock]We like you better anyway  . Horray for readable posts![/sblock]




[sblock] Thankya. I'm sure with the stories you've heard, it wasn't too great a loss (check your email if you haven't already, and you'll understand what I mean. [/sblock]

I'll post my character tomorrow, CE's helping me make it tonight.


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## Mordmorgan the Mad (Jan 31, 2005)

LilMissKittyn said:
			
		

> [sblock] Thankya. I'm sure with the stories you've heard, it wasn't too great a loss (check your email if you haven't already, and you'll understand what I mean. [/sblock]



[sblock]I kinda figured that was the case, even before reading the email. I'm glad he quit, not that I wouldn't have loved the opportunity to defend a fair maiden such as yourself (must be the paladin in me).[/sblock]


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## Mordmorgan the Mad (Jan 31, 2005)

Re: DMF Campaign: I actually might be able to play, as long as it's ok with CE that my involvement remain sporadic (sp?). Working overnight 2x a week can get really draining really fast, but I'd still like to try to play.

Looks like we need a rogue. Hmmm...


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## azmodean (Jan 31, 2005)

> DM’s: Any tales of a great scheme gone awry. You sat chuckling in your fortress of solitude knowing that the plans you had for your players were just dastardly. They would stare in horror at you and curse your name. But game time hit and they totally blew it away. They ran right through your scheme and hardly noticed the twitch in your face.
> Come on, it happens. That is why they invented grudge monsters



This happened just last week.  I'll sblock it since I'm including a hefty amount of backstory.
[sblock]    The party had travelled through a tunnel under an impassable mountain range(not hyperbole, the mountain range is actually an artifact that extends past the atmosphere).  And on the way through they killed a purple worm and were rather beat up, so they decided to rest.  

    An hour or so later, _something_ is heard approaching down the tunnel ahead of them.  Being smart types they quietly peeked down the hallway, and saw the 15' long reptilian beast slinkking down the tunnel toward them.  After a quick retreat and discussion, during which the genius-intelligence kobold with really terrible speaking skills makes his knowledge(arcana) check and tells them, "It make us crispy, we all die"  They went ethereal and sneaked by as the dragon started eating the purple worm.  

    They headed away as fast as possible, congratulating themselves on their close escape, but then they reached the next room, which happened to be the dragon's lair... with hoard (actually just part of its hoard, but they didn't know that)  After a moment's indecision, the group's greed won out over their sense of self-preservation.  One player goes, "I'm grabbing the coins!", another says, "I'm stowing the gems".  At this point I interrupt and tell the second player to make a reflex save, he failed and took a little damage as one of the gems detonated in his hand, and the characters freeze as the echoes roll through the chamber, and down the tunnel...

    The immediately take off at high speed, passing through a chamber resembling a barraks with two ettins and about 30 gnolls...  Through another tunnel and out to the desert on the other side of the mountain range.  After a bit of thought, one of the PCs took the treasure, sneaked back into the barracks, and planted it while the ettin on guard was having a fistfight with itself.  They thought the dragon would blame the ettins for stealing, kill them, and the party would be off scott free.  The session ended there.

    The next week I had a pair of players who were only going to be there for that game (boyfriend/girlfriend), so I handed them a character sheet for an Ettin I made up and told them they each control one arm and one head, and whoever wins inititave each round gets the legs.  First scene of the session was the dragon chewing out (not literal chewing) the ettin for sleeing on watch duty and sending it to find the @#$@ who had stolen the dragon's treasure.  Some worried looks around the table, but then the ettin comes out of the tunnel and wanders around at random, after some fast talking, the PCs hire the ettin and they head off to take care of their buisness in the area, which took the entire session.

    Now the background is out of the way, here is the evilness that was foiled.  The following session the party went all out buffing up for the inevitable fight with the dragon, including plannar ally to call a devil and raising a gargantuan scorpion as a skeleton(did I mention it's an evil party?)  Incedentally, one of my favorite lines from the game was from the devil, "what?  I'm here to fight a dragon, you deal with the ettins."  Deals with devils and all that.

    After fighting their way through the paltry defenses the ettins and gnolls put up, they buffed up and went ethereal to enter the dragon's lair(the kobold psion was glowing like a christmas tree).  The fight started out as expected, two of the party failed their dragonfear saves, and the cleric had to throw up an antimagic field to keep them from running past the symbol of death on the door they bypassed.  The party engaged, and both sides were giving and taking damage in great quantities.  

    Then the ghost sorceror(side note, his player wasn't there so I was NPCing him), who was basically out of spells after buffing everyone, decided to try for the long shot and use his possession ability.  Me, "you see Asha float over to the dragon's head and try to dive into it, muttering, 'might as well try'."  Then I rolled his spell penetration, 25, it passed as expected, then the dragon's save, it needed a 3 if I remember correctly, 1.   I just stare at the die for a bit.  My wife notices how quiet I got, nobody else seems to, "Honey, what happened?".  I reply by throwing my notes in the air, this gets everyone's attention.  As the paper rains down around me, I say, "The dragon looks up, a strange expression on it's face, and says, 'hey guys!  It worked!', I assume there is a pause in the 'killing the dragon' action?"  They agree, and as they discuss what they should do with their temporary pet (the possession lasts 10 hrs), the devil falls to the floor laughing, and a moment later the dragon fires a lightning bolt at the ceiling and says, "wow!  This is cool!"  (very chaotic-type ghost/sorceror).

    They then proceed to heal the dragon, smash their way through the dungeon (magically restocked, I mentioned the mountain range was an artifact, right?) and fly off to attack a city the party started a war with several sessions ago, before finally returning to a friendly(terrified of them) hobgoblin fortress where they plan on tying the dragon down and killing it so they can animate it as a mount for the cleric.

I present this as an evil plan that failed purely tounge-in-cheek, the session that resulted with the players riding around on a dragon strafing an enemy city was much more fun (and generated far more plot hooks) than the session I had planned.  With that in mind, how about a third round of stories, about how your players ran off with the plot you lovingly crafted and made it a better story than you ever could?
[/sblock]


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## Nightcloak (Jan 31, 2005)

azmodean said:
			
		

> With that in mind, how about a third round of stories, about how your players ran off with the plot you lovingly crafted and made it a better story than you ever could?




Great story! Actually, a lot of great stories have been posted. It's amazing how many great plans have been dashed by the roll of a 1  

I don't know about everyone else, but I've enjoyed these stories. It started out as something fun, but now has evolved into exploring concepts and ideas in ways I didn't think of before. Very cool.  

You got a great idea there. I'm sure there must be a lot of stories out there were the players up and took the game in a completely unplanned direction. Those stories are usually great because the DM gets to ride along into the unknown as well!


Hmmm... *Taps staff to forhead* I must think back to some suitable tale of yore...


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## Y.O.Morales (Jan 31, 2005)

Sorry I've been away for some time, but my computer broke around Christmas and I'm still without one.



> One thing I think would be nice about the DMF Forum is that good questions and disscusions wont be lost. Like Y.O.'s request for opinions on the seperate forum (which btw I like and will support). And old descusions can be brought back up quickly and easily by just posting in that discussions threads. When anyone had something like the DMPC it could have its own thread and go without interuptions.



Good. That's a good point.

Well, I'll be setting up the forum on the upcoming days (to those who wonder: by using my brother-in-law's laptop). I'll first do some basic 'mod' stuff (you know, picking the color scheme, tinkering here and there). Once it is done, I'll let everyone know and see what we can do from there.


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## azmodean (Jan 31, 2005)

Oh, I glossed over it, but along with wrecking the dragon encounter, (the possession occured on round 2 of the fight), the party just rolled over everything else in the dungeon since they had a monster with a cr two higher than party average along for the ride.  (to try to minimise the damage I had the dragon blast every door they came to off its hinges, so they 1. never had suprise and 2. never got to use the lightning breath in combat.)  

In short, I switched to "cenematic mode" for the most part after the possession occured, which is the first time I've done that for any length of time.  Luckily the tunnel was like two miles long and the city was nearly a hundred miles from the tunnel (they covered it in like three hours since the dragon could fly so fast, and being huge, most of the party could ride on it)  Due to how long it took, they didn't have long to spend attacking the city.


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## Xen155 (Jan 31, 2005)

Y.O.Morales said:
			
		

> Well, I'll be setting up the forum on the upcoming days (to those who wonder: by using my brother-in-law's laptop). I'll first do some basic 'mod' stuff (you know, picking the color scheme, tinkering here and there). Once it is done, I'll let everyone know and see what we can do from there.




Thanks for all the Help Y.O. the DMF appreciates your contributation.... everyone lets have a round of applause for Morales.........


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## Blade of Desecration (Feb 1, 2005)

By the way, where's Dyne?  I hope my zombies didn't kill him...   

[sblock] Well, I have one tip for everyone:  don't have to many players.  During my first campaign (myself and everyone else had never played before, except with the comp games), I had eight PCs.  It was _hell_.  No matter what I threw at them, they always bounced.  The party was: 1 barbarian, 1 paladin, 2 fighters, 1 cleric, 1 wizard, 1 rogue, and a ranger.  I finally got so desperate that I threw an umber hulk at them at second level, along with a few goblins.  And, can anyone guess the result?  They _beat it down_!  Mind you, this was the first time I'd played, but I am never having that large of a group again. [/sblock]

Campaign:  I might be able to come in, but RL is getting hectic.


----------



## ChaosEvoker (Feb 1, 2005)

Alright since it appears we have at least three others who are worried about itme constraints for the campaign, I'm bumping the character date till this friday, but get your characters up. Time contraints relaly dont' bug me, that's one of the great things about PbP you just kind of jump in when you can and the game game progesses however fast (or slow) RL allows. Don't worry about it.

*applauds for Y.O.*
Alright, just give us word when it all ready. Thanks a ton.

Idk where Dyne is I think he said something aobut his computer being broken...or something. It was a while back.

Finally, theres been some great stories. I hope possibly the DMF Campaign will spawn some great ones, I enocouage you guys to play if at all possible, and if not to drop by and at least keep up with it, I coudl always use some advise for DMing, and this will be a great oppurtunity to create a great campaign and to give new DMs some expereince if it relaly gets off the ground.


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## Mordmorgan the Mad (Feb 1, 2005)

Oh, good. Now I don't have to rush with my character   

Kittyn: Any idea what class you'll be?


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## Evilhalfling (Feb 1, 2005)

If MtM is looking rogue, we could use another front line ftr type.   Its easy for a beginer. 
Or if like many of the women I have gamed with you are better with social roles than rules, you could play a high Chr charater/ party spokeswoman.   Of course C.E. will prolly give you good advice as well.


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## Mordmorgan the Mad (Feb 1, 2005)

I wouldn't mind going straight fighter if that needs to be filled. From what I hear, CE's games are a little more combat than I'm used to.


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## ChaosEvoker (Feb 1, 2005)

Eh I tend to have violent players so that's why. My campaigns coudl be played more diplomatic style or coul be mor ecombat style depending on your approach. (That is if I haven't forgot how to make a good campaign)


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## LilMissKittyn (Feb 1, 2005)

*laughs* Sorry, EH, I'm not too good with social roles. Idk what I'd be yet, I usually don't choose until I've rolled the dice. Sorry I didn't post last night; things beyond my control happened and I didn't get to create it. 
I'll do fighter, certainly, if nobody else wants to. My favorite class is paladin, that's a possibility too.
We'll see.


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## Raloc (Feb 1, 2005)

Apologies, I meant to put up my character last night but I arrived home late from work and fell asleep.


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## ChaosEvoker (Feb 1, 2005)

It's ok the character post date was set back to friday, but hurry guys...


----------



## Mordmorgan the Mad (Feb 1, 2005)

Any idea where the game will be set (in regards to CS or physical location)?


----------



## ChaosEvoker (Feb 1, 2005)

Oh it will be set in the FR I haven't really decided what area. Probably Mulhorand though.


----------



## LilMissKittyn (Feb 2, 2005)

Ok guys I've got an elven monk here, half-finished, will post tomorrow, if CE will help me fill in the holes.


----------



## Raloc (Feb 2, 2005)

ChaosEvoker, what books are you allowing?  Not sure what class or the like to go with.


----------



## Xen155 (Feb 2, 2005)

CE is alowing anything that is WotC material.


----------



## Raloc (Feb 2, 2005)

Yay.


----------



## Morbog of Ghetto D (Feb 2, 2005)

*Thanks to all*

After reading a bunch of repsonses to my "problem players" i ended up using a good portion of the advice... It really grounded my feet, and reminded me why I run this game...

Yehaw


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## Stone Angel (Feb 2, 2005)

I am so lost?   

What has happened to my precious foundation? 

And could someone post the details to this PbP game that is going on in summarized form because I am lazy.


The Seraph of Earth and Stone


----------



## Mordmorgan the Mad (Feb 3, 2005)

Stone Angel said:
			
		

> I am so lost?
> 
> What has happened to my precious foundation?



Indeed. Let's post any more questions about the PbP game on its thread (found here)
 and return the DM Foundation to its true purpose.

@ Morbog: What, if anything, has happend with your game since the advice?


----------



## ChaosEvoker (Feb 3, 2005)

The foundation got alot of posts so we rebooted it to keep in organized, though sonon we will be moving to out own forum if I understood YO Morales correctly.

So any interestign topics or campaign help needed?


----------



## Nightcloak (Feb 3, 2005)

Morbog of Ghetto D said:
			
		

> After reading a bunch of repsonses to my "problem players" i ended up using a good portion of the advice... It really grounded my feet, and reminded me why I run this game...
> 
> Yehaw




Hey, that's great! Glad to hear the game went well. I got a little worried when we didn't hear back from you. 



> @ Morbog: What, if anything, has happend with your game since the advice?




Yes. Details man!


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## DarrenGMiller (Feb 3, 2005)

Morbog of Ghetto D said:
			
		

> After reading a bunch of repsonses to my "problem players" i ended up using a good portion of the advice... It really grounded my feet, and reminded me why I run this game...
> 
> Yehaw




Yes, I echo the others in saying, "Can you give us an update?"  Having been through similar recently and having given some of the advice, I am extremely interested in what worked and how things are settling out.

DM


----------



## ChaosEvoker (Feb 3, 2005)

I also would like to know how things are going...TELL US MAN!


----------



## LilMissKittyn (Feb 3, 2005)

He may not be coming back for a while....perhaps get things moving in a different direction in the meantime?


----------



## Y.O.Morales (Feb 4, 2005)

Too bad...

Just when I finally got the time for creating the forum, the creation page gives me the 404 error. I already posted on the appropriate thread, so expect it soon.

Check here:
http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?p=1998243#post1998243


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## Mordmorgan the Mad (Feb 4, 2005)

Anyone looking forward to the new Faerun book, Lost Empires? I've been toying with the idea of an Indiana Jones-esque campaign, and this book will hopefully make that campaign much easier. (I'm still hopefull that it won't contain the myriad errors of PGtF had  :\ ).


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## Blade of Desecration (Feb 4, 2005)

Mordmorgan the Mad said:
			
		

> Anyone looking forward to the new Faerun book, Lost Empires? I've been toying with the idea of an Indiana Jones-esque campaign, and this book will hopefully make that campaign much easier. (I'm still hopefull that it won't contain the myriad errors of PGtF had  :\ ).



Yeah, I'm planning on getting it.

Alright, RL is still hectic, so I doubt I'll be able to do the PbP.  Either I post my character tommorow, or I don't.  If I can't, oh well.


----------



## Dyne (Feb 4, 2005)

I wouldn't recommend picking me for the PbP thing. I'm really busy now, so I can't get online nearly as much. That, and I don't like the new background very much.


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## Mordmorgan the Mad (Feb 4, 2005)

Once again, lets keep the PbP comments and questions on the Campaign Thread.

Since things seem to be slowing down a little, and since I haven't been able to game in a while, I'd like to hear how everyone else's games are going. Let's hear what the PCs are up to, what fiendish peril faces them next, and anything else you might want to add   . Post away!


----------



## ChaosEvoker (Feb 4, 2005)

I've posted a comment about the PbP game at the thread (linked by Mordmorgan above)

I wish I had problems but currently I am not DMing anyone....alas.....


----------



## Nightcloak (Feb 4, 2005)

Actually, I'm on a "DM vacation" right now. And the group is rotating DMs for now to give me a break. I seriously burned out last spring after DMing two campaigns for years straight. (One: every two weeks/The Second: Every week for 6 years). Now I'm envolved in some games as a player but for the following:

1. The rotating group ended up on my turn, so I decided that: a) I wasn't going to do anything exotic since this isn't "my" campaign and b) I got tired of hearing about treasure count per level and combat per evening ratios from the guys giving each other griefas they took thier turns. End result, I bought the Diablo II (To Hell and Back) book off of ebay for dirt-cheap, modified it, and threw it at them. Only one player has played the computer game, and the look on his (and everyone elses face) when shamans started raising those little carvers was classic  

No complaint on combat now.   

**note: the Diablo book is dreadfull as a written adventure. Only buy this book if it's cheap, to salvage the critters for other games, or if you like seriously fixing adventures and making maps.**

2. Several of the players has asked to return to their now epic characters from several years ago. I've agreed, and we'll probably get together once every month or two for this campaign. I got a hunch a certain beholder is going to start causing trouble.  


But really, my BIG project is the work I've been doing on my new homebrew which I plan to get rolling this spring, after a year off. I'm trying (and I use that word losely), to make a campaign source book for my _WraithswordTM_ world by integrating maps, notes, lots of third party material, etc., etc.
It's a big project, but I hope to finally finish it in a few months. The year off has helped a lot, but now it's crunch time to get everything together in a neat and player friendly format (assuming I don't change things as I go  )


Next!


----------



## Nightcloak (Feb 4, 2005)

Actually, I have a general question, that ties to Madmorgans question, for a lot a people here in the DMF. We've picked up little details over the last 6 weeks and was just a little curious about how you guys (and gals) are doing. So as to not hijack this thread to much, I'll just put them in the spoiler block.

[sblock]@ Chaos Evoker:
Did you ever defeat that game you got for christmas? How is it?!

@ Madmorgan
Did you run that annual Ravenloft game with that plot of the Warlock and the innocent girl getting turned into a werewolf by the jealous girlfriend. That story was great, hope you got to run it

@ Morbog
Actually, my original question was about your group. But since that has been asked, I'll just say: Hey! Glad you got the gaming grove back.

@ Dyne
You've been designing your own RPG for all intent. How is it going? I go into so much detail developing my homebrew it gives me fits! I can't imagine YOUR task and the scope of your goals!!!

@ EvilHalfling
Didn't you mention (on another thread) about starting classes again this month? I think you mentoned Grad School. That's a work load, how is it going?

@ Wolf70
Schools in. What classes do you teach.

@ Kittyn
Weren't you going to DM? Did it happen? How did it go?

@ Xen 
How's it hanging!  

@ Blade of Desecration
How's that epic/generational campaign comming along? I would like to see how that unfolds.

@ YO Morales 
Thanks for the work you're putting in on the forum. You're even doing it in exile!  (or did you get your computer back). Anyways, just wanted to say thank you, as a manager I've learned that you can't show your appreciation enough for those who go above the call of duty. Let me know if there is something I can help you out with.
[/sblock]


----------



## Y.O.Morales (Feb 4, 2005)

Nightcloak said:
			
		

> You're even doing it in exile!  (or did you get your computer back).



Nope. Yesterday I called the brother of my brother-in-law to see if he repaired the computer and he told me he hasn't even checked it yet. At least he was honest


----------



## ChaosEvoker (Feb 4, 2005)

@Nightcloak
[sblock]If your talking about _Temple of Elemental Evil_ it's impossible. The game sucked I stopped playing it. World of Warcraft is in MMORPG. Like D&D it cannot be won, only quests can be fullfilled. YES![/sblock]

[inside joke]Behold for I am perfect!  Aren't I Xen????? heh heh heh[/inside joke]

Ok I am done.


----------



## Morbog of Ghetto D (Feb 4, 2005)

*The Morbog Campaign Update*

This is the long form version of my "after Hours" after work access.

First - Many thanks to all responders....I have never really used a Message Board for gmaing problems.  It was reliveing to have peers and sympathy.

2nd-  I used many of the methods and strategies discussed.  I started the latest session by explaining that I wanted better communication, and that we need to make sure we all wanted the same thisng out of the game.  

I explained there are 3 styles of RPG ( i think this was from gaming quarrterly, Narative,gamist, and simulationist)  I expressed that FUN was our greatest ambition.

We adressed "arguing" and establish a 5 minute limit, with a limit of 1 petition per player per session.  This really adressed one player who admitted "YEAH I GUESS I START 95% OF THE ARGUMENTS!"

We also banished verbal insults

Most importantly I reassesd my position and tried to see things from the players perspective.
I explained that I understood that plyers feel Im dismissive, but its done with "good intentions"

The players saw that I understood, and they in turn understood my positions.

All is well in the lands of the the Sheldomar Valley, Now I can get back to overunning the country side with Undead Hordes....YIPPIE!

Funny-last session the players decided to "close" a planer gate.  It ended up changing 23 players....The Smug Monk is now a gnome, the Elf Ranger is Undead, and the Elf Archer is a beastman...


In the End Justice is done..."thank Hieronius!"


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## Mordmorgan the Mad (Feb 5, 2005)

I'm glad that everything worked out Morborg   

@ Nightcloak:
[sblock]I did indeed get to run the game, and it was fantastic as expected. After a tough tracking session, they finnally chased down the beast. It was a tough fight and the ranger was critically wounded. (Since divine casters are few and far between in my game, the ranger spent a few weeks in bed healing up and battling a mysterious fever that came a few days after her injuries).

The night of the full moon, the party ventured back to the beast's lair, armed to the teeth with silver and wolfsbane. When they reached the cave, they found the bodies of the Vistani hunters they'd met nearly a month previous. They entered the cave as the full moon rose high and prepared for battle. It was a hard fight and just before the final blow, the injured werewolf managed to escape the cave. The PCs gave chase and found the beast standing in the small clearing outside her lair. She turned and was obviously ready to rejoin the fight.

As the warlock readied his eldritch might, the ranger began feeling feverish. Her stomach twisted and she fell to her knees. Her bones began to shift and her hair grew at an unnatural rate. The werewolf charged the warlock while his companion was changing. After the last blow, the werewolf fell and shifted into her natural form. The warlock was horrified at the discovery and terrified that his changing companion would slay him in his weakened state.

I let the game end there. Next time they'll be dealing with the Ranger's lycanthropy and trying to find the (non-existant) werewolf that infected that "poor little girl"[/sblock]


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## derbacher (Feb 5, 2005)

*Complete Adventurer*

Has anyone else picked up/plan to use this book? I just got mine from Amazon Tuesday. This is the first rules supplement book that I want to incorporate into my games "right now"! I have all the 'Complete' series, but this one just seems to stand out as usable without too much reworking. The skill uses and feats are interesting, don't seem to be unbalancing, and make a lot of sense. Any thoughts?

@MadMorgan: I bow in respect to your use of the lycanthrope plot line, that was truly classic.

@Morborg: Glad your group is coming around. It's so much better when everyone is having fun!

@ChaosEvoker: 
[sblock]I didn't think ToEE the CRPG was that bad. It did make my old P4 1800 slow to a crawl, but the new box flew through it, and while I spent a lot of time returning to town and resting, I did complete the game.[/sblock]

OK, gotta go. I have a 6th level Orc Druid NPC to stat up for Sunday's game. ("What do you mean, the orc can cast spells?" I love introducing this game to my kids!)


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## DarrenGMiller (Feb 5, 2005)

@ Nightcloak
I am not sure about the etiquette and finer details of replying with the spoiler blocks and all, so I hope this works. I tried to PM you, but the site wouldn't let me.

[sblock] 


			
				Nightcloak said:
			
		

> @ Wolf70
> Schools in. What classes do you teach.




I am a high school instrumental music teacher. I also teach Advanced Placement Music Theory and International Baccalaureate Music (which incorporates theory, music history, performance, composition and writing commentary on music). Thanks for asking!

[/sblock]

DM


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## Mordmorgan the Mad (Feb 5, 2005)

derbacher said:
			
		

> @MadMorgan: I bow in respect to your use of the lycanthrope plot line, that was truly classic.



I'm glad you liked it   . I always aim to please, at least when I'm behind the screen. The warlock's player loved it and the ranger is looking forward to the challenge of removing her curse.

Maybe some day I'll run a Ravenloft PbP for the members here   . Then you will all know the true meaning of fear! Mwahahahahahaha *cough, cough, cough* sorry   .


----------



## Mordmorgan the Mad (Feb 5, 2005)

*Ravenloft Ideas*

Since my sporadic Ravenloft game seems to pique a few interests, I'll sblock my plans for this summer's game:

Part the mists[sblock]The next game will focus on the Ranger's lycanthropy and her struggle to control/remove it. With a little research (and, yes, I am one of those lucky few DMs whose players actually research!   ), the PCs will learn that the Temple of the Morninglord in Vallaki is in possession of an ancient artifact that can cure lycanthropy. Unfortunately, this artifact isn't available to the general public, and its use is restricted to only those pious few who can prove they are worthy of redemption rather than destruction. 

To prove her worth, the Ranger must perform some task for the Temple. This particular task is very dangerous and very important. Earlier this year, one of the Temple's most trusted clerics stole one of thier most precious relics. The clerics have sent trackers after the man, but none have yet returned. If the PCs bring both the relic and the traitorous cleric back intact and alive, they will be rewarded.

I'm thinking that the traitor was corrupted by a sneaky demon who seeks to destroy the artifact in a ritual that it believes will allow it to escape from Ravenloft. Durring the course of the adventure, the PCs will learn of the plot and come to realize (slowly) that the ritual won't allow escape, but rather, drag half of hell *into * the Dread Realms.

 [/sblock]


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## Nightcloak (Feb 5, 2005)

wolf70 said:
			
		

> @ Nightcloak
> I am not sure about the etiquette and finer details of replying with the spoiler blocks and all, so I hope this works. I tried to PM you, but the site wouldn't let me.




Bah... Don't worry about etiquette, I'm still figuring it out also. PM only works for those who buy a community supporter account. But you can always email me.

and...

[sblock]



> I am a high school instrumental music teacher. I also teach Advanced Placement Music Theory and International Baccalaureate Music (which incorporates theory, music history, performance, composition and writing commentary on music). Thanks for asking!




Very cool. I have an absolute love of music. Don't have the time to explore new sounds and trends like I use to, but I still collect it. Tons of it. I would even, when I was running my weekly campaign; burn a "soundtrack" where the song titles were replaced with the names of NPCs and plot themes. The cover would be stock art and quotes from great stories or poems. 

Of course, you are in WAY deeper than my simple 7 years of orchestra from school. I’m not even sure what half of what you said is exactly  . I’d be curious sometime to know.


Nightcloak: " intrest doesn't equal talent" d'oh!

[/sblock]


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## Nightcloak (Feb 5, 2005)

*Can't...  stop... from... talking... smack!*

@ Madmorgan

[sblock]



			
				Mordmorgan the Mad said:
			
		

> Since my sporadic Ravenloft game seems to pique a few interests.




People can't help but respect a good thing when they see it



> Part the mists




Why is everyone running the other direction?



> The next game will focus on the Ranger's lycanthropy and her struggle ...




Very nice. **Evil chuckle from one super villian to another**



> Maybe some day I'll run a Ravenloft PbP for the members here.




Waaaaaaaait a minute. Is that gauntlet I see comming my way? You talking to me!?



> Then you will all know the true meaning of fear!




Oh yea! That was a challenge alright. You really wanna go there.

**Nightcloak folds up his DM screen and puts it away. Goes to his Desk of HoldingTM, pulls forth some dice, walks over the line to Madmorgans table, and slams the dice down on the table**

Consider it brought screen monkey! Do you worst.

 



> Mwahahahahahaha *cough, cough, cough* sorry




Dammit. you don't part the mist, you dispell the mist. Now we have second hand mist exposure all over the place. 
Bad, madman. Bad.

[sblock]      So I had to much coffee this morning. So what? [/sblock] 

[/sblock]


----------



## Mordmorgan the Mad (Feb 5, 2005)

Nightcloak said:
			
		

> [sblock]
> Consider it brought screen monkey! Do you worst.
> [/sblock]




[sblock]*Stares blankly. Casts _summon unimaginable horror_. Continues to stare blankly as unimaginable horror eats Nightcloak's sanity.* "Welcome to the Nightmare Realm, child. Dr. Ilhousen shall not be able to help you now."

*Looks around at the other Foundation members* "Are there any others present who wish to 'bring it'?

No?

As I expected."[/sblock]


----------



## LilMissKittyn (Feb 5, 2005)

@Complete Adventurer
I remember looking through it briefly sometime in January and it seemed pretty good. However, I don't have the pleasure of owning it. Details?

@wolf70
[sblock] Hey, can I get your AIM? *shameless opportunity for knowledge and self-promotion* I'm going to be a Music Ed and Music Performance major next year, so it would be cool to talk to someone outside my little world here that really knows music (I don't, and very few people here do). Just a request, feel free to ignore it. [/sblock]

@Nightcloak
[sblock] .... [/sblock]


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## Mordmorgan the Mad (Feb 5, 2005)

Nightcloak said:
			
		

> But you can always email me.



I dunno if you have to be a member to access that part of things, but the screen I got said you weren't accepting emails from members.


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## Mordmorgan the Mad (Feb 5, 2005)

LilMissKittyn said:
			
		

> @Nightcloak
> [sblock] .... [/sblock]



In retrospect, I should have said that   

Kittyn:
[sblock]Complete Adventurer is pretty good. The art is fantastic, the Core Classes are fairly good, and the PrCs are fairly useful. All in all, it's a good buy.[/sblock]


----------



## Nightcloak (Feb 5, 2005)

LilMissKittyn said:
			
		

> ....




huh?


----------



## Nightcloak (Feb 5, 2005)

Mordmorgan the Mad said:
			
		

> I dunno if you have to be a member to access that part of things, but the screen I got said you weren't accepting emails from members.





hmmmm... I double checked it and _I think _ I fixed it. 

But if not: creativecontrol@sbcglobal.net


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## Mordmorgan the Mad (Feb 5, 2005)

@ Nightcloak: If you've got some spare time, I'd like to hear some of your Ravenloft stories. [sblock]I've got a few more I can share from past games if anyone's interested.[/sblock]


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## Nightcloak (Feb 5, 2005)

Madmorgan: 

[sblock] 



			
				Mordmorgan the Mad said:
			
		

> @ Nightcloak: If you've got some spare time, I'd like to hear some of your Ravenloft stories. I've got a few more I can share from past games if anyone's interested.




You got it. It'll be a day or two for the spare time though. Commitments today  

[/sblock]


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## DarrenGMiller (Feb 5, 2005)

LilMissKittyn said:
			
		

> @Complete Adventurer
> I remember looking through it briefly sometime in January and it seemed pretty good. However, I don't have the pleasure of owning it. Details?




@LilMissKittyn
[sblock]



			
				LilMissKittyn said:
			
		

> Hey, can I get your AIM? *shameless opportunity for knowledge and self-promotion* I'm going to be a Music Ed and Music Performance major next year, so it would be cool to talk to someone outside my little world here that really knows music (I don't, and very few people here do). Just a request, feel free to ignore it.




No problem, though I am not on AIM often.  My AIM is DGMiller1970.  So, you are double majoring?  Where are you going?  What is your music background?  You may email me at dgmiller@sccoast.net

DM

[/sblock]

That is all.

DM


----------



## LilMissKittyn (Feb 5, 2005)

@wolf70
[sblock] Thanks. You'll be hearing from me shortly. [/sblock]

@Nightcloak 
[sblock] ... means......stunned silence. .....[/sblock]

How's the forum going?


----------



## derbacher (Feb 5, 2005)

@wolf70 and LilMissKittyn

[sblock]Are musicians taking over this forum?  

I had to reply here: I've been the High School instrumental and theory teacher for twenty years. For the past year and a half I've moved to teaching elementry general music, and I'm enjoying my semi-retirement!  

I know, let's all create bards and take over the world!  [/sblock]


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## LilMissKittyn (Feb 6, 2005)

@derbacher
[sblock] I dunno, first wolf, then me, then you (CE's one too, but not going professional)....maybe it's just that the smart gamers all become musicians too (j/k, j/k! Don't kill me!)
Heh, but I don't think I'll be going bard. I've read too much OOTS (http://www.giantitp.com/cgi-bin/GiantITP/ootscript). Read it, it's an amusing reflection on our career choices. I'd rather be....oh, how 'bout a monk?  

Oh yeah, and if I could email you and ask questions, that would certainly be appreciated. Just a request, if I may. [/sblock] 

I promise I'll get back on topic one of these days...


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## derbacher (Feb 6, 2005)

> LilMissKittyn  	@derbacher
> [sblock]
> I dunno, first wolf, then me, then you (CE's one too, but not going professional)....maybe it's just that the smart gamers all become musicians too (j/k, j/k! Don't kill me!)
> Heh, but I don't think I'll be going bard. I've read too much OOTS (http://www.giantitp.com/cgi-bin/GiantITP/ootscript). Read it, it's an amusing reflection on our career choices. I'd rather be....oh, how 'bout a monk?
> ...




[sblock]Questions are certainly welcome. I'm not called the Old Bald Sage for nothing! The avatar to the left looks a lot like me, it just has more hair! erbacher@eohio.net for email, AIM and ICQ are in the info at the side.[/sblock]

Yeah, I won't post anything else off topic, either. (At least until tomorow!)


----------



## Blade of Desecration (Feb 6, 2005)

Alright I'm finally back...

@Nightcloak:  About my bloodlines campaign.  Because of stuff up, my group hasn't met to many tiems recently, so we aren't very far.  We have our next meeting tommorow though.  But, oh lucky me, the PCs have already broken one of the "golden rules".  They screwed with the beginning of my story arc.  We started out in a small town, and we'd just gotten to know our characters when the meeting ended.  I got there late to the next meeting because of events outside of my control (and I was only one hour late, out of our seven hour sessions), and one of the PCs had been talking to me for several weeks about this "great idea" had had, and had been asking if he could DM a mission.  With me gone, they decided to give it a try.  It ended up with the"great idea" being a gladatorial match held in the back.  This is what I had heard all the hype about?  Now, it wasn't to surprising (the guy DMing is a friend I've known since second grade, but he doesn't have much DMing experience), but he did it without clearing it with me first.  Used my NPCs and everything.  Actually had my bard, who is almost like a paladin, participate in the fight!  Totally screwed over half of my ideas.  So now I have to salvage whats left.  *Sigh*  To anyone who has read this far, thanks for listening to me rant.


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## LilMissKittyn (Feb 7, 2005)

*pats BoD on back*

...Don't kill him. Yet.


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## ChaosEvoker (Feb 7, 2005)

@BoD
Sorry about that one man. I woudl definately go with LMK on this one.


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## Nightcloak (Feb 7, 2005)

Blade of Desecration said:
			
		

> They screwed with the beginning of my story arc...




Ouch...

I'd seriously consider some alternate characters for your group to play with when you are running behind (or anyone else for that). You got a great story arc going there and I would hate to see it get completely trashed the next time. I'd keep any DMs away from your game. Story based adventures are to fragile to let someone run amok with it. It's kind of like Beethoven writing the 6th Symphony and letting a stranger in to pitch-hit for the second movement. This is, as always, IMHO. I’m not dogging your players, I’m sure they’re great. I’m just concerned about you maintaining the integrity of your game.

Of course, MissKittyn's advice is also sound...


Other business:



			
				Mordmorgan the Mad said:
			
		

> *Continues to stare blankly as unimaginable horror eats Nightcloak's sanity.*




New title!


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## themind (Feb 8, 2005)

Wow, I forgot all about this place.  I didn't intend that to happen.  Well, I guess I can share a little story of a game of mine.

I was running a Dragonlance game last year.  The Five characters, a kender wizard(bad idea), Minotaur fighter, Human cleric, Human Knight of Solamnia, and Human Sorceror.  They are heading to Necromancers tower to stop him from plaguing(sp?) the towns in the area.  They get to the tower and beat some zombies that he had waiting for them.

Now, I made this tower with an encounter on each level, and about 10 levels to it.  I created with a balcony on the top and about halfway up.  As i describe the tower, the Kender pulls out his cable spool.

Me: Why you doing that?
kender:  I'm going to have the Minotaur throw the gtrappling hook to the balcony.
Me: What??
Kender: We'll come in through the balcony and surprise him.

  

I had not thought about that.  They climbed up and took on the Necromancer without going through the tower.  It was a nice battle too.  Until the Minotaur got up to him and grappled him.  It wass over then.

I actually rewarded them for such ingenuity.


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## ChaosEvoker (Feb 8, 2005)

Very clever, though I might suggest for a "Oh crap..." effect have the stability of the tower based on the life of the necromancer. That way, when he dies, the tower begins to collapse, so they have to get out, but the first thign to fall off: balcony. So now they ahve to fight their way through the tower to keep from being crushed. It seems like a good idea to me atleast, but that's IMO.

(i'm aware this is past, but you know, 20/20 hindsight)


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## themind (Feb 8, 2005)

Yeah, in hindsight it would have been nice.  I was just so stunned...

...And proud *sniff*


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## Evilhalfling (Feb 8, 2005)

@ Nightcloak.
ah yes gradschool - 3 weeks in.  This weekend required 16 hours of homework. 
and I am going back tomorrow afternoon for more studio time. 
This really cuts down my gaming time.  I dropped out of 2 PbP, reduced the frequency of the one I am running.  (2 a week ) and had to refuse an offer to take over the Table Top game. Which sucks,  I like running.  And we just ended CoSQ.   So next week we play paranoia, and I look at my work load again. 

As for the best trick we pulled as players? it involves a Proffesion miner skill and a dozen summoned Dire badgers.   It really is amazing how many a high level druid can pull out of his A  not to mention the celestial verisons, and the gnome.   It does take a lot of effort to store the dirt in rope tricks.  If only our sorcerer had taken extradimensional spell.


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## themind (Feb 9, 2005)

Since I don't seem to be getting any help over at WoTC, I think I'll take a crack at it here.

I've been running an Eberron game every Sunday for the last 2-3 months.  Now this is no ordinary Eberron game.  A friend and I kind of spiced it up a little.  What we did was say that Eberron used to Toril.  

We added a little backstory saying that in the last days of Toril, there was a great War where even the Gods got involved.  Ao became dissapointed in the Gods and decided he would end this creation.  During the process, however, four of the most powerful dragons; Eberron, Siberys, Khyber, and Klauth; attempted to save the world.  Surprised by this, Ao decided to let them.  Thus, Eberron, Siberys, and Khyber became the Dragon Between, the Dragon Above, and the Dragon Below.

Klauth found himself standing next to Ao.  Ao proclaimed that the world had been born a new.  And he would not interfere in this world.  He will let the world grow.  That dragons must watch over the world.  Ao also mentioned, that since existance hadn't truly ended here, the Gods of before may return.  This time, however, they will have to learn responsibilty like anyone else, as a mortal.  Ao also said that Klauth must wait for the day that they begin theri journey, that he must be the one to put them on the right path.  With that Ao left.

And thus the timeline of Eberron played out.

Basically, the PC's are remnants of Faerun gods.

Raven- Wizard7/Sorc1- Mystra
Lynx- Rogue8- Correlon Lorethian
Truban- Ftr6/Extreme Explorer2- Torm
Torrak- Ftr8- Moradin
Siddhartha- Rogue7/Shadow Dancer1- Tymora
Kerry- Sorceror8- Selune
Lynx- Ftr5/Warmage2/Arcane Archer1- Solonar Thelandira(Elven Pantheon)

The story of the campaign thus far has had them meet up in Sharn, adventure through the Forgotten Forge adventure in the back of ECS, adventure through the Forge of Fury adventure, and through Shadows of the Last War(Eberron adventure).

At the moment, we going through the Whispers of teh Vampire's Blade(Eberron adventure).. After that I plan on running the Grasp of the Emerald Claw so that they go through that story sequence.  Then I plan on using my own adventures to bring them to 20th.

And that is where I need help.

I already know what I would like to do, but ideas of what to use and such are not present.

My main story arc is where the PC's are summoned by a wizard who is a part of the Twelve.  A powerful, neutral organization.  He asks the PC's for help in retrieving some items that he thinks can be used to revert the Mournalnd back to normal.  In truth, the guy is being controlled to collect the items to release a powerful lich from imprisonment.

The main items need are big Khyber Dragonshards each bound with a different Elemental, he already has the Earth and water.

There are 3 main quests that I would like to use.

1. Going down into Khyber to retrieve a Khyber Dragonshard needed.

2. Get th Kyber Dragonshard that has the Air Elemental bound to it, which was stolen by an influencial person who decides to make it the grand prize in a tournament he puts together.

3.  Using the Dragonshard that they found before, they go to bind the fire elemental to it.

Right now I just want to focus on the first part. I plan on having the PC's gain 3 levels by the end. One on the way to their destination, and 2 while going through the complex and completing the quest,

My ideas-

-To involve members from the Lords of Dust in the form of a Naztharune Rakshasa(MM3) or two as the leader(s) of the group in possesion of the shard

-To involve members of the Cult of the Dragon Below

-Creatures that are found in Khyber, i.e.- mindflayer, beholder, dolgrim, etc.

-A complex that the PC's must navigate through to find the shard, i.e.- a fortress, castle, temple, etc.

My main problem is trying to determine what to use for the complex, encounters, and how to incorporate all of it.  Any help would be appreciated.

By the way, if you don't know about any of teh Eberron specific stuff, i can fill in the blanks for you.

Thanks.


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## ChaosEvoker (Feb 9, 2005)

I've found one of th best things to do, surprisingly enough, is to pick some monsters that you definately want to use, and then, using the random encounters table, fill in the rest of the encounters, then think about it and tehre always seems to be a great way to tie everything together. It provides for an interesting dungeon and plenty of wlaking XP...I mean monsters.


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## Nightcloak (Feb 9, 2005)

*Brainstorming...*



			
				themind said:
			
		

> I've been running an Eberron game ...  <snip>
> 
> 1. Going down into Khyber to retrieve a Khyber Dragonshard needed.




The Dragonshard is being held by a mad-priest of a cult of Khyber. They have taken the shard to their stronghold deep underground to their hold: a giant stalactite. This giant stalactite hangs over a bottomless pit with strange heat and magical emanations drifting up. The cult believes the pit leads straight to Khyber itself (and maybe they are right!) and pray/sacrifice to the Dragon below in exotic ceremonies that culminate in the victims getting thrown into the pit. 

The priest is collecting great Shards. He is experimenting with the magic of the pit (or the essence of Khyber seeping up) to turn Shards into powerful artifacts. 

He is turning them into great reservoirs of fiendish power to fuel massive new Warforged creations. You then place a few of these creations as encounters in the "reverse tower" dungeon of the stalagmite to shake things up. Warforged powered by small “enriched" Khybershards embedded in them. (Just take the Warforged and add the Draconic and Fiendish templates, doctor the appearance to taste, add levels to balance the ECL if necessary, stir, and boom: Erie new abomination from below). 

The party takes on the stalactite-dungeon like working from a tower down, maybe a good fight on a great bridge spanning the chasm to the Stalactite (gives you a chance to show the dungeon off and create wonder/horror/adventure with the group at the prospect of going in).

The group goes in and begins the dungeon crawl. Fiends and abominations are probably useful as these relate to an Eberron "Underdark", but don't over do it or they will lose their wonder/exotic factor. Throw in some cultists, regular warforged, and don't forget some of your personal favorite monsters (like CE said) to liven things up. Take some hints of your story arc and add an encounter (like an ambasador from the Lords of Dust) or somesuch to foreshadow the future.

The party should run into the new "Warforged" by the middle, give the players that "what the hell is that?" moment. Now they now something foul is a-foot and needs to be fixed before it gets out of control. Of course, the mad priest is at the bottom. A final fight on a great balcony overlooking the pit would be epic and memorable. Give a few henchman bull rush to really scare the @#$% out of the players (look mom, I could die with all my hit points!). 

Of course, this is pulp-fiction, so when the great Dragonshard is retrieved from it's mantle, the lights dim and a rumbling starts. Turns out the Shard they needed was already powering something: the base. Now the magic is ruined! The stalactite starts to fall apart as the magic that powered it is gone. The abomination of the dungeon and its contents are returning to Khyber and taking the players with them if they don’t move fast (starting with the balcony!). The characters better have magic ready (Yea, right, not after fighting their way to the dungeon’s boss) or they are going to have to race back up through the stalactite and across the bridge. Hope they looted on the way, they won't have time now  

Throw in lots a flavor text as they run up stairs that are crumbling and falling into the pit behind them, dodging stones falling down, a jump check (not hard, just for flavor) to get to the bridge as the Stalactite is already pulling away, etc. Ham it up. This is Eberron.


Some ideas, hope they help. 

Good luck!


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## Nightcloak (Feb 9, 2005)

themind said:
			
		

> I've been running an Eberron game every Sunday for the last 2-3 months.  Now this is no ordinary Eberron game.  A friend and I kind of spiced it up a little.  What we did was say that Eberron used to Toril.




Great twist by the way!


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## themind (Feb 9, 2005)

*bows to nightcloak*  HOLY crap.  Do you just come up with great ideas on the fly or did you seriously think about that?  That is a great idea.  Consider this yoinked.

CE, I was wondering what i would for that.  I never thought of doing it like that, thanks.

What do you think about adding a little sidequest on the journey to the stalactite.

I was thinking of something where they meet a group of good Deurgar. (alignment is blurred in Eberron so they are not all bad)  who need help.  Something along the line of some of their bretheren have been taken as slaves by a group(illitihds, cult of Khyber, etc) and are hoping the PC's can help them.  Of course, we can have it where the slavedrivers are somehow connected to the cult in the stalactite.

Again thanks


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## themind (Feb 9, 2005)

Nightcloak said:
			
		

> Great twist by the way!




Imagine the look on the player's face when they found out.


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## Nightcloak (Feb 10, 2005)

themind said:
			
		

> *bows to nightcloak*  HOLY crap.  Do you just come up with great ideas on the fly or did you seriously think about that?  That is a great idea.  Consider this yoinked.




*Nods* I aim to please.

Yes and yes. I think about some concept and image, "chew" on it a little, then just go with it.  But thanks for the compliment and I'm glad you'll get some mileage out if it. 

I would take the time to consider ChaosEnvoker's idea. What he suggests is starting with the familiar (things you like)and using the book to explore options you might not consider do to personal preferances. Exploring ideas will help you find your style. Nothing beats campaign developement and just doing it/working with it. 

Like your side quest idea. Great idea's you have. Now take CE's thoughts to task and open the book and work in some new material. It'll be fresh for your players and will push & challenge you. Throw in some plot stuff like foreshadowing to tie it with the mad-priest adventure (maybe the dwarves are fleeing a serious ass kicking they got from a "huge worforged with wings and horns  ). 

Go with it. And have fun!!!

And for the love of of EGG, let us know how it goes


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## Mordmorgan the Mad (Feb 10, 2005)

Indeed, Nightcloak, good show!

@ themind: I've never really liked the pulpy goodness of Eberron (although, I will admit, I haven't taken a close look at it). I did enjoy the ideas, especially the transition from FR to Eberron is genius.

[sblock]Your WotC board name wouldn't happen to be Student of the Mind, would it?   [/sblock]


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## Blade of Desecration (Feb 10, 2005)

@themind:  I like the idea of Ebberon formerly being Toril, nice touch   , and by that I mean it'll piss the hell out of your PCs if you add in some nastiness from FR   .  
Example:  The BBEG turns out to be... *dun dun dunnnnnnn* the new and even crazier Halaster Blackcloak turned demigod!  *steeples fingers "Excellent..."*
Example #2:  Several of the organizations could be "descendants" of Faerunian organizations.  Get a copy of _Lords of Darkness_ and see if you can tie any together.
Example #3:  Simply put, "Crap, Larloch!  Run awa-!"


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## themind (Feb 10, 2005)

@Nightcloak

Of course I'll let you know, and thanks for the help.

@mordmorgan

[sblock]NOpe, I'm just themind.  Sorry to dissapoint you.  In fact I was wondering what you guys were talking about right after I joined the Foundation.  Now I know.[/sblock]

@BoD

Yeah we thouught about adding some other personallities, but decided we wanted to keep it as much of Eberron as possible.  I do plan on having the Gods old rivals show up, sort of in the same boat as the PC's.  You can't have the good without the bad IMO.

But that doesnt mean I won't add some interesting things later from FR.  I mean they will accisdently release a powerful being from imprisonment.  And when i say powerful I mean a power that only a group of Lv 40 or lv 60 PC's can take(matters on how long we want to go).  So the Epic level part of teh game will undertake finding a way to defeat this being.  And some FR goodness(or evil, what ever way you want to look at it) may make it's way in.


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## ChaosEvoker (Feb 11, 2005)

I've never actually managed to play in or run a group from lv 1 to 40 that would be a long endeavor...or it could be. Depending on your luck with a _Deck of Many Things_...


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## Mordmorgan the Mad (Feb 11, 2005)

I never found high level play very satisfying. It may be because I prefer a horror-based game, and that's not very compatible with godlike characters, but even when I DM FR, I don't like going past 10th level. (Not that I won't, mind you, but the game gets a little boring for me after that).

I like the simple things like clearing out a kobold den, or protecting a caravan from bandits, or sneaking into an orc outpost and killing the adept. Fragile characters are more fun to DM for, and after about 10th level, it takes serious effort to make them fear for thier character's lives.


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## ChaosEvoker (Feb 11, 2005)

Idk I'd say a Great Wyrm Prisim Dragon is pretty scary. Heres the beauty of goblinoids and many other such low level monsters: You'll notice a line near the bottom of the monster's stats that says:

*Advancement:* By character class.

Just write up a standard "orc" or some other monster that advances by chracter class and make it high lv. (depending on the level of your PCs) then if you really like some of the things above. Have them protect an extraplanar caravan that travels the planes selling things from the various dangers of each plane or something along those lines. I have done such things becuase there is nothing more fun than slaying orcs, but at high levels orcs need some power. So the line "*Advancement:* By character class" has been my hero more than once.

Maybe this shines a new light on high level play for you MtM! Or maybe I'm an idiot, all of you may be the judge...

CHAOS EVOKER


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## Mordmorgan the Mad (Feb 11, 2005)

ChaosEvoker said:
			
		

> Maybe this shines a new light on high level play for you MtM! Or maybe I'm an idiot, all of you may be the judge...



You're definitely not an idiot, that's for sure.

As for high level play, I will say that if/when my games ever get there, my players will have something to fear. Hopefully this new group will last long enough to get past 10th


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## Y.O.Morales (Feb 11, 2005)

Hi to all.

Sorry I haven't settled the forums yet, but I'm still waiting for Morrus to contact me back with the proper link and procedure to do so. Patience grasshoppers.  

Hey, by the way, I just want to discuss a dilemma I have. My current GM friend will be finishing his campaign in a week (more like taking a long vacation) and for coincidence I'll be staring mine in 2-3 weeks. The thing is that I prefer and WANT to admit only 6 players in the group, but now a total of 9-10 players are crazy to play with me (seriously, I didnt know I was popular  ). 

On one point, they all are good players and I'm 70% sure that they'll focus on the game and don't delay the game session with interrumption (which is an ideal situation). But I still see that 9 players will slow down the game, no matter how good they are, and thus affect the whole session (by the way, most of the players and I are from the hardcore type that take the game seriously).

The other conflicting point is that I don't know what to do with the players that *may* be left out. Simply telling them that they can't play is rude and difficult, specially when we all hang together.

So, should I accept the 9 players (bigger group, more work, longer rounds and sessions, etc) or leave some out?


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## LilMissKittyn (Feb 11, 2005)

@YO
You might have a competition, like who can create the most interesting character (like the DMF Campaign did...kindof). It depends on the difference of skill between the players, though, and whether they'll take it personally if you reject their PC. Your call, it's just my two cents.


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## Nightcloak (Feb 11, 2005)

Y.O.Morales said:
			
		

> Hey, by the way, I just want to discuss a dilemma I have. My current GM friend will be finishing his campaign in a week (more like taking a long vacation) and for coincidence I'll be staring mine in 2-3 weeks. The thing is that I prefer and WANT to admit only 6 players in the group, but now a total of 9-10 players are crazy to play with me (seriously, I didnt know I was popular  ).
> 
> On one point, they all are good players and I'm 70% sure that they'll focus on the game and don't delay the game session with interrumption (which is an ideal situation). But I still see that 9 players will slow down the game, no matter how good they are, and thus affect the whole session (by the way, most of the players and I are from the hardcore type that take the game seriously).
> 
> ...




Just to think outside the box, I'm going to assume from your post you like everyone involved and don't wish to exclude any of them. 

How often do you play? Perhaps you could just split them into two groups who rotate sessions. 

Or, if that doesn't work (Hey! We don't want to play half as much!), you could just be honest and say "I can't do these many players at once". They might just appoint a second person to DM and then you both split groups. You could even suggest to make the groups conected by goals or compititions. Maybe your groups could compete to see who does a better job with a published module or something similar. 

Hope that helps

Nightcloak.


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## Mordmorgan the Mad (Feb 12, 2005)

Nightcloak:
[sblock]Any progress on those emails?[/sblock]


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## Nightcloak (Feb 12, 2005)

Mordmorgan the Mad
[sblock]Yep. RL gets easier during the weekend (well, more times than not  ) [/sblock]


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## Nightcloak (Feb 12, 2005)

*High Level Campaigns*

I can really play at all levels. Each has it's own nature that has to be realized and taken into consideration. 

13.5 average encounters of equivalent party level will advance your characters to the next level, and at lower levels that is easy. But at high levels, it become unrealistic for characters to fight monsters of the same level 13 times in a row. Otherwise, why haven't these bad boys just mowed all the commoners down already. 

Encounters equal to the party level just don't happen as often, as a rule. Of course, there is the planar adventures or the example in one of my stories of how I sent the players off to an extradimensional Prison Tower (see Tower of Madness at the beginning of this thread) for a multi-level raising slug-fest    But these don't work continually and also don't fit everyones style.

Enter roll-playing, puzzles, politics, or anything else non-combat related. Perhaps the characters need to act as ambasadors to prevent a war, escort a holy sect of monks who don't believe in violence (and won't tolerate its use), or solve a mystery. You need to find additional challenges. Give them land to manage or a town to administer. "Defeating" an encounter doesn't mean killing it.

BUT...

This is D&D, and killing stuff is were the fun is. So there needs to be some encounters. And trust me, you can scare high level characters plenty. You just need to prepare and work on the delivery, or flavor. For example, In my "Tower" adventure, the characters entered the complex of some imprisoned Thri-Keen that were locked up. The characters new it would be a great fight, but they had spent 15 levels fighting things with character levels (and your right CE, that is one of the three things that is awsome about 3E Monsters IMO). They went looking for a infamous Thri-Keen warrior known as the sword master (he had an artifact they needed), but like I said, they were just expecting a Thri-Keen with levels stacked up. What I did was stack on Prestige classes and then hit them hard in the first round to get their attention. What their characters saw was a Thri-Keen with a sword in each arm moving incredibly fast, _what the players saw_ was me rolling to hit the tank something like _16 times_.  I'd givin the bossman the Multi-Weapon and Multi-Ambidexterity Fighting feats then cranked on the Prestige Class levels in Tempest (3E version, I have not seen the updated one). Whatching me roll, and roll, and roll, and roll somemore to hit rolls deffinetly put some mortality in them. In fact, they named him "The Buzzsaw". 

But the point is, take advantage of the pretige classes and templates out there to create a monster that will give the players something they don't expect. At that level, you can get really creative and multi-stack things. Vampire Necromancer Arch Mages, fallen Blackguard Planars, or Fiendish Paragon Oozes (didn't get to run that level   ) are epic encounters indeed. Trolls with horns and wings are fun, but they get scarry when they open up a can of "Flurry of Blows" on someone!

Sorry for the long ramble. It's Friday, what can I say


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## XCorvis (Feb 12, 2005)

Wow! This thread is awesome. I've been looking for this kind of thing for a while. Great stories, everyone. Mind if I join you?

@Y.O.Morales:
How set are you on 6 players? It looks like you have 10-11 people total (including yourself), so that is potentially 2 games with 4 and 5 players, respectively. Does anyone else want to DM?

Alternately, some DMs run two games simultaneously in the same game world, a la _The Head of Vecna_. I was in one game like that - it was very player driven, but that was the DM's style anyway. Would your plot allow for that?


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## Y.O.Morales (Feb 13, 2005)

Nightcloak said:
			
		

> Just to think outside the box, I'm going to assume from your post you like everyone involved and don't wish to exclude any of them.



Well, 7 of them are friends of mine, and then we have 2 teenagers that were brought by one friend. I know them just a little, but they are good persons (and average players) anyway.



			
				Nightcloak said:
			
		

> How often do you play? Perhaps you could just split them into two groups who rotate sessions.



No. That's off limits. I prefer to take the 9 players instead of that. Doesnt have enough time to create two sessions.



			
				Nightcloak said:
			
		

> Or, if that doesn't work (Hey! We don't want to play half as much!), you could just be honest and say "I can't do these many players at once".



But then I'll have to handpick the players and some may take it personally, specially the one (let's call him Mr. X) who brought the 2 teenagers, one of them being his cousin. And I can't afford to lose this Mr. X as he is a super-great player and just finished his campaign to play in mine.



			
				 XCorvis said:
			
		

> Does anyone else want to DM?



That's the problem.  Too many players, not enough GMs.  :\ 

What I'm planning to do is ask the players (one by one, alone) that are more likely to play. I just asked my sister-in-law (we're going to play in her house) and she was definetly with the 6-players option. Depending on what the majority say, is the final desicion.


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## ChaosEvoker (Feb 13, 2005)

*Too many players, too little time...*

YES FINALLY I AM ONLINE BEFORE ANYONE ELSE!!!!

ANNOUNCING NEW MEMBER!!!!
XCorvis

Alright, that's been my first announcement in a while. good to have you on the team XCorvis.

Anywho:
@Y.O.Morales
I suggest you have them roll up characters and then choose them based on party roundness and balance. You con't want a CE Sorceror with a Paladin after all. After alignment agreement, round out the abilities of the group. You could try to get a classic Fighter/Mage/Rogue/Cleric/Ranger/Barbarian setup. (Of course, being able to alternate the following: Fighter/Monk/Barbarian/Ranger/Paladin and maybe a Druid in place of Cleric, you get the idea) Having a well rounded party is important. Jsut some ideas, you be the judge of their validity.

CHAOS EVOKER


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## Mordmorgan the Mad (Feb 13, 2005)

Gotta be quick off the draw, now that you've opened up the "Welcome New Members" supernatural ability to Council Members.

Nightcloak[sblock]I work weekends, so I get antsy around Friday [/sblock]


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## ChaosEvoker (Feb 13, 2005)

Mordmorgan the Mad said:
			
		

> Gotta be quick off the draw, now that you've opened up the "Welcome New Members" supernatural ability to Council Members.




Yeah, me and my house rules.......

For an update:
I am DMing again! At the last session my players wlaked up to me (all three) and said "Chaos Evoker, (using my real name of course) we want you to DM." Which was quite shocking. I was like "Ok" and they said "Wow, that was alot easier than we thought it would be. Now I finally have a chance to implement some of the great ideas I get from this thread. If anyone has a great campaign idea, then I coudl use it I'm trying to think of a good one but right now I have DM's Block.

CHAOS EVOKER


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## Evilhalfling (Feb 13, 2005)

Okay CE - to start you posted a buch on your homebrew a while back is it ready to go? 
If not can you design a single city there and play low level characters?  - post a link to it ( I cant find it) and maybe it will spark some ideas, either from you or us.  

or the best rule of DMing (which I have trouble following) communicate with the players, ask what level they want to play, and what style suits them.   I have a gaming poll I intend to hand out at our next session, which I modified from polls posted here.  If somebody wants it I could repost it.   I am taking over my group in two weeks, and I already have a world and a plot, so I am looking for player feedback on style issues.   And we still havent setteled on what level to play.  I normally start them at 3rd, our last came started at 11th.  The new one can begin easily at 2nd-3rd or 6th-7th 

Other than that I believe you have mentioned that your players like combat heavy games and you are comfortable in FR.  Play to your strenghts


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## Mordmorgan the Mad (Feb 13, 2005)

Re DM's Block:

I've found 2 ways to overcome this dreaded affliction!

1st way that works for me:
Think of what kind of game you want to run, be it horror, fast action, high magic, or whatever. Then run to your local video store (or in my case, my massive DvD collection), and pick up a couple of movies that fit your theme. Watch them and jot down parts you might want to use in a game, or just ideas you have while watching.

2nd way that works for me:
This may not work for everyone, but I use it often. Getting "back to basics" can often help unblock DMs. By "back to basics", I mean how the game feels when you first start playing it. Everything feels new and exciting. If you can, do things that you did when you first started playing.

Personal Example:
I started playing in the spring of 1993 just outside the Hague, Holland. Unfortunately, I don't have the money to fly to the Netherlands everytime I get the block, but sitting outside in the beautiful spring weather helps me remember England. About 3 years later, when we lived in England, my brother bought that Alanis Morisette CD (and played it constantly, I might add) during another one of my many DM Blocks, so listening to that sometimes helps. Really, anything that reminds me of that time usually gets me unblocked in a day or so.

Hope that helps.


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## Mordmorgan the Mad (Feb 13, 2005)

I found this font sitting on my computer the other day and thought it'd be fantastic for creating prop parchments and old documents. Any other good fonts out there?

EDIT: Best part is, the word "Ravenloft" looks fantastic in it


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## DarrenGMiller (Feb 13, 2005)

Mordmorgan the Mad said:
			
		

> I found this font sitting on my computer the other day and thought it'd be fantastic for creating prop parchments and old documents. Any other good fonts out there?
> 
> EDIT: Best part is, the word "Ravenloft" looks fantastic in it




I LOVE it!  Unfortunately, the last time I handed my players props in a cool font, they handed them back and said, "We're not reading this $#!^ unless you print it out in Times New Roman."

I really need some new players...

DM


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## Y.O.Morales (Feb 13, 2005)

@ ChaosEvoker
The alignment measure is useless as we'll be playing without alignment rules. But otherwise, I'll judge based on their characters if no other option is available.

@ Mordmorgan the Mad
You know what works for super-nice parchments?
1. Go to a local gift shop, secondhand shop, or whatever place you can find a scratchbook (those with thick brown pages). The older it is, the better. Then use it as printer paper when creating the parchments. They look as real ones.

2. Another tip that I did and worked for my old players, but may not work for everyone: I inked some hidden letters in a parchment with milk, then let it dry. I didn't know what drove the player's curiosity, but he examined the parchment very close, again and again, and found that there were some faint letters. As a bonus, I told them that applying heat will reveal the letters. He did so with a lighter and ta daa'. The secret revealed.


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## DarrenGMiller (Feb 13, 2005)

Okay, I know there was a poll on this recently, but I am wondering how everybody else here deals with mistakes they make as GM.  Examples, on occasion, I have moved a group of creatures up to melee, but neglected to take attacks on the party, which of course resulted in an easier fight for the PC's.  Also, a few sessions ago, I grossly miscalculated the cost of a large quantity or arrows.  The latter mistake I can justify by making the wood suitable for arrow making scarce due to monstrous spiders having invaded the woods where they are cut (thanks ToEE CRPG), which also gives the party a side quest, unless they want to control the local arrow supply (since they found a large cache recently).

Since the arrow mistake, the players have been rough on me and the game has suffered.  I know I screwed up, but am having trouble allowing the game to recover.  Now, I just feel like a horrible DM, even though I made the mistakes after a long day at work (in both cases).  Has anyone made similar mistakes?  (How) Did the game recover?  Are my players being unreasonable?  Am I?

DM


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## Evilhalfling (Feb 13, 2005)

wolf70 said:
			
		

> O
> Has anyone made similar mistakes?  (How) Did the game recover?  Are my players being unreasonable?  Am I?
> DM




We all screw up no worries.  I had problems with a rules lawyer player, and  problems were common. eventually he suggested a rule he had found somewhere - you have 1 round to fix mistakes made during the last round.  After that it is final.  This has solved any number of  problems, and cut down on argueing considerably.


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## ChaosEvoker (Feb 14, 2005)

Yeha I've made a mistake that my players won't let go where I killed off their characters by accident. They still harrass me about it though, so I could use this advise as well


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## Dyne (Feb 14, 2005)

Yo, just popping in to let everyone know that I'm still alive and kicking. I haven't posted as much since the conversion. Still don't much like the forum skin. That, and I'm rather busy. However, I'll still be active in the campaign.


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## Mordmorgan the Mad (Feb 14, 2005)

Mistakes, hrm? Can't say that I've actually made many blunders, but you shouldn't let even large mistakes make you feel like a bad DM. Learn from the mistake and move on. The PCs should cut you some slack, and if they don't, well, that's a different topic.


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## Nightcloak (Feb 14, 2005)

*Mistakes*

Everyone makes mistakes. But as a DM, everyone is watching you and your mistakes are generally more noticed (if small) to catastaphic (if big). But the thing is, everyone still makes them. the players will eventually do their own mistakes as well. For every DM error, like forgetting to attack or use a critters special ability I have heard a player gripe about forgeting his dodge bonus or some odd combat bonus from a spell or affect. In fact, I got sick of hearing about forgotten dodge bonuses from the dodge feat and just house ruled it to count against all attackers. 

So, for small errors, don't sweat them. You are not the only one doing them. 3E is packed with so much rule info that it is realistic to forget things. Is it a good thing: no. But it will happen and odds are for every minor error you make against the PCs, their will also be a minor error you make that will binefit your PCs and they will make similar minor errors.

Big errors. Well, things like TPKs or story killers are more trublesome. There is no white-washing them. If you catch the error right away, then you could always do a "re-wind" back to the error if possible and continue. If it's to late, then the best thing to do is just admit the error, apologize, and move on. You can always offer some boon if it helps, but it's probably not neccessary. 

Most people are just happy to have their grievences acknowledged honestly. It's like being at work: How often would a little recognition and honesty help you and make you feel better about your job? Same with a game (or any group or social interaction). DMs would worry less about their games of they got good feed back from the players ("Hey DM, nice adventure - I never so that comming, it was great!") and players will feel better if the DM is honest with them and acknowledges them ("Sorry about that Fiendish Troll, it looked good on paper" or "Great combat, that trick you pulled rocked")

Final thought: I use to worry about the adventures I ran. Mistakes made, were they good, how I could have done them better, if I only had more time, yadda, yadda. Then my wife looked at me one day and said "Stop worrying. They've been showing up for over a decade. You must be doing something right." And that is the real crux of the whole thing. If your players keep showing up or wanting you to DM, then you are doing things right.


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## Nightcloak (Feb 14, 2005)

wolf70 said:
			
		

> I LOVE it!  Unfortunately, the last time I handed my players props in a cool font, they handed them back and said, "We're not reading this $#!^ unless you print it out in Times New Roman."
> 
> I really need some new players...
> 
> DM




I once hand wrote a warning from a captive pixie on paper that had clues to the dungeon the players were in. The thing is, I used the xerox at work to shrink it down to a _really_ small size, the size of a pixie. They were not happy with me either. They asked for a better one, but I just refused (or course, the mage could have waited a day and used the enlarge spell he had - then I would have given it to him in normal size, but noooooooo). Anyways, they started blundering around the dungeon into traps and realized they better try. It took some doing and squinting and a little creative use of beer bottles and a torch lamp. But they did it.


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## DarrenGMiller (Feb 14, 2005)

Nightcloak said:
			
		

> Everyone makes mistakes. But as a DM, everyone is watching you and your mistakes are generally more noticed (if small) to catastaphic (if big).
> 
> Final thought: I use to worry about the adventures I ran. Mistakes made, were they good, how I could have done them better, if I only had more time, yadda, yadda. Then my wife looked at me one day and said "Stop worrying. They've been showing up for over a decade. You must be doing something right." And that is the real crux of the whole thing. If your players keep showing up or wanting you to DM, then you are doing things right.




Well, all of my mistakes have been small on that scale.

However, as far as the "Final Thought"(TM) goes, I had one player who was taking the game too seriously (which is what helped me give advice a few weeks ago).  Now my players are not taking the game seriously at all.  This is just killing the game for me.  I REALLY LOVE the campaign I am running and the players all profess to love it too, but the almost constant heckling, along with constant metaspeak (asking NPC's their level, having a fighter shout out menu items every time they encounter an enemy, using "ghettospeak" IC, etc.) and stuff is really killing it for me.  I hate to admit it, but I am actually thinking about putting the campaign on hold and taking a hiatus.  I don't want to, but telling them to stop the behavior didn't work and asking them to leave the group will leave me with 3 players... also, these players have been great players in the past.  I am blaming my mistakes and the problem with the other player for the current problems, but I am not sure.  So, they "show up" but not to game.  I have communicated the expectations of the game repeatedy, and they have agreed that it is what they want in a game.  Grrrr.....  Not sure what to do.

DM


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## Nightcloak (Feb 15, 2005)

I'm gonna just dish out a bunch of thoughts here, so bear with me if I missed something. But what you're saying is hitting home and I want to help. I had an "event" that put me on DM vacation for a while and I don't like seeing this happen to others. 




			
				wolf70 said:
			
		

> Well, all of my mistakes have been small on that scale.




Small mistakes don't kill a game. If they did, I never would have made it out of 1E  



> However, as far as the "Final Thought"(TM) goes, I had one player who was taking the game too seriously (which is what helped me give advice a few weeks ago).  Now my players are not taking the game seriously at all.  This is just killing the game for me.  I REALLY LOVE the campaign I am running and the players all profess to love it too, but the almost constant heckling, along with constant metaspeak (asking NPC's their level, having a fighter shout out menu items every time they encounter an enemy, using "ghettospeak" IC, etc.) and stuff is really killing it for me.




OK. Looks like we got a bigger issue here. The players are either 

A) Not getting something they want out of their gaming experience or 
B) Their priorities have changed. 

Either way, they are not on the same page as you. If you are not having hun, then I'm sure there are others not having fun also.



> I hate to admit it, but I am actually thinking about putting the campaign on hold and taking a hiatus.




Getting away is good _if_ you do it _for you_, like a DM vacation of sorts. But doing it because of the game problems will not help you in the long run if the same players return to the table later with the same problems. 



> I don't want to, but telling them to stop the behavior didn't work and asking them to leave the group will leave me with 3 players... also, these players have been great players in the past.




Something has changed. We need to identify what that is. But if I read your post properly, only some of the players are behaving different, while the rest are acting as business as usual. My thoughts are predicated on this, so please correct me if I'm wrong.



> I am blaming my mistakes and the problem with the other player for the current problems, but I am not sure.




No. If your "mistakes" were the real issue, then _all the players _ would be out of line. The rule of the "mob mentality" basicaly shows that even the weakest voice will follow the pact when he thinks he's in the majority with people he agrees with. Harsh, but true. 

Now, your group only has several people acting out, so the issue is not something you have done but more something to do with each player's relation to the game itself.



> So, they "show up" but not to game.  I have communicated the expectations of the game repeatedy, and they have agreed that it is what they want in a game.  Grrrr.....  Not sure what to do.




Something is up. I recomend a "players survey". There are a bunch here in ENWorld or if you would like, I can email you mine. A player survey would accomplish the following:

1. Allow confidential, or "off the record" information to pass to you only. You can even make each anonymous so as to get critical feed back on yourself if you like.
2. Find out what each player thinks of the game, and what they like and don''t like.
3. Gauge changes of style of play within the group. Maybe some of the players just don't want a serious game anymore and need to get out to blow off steem do to RL. (I had that particular issue with my regualar group)
4. Find out what others think of the current state of affairs.
5. You may learn something new about your players desires to enhance the game in the future.

I can go on, but I think you got the point. In a nut shell, you need to find out what is going on. You are not out of the woods though, you may hear some things you would rather not, or find out you have changed too, or even the players have indeed changed enough to warrant a split. But it is worth it, for you and your game to get to the truth. I recommend all DMs do this at one point if not periodicaly just to find out how their players are doing. 

If you can find out what is up, then you can fix it and get back to the game you love! In the end, that is the point of playing.

I really do hope this helps. Good Luck!


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## Dyne (Feb 15, 2005)

I don't know if I've mentioned this before or not, but I'm co-DMing a game on another site. It'll be based heavily on mythology, along with regular D&D concepts. If you're interested, I urge you to come right over and start posting.

If you are interested, go here.


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## Blade of Desecration (Feb 15, 2005)

I would like to ask some help.  Its for my FR campaign, the one with the 4th level PCs who are stuck in the Underdark.  Some of the oldies might remember.  I haven't done that campaign in a while, but its about to start up again.  Basically, I've been planning for them to get into a tannarukke (orc tieflings) city, having been hired by some duergar (who are really disguised dopplegangers working for there enemies) for the infiltration, and who are going to betray them, yada yada yada (by the way, thanks to all the oldies from the WotC boards for the help on that   ).  Anyways, I'm having them at some point stumble into a place I'll call the Hall of Rot.  Basically a big tomb.  This tomb is going to be guarded by a single _collossal monstrous centipede_ (got the whole creepy attack planned out   , complete with it snaking up one of the pillars).  I just need help on the actual fight.  The Hall of Rot has a bunch of pillars in it, so they can use those for cover.  But this thing is a CR 9 against three level fours.  The PCs are part of a larger group, so backup shouldn't be a problem.  And I can always put in a few more smaller monstrous centipedes.  This is really my first time having the PCs up against a single big enemy, so I was wondering if this fight was even, or if I need to even it.  The party consists of a fighter, a psychic warrior, and a rogue (the rogue is a good player, but not so good at running rogues, as demontrated by the few times so far they've hit real traps).


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## ChaosEvoker (Feb 15, 2005)

Hmm doesn't sound like it's even, if I were you I would expand the tomb and put in all kinds of vermin and a few sparse undead, get them a couple of levels or somethign like that to lv them up for the fight.  Last thing you want ot do is end up killing off your PCs...trust me.


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## DarrenGMiller (Feb 15, 2005)

@ Nightcloak - Thanks!  I appreciate your candor and advice.  Just a few weeks ago, I was helping somebody else with a similar problem, but as sometimes happens, I have now run up against a problem that is getting the best of me, and thanks to ENWORLD, others are helping me as I have helped in the past.  I think its great.



			
				Nightcloak said:
			
		

> I'm gonna just dish out a bunch of thoughts here, so bear with me if I missed something. But what you're saying is hitting home and I want to help. I had an "event" that put me on DM vacation for a while and I don't like seeing this happen to others.
> 
> OK. Looks like we got a bigger issue here. The players are either
> 
> ...




Okay, I have boiled down your advice and will respond with more specifics in an effort to get more to the crux of the problem if possible.

After two sessions of utter silliness and distraction (during the second of which I made the arrow mistake), I privately polled my players by email (the means we normally use to communicate) about their enjoyment of the campaign, my GM style, the style of the campaign, etc.  The players involved in the undesirable behavior all agreed that they had gone way overboard and that they didn't want me to change a thing about the game.  Actually, I had recently run a series of campaigns that were darker and more role-playing heavy in tone and style.  This series of campaigns went about two years, when I discovered that I was unconsciously trying to gear my style toward the most vocal player at the table.  After serious discussion and reorganization of my group, we changed back to a more "classic 1E feel" and style.  The other players were VERY relieved to lighten up the tone a bit and I was liberated that I was going to get to play the game as it was when we started playing (and everyone agreed).  The player who was taking things too seriously had trouble with the change of style.  To make a long story short (and avoid awkward details), he is no longer at our table.  However, now the silliness factor is destroying the classic feel and it is drifting to a level of parody that would teach Hackmaster a thing or two about game parody.

Anyway, after the surveys, we played another session last week.  We got more done, but the silliness and distraction still climbed.  Anything said at the table by anyone is becoming fair game for ridicule and heckling (see the thread on metaspeak and the thread on funny nicknames for NPC's).  One of our players came back last week after work conflicts left him out for a few weeks and he was frustrated that he couldn't get a straight answer to any questions about the game from anyone but me.  Also, another player was absent due to his wife being sick and he is one of the stronger voices of maturity at the table.

It actually seems that the split is along age lines.  Two of our four younger players (19-21) are part of the problem and one of the remaining two would leave if I split those two out of the group.  The other two players are older (30's), as am I.  The only change I see out of game is that one of the players involved is now running a game one or two days a week (12 hour sessions) that is going on a pretty high level of silliness, though he is frustrated at players who don't take his game seriously.

I am really not bitter or angry at any of the players, as I know it is not overtly an intentional effort to destroy the game.  I just want to save this particular campaign since it is the style and setting I have wanted to DM for a few years, but didn't since I didn't want to disappoint the player that was heavy into serious role-playing.

Any help is appreciated.  I think dissecting these sorts of issues here helps all DM's.

DM


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## Mordmorgan the Mad (Feb 15, 2005)

BoD: As much fun as a single monstrous centipede might be, I'd suggest cutting the centipede's CR a few and adding in swarm or two of fine centipedes. Better to have the floor covered in the little buggers (and what with the bad lighting, the PCs just might think that soft crunching is loose rubble) and have the larger centipede curled around a statue at the end of the hall. As they realize that the floor is covered in bugs and a very, very large bug is about to eat them, have the swarms rise from the ground and attack.

Another idea would be to have the larger centipede be an awakened centipede cleric of Talona. Once the PCs slay the centipede cleric, it might just dissolve into a massive pile of writhing centipedes. (If you want a recurring creature, the Libris Mortis has an interesting template that allows corporeal undead to assume a swarm form, and it's possible that talona would return the creature as an undead creature of some sort, possibly a corpse creature).


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## Stone Angel (Feb 15, 2005)

Thats a cool idea, what gives undead the swarm form? I must have missed it.


The Seraph of Earth and Stone


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## Lady Firehawk (Feb 15, 2005)

Wow, I haven't been here in a LONG while!

Got way too into World of Warcraft for my own good, and Firefox spontaneously reset itself so I lost all my bookmarks.    ARG! 

I'm frankly surprised I remembered my stupid password here... bwagh.


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## Mordmorgan the Mad (Feb 15, 2005)

Stone Angel said:
			
		

> Thats a cool idea, what gives undead the swarm form? I must have missed it.




Swarm-shifter pg. 123 (the Swarm of Undead Centipedes is on pg. 126).


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## ChaosEvoker (Feb 15, 2005)

@Lady Firehawk
Its good to have you back
[sblock]What realm do you play in, and what is your character's name?[/sblock]


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## Nightcloak (Feb 15, 2005)

wolf70 said:
			
		

> @ Nightcloak - Thanks!  I appreciate your candor and advice.  Just a few weeks ago, I was helping somebody else with a similar problem, but as sometimes happens, I have now run up against a problem that is getting the best of me, and thanks to ENWORLD, others are helping me as I have helped in the past.  I think its great.




Well said. Leave a few cold drinks in the fridge, I’m probably next!



> Okay, I have boiled down your advice and will respond with more specifics in an effort to get more to the crux of the problem if possible.
> 
> After two sessions of utter silliness and distraction ...




Oh boy… You surveyed they players and some are doing a 180 on you? That’s not good. If that’s the case, then I think the trouble runs deeper. Barring an unknown personality conflict then I’m going to suggest some of the players have changed on a “metagame level”. By metagame, I mean the reasons they play the game in the first place or what the want out of the game. This would be something they might not even be aware of themselves. The players are probably not getting something they want out of the game, and out of boredom or apathy are finding ways to entertain themselves. Please don’t take that wrong, I’m not saying anything bad about your game, after all, the majority of the players are obviously enjoying themselves which indicates the game is fine. These guys are just no longer getting the same thing out of it as they use to and have become restless. 

This is the player version of the same thing you are going through. You are also restless and frustrated because you are not getting the things you want out of the game. 

The million-dollar question is why these players have their priorities changed and how have they changed? Maybe they just want to socialize more, or need specific interaction to keep their attention (maybe the grim and gritty game interacted with them in a way that is different now). You indicated they are younger; their involvement in role-playing could very well be “evolving” with age as they play the game more. They may need something different or are just losing interest. Heck, at that age, it could be something simple as an interest in dating or parties with friends. 

I really, don’t know. I don’t now these guys like you do. I’m just throwing lots of things I have seen and hope it hits a spot that resonates with you. But the point is something is up and you need to identify it. 

Some “metagaming” issues can be fixed by creative gaming. If the players just need more interaction to keep their attention, then you can provide interesting side quests or personal story arcs. Or maybe hit them hard with combat. 

But if other interests are just pulling their attention away, then you will have some tough choices to make. I’d talk to everyone individually at that point and be honest; you might save the third guy if he realizes how much you would like him to stay and why. If he thinks you are just randomly “booting” people from the game, he will see you as the triggerman and leave with his friends. If he sees that his friends are leaving because they no longer have an interest in the game, but he still does want to play thanks to your interest in him, then he will see it as their decision and would be more likely to stay. 

I really need to learn to say things more concise!   

Hope all of this helps and I hope I triggered a few ideas. Best of luck, and definitely let me now if I can help more. Let us know what happens.


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## XCorvis (Feb 15, 2005)

Chaos Evoker: Thanks for the warm welcome! 



			
				wolf70 said:
			
		

> After two sessions of utter silliness and distraction...




Along similar lines of what Nightcloak said, perhaps they need something they're not getting in the game: social time. Do you hang out with these guys at other times, or is gaming night the only time you see each other? Maybe everyone just needs some basic interaction to "catch up". Skip gaming one night and play some board games instead. Let people goof off and just have fun with each other. When it's done, they might be more interested in the serious game.


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## Mordmorgan the Mad (Feb 15, 2005)

Wolf, I feel your pain. As a youngin' of gaming myself (22 by the 25th of this month), I often am forced to play with people who don't take the game as seriously as I do. I had a group in college that disolved fairly quickly because two of the four players couldn't handle playing in Ravenloft. I fear that my actions with this game wouldn't help you much, as I'm a fan of the "Burn it down, build it back up" method.


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## Nightcloak (Feb 16, 2005)

Mordmorgan the Mad said:
			
		

> Another idea would be to have the larger centipede be an awakened centipede cleric of Talona. Once the PCs slay the centipede cleric, it might just dissolve into a massive pile of writhing centipedes. (If you want a recurring creature, the Libris Mortis has an interesting template that allows corporeal undead to assume a swarm form, and it's possible that talona would return the creature as an undead creature of some sort, possibly a corpse creature).




It's the pitch.

It's a fast ball down the center! 

Madmorgan swings. 

It's a home run. It's out of here folks! Game over!

*Ahem* 

That is a great idea.


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## Mordmorgan the Mad (Feb 16, 2005)

Nightcloak said:
			
		

> That is a great idea.



What can I say? I have a gift


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## themind (Feb 16, 2005)

Mordmorgan the Mad said:
			
		

> Wolf, I feel your pain. As a youngin' of gaming myself (22 by the 25th of this month).




Dude, there are so many birthdays this month.  I turn 21  on the 20th of this month.  And there are at least 5 others at my work that have a biorthday this month.


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## Xen155 (Feb 16, 2005)

.....


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## derbacher (Feb 16, 2005)

@ Xen155

Hey Xen, check the campaign thread. It's your turn!


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## DarrenGMiller (Feb 16, 2005)

Nightcloak said:
			
		

> Well said. Leave a few cold drinks in the fridge, I’m probably next!
> 
> 
> But if other interests are just pulling their attention away, then you will have some tough choices to make. I’d talk to everyone individually at that point and be honest; you might save the third guy if he realizes how much you would like him to stay and why. If he thinks you are just randomly “booting” people from the game, he will see you as the triggerman and leave with his friends. If he sees that his friends are leaving because they no longer have an interest in the game, but he still does want to play thanks to your interest in him, then he will see it as their decision and would be more likely to stay.
> ...




Well, after reading everything and pondering, I am really leaning towards this reason.  I think because of their other game, these players are blowing of steam in my game and other interests are starting to pull them away.  Additionally, I think the abundance of serious gaming before this campaign is possibly causing them to bring a little too much levity to the game right now as well.  With the departure of the other player I mentioned, there were some heavy issues that I guess there must be some release from.

I really don't think that what they want from the game has abruptly changed, since I surveyed them before I began the campaign and again after the change in behavior happened.  Then, at the very next session, the behavior continued or intensified.  I think that is why I was looking at my mistake(s) as bearing the burden of responsibility for this.

I know that no one currently at the table thinks I am randomly booting people.

Thanks for the assistance again.  This perspective of an objective opinion really does help me examine the facts in a new light.  I can not only read what you and others write, but also what I have written and gain new insight.

DM


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## themind (Feb 16, 2005)

For my campaign, I've been working on the idea that Nightcloak came up with.  I'm currently trying to work on the special warforged.  I am looking for some help though.

For the base creature, which I have been thinking about calling a Warforged Goliath, before adding any templates to it, I want to aim for a CR of 3-5.  I was thinking of it having at about 5 HD, DR 5/Adamantine, having Adamanine plating(+8 AC), the Powerful Build trait, abilities of Str 20, Dex 13, Con 18, Int 10, Wis 8, Cha 6.  It would be a medium creature.

I was thinking of having it wield a weapon similar to the Goliath Great Hammer in the Races of Stone, except a large one.

What would you estimate the CR of the creature with the main stuff I just mentioned.

Any suggestions.


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## Morbog of Ghetto D (Feb 16, 2005)

*My campaign*

 

What up fellow DMs?

There have been a few requests and besides I have nothing better to do.

So heres my awesome campaign.  
We "restarted" playing D&D with the original group circa 1987-2000.
Ive played since being a wee lad, with only 2 gaps.  The firtst gap was for 3 years, and then there was a 2 year gap when i sold my soul to the "Crproate Slave Masters".

Starting out we laid out our "concepts"  They are as follows.
No Alignment, ii is considered each character is a "good" to various degrees.  Alignment is used as a "theme" and not a sticking point.

We started at 2nd level with a 20% chance to be 3rd, and 10% chance to be 4th.
We ended up with 5 First Lvl and 1 2nd lvl character.  We rolled best of 3 sets using .d6 per ability. Players chose 1 set.

We set our game in greyhawk because of past familiarity.  The last campaign (94-2000) was based in Raelastra, So i se the stroy line in the Sheldomar Valley/Bissel Area.
Mid to High rennaisance for technology and late middle ages for a social concept.
there is a range based on region from late Roman empire up thorugh High rennaisance.

The players wanted:
Rapid level Advancement
Prestige Class options
A Medium Magic Campaign, meaning you dont need magic to succeed, but it helps
A contact base of NPCS.  The old campaing had NPCs that usually ended up screwing you when you needed them most.
PCs would be "unique heroes"  and 12th mages would not be on every corner.

here are the characters

8th level priest of Pelor, 17wis, +3 Mace with imbued spell abilites
6th Lvl Barbarian/ 2 nd Prestige Class "wolf Blooded" a special racial class the Player and I created  18 Str 17Con 
6th lvl Wizard/2nd Lvl Blade Wraith -18 Int 14Str a specialty battle mage class the Player and I created
8th lvl Monk with the Vow of Poverty feat from Exhaaulted deeds..(completely out of hand)
20 Dex...with feats and crap he has a 30AC vs 1 attack around..
7th Level Elf fighter /1st level Infused PC from Dragon,  17 Str 18 Dex, Specialty archer
7th Lvl Ranger/1st lvl "Ranger Knight of Furondy" also from dragon.


Ultimately I am running the players through the first Iron Kingdoms Module, Witch fire trilogy, but have added and expanded it considerably.  Currently theyr are hunting down a Sorceress that is in league with necromancers devoted to Nerull.  Needless to say the climax is an epic scale "legions of undead" attack the city type deal.

last session the "heroric/retarded" players decided to "unhook or disconnect" a dimentional gate that was in the form of a linked chain....ZZzzzztt.  3 players have randomly been polymorphed into Planer Penitants.  The Elven Ranger  was turned into a Negative Planer UNDEAD, the pain in the ass monk was turned into a copper skinned gnome, and the elven fighter was transformed into a "beastman"

Hahahah!....


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## Morbog of Ghetto D (Feb 16, 2005)

*Wolf70*

In response to your problems.....I face many of the same....

Its really really difficult when your level of investment isnt off set by the players..
I wrote several weeks ago about my similar problems...

The lack of "serious gaming" may be cyclical.  I took a break in one of my other campaigns for now 3 months because the Players were questioning every combat encounter and monster.   My current d20 campaign got a little off track, but I applied several points that the my fellow DM suggested...

I think ultimately open the next session explaining what the game means to you, be very positive and supportive.  NOT CRITCAL. Suprisingly some of theses players will/may come forward admitting "yeah we have been jerks".  Make sure that the game still reflects the concept that the players have.  UNFORTUATELY I have found that I need to accept some of this poor behavior because my players are not as HARDCORE as me and 2 of the other players.  Sad, but your expectations may be too high?..

Hand out this easy survey...


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## DarrenGMiller (Feb 17, 2005)

Morbog of Ghetto D said:
			
		

> In response to your problems.....I face many of the same....
> 
> Its really really difficult when your level of investment isnt off set by the players..
> I wrote several weeks ago about my similar problems...
> ...




Thanks Morbog.  I gave you advice when you were having problems, but now face a similar situation and I appreciate your assistance with mine.

As I said, we have already had this conversation within the last two sessions and they did say basically, "Yeah, it is getting out of hand.  We love the game, so don't change a thing.  We will cut out the stupid stuff."

Thanks again everyone.  I am actually getting some good stuff here.

DM


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## Nightcloak (Feb 17, 2005)

themind said:
			
		

> For my campaign, I've been working on the idea that Nightcloak came up with.




For some strange reason, I feel responsible for the contorted faces of PCs I will never meet...

If I had a conscious, I might call this strange feeling guilt.  



> I'm currently trying to work on the special warforged.  I am looking for some help though.
> 
> For the base creature, which I have been thinking about calling a Warforged Goliath, before adding any templates to it, I want to aim for a CR of 3-5.  I was thinking of it having at about 5 HD, DR 5/Adamantine, having Adamanine plating(+8 AC), the Powerful Build trait, abilities of Str 20, Dex 13, Con 18, Int 10, Wis 8, Cha 6.  It would be a medium creature.
> 
> ...




I’d be glad to help, but I honestly don’t know the details of a Goliath? Is that also in the Races of Stone? A little help with that then I’ll be ready to roll.

*Opens the Eberron CS, the Monster’s Handbook, and a cold beverage*


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## themind (Feb 17, 2005)

Yeah, they are in the Races of Stone.  But I'm not really using the race for anything just taking some ideas.

The Powerful Build allows the creature to act as one size larger for the purposes of zsize modifiers for things like grapple and trip attacks.  Also allows him to use LArge weapons without problem.

The Great Hammer is an Exotic weapon that does 1d12 damage medium sized and 3d6 damge large sized.  It also has x4 Crit.

Imagine this towering Warforged with a demonic look weilding this big hammer.  With the Knockback feat, just imagine the carnage.  Hehehe

I don't know how to estimate the CR of a creature from scratch, but I would like those abilites.  With those abilities, what would the CR be?


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## Nightcloak (Feb 17, 2005)

Ahhhhh... I see. I really need to update ye ole' library soon. I have been focusing on 3rd party material a lot lately. 

Anywho

Base creature = Warfaorged 
Starting stats based on "elite numbers" in the SRD for creatures with player classes: 15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8 or detailed for our Goliath is Str 15, Dex 13, Con 14, Int 12, Wis 10, Cha 8.
Racial modifiers for warforged applied: Str 15, Dex 13, Con 16, Int 12, Wis 8, Cha 6.
[CR 1/2 befor levels]

3 levels of Fighter = 3 HD + 2 feats for character level + 2 feats for fighter levels 
Feat, First level Character: Adamantine Body (+8 AC, replaces +2 starting AC bonus) and DR 2/Adamantine +3 feats on Improved Damage Reduction brings the DR to 5/Adamantine +1 feat on Exotic Weapon Proficiency (goliath Great Hammer)

[CR 3 = 1/2 + 3 levels rounded down]

Advance to large size= 
Str +8	Dex –2	Con +4	Natural Armor +2	AC/Attack –1  plus the rest off the fun that goes into large creatures. Cost is CR+1 per SRD
[CR: 4 = 3 advanced +1 for increased size]


How's this little guy?


Goliath Warforged v1.0
Str 23 , Dex 11, Con 20, Int 12, Wis 8, Cha 6.
Armor Class: 19 (+10 Natural , -1 size)
HD: 3d10+15
To Hit: +8 (+3 level, +6 strength, -1 size)
Special: Weapon Prof (Big Ass Axe) and DR 5/Adamantine
Fort: +8, Ref: +1, Wil: -1
*26 skill points as you see fit, none higher than 6 ranks*
CR: 4


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## themind (Feb 17, 2005)

Ok that works.  

Although, I was thinking of the base creature before adding templates of levels but it works nontheless.  I'll just add more levels and I should be set.  

Thanks.


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## Nightcloak (Feb 17, 2005)

themind said:
			
		

> Ok that works.
> 
> Although, I was thinking of the base creature before adding templates of levels but it works nontheless.  I'll just add more levels and I should be set.
> 
> Thanks.




The levels were just a "recipe" so to speak just to make it easier to build him up and get close to the desired specs. Now that he is finished, I'd treat him as a creature onto himself no different as one pulled from the MM and just go from there. I'd be happy to go for v1.1 if it would help.

I’m sure I can get some mileage out of these bad boys too…


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## themind (Feb 17, 2005)

If you want go right ahead.  I'll see how bad*** this thing will be with the specs you came up with.

Why does it feel so good to imagine destroying your PC's?  Or to at least put the fear of God into them.


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## Aris Dragonborn (Feb 17, 2005)

Because it's payback of sorts for that carefully crafted town you worked on for three days, and the PC's, in a fit of pique, burned it to the ground. It's for all the times that they ruined a perfectly good adventure, the one you spent 1 or 2 weeks painstakingly planning all the encounters, coming up with clever tactics for the villains so you could give them a proper challenge, and they come up with a way to circumvent it all and still accomplish the mission.

Yeah, I _know_ that the game is not meant to be DM vs. PC. But sometimes, just sometimes, it feels good to indulge in that guilty little pleasure by taking the PC's to the brink of oblivion and making them sweat.


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## Aris Dragonborn (Feb 17, 2005)

Currently, I'm preparing to run a custom campaign set in Eberron.
My 3 players have created Gestalt Characters from the UA, beginning at 10th level. They are a fighter/druid, a rogue/monk, and I believe a fighter/artificer. I'm going to scale the first four Eberron adventures (_The Forgotten Forge_ from the ECS, _Shadows of the Last War_, _Whispers of the Vampire's Blade_, and _Grasp of the Emerald Claw_) to match the PC's levels.

Ok? So far so good.

The problem is that they want to continue past 20th level and into the Epic Levels, and I'm not entirely sure just how to handle that. This is going to be a high-level campaign, obviously, but I'm not sure if advancing Gestalt Characters into the Epic Levels is going to work, so any advice or ideas are appreciated.

Another question that I have: Have any of you tinkered around with the idea of advancing your PC's past 20th level _without_ utilizing the Epic Level Handbook (ala The Black Company Campaign Setting)?


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## ChaosEvoker (Feb 17, 2005)

AS with many games, the higher level you become, the less significant ganing a level is.I woulsn't worry about it too much. Past level 24 or 25 or so, level ganing becomes almost insignificant other than feats gained and skills improved. Saves and BAB occasionally go up but its minor and the HP ganined is quite small to a 2*th level character.


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## Mordmorgan the Mad (Feb 17, 2005)

Aris Dragonborn said:
			
		

> But sometimes, just sometimes, it feels good to indulge in that guilty little pleasure by taking the PC's to the brink of oblivion and making them sweat.



I like making my PCs sweat (blood). Mmmm...Ravenloft.


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## themind (Feb 18, 2005)

*Check this*

Ok this is what I have for a Fiendish creation

*Fiendish Warforged Goliath, Level 10 Fighter*
Large Construct(Living Construct, Extraplanar)
*Hit Dice:* 10d10+50(109 hp)
*Initiative:* +1
*Speed:* 30 ft. (6 squares)
*Armor Class:* 20 (-1 size, +2 natural, +8 armor, +1 Dex), touch 10, flat-footed 19
*Base Attack/Grapple:* +10/+21
*Attack:* Greathammer +17 melee (3d6+12/x4)
*Full Attack:* Greathammer +17/+12 (3d6+12/x4)
*Space/Reach:* 10 ft./10 ft.
*Special Attacks:* Smite Good 1/day
*Special Qulaities:* DR 5/magic and adamantine, Darkvision 60 ft., SR 15, fire and cold resistance 10, Living Construct traits
*Saves:* Fort +12, Ref +4, Will +2
*Abilities:* Str 24, Dex 12, Con 20, Int 12, Wis 8, Cha 6
*Skills:* Climb +20, Intimidate +11, Jump +20
*Feats:* Adamantine Body, Improved Damage Reduction x3, Exoctic Weapon Proficiency(Greathammer), Weapon Focus(Great Hammer), Weapon Specialization(Greathammer), Power Attack, Improved Bull Rush, Knockback 
*Environment:* Underground
*Organization:* Solitary, pair
*Challenge Rating:* 13
*Treasure:* Standard
*Alignment:* Usually Chaotic Evil
*Advancment:* By character class
*Level Adjustment:* --

So, what do you think.  I'll probably make a Draconic, Half- Fiend, and Half Dragon one as well.


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## DarrenGMiller (Feb 19, 2005)

*It is finished...*

Well, it finally happened.  I found out that I was losing two of my players due to the problems I have posted here.  So, I did the unthinkable and informed my group that the current gaming group as it stands is no longer viable for me.  Basically, though the advice I have given and received, I discovered that I was no longer getting what I wanted out of the game and neither was just about anybody else.

I have decided that the single most important factor in starting a gaming group or adding members to an existing one is communicating what you as a DM are looking for in the game and letting prospective players know that you want players who are looking for the same thing(s) from the game.  If you don't want to play the same game, then don't try to play together.

This may not be true to everybody, depending on their circumsances, but having gamed for about 23 years, I am way too set in my ways to change the basic style of game I enjoy (though it has developed over time, thank goodness).  I also enjoy running the game.  At this point in my life, this decision seems right for me.  I am choosing the game I want to play and trusting that there are players out there who want it too.  If not... I haven taken a hiatus before.

I want to game as a stress reliever, not a stress inducer.

DM


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## Blade of Desecration (Feb 19, 2005)

themind said:
			
		

> Ok this is what I have for a Fiendish creation
> 
> *Fiendish Warforged Goliath, Level 10 Fighter*
> Large Construct(Living Construct, Extraplanar)
> ...



How would this thing breed to get half-anything?


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## themind (Feb 19, 2005)

I know it wouldn't normally work, but I was thinking some sort of ritual or experiment with the Shards.


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## Nightcloak (Feb 19, 2005)

Blade of Desecration said:
			
		

> How would this thing breed to get half-anything?




The idea behind the cleric's use of the Kyber dragonshards was to power the Warforged with the draconic and demonic nature of the dragon below. Who knows what evil can come from the releasing of such energy into the races of Eberron? Talk about a great oppurtunity to throw open the doors on templates! 

Draconomican, Book of Vile Darkness, and Half-Illithids, oh my!   

Themind, your game is gonna rock!


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## themind (Feb 19, 2005)

DOn't I know it.  I just got to figure out how pwerful of mgic itdms to give it.  At least a +1 or 2 for the weapon and maybe have its body enchnted with +1 to armor.  Not sure.


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## Nightcloak (Feb 20, 2005)

themind said:
			
		

> Don't I know it.  I just got to figure out how pwerful of mgic itdms to give it.  At least a +1 or 2 for the weapon and maybe have its body enchnted with +1 to armor.  Not sure.




I'd just look up the total GP available for an NPC of the same level and go shopping. Nothing indepth. Just the cost for weapons, the cost to enchant the armor, and maybe something fun if you have extra gold left over. 

I didn't think of enchanting his body armor, thats a great idea. It makes him bad news and the PCs can't loot it later  

But that guy is gonna be bad news, so make sure they get something for there troubles besides the lumps he's gonna dish out.


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## Nightcloak (Feb 20, 2005)

wolf70 said:
			
		

> Well, it finally happened.  I found out that I was losing two of my players due to the problems I have posted here.  So, I did the unthinkable and informed my group that the current gaming group as it stands is no longer viable for me.  Basically, though the advice I have given and received, I discovered that I was no longer getting what I wanted out of the game and neither was just about anybody else.
> 
> I have decided that the single most important factor in starting a gaming group or adding members to an existing one is communicating what you as a DM are looking for in the game and letting prospective players know that you want players who are looking for the same thing(s) from the game.  If you don't want to play the same game, then don't try to play together.
> 
> ...




Wow. I'd give you my best about things going south, but it really sounds like your happier this way and frankly, relieved. So I'll instead just wish you the best to find the group/game that works best for you. 

You are right. You are a player also and deserve to play in a game you enjoy. It's ironic, if a player is in a game he doesn't like, everyone tells him to find a new group. Strange how you don't hear the same for DM's not happy with their game. 

Good luck finding the right group/game soon!


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## DarrenGMiller (Feb 20, 2005)

Nightcloak said:
			
		

> Wow. I'd give you my best about things going south, but it really sounds like your happier this way and frankly, relieved. So I'll instead just wish you the best to find the group/game that works best for you.
> 
> You are right. You are a player also and deserve to play in a game you enjoy. It's ironic, if a player is in a game he doesn't like, everyone tells him to find a new group. Strange how you don't hear the same for DM's not happy with their game.
> 
> Good luck finding the right group/game soon!




It is funny how things turn out actually.  When people give advice to DM's about a player they are having difficulty with, the DM is told to boot the player.  When advice is given to a player who is not getting along well in the group, the player is told to find a new group.  DM's are assumed to be responsible for their group and if things go south then it is their fault.  I know I am already at risk of hijacking this thread and I am sorry for that, but I think that this IS an issue that is important for DM's, so I am going to tell you what has transpired in the past 24 hours.

I am a teacher (as I have posted before) and as such, no longer felt like being a part of a gaming group that had to be controlled and continuously brought back on task like an unruly classroom.  I get enough of classroom management every day and don't need to manage people who are supposed to be my friends (3 of my players are former students, 1 other recently graduated from the school where I teach).  I just want to run a game where there is mutual trust among the players to do what you are supposed to be doing at the table.  Table rules should be able to handle any minor problems that may arise (IMO).

After I informed my group that I no longer felt the current group was viable, I received a whole bunch of emails and phone calls.  The player who told me that he and another player were quitting denied that he told me that to the rest of the group when they called him.  The other player emailed me and informed my that she was not planning on quitting.  The player I assume would care the least about the termination of the game has done the most to try to salvage something out of this.

In short, he has spoken to everyone involved, including the player we ousted a month ago when things started going poorly.  He then called me to show his support for my decision and his willingness to work towards restoring a group of some kind even if the personnel is slightly different (I usually have at least a small waiting list of potential players and had 3 on that list as of last night).  Even though he was at fault for some of the problems and he ignored my request to cut the silliness and criticism, etc. during sessions, he apologized, admitted his share and wants to move on.  He also expressed that if he was not part of my next group, he would regret it, but understand.  I also received several calls from the player we ousted, as well as another player and emails of support from two others.  In short, most are willing to do whatever it takes to get me back behind the screen again soon and hope that they can be a part of it, but expressed understanding if they are not.

I am wondering if anyone here has any player surveys or if anyone has done a "trial session" to determine the make-up of the group.  When I decide to put a group back together, I want lots of out of game communication and trust.

Have I been selfish in gaming only when I can be assure that I am getting what I want out of the game?  Probably so, but at my age and with the amount of gaming time I have to run a game, I don't want to waste it.

Thanks for your help.  Like it or not, I will let you know how it goes.

DM


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## siege72 (Feb 20, 2005)

*Gaming problem... and solution?*

I've been having issues with one of the campaigns that I run; originally I was going to ask for advice here, but just bit the bullet and did my own thing. (I was almost at the point of putting the game on haitus as well)

I'm currently running three games with pretty much the same players, although in slightly different combinations. The problem I've run into is that my Saturday-night game has been off track. Two of the players are decent guys, but look at gaming as being "socializing time" instead of "D&D time". A lot of gaming sessions have accomplished nothing because of constant jokes, interruptions, etc. 

The game only runs every-other week for 5-6 hours; losing any time really hurts the campaign's progress. And I have to drive an hour each way just to get there. Worse, players complain about the lack of progress, and then don't take kindly to focusing.  Worst of all, one of the players (a good friend of mine) has a very large ego and any "suggestions" piss him off... Two weeks ago, he was starting to tell a joke OOC in the middle of combat, and when I asked him to act or delay (so I could keep things moving) he left the table in a huff.  Major issues, I'd say.   

The morning before the last game, I sent all of the players an email with the changes I was going to be making:
** * The XP I award for being on time, prepared, etc would be halved (down to 100 XP)
** * "Story awards" wouldn't be awarded any longer, unless the plot was actually advanced. And any roleplaying bonuses would be awarded _individually_.
** * The individual XP awards would be based on my subjective opinion about how well the player RP'd, and how many OOC issues (metagaming, lack of focus, etc) there were to deal with.
** * Anyone who was unhappy with their character could change within the next session or two, with only the loss of a single level, instead of two (as is the norm). (I knew one player was very unhappy with his character, and wasn't sure about some of the others.)

Although there was a bit of shock and irritation that came through at first, everyone was open to the idea. (Especially since I'd intimated to one player that if things didn't improve the campaign could be put on hiatus...    )

Much to my pleasant surprise, the game actually ran well! There were some issues and interruptions, but nothing like the games before. So far there haven't been any complaints received, and I'm keeping my fingers crossed.


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## siege72 (Feb 20, 2005)

wolf70 said:
			
		

> I am wondering if anyone here has any player surveys or if anyone has done a "trial session" to determine the make-up of the group.  When I decide to put a group back together, I want lots of out of game communication and trust.



I've done it informally, asking players what kind of campaign they're looking for, what kind of environment (ie, location in the Forgotten Realms), etc. I also "require" character backgrounds, so I have a rough idea of how well a player will fit into the game, and what kind of issues the characters will have.



			
				wolf70 said:
			
		

> Have I been selfish in gaming only when I can be assure that I am getting what I want out of the game?  Probably so, but at my age and with the amount of gaming time I have to run a game, I don't want to waste it.



My Rule 0 is that the game is supposed to be fun for everyone, _including_ the DM. If you're not enjoying the game, there's no reason to continue.


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## Nightcloak (Feb 20, 2005)

Wolf70:

I have two player surveys I have given recently, as I gear up for what will be a new campaign this summer. Or better put, a return to me DMing full time after the year break I mentioned before. 

One survey is of what the players like in DMing style and game play. Or what they enjoy in a game. The second is one that asks questions about houserules and campaign detail. 

I would post them but the first one is a modified survey from another poster here on ENWorld and I would think it would be bad form to post something that is technically not mine. 

If you, or anyone is interested, you can email me at creativecontrol@sbcglobal.net and I would be happy to send it to you.

They are good starting points for a survey but I would modify then to fit your style or the nature of your players.


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## DarrenGMiller (Feb 20, 2005)

@ Nightcloak - I have sent you an email.  I am extremely interested in your surveys.

DM


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## Morbog of Ghetto D (Feb 21, 2005)

*Sneak Attacks*

Just to make sure....when using a Sneak Attack, the attacker can use their entire full attack sequence during the attack.  Adding the sneak attack bonus damage to all the attacks?

At least thats how I have read it and how I've seen it..

But sadly,  Last nights Ambush of the Spider Cult was ruined when my player called me 

a "F***King A**H***" and then said a hearty F***You!"   So you amy ask what casued this barrage of insults....Well.

Round 1-First the players open their PHBS to read all about mounted combat, and ride by attack to "understand" how those skills work, Since I attacked them with 6 mounted warriors.
When they found that I was indead running the encounter correctly, they shut their  books.

Several Rounds later my rogue made 2 move silently, and hide checks to move up behind the archer.  I rolled for 2 listen, and 2 spot checks for the PC, all were failures.

I then sneak attacked the PC, killing the elf.    Here the PHBs are opened again, and the rule lawyer decided to read Sneak Attack to make sure I was "correct"...

He then declared, "Yep thats how its written"....And I said "thank you for justifying my ruling"
He ofcourse than asked, "well I hope you gave the Player a listen check?" 
My frustration and sarcasm was obvious, but then the player began  the verbal abuse.

Today i informed the Players that I will not be running the game after I complete this "adventure" which is about 2-3 more sessions.  

I think I'll roll up a rogue

Later


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## Nightcloak (Feb 21, 2005)

Morbog of Ghetto D said:
			
		

> Just to make sure....when using a Sneak Attack, the attacker can use their entire full attack sequence during the attack.  Adding the sneak attack bonus damage to all the attacks?
> 
> At least thats how I have read it and how I've seen it..
> 
> ...




    

Damnnnnnnnn!!!!

[sblock]Sheesh! That story makes me want to drive across the state and give those players an adventure to really b**** about. 

Must... Regain... Control... 

Must... Not... Punish... PCs... Everywhere...[/sblock]

OK. I feel better now...

Well, you did the right thing. As the ongoing discussion with Wolf70 has deminstrated, the DM is also a player and has a right to enjoy the game also. You are better off without any of that! 

Kick back, play an PC for a while, and let someone else experience the "joy" of this bunch.  

If they don't get it now or after no one else wants to deal with that crap then they are just not worth the time. Take the time to find and play the game you want with a group of people who appreciate a DM. You are better of playing a PC and holding out then catering to that. 

Sad for the DM/creative type/story teller within you. But a whole lot better for your spirit in the long run.

Best wishes!


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## Blade of Desecration (Feb 22, 2005)

@ Morbog:  Well, I do admire your ability to take this.  If it had been me, I would have told 'em  to shove it where the sun don't shine, and then quit the group.  
Well good luck, and may you be as much of a perpetual ass to your new DM as he was unto you.


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## ChaosEvoker (Feb 22, 2005)

Man...rules lawyers......

@Nightcloak
comment on your spoiler:
[sblock]May I put that in my sig? Seriously that is my quote of the week or month or something! You are my hero of the day.[/sblock]

@Morborgh
Man...I'm gald I am close friends with all my players, we have disagreements that escalate alot sometimes, but it never gets that extreme. I'm sorry.


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## Nightcloak (Feb 22, 2005)

@ ChaosEvoker

[sblock]


			
				ChaosEvoker said:
			
		

> @Nightcloak
> comment on your spoiler:
> May I put that in my sig? Seriously that is my quote of the week or month or something! You are my hero of the day.




Testify, brother!​


Er... That would be a yes.

In fact, we'll call it a trade: New title!

[/sblock]


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## ChaosEvoker (Feb 23, 2005)

@Nightcloak
[sblock]LOL that's awesome. Hwo do you change your title anyway?[/sblock]

@Personal Note, read if you wish I spoiler it to prevent form hijacking
[sblock]I just foudn out that my grandpa has cancer, he goes in for surgery tomorrow first thing. If your a religious sort, pray for him I'd appreciate it. I know I will be.[/sblock]

This note will explain why my posts will be unpredictable (timing-wise, they always are content-wise) for a little while.

@My topic
I'm still having touble with a plot line, once i've got that I can run with it, but I'm just raw. (The group is all LN to my knowledge if that helps)


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## Blade of Desecration (Feb 24, 2005)

@CE: 1.  Sorry 'bout your grandpa, hope he feels better.  I know how it feels when a loved one gets a serious illness.  
        2.  If you could give us anymore details on your campaign, I'm sure there are plenty of people around who'll have more genious ideas for you (*cough, Nightcloak, cough*).

P.S.  On my own little personal note... [sblock] I just found out I qualified for the Readers Digest state vocabulary-contest-thingy-which-they-made-everyone-in-my-grade-in-the-state-take championships along with only a few other people in the state of Illinois, so my ego will be swollen for the next few months   .  Ahhh, like is good.[/sblock]


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## Nightcloak (Feb 24, 2005)

[sblock]  



			
				ChaosEvoker said:
			
		

> LOL that's awesome. Hwo do you change your title anyway?




Custom titles are part of the perks you get for buying a community supporter account; along with seach, PMs, and other fun bits. Most people just let it ride with a unique title, but I said to myself: "Self. You spent the money, have some fun with it."  




> @Personal Note, read if you wish I spoiler it to prevent form hijacking
> I just foudn out that my grandpa has cancer, he goes in for surgery tomorrow first thing. If your a religious sort, pray for him I'd appreciate it. I know I will be.




I'm really sorry to here this. I know how it feels to see loved ones fade away. It's just as hard if it's sudden or slow. You and your family will be in my prayers. Best of wishes!

[/sblock]



			
				ChaoEvoker said:
			
		

> I'm still having touble with a plot line, once i've got that I can run with it, but I'm just raw. (The group is all LN to my knowledge if that helps)




Some details of the campaign setting and the style of play your shooting for would help greatly. 

Also, any particular adventures you and your group enjoy? High-adventure, grim-and-gritty, horror, political intrigue, dungeon crawl, hack-and-slash, etc....


----------



## Nightcloak (Feb 24, 2005)

@ Blade of Desecration 

[sblock] 



> I just found out I qualified for the Readers Digest state vocabulary-contest-thingy-which-they-made-everyone-in-my-grade-in-the-state-take championships along with only a few other people in the state of Illinois, so my ego will be swollen for the next few months   .  Ahhh, like is good.




Congrats! Thats just awsome. And as a DM, it's great for descriptive flavor text. As a business man, I can tell you that a powerful vocabulary is a must for success (the whole communication/leadership thing). Just remember us when you get there    

[/sblock]  



			
				Blade of Desecration said:
			
		

> (*cough, Nightcloak, cough*)




 

That's the guy with the good upbringing speaking. 

But the guy who's a gamer geek says:   Thanks! 





Who am I kidding. The guy with the good upbringing wins everytime: *Bad ego, bad... No banana...*


----------



## ChaosEvoker (Feb 26, 2005)

@Nightcloak
It's FR, I still need to get more details on the characters I guess. I'll be back with that later. Tomorrow we'll be trying out _Call of Cthulu_ (sp?) with my friend's dad DMing. Never played a horror RPG so it should be interesting.


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## LilMissKittyn (Feb 26, 2005)

[sblock] Hey guys, I'm still here, I've been reading daily but I didn't feel like saying something stupid anytime soon and I've had nothing of value.
My posts, if I'm needed, may be erratic for a while. Life just trampled all over me and then kicked my head in for good measure and I'm working on dealing with it, but I'll be here every other day at least. I'm sorry if I offend the non-religious types, but I'd ask for your prayers for both CE and I (I hope you don't mind, CE, but I'm praying for you, I'd like you to have the help).

Long live the game! I'll talk to you guys sometime later. [/sblock]


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## ChaosEvoker (Feb 26, 2005)

[sblock]LMK: Prayers are always appreciated thanks![/sblock]


----------



## Nightcloak (Feb 26, 2005)

ChaosEvoker said:
			
		

> @Nightcloak
> It's FR, I still need to get more details on the characters I guess. I'll be back with that later. Tomorrow we'll be trying out _Call of Cthulu_ (sp?) with my friend's dad DMing. Never played a horror RPG so it should be interesting.




Well, a FR campaign does make things interesting, but does beg the the question: What region were you considering? 

I hate to press you with questions and be difficult, but I'm not sure of the style you like and the FR is a pretty huge place. The Eberron campaign was easier do to the fact it comes with several implied styles of play, so the Idea GeneratorTM could just start from that base. The FR is designed to accomidate all styles and is constomizable to the DMs/groups prefferences. Just trying to be as helpful as possible.


----------



## Nightcloak (Feb 26, 2005)

@LilMissKittyn
[sblock] 







			
				LilMissKittyn said:
			
		

> Hey guys, I'm still here, I've been reading daily but I didn't feel like saying something stupid anytime soon and I've had nothing of value.
> 
> Long live the game! I'll talk to you guys sometime later.




Non-sense I say! 

The whole point of this forum is to be a community and to talk to people and get help if needed. I mean, it's quite safe. Xen and Dyne have relegated the zombie fights to the back room (ahem, I didn't get my box seats guys! I paid good money for season tickets you know   ) and Madmorgan hasn't been shipping peoples sanity off to Ravenloft lately, so it's clear. 

On the serious side, hope life gets in order quickly.   
[/sblock]


----------



## LilMissKittyn (Feb 26, 2005)

@Nightcloak
[sblock] Thanks, it'll be a while but I'll pull through. Life goes on. [/sblock]


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## ChaosEvoker (Feb 28, 2005)

@NC
not sure yet, I'll talk to my players first before I commit to anything, I'll bring you an update soon


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## DarrenGMiller (Feb 28, 2005)

@LMK - 

[sblock] I hope things work out for you.  I have been very busy at work lately and have had some minor health problems myself.  If you don't mind I will keep you in my prayers.[/sblock]

DM


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## BSF (Feb 28, 2005)

Hey Folks,
I just caught up on a month's worth of postings.  Work has been a serious detriment to my gaming enjoyment lately.  *sigh* It was pointed out to me today that I had pretty much the same circumstances last year at this time too.  Go figure.  In any event, I knew I would not be able to contribute to conversations full bore so I ended up laying low for a while.  I let most of my gaming stuff kind of coast a bit and have been keeping my head above water without bowing out of anything serious.  

Wolf,
Sorry to hear about your campaign disintegrating.  It sounds like the players might be serious about recovering it though.  It sounds like you have it all under control, but best of luck.  It isn't always easy and don't be afraid to stop and take a break for a bit.  Play something else, anything else.  Even if it is just a one-shot night of a board game or something, don't be afraid to take a break.  Sometimes that will help let the players blow off steam without undermining the tone of the campaign.  

Morbog,
The player is out of line and would have earned a permanent un-invite back to my house.  If none of the other players called the player on bad behavior, I would probably drop the campaign as well.  That type of language is unacceptable, no matter what transpired.  If the player eventually apologized, I might consider gaming with him again.  But without an apology, I would be hard pressed to spend any time in his presence.

On to the rules call.  Rogues can get iterative sneak attacks on a full attack action.  It really depends on the circumstances.  Catch the target flat footed with a full attack option available?  You bet!  Catch the target while you are enjoying the benefits of a Greater Invisibility?  Sure thing.  You are flanking your target?  Sneak attack is dangerous and fun.  Catch the target when you have a normal invisibility?  Well, you only get one sneak attack.  You are visibile for the rest of the attacks and the target is able to use his full Dex.  I would rule a successful attack from hiding the same way I would rule normal invisibility.  It isn't exactly clear on what the situation was, but maybe you made an error?  Maybe not.  If so, consider having the archer KO'd but alive.  Then you don't unduly penalize the archer for your misjudgement.  

Of course, that does not excuse the player's behavior in the slightest.  I don't care how angry you get, don't use langauge like that toward your DM.  So if the player is controlling the archer, then it hardly matters whether you make the archer KO or dead.  

It's a bad situation and I am sorry that you have such an immature player.   

Everyone else, I think I am getting my work schedule back under control.  So I will try to be more involved again.  Peace, good gaming, and positive energy out to all of you.


----------



## Mordmorgan the Mad (Feb 28, 2005)

[sblock]







			
				Nightcloak said:
			
		

> Xen and Dyne have relegated the zombie fights to the back room (ahem, I didn't get my box seats guys! I paid good money for season tickets you know   )



Sorry, but the zombies broke all the boxes   , but no refunds (house policy, you know).



			
				BardStephenFox said:
			
		

> positive energy out to all of you.



Ack! You'll ruin all the zombies[/sblock]


----------



## Mordmorgan the Mad (Feb 28, 2005)

*Well, good news for me...*

It looks like I'm actually going to be able to play a Ravenloft game again, and more regularly than before. I posted up a request for some players here at EN World, and got enough folks together for a decent game. The fun should start Tuesday, if all goes right, and I'll post up a link for anyone who'd like to follow along.


----------



## ChaosEvoker (Feb 28, 2005)

I wish I had known about it so I could have played *snaps fingers*


----------



## LilMissKittyn (Mar 1, 2005)

Oh wow I'm only gone a day and there's a billion more posts.

@any that are interested
[sblock] Thanks for the support, it felt nice to know I was loved. I think I'm ok now (I got some unexpected and much-needed advice) but if you would continue for a little while longer I would certainly appreciate it. [/sblock]

I'd like to follow along, MtM, what's the link?

...must...post....
@BSF
[sblock] Letting work get ahead of gaming? Blasphemy! Impossible! I'm ASHAMED! (j/k)[/sblock]

Ok I actually do have a real question. What would be the best next book to get for someone who *sigh* STILL doesn't have a group but might be starting one soon? I've got a PHB, do I get a DM Guide or a supplementary book or what? Limited funds and all that...

I thought you guys would be the ones to ask. You get to brag on your favorite supplement books.

I also thought perhaps you'd have some tips for me on first-time DMing, if I do get the group started I'll probably be running it. We'll see.

Just a couple of questions, feel free to ignore.


----------



## Mordmorgan the Mad (Mar 1, 2005)

My Ravenloft game can be found here.

Feel free to post any comments about it here, or at the game's OOC thread

@ChaosEvoker: I didn't really think it would be up your alley, as my Ravenloft games are super low powered and don't have much combat.


----------



## Dyne (Mar 1, 2005)

Nightcloak said:
			
		

> @LilMissKittyn
> [sblock]
> 
> Non-sense I say!
> ...




I'm remembered! Even though I haven't posted here for quite some time.

Sorry I've been gone a while. I've been rather busy with stuff. On top of that, I'm still not very fond of the forum skin....

[sblock]I hope everything works out, LMK. Things are pretty hectic here too. We've spent 6 weeks of hard work into a play, and when it comes time to pull it off, things seem to fall apart and the 6 weeks seems a complete and total waste. I hope everything pulls through, for both of us.[/sblock]

If you plan on starting a group, it's best to get a DMG. It is _essential_ to any DM. If you don't quite have the $30 for a 3.5 DMG, you could still get a 3.0 version for $20. I really like the 3.0 version too, and it's pretty compatible with the other 3.5 rulebooks, I believe.


----------



## Mordmorgan the Mad (Mar 1, 2005)

LilMissKittyn said:
			
		

> Ok I actually do have a real question. What would be the best next book to get for someone who *sigh* STILL doesn't have a group but might be starting one soon? I've got a PHB, do I get a DM Guide or a supplementary book or what? Limited funds and all that...



I find that the DMG is quite helpful. I don't use mine that much, but that's just because I've read it so many times, I don't need to reference it as often now. The Monster Manual is also handy to have, but much of its contents can be found in the SRD. If possible, ask for books for birthdays and holiday gifts.

As for first time DM tips, all the standard ones will surface, I'm sure:
-Have fun
-Go slow
-Show your PCs you're not afraid to kill them (IC and OOC)
-Etc.

@Dyne: There should be a little scroll bar down at the bottom left of the page that will allow you to change the background. IIRC, there's one that looks like WotC's Light Parchment & Leather.


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## Dyne (Mar 1, 2005)

I just checked my options. It seems there are now three options for skins:

Forum Default
Default
Stealth

Yech. Forum Default and Default have little difference, if any, and Stealth is worse than either of them. Too bad. I was rather fond of the Parchment and Leather skin....


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## Mordmorgan the Mad (Mar 1, 2005)

Ick. You're right, "Stealth" is awful. I searched around for the old skins in the Options menu, but only found Default and Stealth. Maybe a PM to the mods is in order?


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## BSF (Mar 1, 2005)

Michael Morris isn't doing much work on the stylesheets right now.  He is working on other portions of the code for the site.  Along with the server upgrade, EN World also upgraded VBulletin software and began consolidating all the databases.  That requires also revamping the code base for several sections of the site.  Go check the Meta forum for updates on the latest changes & bug fixes at any given time.  

LilMissKittyn, if you are ever looking to run a game, the DMG is worthwhile.  There are plenty of folks that run games without ever dipping outside the core 3 books.  And if you prefer humanoid opponents, it would be possible to get away without the Monster Manual.  Fortunately, you could just download the SRD for all the monsters and do fine on a shoestring budget for a long time.


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## ChaosEvoker (Mar 1, 2005)

Mordmorgan the Mad said:
			
		

> My Ravenloft game can be found here.
> 
> Feel free to post any comments about it here, or at the game's OOC thread
> 
> @ChaosEvoker: I didn't really think it would be up your alley, as my Ravenloft games are super low powered and don't have much combat.




What are you tlaking about?? I just played Call of Cthulu with a group of friends and it was AWESOME. I didn't attack a single thing either. I run alot of combat becuase my players typically like it. I love all kinds of campaigns.


----------



## Nightcloak (Mar 1, 2005)

LilMissKittyn said:
			
		

> Ok I actually do have a real question. What would be the best next book to get for someone who *sigh* STILL doesn't have a group but might be starting one soon? I've got a PHB, do I get a DM Guide or a supplementary book or what? Limited funds and all that...
> 
> I thought you guys would be the ones to ask. You get to brag on your favorite supplement books.
> 
> I also thought perhaps you'd have some tips for me on first-time DMing, if I do get the group started I'll probably be running it. We'll see.




Material: 
As has been said, the DMG is your best bet. It's full of info you will need/find useful plus there is also some good tips on running a game. Even Gary Gygax praised the book as a role-playing aid. For creatures, follow BSF's lick to the SRD for free downloads. If you pick up a little cash, I've bought copies of 3.0 books on ebay for friends cheap (got the DMG and Monster Manual for $18.00 combined). And start plugging B-days and xmas for things you want! As far as things of the future, you need to find your style and what you like. I'd recommend combing through the reviews section here at ENWorld for details of what is available.

Gaming Tips:
Start small. Don't overwhelm your self with trying to create tons of detail and a huge campaign. You don't need to create the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting or run your players through Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil. Start in a small town in the middle of a large woods or a valley and jot down notes of the surrounding area. Leave yourself room to expand beyond the starting point _later_. Keep a note book and just start writting in it cool ideas you like. Something sounds fun, write it down. Cute, cool, evil, or whatever, write it down. 

By the time you run a couple of adventures at the starting point, you'll be brimming with ideas and be ready to expand the map to easily accomidate all those ideas. Mapping is easy, if you know what you want. 

The principle is, keep it simple and don't do more than neccessary. Same with adventures. You've read a lot of fun things here that DMs have done, but remember those games were already in action and probably were running for quite a while (in my case years). Those games didn't just start that way. They worked into it as the players and the DM get to know each other. The play builds upon itself. But the first adventure or two is always a little slow as the new characters learn to work together and the DM learns what that particular group can handle. 

Finally, always remember you're the boss. Rule 0. You do what's comfortable for you. You are a player too.

If I can help more, just ask. Good Luck!


----------



## Morbog of Ghetto D (Mar 1, 2005)

*lil Miskittn/lil mis kim*

Yo,

In support of my fellow DM's opinions...

YES DMG is esential....need cash?  See if you can hit up  up your players...
No  players?   Beg, Borrow, Steel.  But get a DMG.  EBAY etc....some fools even scan all the pages of the core books into PDF's..  Paladin Man says, "Egads ! Deplorable!..Illegal!....and against all that is good and lawful!"   

I'd recommend Dungeon, and Dungeon back issues...(cheaper).  You can buy the whole campaign "shackeld city" ...  All the monsters and encounters are already done..
no work for you....read and play...  Many Game Stores will have current and some back issues.  Plop it down anywhere,  there are developed NPCs and cool maps! 
There are even instructions for decreasing the CRs of encounters.--Woohoo

Im a "book nut" so I buy alot of supliments... Always read reviews and ask other players before plopping down coin.  NOTE:  You can down load most of the rule changes between 3.0 and 3.5 on WOTC..so buying the the 3.0 books is a good bargain

Old 2nd edition AD&D products can be found in a box near the garbage can @ almost every game store...Buy that stuff, convert to 3.5 and play...  (The store near my house has a in the box, original plastic Greyhawk Wars....Somewhere a gaming geek is breathing heavy)


Should Buys-  DMG 3.5
PHB...3.5/3.0
Monster Manual 3.5 preferably /3.0  This provides "guidelines" for making your own monsters..

Non esentials -rated 1-5 stars
NOTE Anything by Monte Cooke is "Mana from Heaven"
Book of Vile Darkness -5 stars -very dark,dsiturbing, non for the young or low Fort Saves
Exhakted Deeds-4 Stars-not as good as BVD, but a good complement to BVD
Libris Mortis-5 Stars, matched with BVD and you can kiss your mortal soul good bye.
Dragonomicon-4 stars. really nice.

Necromancer Games products are "really cool"  
"tome of Horrors II"-5-stars- monsters for killing
My players are pretty familar with "standard" D&D monsters so alternate monster manual suplliments help me "spice it up"

"Living Fantasy"-by G. Gyax   4 stars-was an excellent resource, and I gleened alot. really helps campaign/world building.  There is a too muchof "cut-and-paste" entries...though..  (trolllord)
Hi 
The Ravenloft 3.00 DMG has great information and tips for running a campaign.
"Toolbox" AEG-  5 stars-Helpful references for quick campaign elements.
"monsternomicon"-really cool monsters adaptable to non-gun poweder settings.

Note: Manual of the Planes is a "good" reference, but a basic understanding of the planes is in the DMG,..Also buy the 3.0 version to save cash....Planes is planes!
Dont Buy-Complete Warrior, WOTC Arms and Equipment, Unearthed Arcana WOTC.


DUDE, WHEN ALL THE WOTC STORES CLOSED IN MICHIGAN I SCOREd TONS OF GAMING STUFF
DIRT CHEAP....Nah Nah nah nah Nah Nah-ha ha ha ha ha hah!  I was like acrack fiend on "free crack Day"

Good Stuff Guideline

AEG-Alderac- Most suplliments are really Good
Kenzer & Co-  Kingdoms of Kalimar setting is really well done, though needs better organization
Malhavoc press-Great Products, Solid Gold
Necromancer Games-Every purchase has been Awesome! No complaints
Iron Kingdoms-Nice products....Very slow to churn out product.  Very focused on miniature combat-

Suppliments I use every game session
AEG "Toolbox"
Monster manual
DMG
PHB


     Is all good..


----------



## Mordmorgan the Mad (Mar 1, 2005)

ChaosEvoker said:
			
		

> What are you tlaking about?? I just played Call of Cthulu with a group of friends and it was AWESOME. I didn't attack a single thing either. I run alot of combat becuase my players typically like it. I love all kinds of campaigns.



Hrm. Sorry. Maybe a spot will open up later.


----------



## Nightcloak (Mar 2, 2005)

Morbog of Ghetto D said:
			
		

> NOTE Anything by Monte Cooke is "Mana from Heaven"




100% agreed. Cooke is Da' Man
*As I hug the Arcana Evolved PDF close to me*



> Necromancer Games products are "really cool"




Necromancer games has never done me wrong. 



> "Toolbox" AEG-  5 stars-Helpful references for quick campaign elements.




This book is a real sleeper in the popularity department. Every DM should have this one, period. Even if it's to  open for a few details before playing. 



> Dont Buy-Complete Warrior, WOTC Arms and Equipment, Unearthed Arcana WOTC.




I don't own any of the complete books, beleive it or not. But I do recommend the Malhavoc versions instead. 


We now derail this thread for localized ranting from Nightcloak...


> DUDE, WHEN ALL THE WOTC STORES CLOSED IN MICHIGAN I SCOREd TONS OF GAMING STUFF
> DIRT CHEAP....Nah Nah nah nah Nah Nah-ha ha ha ha ha hah!  I was like a crack fiend on "free crack Day"




*Bitch, mumble, gripe, whine, complain, @#$%*

The stores in Grand Rapids did not run a sale on roleplaying books. I was told it would be returned to the wearhouse.   

That still burns me up, even more to realize they probably shipped them to you   

[sblock]*Bitch*
[sblock]*Mumble*
[sblock]*Gripe*
[sblock]*Whine*
[sblock]*Complain*
[sblock]  
[sblock]I can't believe you're still following this rant[/sblock][/sblock] [/sblock] [/sblock] [/sblock] [/sblock] [/sblock] 

We now return you to your regualarly scheduled thread...


...

Great book selection Morbog!


----------



## ChaosEvoker (Mar 2, 2005)

While for essential book its true, I found Complete Warrior to be a great book. It has some really cool really great stuff IMHO. Though I wouldn't buy it until you ahve more critical essentials (Core Rulebooks and such)


----------



## Mordmorgan the Mad (Mar 2, 2005)

CW was a minor disappointment IMO, as was CD. Complete Adventurer and Complete Arcane, however, blew me away. Once you've got all you crunchy books (like the 3 Core Books and the Draconomicon [which is a must for any DM]), look to these books next.

If you're interested in the Forgotten Realms, you're really in luck. I've bought every FR product since 3.0, and not one has disappointed me. The only one you don't need to buy now is Monsters of Faerun (because most/all of its monsters have been reprinted in recent material).

RE: My Ravenloft game: Two players just dropped out, so I'm open to new players. If anyone would like to be concidered for play, send me a character background and sheet to Mordmorgan_the_Mad@yahoo.com.

Make sure you check out the OOC thread for posting rules and what not.


----------



## Morbog of Ghetto D (Mar 2, 2005)

*General Love for DMF*

My boss is on vacation so...I can read this stuff all day!

Nightcloak-After reading your AWESOME post on enhancing the Eborron game, I have to concur...You are quite the imaginative DM...Hats off...

RE: WOTC Closings, I could have bough the entire Kingdoms of Kalimar Campaign book for like 18.00, but I tried to "negotiate" a better deal..Well no dice, anything that was remaining at the end date was sent to WOTC.  So I should have spent more....and lost out on cool stuff


Misskittyn- Forgot to mention, all the FR stuff is totally awesome....

General Question-Why is the FR stuff so much cooler than any of the the other WOTC stuff for Greyhawk?  The quality, art work etc...its just godly.....

Also I have been finding this forum to be just great.....It is interesting to see that soo many campaiogns have the same/similar problems....

Arcanna Evolved- I am in a continual state of anticipation for this suppliment 
"through countless doorways "  looks super cool too.


----------



## Morbog of Ghetto D (Mar 2, 2005)

*Funny Tidbit for "old Gaming Geeks"*

Being a 30-something gamer,  I feel kind-of dorky drooling on "leads" and suppliments, while using my height advantage to snatch goodies away from 10 year olds...(Mwahahahaha!)

I mentioned the WOTC sell off here in MI, and so many funny things happened in my travels there.

I was the oldest person in the store...picking through books, and this 15 yearish kid, was asking me "Do you play" and stuff.  It was really rewarding to talk to a young "geek" and offer some experiences and suggestions....45 min later my wife came looking for me...It was just like my mom chasing me from the Hobby Store.   Outlanders just cant understand how we can stand and talk about "gaming crap" without end.     

Needless to say, I was standing in line at the register with a whole bunch of "loot".  Another "youngster" says , "Pardon me sir.  can you tell me what time it is?"

He was very polite and courteous.  He obviously preceived me as a "parent" buying stuff for my  kids.... He peered at the load of books, and asked," Sir are those for you?!?!"
DM "YES!"
KID "Oh and you play D&D?!?!" 
DM  "yeah,this is so cool"

His entire demeaner changed.  Rather than talking to me like I was an "adult", he began talking to me "gamer to gamer"...It was really funny.  There was no real age difference.  
He was running a game, so was I...He had the same problems, and we were laughing about 
"stupid players".....

I shuffled off to meet my wife in the food court, he went to the main door to meet his mom....

I found that I enjoy RPG's as much now, as when I was a kid....
The excitment about your campaign, or your character  just trancends age, race, gender...

This game rocks the house.


----------



## ChaosEvoker (Mar 3, 2005)

@MtM
Do we just make a standard level 1 char like in D&D for Ravenloft?


----------



## Nightcloak (Mar 3, 2005)

*Story Arcs*

@ ChaoEvoker

Idea's for your campaign:

I remember you stating that your group is a more power-gaming oriented group. Is that this group? 

When you first brought up the DMF campaign, you mentioned that you might place it in Mulhorand. Can I assume that you are still interested in this region of the FR?

Do you want an adventure or two, or maybe a campaign story-arc?

Final question. You asked about mass combat rule books. Can I also assume you have either got one or are interested in running a "large" mass combat as part of a campaign?

Hmmm.... Just curious...





*whistles innocently*


----------



## Y.O.Morales (Mar 3, 2005)

Uff! Getting the hosted forum done has proved to be a test of patience.

Morrus told me several weeks ago that he needed to set-up the forum manually by himself. I know that he, like most people, has many things to do, but I keep contacting him and no response.

So, patience, fellow GMs. It doesn't depend on me now.


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## Mordmorgan the Mad (Mar 3, 2005)

ChaosEvoker said:
			
		

> @MtM
> Do we just make a standard level 1 char like in D&D for Ravenloft?



Yeah. Use 25 point buy and only core material. Don't post the character, email it to me (and remember to use spellcheck  )


----------



## ChaosEvoker (Mar 4, 2005)

@MtM
Right I'll try to get that sent to you by sometime Friday

@NC
Turns out another player wants to DM us and has good ideas which is convienent. I'll have ot make a char. Thanks for the attention though!


----------



## Blade of Desecration (Mar 4, 2005)

Other people might have different experiences with them, but don't get the stuff by Mongouse Publishing.  They sacrifice all balance for flavor and give a new meaning to the phrase "power-gaming".  Speaking of which, onto my rant...
_AAAAAARRRRRRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!_
Man, I _really_ needed to do that.
So, one of my players decided to start buying all of these non-core D&D books.  And by non-core I don't mean as in stuff like CW and UA, I mean stuff not published by WotC.  Now, my player is convinced that because it says on the book that it is WotC approved, is automatically just as core as the PHB and MM.  And he's not alone, since he convinced one of our other group members of the same thing.  Now, he is insisting on using everything from the books as a PC, no matter how unbalanced it is.  He says it is to make his character "unique".  Coincidentally, everything that is "unique" also happens to be uber powerful.  Here are three examples of what he has wanted to play, and these are just some crossbreeds:  minos (half minotaur, half centaur), nathis (half rakshasa, half nymph), and something-else (half elf, half naga).  Now all of these things half an LA of three or less, but are way to powerful for that, more like +5.  During one of the other players campaigns (they all have minor campaigns they do from time to time), he wasted a half hour trying to convince the DM to let him play one really powerful character, and wouldn't take no for an answer.  Myself and the DM kept telling him no, but he kept at it, until I lost my temper and spent a full minute yelling at him that he coudn't be it, end of story!  Then he had the stupidity to say "Well, I didn't here the DM say I couldn't."  This was after the DM had told him at least six times that he couldn't play the character.  I told him that he was making everything around him dumber and to shut up or I'd kick him out of the group or quit myself.  And so help me, I was perfectly ready to follow through on the threat.  The DM finally told him he could play the character if he would just shut up.  Then five minutes inot the game, the player says "Actually, I'm changing my character to a sun elf wizard."  You have no idea how pissed off I am at this guy right now.  The other annoying thing is that no matter what was said, the other guy in our group always sided with him.
Now, here is the thing I hate about these two people.  Although they're both my friends, there are so many times I just want to beat the crap out of them (and they no I can, I've got a black belt in jeet-kune-do).  Several things to know about them.  First, they've both known each other for a long time, so they always side with each other, no matter how idiotic a point the other is making.  Heres the other thing, they both went to the same college prep class during the summer at the beginning of middle-school.  The other member of our group, the least academically spectacular among us is the only thing that holds the group together at times, because of that class.  Not because I'm jealous that they took the class, since I could have if I'd wanted to, but because it makes them so _goddamn arrogant_!  They both look down on me as their intelectual inferior most of the time.  Now, I don't mean to insult their intelligence, but I consider myself smarter than either of them.  If any question comes up in game, their basic attitude towards me (even though nothing outright is said) is "He didn't take the same class as we did, so we are by default the more intelligent, so whatever he says doesn't matter."  To make matters worse, they don't listed to anyone else.  If one of them wnats something approved for use in _my_ campaign, they ask the other one, without ever consulting me, the DM.  I'm a hairsbreath away fomr kicking them both out and getting new players.
For anyone who read this far, thanks for listening to me rant.


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## Mordmorgan the Mad (Mar 4, 2005)

Whoa! Calm down kemosabe!

First off, being smart has nothing to do with which classes you take. In college, I couldn't pass statistics to save my life, even the second time around, but that doesn't mean that I'm dumb, just horrible at math.

Second, being _able_ to whoop someone's but and being justified in doing so are two different things. It's like that Spiderman saying ("With great power, comes great responcibility"). I've had players in past groups who've come mighty close to driving me stark raving mad (but fortunately my fiancee did that first   ), but the right thing to do is just stop playing with them.

Sidenote:
[sblock]We had this one massive rules-lawyer back in 2e that always harped on everyone if they even thought about breaking/bending the rules even a little, but the little bugger insisted on playing an Elven Druid! (For ye young ones, that was a no-no in 2e)[/Sblock]

These guys sound like world class turds, and you probably should tell them to take thier 3rd party stuff and shove it where the sun don't shine. I personally think that much of the non-core WotC stuff is overpowered, and I only allow in the bits that I think suit the campaign (fortunately, I play in FR and Ravenloft, and I'll explain why I do in a spoiler at the bottom), so overpowered stuff isn't too much of a concern.

Worst case scenario, you end up losing the entire group of players. Honestly, it's not that bad (of course, you don't want to lose them as friends [or maybe you do, but still]), just don't play with them. I've had years where I just couldn't find anyone to game with, but such downtime is to be relished and celebrated, not mourned. Many people ask me how I got so good at being a DM. It definitely hasn't been through practice (since only 6 of my 12 years of playing were with a steady group). Fact is, I've read and re-read damn near every book put out since 1991, and I've taught plenty of folks how to play. You just have to take that downtime and spend it reading up on rules and writting adventurers. I've got one adventure that I run all my new Players through, which is a nifty little thing that takes about an hour, but it's got a dramatic chase (with the PCs fighting on top of hard-topped carriages) and a bandit camp (with lots of treasure, some prisoners, and a uppity bandit leader named Serpe [boy that girl could whoop some ass]). I'd never have come up with that game if I'd have been playing the whole time.

Anyway, I hope things get better....

[sblock]The reason I play FR and Ravenloft is farily simple. Both are very easy to balance. In the Forgotten Realms, almost nothing is too powerful because there's always some group that'd like to have that power too, and they're willing to kill you to get it. (Not saying I try to harrass my PCs all the time with powerful groups, but it's happened)

Case in point: One of my PCs wanted Spellfire. I said, "Sure, but just so you know, there are many groups interested in harnessing that power for themselves, so be careful who you use it around." The PC ended up bumping into someone she thought was a member of the Cult of the Dragon, and was terrified that they'd found her. She only used Spellfire in dire emergencies from then on (which actually made the ability a hell of a lot more fun for the both of us. I could tell I was threatening the party enough, and she got the thrill of blasting baddies with her forbidden power, which they rarely saw coming).

In Ravenloft, the whole point of the game is to be scared, and not much is scary when you're in epic levels. I've played games where all the PCs were Commoners fighting against the evils of the night with nothing more than farm tools and the proper piece of occult literature. It was a blast, and a welcome break from the high powered FR games we usually played. It's nice to see people who laugh at Great Wyrms cower at the sight of a congealed pool of blood   .[/sblock]


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## LilMissKittyn (Mar 4, 2005)

BoD, did you know that the smartest person I know, and the best at math,  just failed a math class? It's really not about what classes you take, it's about what's up in your brain.

Now, about these people....I'd have to agree with MtM. You should probably email either one or both of the players and try to resolve the issue between them (if they aren't talkers), and if you can't, bring it before the group and try to resolve it with everyone there. It's much easier to let things slip by in one-on-one that you'd rather have ignored, but if the group is there, they'll point it out.
Be aware, from what these two sound like, that if you lose one of them, you'll probably lose both of them as friends. My personal opinion is that if they're making things this difficult, they're not friends worth having (but you can tell me to take that and shove it, it's just my own experience). This could be a singular offense or it could be one of many yet to come, that's up to your own discretion. Let that be the deciding factor on whether you keep them in your group or not.

Just my two cents, feel free to ignore.

@MtM
[sblock] That last campaign sounds absolutely AWESOME! It just needs a few revisions....like....add some DMF players....
[sblock] Of course, only if you have time. [/sblock]
[/sblock]

Over and out.


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## Mordmorgan the Mad (Mar 4, 2005)

LMK:
[sblock]I wouldn't mind running that adventure for y'all at some point, but currently the Bronchitus Demon is visiting, and not leaving much time for anything but coughing him up. Maybe later though.[/sblock]


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## LilMissKittyn (Mar 4, 2005)

@MtM
[sblock] Yeah, the bronchitis demon does get kindof nasty. Is there a frog in your throat, too? You might want to cought that one up while you're at it...
Anyways, feel better, cheer up, punch someone in the face, you know the whole routine.  [/sblock]


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## Blade of Desecration (Mar 5, 2005)

Thanks for the replies.  
As to taking classes, I totally agree.  But they don't seem to.  No matter how many times I do something, they always assume that they know better, just because they took one little course.  You have no idea how aggravating this can get.  Also, about being smarter than them, bad choice of words.  I don't think I'm smarter per se, just more "academically acheived".  They just seem to be in denial of the fact that I'm just as smart as they are.
As to losing them as friends, that I don't want.  IRL, they're not so bad.  It's just when we get down to gaming or something involving intelligence that they both become asses.


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## Mordmorgan the Mad (Mar 6, 2005)

@ BoD: Now that you've got that scream outta your system, would you mind making it a little smaller? Scrolling from side to side to read a post is a little annoying. I know you didn't mean to, so 'scool


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## Blade of Desecration (Mar 7, 2005)

Done.


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## Mordmorgan the Mad (Mar 7, 2005)

Horay!

@LMK
[sblock]Hope that paper gets a good grade![/sblock]


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## LilMissKittyn (Mar 7, 2005)

@MtM
[sblock] Heh so do I, thanks! [/sblock]

We should get this thread going again. Updates on what's happening in your campaigns, anyone?


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## Nightcloak (Mar 7, 2005)

*Here's a real curve ball for you...*



			
				LilMissKittyn said:
			
		

> We should get this thread going again. Updates on what's happening in your campaigns, anyone?




Well, as ye all may remember, I'm *technically* on DM vacation untill this spring/summer. But now I'm full speed ahead on developing my homebrew thanks to the arrival of Arcana Evolved.

Whoooooo!!!!!

My only real issue at this point is the intigtration of core material and AE material. Specifically the spell system. The spell system in AE is superior IMO, but my players (via surveys) have indicated they would like to occasionaly fall back on core rule favorites (which is why the campaign world will feature both books). 

This means I may need to run both and let the players choose which system they would like to use. I'm already doing this with the races. Dwarves, halflings, and elves (oh my!) live predominately in the western regions of the northern continite while giants, faen, and litorians live predominately in the eastern lands. That's fine, it even allows me to add culture and location feel to the game. 

But the spell system is another matter. The fact AE considers all magic arcane with no divine spell casters extends the issue. I mean, why would the cultures of the western lands worship gods and be granted spells while the cultures of the eastern lands not worship gods to the point of getting the same powers. Surely the gods wan't to be represented everywhere and dish out some magic mojo to the faithful. 

My current solution is to allow the cleric class with access to magic from the players guide only while dissallowing the Wizard and Sorcerer and requiring the use of the Magister and Witch from Arcana Evolved with access to the spell system in that book. This would keep things nice and neatly seperated. But I have two possible issues with it. 1) Everyone would be required to work off of two different spell systems from two different books, or in otherwords, it would be a hassle and possibly confusing. 2) It disallows those who voted in my surveys that they would like "core rules to fall back upon", or in other words, possible player frustration.

Or I could use both systems fully, but would that lead to even more confusion?

Gah!!!

What do you fine folks think? What would be the best option? Or am I just low on sleep and over-reacting.

As a player, what would appeal to you the most? What would aggrivate you the most?

As an additional note. As I develope this campaign, I'm creating a Players Guide and I can easily adapt rules or specifics into it. But I don't want to edit and copy 100's of pages of spells and spell-rules into the guide to explain and streamline what is going on. I don't mind copying the spells as is for a handy inhouse guide for the players, but I already have tons of work detailing the world without editing one or two systems before copying it.


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## Morbog of Ghetto D (Mar 7, 2005)

*BOD --Night Cloak---*

BOD-  Luckily my players are all reluctant to actually buy anything for the game....  
But my instructions are "DM is final say on what is used or not used in the game."

I have a player that wanted to use Vow of Poverty from Exhalted deeds....I agreed, after all we're all here to have fun.  Aye Carumba...his characeter is now totally "out of control" and I even limted some of the adder feats....Why did the player want this feat, you may ask?  Because he is a damn rules lawyer munchkin...Thats O.K> there are plenty of ways to kill a "untouchible" 28AC...

Please allow me to intorduce you to this nice incorporal creature ftom Tome of Horrors 2..
Oh I sorry did that hurt!.. OOhh Golly youre @ 1/3 Hit Points...Just imagin If i was actually able to possess his character (mwahahahaha!)       

There are these little "stupid" feats like "nimbus cloud" that floats around this enlightened monk......I said NO WAY....The other thing is this.. There should always be a catch....
With VOP any gold or material wealth results in no feat....Just wait till this players argues for a "fair share" of the plundered gold...(he always will cuz he's capt. argument)

I also "banished" all PDF crap that PCs will down load.  Much of this stuff is made up by players anyhow (its a conspiracy) 

Dude you should have seen when Unearthed Arcanna for 3.5 came out....it was almost as bad as AD&D UnEarthed...(We actually burned a copy when camping!)  Players were coming to me saying,  "Yeah i want to take some of these talents listed here"

Mongoose makes good stuff.....It just needs editing and tweeking

i explained to my "uber monk"  .  "You realize that your character is pretty powerful, and to balance the game you will have to fight bigger baddies. Your characer is such an "Exalted" monk that his goodness draws evil and good alike.  More enemies will attack you, and as a player you will have to fight off the greatest evil on the battle field, or it may easily pick through your comerades..."

Last session the PCS fought a KYton with levels in Assassin...It was a CR 12 encounter .
Each round I rolled on a d6 "1-4 the kyton attacks "lil goody 2 shoes"  5/6 it attacks the priest..So i was mostly attacking the Exhalted monk.  (I hit him a few times too!)


i dont know if any of this was helpful at all... 

BOD- Just say " NO, or It seemed like a good idea, but it wasnt....I cant allow it in the game."

NIGHTCloak-fINALLY---ARCANA EVOLVED IS AWESOME.....IM STILL READING AN DROOLING ON THE PLAYER CLASSES.......Im going to fold the "sneak skill" vs. Hide/Movesilent  into the campaign immediately...Not suprised that it brought you out of retirement.


Arcanna eveloved is the nicest, best put together supliment i have ever purchased...
it is soooo freaking deep...You need to tie a rope around you just to begin to read the feats"

It should come with Pittons...(D&D humor)

"This may say variant players handbook.  But hands off its mine. Mine. All Mine.
(imagine a dimunitive daffy duck charging into alladins cave"



peace out


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## DarrenGMiller (Mar 7, 2005)

LilMissKittyn said:
			
		

> We should get this thread going again. Updates on what's happening in your campaigns, anyone?




Well, I am really REALLY busy with RL right now and on a gaming hiatus since the group went belly-up, but I am now working on putting a group together and starting again the last week in March.  Heck, I have posted for players on every gamer connection forum on the net.  Many of my former players want in, but I am going to have to be judicious to be sure that the same thing does not happen again.

DM


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## themind (Mar 7, 2005)

Well, things got kind of interesting yesterday.  I'm running the Grasp of the Emerald Claw, scaled up for 9th and 10th level characters.  They are currently going down a river in Xen'drik heading towards a Ruins where the Emerald Claw has taken somethigs stolen from House Cannith.  On the second night on the river, 4 Fleshraker Dinosuars, advanced to CR 6, attack.  They are slowly but surely taking care of them, but one grabs Siddhartha,the Human Rogue, and grapples her.  Over the course of the next few turns it tries to rip her to shreds, but only hits her once.  Truban, Human Fighter, tries to come over and help her.  He attempts to kill the  dino, but due to bad luck, rolling 50% chance whether to to hit the Dino or Sidd, ended up hitting Sidd, twice bringing her to -6 hp.  The dino then jumped off the boat with Sidd in its mouth and proceeded to swim away.  But do to some quick thinking, the others summoned some Celestial dolphins and were able to save her.  It was quite exciting.

By the way, when we finish this adventure, I'll probably take a break from DMing and let someone else do it until I'm ready with the next stuff.  I haven't had the time to work on it much.


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## Nightcloak (Mar 8, 2005)

Morbog of Ghetto D said:
			
		

> NIGHTCloak-fINALLY---ARCANA EVOLVED IS AWESOME.....IM STILL READING AN DROOLING ON THE PLAYER CLASSES.......Im going to fold the "sneak skill" vs. Hide/Movesilent  into the campaign immediately...Not suprised that it brought you out of retirement.
> 
> 
> Arcanna eveloved is the nicest, best put together supliment i have ever purchased...
> ...




I know what you mean! I want to use it all, thus the dilemma. I don't want to take the players eyebrows off with all the changes, but the stuff is so good I want to use it. I love the way the classes are viable and interesting at all levels and the versatility of the spells (not to mention the spell templates), along with the over all flavor. In fact, I'm also planning on using the Mystic Secrets supplement and the Book of Iron Might!

I just have to figure out how to integrate everything together, especially the magic system with the core rules, 
and then it'll be time to rock -n- roll  

One more time for the road, with apologies to Rick Flair: 

Whooooooooooo!!!!


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## Blade of Desecration (Mar 8, 2005)

What's Arcana Evolved?

Does anyone have any ideas for the stats of a dairy cow?  I have some really disturbing things planned involving these harmless little cud chewers...


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## DarrenGMiller (Mar 8, 2005)

Nightcloak said:
			
		

> I just have to figure out how to integrate everything together, especially the magic system with the core rules,
> and then it'll be time to rock -n- roll




What is the magic system like?  Is the book higher powered than core?  Tell me more or direct me to some info, please!

DM


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## Nightcloak (Mar 8, 2005)

Blade of Desecration said:
			
		

> What's Arcana Evolved?




The "Directors Cut" of Monte Cooks Arcana Unearthed as he describes it. Plus the players guide to AU and the Diamond Throne Campign setting are also added to this updated book, with color, plus a name change do to Wizards releasing Unearthed Arcana 9 months after it's release. As a bonus to fans, a few extras were also added. A new race, class, new witchery powers, advancement to 25 level, and some other fun stuff. 



> Does anyone have any ideas for the stats of a dairy cow?  I have some really disturbing things planned involving these harmless little cud chewers...




 

OK, I'll bite. What in the world are you going to do with a dire, er... dairy cow???

And do I really want to know or is Madmorgan going to make me roll a madness save if you tell me???


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## Nightcloak (Mar 8, 2005)

wolf70 said:
			
		

> What is the magic system like?  Is the book higher powered than core?  Tell me more or direct me to some info, please!
> 
> DM




Oh boy. Were to begin. I'll try my best to give the reader's digest version.

The spell system works in similar concept to the core book system in that there are 9 spell levels (actually, there is 10 levels now if you buy Arcana Evolved). spells are simply "arcane" spells, there are no distinctions with divine magic, i.e. no clerics. The spells are still defined by schools and other energy or elemental descriptors. Spells are also listed as simple, complex, or exotic. Obviously, the simple spells are the most common or easy/universal for any class to know. The complex are rarer and more powerful on average. Exotic are almost unique to specific spell casters and are available only by feats or class previleages. 

If a class can cast spells, then it first tells you if you have access to simple spells only or, in the case of the Magister, simple and complex spells. Some classes give you access to simple spells plus a few complex spells with a specific descriptor. Example: A greenbond has access to simple spells plus any complex spell with the "positive" energy descriptor. 

If you are a spell caster, then you know all spells of a given level that you have access to. Your class gives you two charts, one tells you how many spells you can ready for a day, and the other tells you how many times you cast those ready spells. For instance, a 2nd level Magister can ready any 3 spells of first level that are simple or complex. Of those three spells readied, he can choose from them 2 times. Either the same one twice or two different ones. This combines the best part of the Wizard and the Sorcerer. You get the versatility of a Wizard but can cast any spell you have readied at your leasure any number of times as long as you still have the available spell slots to cast spells. 

But it gets better, you can "unravel" spell slots to cast multiple spells of lower level, or combine low level spell slots to cast a higher level spell. Metamagic feats , in most cases, don't require you to cast the spell at a higher level, but "laden" the spell instead. That means you burn the the same level spell slot twice to cast the spell with the feat. That's nice, it gives you access to metamagic feats earlier in the game (a 5th level caster can cast a *fire ball* and modify it to be empowered by burning 2 third level spell slots.)

Now the best for last. Each spell comes with a diminished or hightened effect. You can knock a level off the spell for the "slot" you burn when casting it for the diminished spell effect or add a level to the spell slot you burn for the hightened spell effect.

Now the spells are on average a little weaker do to the versatility provided, but IMO, more interesting. For instance, there is not a fireball spell, but Sorcerous Blast: A complex spell that has long range with a 20' blast radius. The cool thing is, you get to choose an elemental type for the blast when you cast it (Air, Earth, Fire, or Water). You must aim the spell as a ray, and if it is blocked by a barrier, then the spell goes off before getting to the target; but if it hits the target, then not only does everyone have to make a ref save, but the target needs to make it twice! The diminshed version only effects one target (no blast) and the target only has to make one save (not bad for a second level attack spell). The heightened version does 1d8 points of damage per level and the caster can instead choose a energy type instead of the elemental types.

Example: Nightcloak the Magister, 10th level with a Sorcerous Blast readied for the day and the modify metamagic feat.

He could burn a 3rd level spell slot to cast a 10d6 fire blast, or two 3rd level slots two cast a modified (empowered) 15d6 fire blast, or one 4th level spell slot to cast a 10d8 Sonic blast. OR he could spend a 5th level spell slot and "unravel" it into two 4th level spell slots, and in turn use those to cast a modified (empowered) 15d8 Sonic Blast.

That's a lot of versatility. Plus I haven't even mentioned power components or the spell templates!

Hope I did all of that some justice. It's a big topic to cover with limited time/space. I'll answer any follow up questions the best I can.

Honestly, get the book (or PDF!), you won't regret it.


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## BSF (Mar 8, 2005)

Morbog of Ghetto D said:
			
		

> I have a player that wanted to use Vow of Poverty from Exhalted deeds....I agreed, after all we're all here to have fun.  Aye Carumba...his characeter is now totally "out of control" and I even limted some of the adder feats....Why did the player want this feat, you may ask?  Because he is a damn rules lawyer munchkin...Thats O.K> there are plenty of ways to kill a "untouchible" 28AC...
> 
> Please allow me to intorduce you to this nice incorporal creature ftom Tome of Horrors 2..
> Oh I sorry did that hurt!.. OOhh Golly youre @ 1/3 Hit Points...Just imagin If i was actually able to possess his character (mwahahahaha!)
> ...




I am having my players look at stuff from BoED.  I have one player that is seriously considering Vow Of Poverty.  But I think he has decided to pass on it.  Personally I like Nimbus of Light, but it is a bit underpowered for most circumstances.  The Diplomacy bonuses aren't bad if you are really trying to tweak that out though.  Still, most of my players have shied away from BoED.  They keep mumbling something about it being too hard to maintain Exalted status.  We will see though, it would be fun to watch all that RP out.

On the vow of Poverty thing though, your PC had dang well better be arguing for his fair share of the treasure.  He worked hard for that stuff to be able to give it to those that need it.  Check the second paragraph of *Other Ramifications of Poverty* on page 30 of the BoED.  



			
				Morbog of Ghetto D said:
			
		

> I also "banished" all PDF crap that PCs will down load.  Much of this stuff is made up by players anyhow (its a conspiracy)




Wow, I really run a different game than you.    I have 3-4 shelves of D20 products.  I also have 693 Mb of PDFs that I refer to.  Admittedly, some of those are maps and tiles.  But I wholeheartedly encourage my players to work with PDFs.  So long as they fit the character concpet and fit within the campaign, I am good with it.  I run a large group and I use a lot of 3rd party material.  Many of the PDfs I refer to the most are written by some of the industries leading professionals.  Monte Cook, Sean K Reynolds, Phillip Reed and others.  They do good stuff.  Then there are PDFs by "lesser knowns" such as Spencer Cooley (The Sigil), James Garr, Gareth-Michael Skarka (GM Skarka) and Corey Reid (Barsoomcore).  EN Publishing has some very good stuff, I think I only have 18 PDFs from EN Publishing.  It isn't all stuff for everyone, but the PDF market has some great bits out there.  



			
				Morbog of Ghetto D said:
			
		

> Dude you should have seen when Unearthed Arcanna for 3.5 came out....it was almost as bad as AD&D UnEarthed...(We actually burned a copy when camping!)  Players were coming to me saying,  "Yeah i want to take some of these talents listed here"




OK, I agree with you here.  Some of the stuff in UA is less than stellar.  That being said, I have adopted a couple of things for my campaign from there.  



			
				Morbog of Ghetto D said:
			
		

> Mongoose makes good stuff.....It just needs editing and tweeking




Again, big differences in what we like.  I have looked at Mongoose stuff, and some of it is pretty decent.  But I have seen a lot of Mongoose stuff I have passed on completely.  But the stuff I have seen for Paranoia is good!



			
				Morbog of Ghetto D said:
			
		

> i explained to my "uber monk"  .  "You realize that your character is pretty powerful, and to balance the game you will have to fight bigger baddies. Your characer is such an "Exalted" monk that his goodness draws evil and good alike.  More enemies will attack you, and as a player you will have to fight off the greatest evil on the battle field, or it may easily pick through your comerades..."
> 
> Last session the PCS fought a KYton with levels in Assassin...It was a CR 12 encounter .
> Each round I rolled on a d6 "1-4 the kyton attacks "lil goody 2 shoes"  5/6 it attacks the priest..So i was mostly attacking the Exhalted monk.  (I hit him a few times too!)




Heh, this I can relate to.  Last campaign I created a couple of templates that I might apply to PCs.  One is the _Hero of [Deity]_ template.  The other is _Champion of [Realm]_.  Heros always get picked on when there is a choice.  Especially by opposing Heros!  Champions are pretty much the same, but they are more in danger from enemis of their realm.  By the time that campaign ended, two PCs were Heroes of their respective gods and one of the Heroes was also a Champion.  It was fun stuff all around.  Just for the record, whenever I don't have a compelling reason why any given opponent will choose one PC over the other, I make the players play Rock, Paper, Scissors to determine who gets attacked.  And yes, I have had Players intentionally throw the game to have their PC save another.  

It is fascinating how many variations of the same game we all play.  Some of us like certain material more than others.  Some of us have stylistic differences.  But in the end it is all a bunch of people having fun playing a game.  That's cool.


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## BSF (Mar 8, 2005)

Nightcloak, 
perhaps you can use the differences in magic to emphasize a campaign element?  Perhaps the gods are waning in power as the magic from the East is being built upon and strengthened.  Perhaps there is a god that is the sole god of arcane magic, but instead of seeking followers, derives power whenever a new arcane spellcaster grows in power.  Perhaps the magic is just new "technology" and each spellcaster is either "old school" or "new school".  

Or you might "damn the torpedoes" and just go full bore into the AU/AE magic system regardless of what the players think they want today.  Maybe do a one-shot to ease them into how the magic system works well before you begin a campaign.  But then just let them know you are running an AU/AE campaign and that's that.  

Obviously, you know better than I how well this would actually go over with the players.


----------



## BSF (Mar 8, 2005)

Blade of Desecration said:
			
		

> Does anyone have any ideas for the stats of a dairy cow?  I have some really disturbing things planned involving these harmless little cud chewers...




I would probably just use the Bison from the MM.  Maybe leave the Gore attack in place for Bulls and remove it for Cows.  *shrug*  Maybe not though.  I don't have much experience with dairy cows.  How often do one of those charge?


----------



## DungeonmasterCal (Mar 8, 2005)

Hi all...

Some of you know I've been absent, and for those who didn't, I've been absent.  January 18th I was in a pretty bad car wreck where my leg was broken and I suffered a lot of soft tissue damage (cartilage) and bruising in my chest and ribcage.  I've been staying with my wife (we live separately... but get along fine) but she didn't have internet access.  But I'm back, and after I've had a few days to catch up, I'll be back to participatin' again.


----------



## Aris Dragonborn (Mar 8, 2005)

Holy crap on a stick, dude, a car accident? Glad to hear that you're alright.



			
				LilMissKittyn said:
			
		

> We should get this thread going again. Updates on what's happening in your campaigns, anyone?




Well, since you asked so nicely  

We're FINALLY ready to begin a new campaign, set in Eberron, after a year-and-a-half hiatus (everyone got burned out on gaming - is that even possible?  ). Since I have only three players presently, I let them roll up Gestalt characters form the UA. And, since they wanted a high-level ccampaign, I let them start out at 10th level. Considering the cool new races in the ECS, I was surprised (and a little disappointed) that all three chose human as their race :\ . Anyway, the classes they chose are: Fighter/Druid, Rogue/Monk, and Fighter/Psion. 

I'm going to run them through the Eberron adventures (The Forgotten Forge, shadows of the Last War, Whisper of the Vampire's Blade, and Grasp of the Emerald Claw). So far, I've only had a little trouble scaling the Forgotten Forge for 10th level PC's (I think that we took to much time off; even though I continued to buy and read game books while on hiatus, I'm still having a little trouble knocking the rust off of the pipes). I've added/deleted some of the monsters originally given in the adventure (like the Beetle Swarm, in favor of a pair of Fiendish Sword Spiders  ), and I'm probably going to expand the given dungeon site to  account for the PC's levels; seems right to me anyway. 

[Sidenote] To aid in building this dungeon (which has _never_ been one of my strong points), I've ordered AEG's _Dungeon_ sourcebook, hoping that it might have some helpful tips and tricks I can use in addition to whatever I can find on the EN World boards. If it proves to be half as useful as I think it will, I just might order their _Evil_ sourcebook as well, so at long last I can run a proper evil campaign my players have been whining for.[/sidenote]

I'll probably follow the campaign track fairly close, with a few minor changes here and there; WotVB doesn't seem to follow along with the Schema Hunt storyline, so I'm still looking for a way to bring it more in line with the other adventures.

Some other little things that I'm going to do will be to use the Marrow Knight from Creature Collections I in SotLW, when the PC's reach Karrnath (FINALLY!!! I've been looking for an opportunity to use this monster ever since I bought the book, and now I can finally inflict him upon my group!).

Anyway, that's it so far. I'll try to keep y'all updated as much as time allows.


----------



## Nightcloak (Mar 8, 2005)

DungeonmasterCal said:
			
		

> Hi all...
> 
> Some of you know I've been absent, and for those who didn't, I've been absent.  January 18th I was in a pretty bad car wreck where my leg was broken and I suffered a lot of soft tissue damage (cartilage) and bruising in my chest and ribcage.  I've been staying with my wife (we live separately... but get along fine) but she didn't have internet access.  But I'm back, and after I've had a few days to catch up, I'll be back to participatin' again.






			
				Aris Dragonborn said:
			
		

> Holy crap on a stick, dude, a car accident? Glad to hear that you're alright.




What he said. 

Glad your back!!!


----------



## Blade of Desecration (Mar 9, 2005)

Nightcloak said:
			
		

> OK, I'll bite. What in the world are you going to do with a dire, er... dairy cow???
> And do I really want to know or is Madmorgan going to make me roll a madness save if you tell me???



Two words: cow wendigo.


----------



## Nightcloak (Mar 9, 2005)

Me said:
			
		

> OK, I'll bite. What in the world are you going to do with a dire, er... dairy cow???
> And do I really want to know or is Madmorgan going to make me roll a madness save if you tell me???







			
				Blade of Desecration said:
			
		

> Two words: cow wendigo.




Save Failed...


----------



## Blade of Desecration (Mar 9, 2005)

Nightcloak said:
			
		

> Save Failed...



Hehehe...


----------



## Nightcloak (Mar 9, 2005)

Aris Dragonborn said:
			
		

> We're FINALLY ready to begin a new campaign, set in Eberron...




Cool. 

Eberron is one of the campaign worlds that go on my "If I had more time" list. You know, the imaginary list for the alternate universe were you have time to play the 3 or 4 games extra a week with all of your new found free time. 

Themind is running an Eberron campaign too, this will be cool to see how it works for both of you.

*Taps foot and watches the clock*


----------



## Nightcloak (Mar 9, 2005)

Aris Dragonborn said:
			
		

> I'll probably follow the campaign track fairly close, with a few minor changes here and there; WotVB doesn't seem to follow along with the Schema Hunt storyline, so I'm still looking for a way to bring it more in line with the other adventures.




Oops. Almost forgot (must be those dancing dairy cows running through the brain).

I'm under the impression from other posters here on ENWorld that the WotVB is suppose to be a sidetrack of sorts with only minimal plot seeds. A sort of interlude in the plot to keep things fresh for the characters.


----------



## themind (Mar 9, 2005)

Aris Dragonborn said:
			
		

> Holy crap on a stick, dude, a car accident? Glad to hear that you're alright.
> 
> 
> 
> ...





Actually I dont think they step foot in Karrnath in the adventures, I'm running them myself, I should know.  I have had some good luck with scaling the advcentures up for them.  They are 3 levels higher than they should be for the adventures.  I found a lot of use for MM3, using monsters in there.  Refer to my previous post  to what happened with the Fleshraker Dino's.

And yeah, WotVB is sort of a side plot adventure.  Although, a couple NPC's are in it that were or will be used in the schema plotline.

[sblock]Garrow shows up and Scimitar the Warforged will be used again in the last one.[/sblock]


----------



## DungeonmasterCal (Mar 9, 2005)

heee...crap on a stick...heee...

Thanks...I'm back... still adjusting to being at my own pad again and catching up on scads of emails.  The campaigns sound great, and hopefully in a few weeks (after I've had a chance to get used to being at work again...ugh) I'll be a contributor and such again!




			
				Nightcloak said:
			
		

> What he said.
> 
> Glad your back!!!


----------



## Morbog of Ghetto D (Mar 9, 2005)

*the Mind..*

Yo....The "evil" in the Evil book is dwarfed by the EVIL in Book of Vile Darkness.
the B.O.V.D. is a must have for creepy, evil stuff!


----------



## Morbog of Ghetto D (Mar 9, 2005)

*Doh Aris Dragon born*

My post to  The Mind was for you..!...

Hate technolgy!


----------



## Mordmorgan the Mad (Mar 10, 2005)

Finally!!! Argh. Sorry for my recent absence, but the internet has been kinda shaky lately.

@DMCal, good to see that you're feeling better!

Re: Arcana Evolved, I hadn't paid much attention to 3rd party stuff before you guys started talking about this book. Unfortunately, my LGS sold thier last copy the other day, so I'll have to wait to take a more detailed look.

@BoD: There was a thread about cow stats a while back on the WotC forums, so you might want to search for Cow +Diablo.


----------



## Nightcloak (Mar 10, 2005)

Mordmorgan the Mad said:
			
		

> There was a thread about cow stats a while back on the WotC forums, so you might want to search for Cow +Diablo.




The hidden level...

Here you go!

 Secret Cow Level 

*Shudder*


----------



## Blade of Desecration (Mar 10, 2005)

Nightcloak said:
			
		

> The hidden level...
> 
> Here you go!
> 
> ...



Thats just wrong...

Hey, if you take the "sh" off that shudder, it spells _udder_.


----------



## themind (Mar 11, 2005)

Morbog of Ghetto D said:
			
		

> Yo....The "evil" in the Evil book is dwarfed by the EVIL in Book of Vile Darkness.
> the B.O.V.D. is a must have for creepy, evil stuff!




I agree, there is a lot of EVIL in that book.


----------



## Blade of Desecration (Mar 13, 2005)

I now hate goblins more than any other race.
Why you might ask?  I just had my gaming meeting.  We were defending a town from a goblin attack.  Some of these goblins were the same level as us (3rd).  It's down to the last enemy, everyone else is a little ways away from me, so they don't see whats happening, and they're all on mop-up.  I close to melee with the last goblin, who was just a standard goblin.  I miss on my attack.  He attacks me, gets a 20.  Oh well, he probably won't get a critical.  He rolls for the crit, gets another 20.  Oh well, even against a crit, I have plenty of HP left.  Goblin rolls to check if he gets an insta-kill.  NATURAL 20!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  I was frickin' insta-killed by a GOBLIN!!!!!!!


----------



## LilMissKittyn (Mar 13, 2005)

*pats BoD on the back*
You know, it'll be funny in a few years....

I have a story of my own, actually. I work at a fast-food place, and I've got a manager there that doesn't much like me (I'm not particularly good at what I do). I was talking about my new character last night and he came up to me and tapped me on the shoulder. I turn around, dreading being chewed out, and the first thing he says is, "What edition do you play?"
It turns out this guy played from 2e through 3e, as he was growing up. We talked about the differences in the editions and stuff he'd done in his campaigns and general DM stuff for, oh, the last three hours.
It was cool. I went in today and he greeted me like I was his best friend.
Ah, gaming...


----------



## Dyne (Mar 13, 2005)

What the heck happened to the DMF Campaign?


----------



## Nightcloak (Mar 14, 2005)

*A very good question.*



			
				Dyne said:
			
		

> What the heck happened to the DMF Campaign?




Same question.


----------



## Nightcloak (Mar 14, 2005)

Blade of Desecration said:
			
		

> I now hate goblins more than any other race.
> Why you might ask?  I just had my gaming meeting.  We were defending a town from a goblin attack.  Some of these goblins were the same level as us (3rd).  It's down to the last enemy, everyone else is a little ways away from me, so they don't see whats happening, and they're all on mop-up.  I close to melee with the last goblin, who was just a standard goblin.  I miss on my attack.  He attacks me, gets a 20.  Oh well, he probably won't get a critical.  He rolls for the crit, gets another 20.  Oh well, even against a crit, I have plenty of HP left.  Goblin rolls to check if he gets an insta-kill.  NATURAL 20!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  I was frickin' insta-killed by a GOBLIN!!!!!!!




Ouch. 

LMK is right, you'll be laughing about it in a couple of years. Of course, that is in a couple of years, right now is another story.

Our group doesn't use that rule, not that it matters much, considering the fact someone has only rolled three 20's in a row two whole times in 5 years of 3E. 

Now if you want to talk about the old critical charts in Dragon Magazine back in 1E. Whoa! Those things caused a lot of bloodshed (and missing limbs, decapitation, criticals to allies, inst-death...)


----------



## Blade of Desecration (Mar 14, 2005)

It's already funny.  After the stunned silence, we all burst out laughing.  I'm three thousand XP behind the rest of the party since they had to raise me.    Oh well, it was funny as hell.  This is in my "Bloodlines" campaign by the way, and this happened to my human bard DMPC.  The other funny thing is that the general reaction was "DMPCs aren't supposed to get insta-killed by goblins!"  (And yes, I do use a DMPC, and I don't god-mod or cheat with him anymore than I would to one of the normal PCs.  Its not actually that hard to play and DM at the same time, especially since we're DMing in shifts.)


----------



## derbacher (Mar 14, 2005)

> Originally Posted by Nightcloak
> Quote:
> Originally Posted by Dyne
> What the heck happened to the DMF Campaign?
> ...




Add a third to this question.


----------



## themind (Mar 14, 2005)

Nightcloak said:
			
		

> Now if you want to talk about the old critical charts in Dragon Magazine back in 1E. Whoa! Those things caused a lot of bloodshed (and missing limbs, decapitation, criticals to allies, inst-death...)




Before I started my eberron campaign with the group I play with on Sunday's, a rookie DM was running through CotSQ, which started shortly after I joined the group.  Despite her lack of experiance DMing, she did a good job.  Unfortunetly, she used a Critical Fail table, that was used by the DM she used to play with, who took it from the DM he used to play with.  In a way, she learned their habits of DMing.

There were things like hitting yourself, hitting an friend and such.  You could do up to 5 times the damage you roll.  2 of my characters in the game died because of that darn Critical fail table.  I got nailed for 94 points of damage by the other fighter in the group, leaving me at 11 hp, and then got beaten to death by the Drow we were fighting.

It didnt make any sense to me.  I mean how could you deal 5 times normal damage to yourself, WITH A BOW, than you could to an enemy.


----------



## LilMissKittyn (Mar 14, 2005)

@DMF Campaign People:
[sblock] I really don't know anything for sure, but I guess I get to be the spokesperson. CE has been going through a very tough time for various reasons, and probably has spent a lot more time with family than usual lately as part of that. 
(@CE)
[sblock](I'm sorry if I'm violating privacy, CE, you have full permission to kill me or hate me or whatever but since I've only been watching I know very little and therefore can tell equally little.) [/sblock]  
My guess is, he hasn't checked the boards in a while and may be pretty much inactive or just not have time for it, but it's just speculation. Or he may just be getting bored with it, but again, I don't know. I'll find out what's going on in terms of the DMF/campaign and his plans for himself on Monday (it's our Spring Break).
IM me at PetraArkanian405 (I'm usually invisible) if you'd like personal updates when I get them. I may or may not post them here. [/sblock]


----------



## Mordmorgan the Mad (Mar 14, 2005)

themind said:
			
		

> It didnt make any sense to me.  I mean how could you deal 5 times normal damage to yourself, WITH A BOW, than you could to an enemy.



Maybe you pointed the arrow backwards?

2e had a similar system (on 2 DM-like screens). I managed to get one of the first ones that had accidentally switched the Piercing and Slashing tables, enabling you to sever a head with an arrow, while restricting a longsword to a severe stab-wound.

If they ever came out with anything that seemed useful like that for 3e (and by "they" I mean WotC), I'd at least check it out.

Speaking of checking things out, have any of you heard about the D&D for Dummies book? Looks like it might be worth buying for a new player or DM (or one of the aforementioned with new gamer friends).


----------



## BSF (Mar 14, 2005)

I think WotC is unlikely to investigate critical ground for a while.  Torn Asunder from Bastion does a pretty good job bringing that stuff to the table for D20 stuff if you are inclined to check it out.


----------



## LilMissKittyn (Mar 14, 2005)

I looked a bit online at the D&D for Dummies book, but I can't imagine it's any better than the PHB itself. I've seen a couple of the Dummies series books (I'm in the middle of the C++ one right now) and really, they're just easier to read (probably especially compared to the PHB), they have a lot of humor to hold your attention, and they're much more comprehensive.
Perhaps better for the beginner, but if you really want to learn D&D, I'd say don't waste the money. The Dummies books are usually 30 bucks a pop. Go use that money and buy a DMG.


----------



## DungeonmasterCal (Mar 14, 2005)

I've got a critical hit system I came up with for d20 that takes into account weapon size vs. "target" as well as takes into account a character's increasing skill at arms to better deal critical damage.  It demands a slight reworking of the weapons rules and keeping an old school table at hand to cross reference, but I like it a lot.  I have Torn Asunder, and it's a fine product.  But I came up with my system before they did, and I just like mine better.

As far as the D&D for Dummies goes, I'll buy it for the novelty.


----------



## Blade of Desecration (Mar 15, 2005)

DungeonmasterCal said:
			
		

> As far as the D&D for Dummies goes, I'll buy it for the novelty.



Ditto.


----------



## Morbog of Ghetto D (Mar 16, 2005)

*Death by Kobold*

I had just returned to AD&D, I was like 16....

Any way my first lvl Fighter Named "Kilroy the Fleshpeeler"  was rolled up 15 miutes before the session....

Thus explaining the stupid name....

First encounter....a room with 6  Kolbolds in a barracks with bunks.  ( why do barracks decorate every dungeon?)

Anyway....Kilroy charges into battle....Swings and misses....The Kobold rolls a 20, disembowels Kilroy...  Insta-Deth.  Quite frustrating...but very very funny..

Hackmaster has some pretty slick critical failures in their "DMG" .  I actually was very interestd in playeing hackmaster...till I learned so much of it was a campy spoof....Cool reading though.

Oh and critical hits is like 6 pages of anatomical charts and weapon type injuries...You have to take an anatomy clas to know exactly what you have severed/crushed/skewered


----------



## Mordmorgan the Mad (Mar 16, 2005)

I thought Hackmaster was a fictional creation of the Knights of the Dinner Table cartoon until about a year ago. (Just shows how much of a WotC fanboy I am).

My favorite memory of AD&D was when I played my short lived Berserker (gosh I miss kits). He was a raving lunatic with god-like luck, and often charged into battle without any concern for his safety. My DM hated this character for the simple fact that he just couldn't hit me (he rolled in the open and even though my AC was only about 7 [roughly AC 13 in v3.5], he only hit me twice in four adventures).

The party wizard absolutely loved this guy, though. Many wizards have to worry about hitting thier melee-focused comrades with area spells, but the Berserker (I think his name was Karnok, or some such) never minded being the center of a fireball blast. On average, I took about three blasts from friendly-fire spells per day, and like always, my luck prevailed (I don't think I once failed a save vs. Spell).

Ahh memories.


----------



## Chir'daki (Mar 18, 2005)

*Hello!*

Hello everyone.

I'm very new to DMing (1 PbP that had just started but fell apart due to computer fall out, and a custom setting I'm working on.).

Hopefully, I'll be able to draw some helpfull info from the wiser, smarter, [insert various other praises here] DMs on this board.


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## Nightcloak (Mar 19, 2005)

Chir'daki said:
			
		

> Hello everyone.
> 
> I'm very new to DMing (1 PbP that had just started but fell apart due to computer fall out, and a custom setting I'm working on.).
> 
> Hopefully, I'll be able to draw some helpfull info from the wiser, smarter, [insert various other praises here] DMs on this board.




Hail and warm greetings Chir'daki. 

You'll find the DMs here in the DMF and ENWorld at large to be quite helpful. I've been gaming for 26 years and still pick up great ideas from such a great community, so being new to DMing is nada big deal. The sheer variety in interests and styles here is awsome indeed


----------



## DungeonmasterCal (Mar 19, 2005)

Welcome aboard, Chir'Daki.  We're here to help!


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## Blade of Desecration (Mar 19, 2005)

Hey, a new guy.  
Yet another person to add to my long list of targets for mind control. *steeples fingers*


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## Mordmorgan the Mad (Mar 19, 2005)

*Casts _mind blank_ and _protection from evil_ on himself*

Yes...most of us here are harmless...*Pokes BoD with a stick*


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## LilMissKittyn (Mar 19, 2005)

*I...will...worship.....lord....BoD....forever....*
What? Did I say something?

Welcome aboard. ^_^


----------



## Y.O.Morales (Mar 19, 2005)

*The Hosted Forums are finally open!*

Morrus contacted me today telling me that he completely forgot to create it. Guess he's not alone.   
Here's the Link:
http://www.enworld.org/forumdisplay.php?f=209

*But before* you fellow game masters start to impart gaming knowledge there, here are some important notes:
*1. *I changed the name to 'Game Master Foundation' (instead of Dungeon Master Foundation) because the term 'Dungeon Master' is a trademark of WotC. Should we someday make a shirt, or buy a domain name, or something similar, then we are technically violating trademark issues.
*2. *The moderator options given to me are very limited. I searched over and over and over for a place to change color scheme, add other mods, and so on, but no success. (I guess I'll have to bug Morrus a bit more; he surely has patience)
*3. *Since I cannot add other moderators, all moderation stuff must be done through me. So if the Council wants to add an announcement before moving the whole bunch there, then contact me to my gmail account (*yomorales*, then add an '*at*' character, then *gmail*, then *.com*).
*4. *Other threads, such as the DMF campaign, should be moved by the high administrators as I dont have those privileges.


----------



## Rapida (Mar 20, 2005)

I would like to rejoin. I was in the DMF back when it was on wizards so I guess I should be in it on here also.


----------



## Blade of Desecration (Mar 20, 2005)

Rapida said:
			
		

> I would like to rejoin. I was in the DMF back when it was on wizards so I guess I should be in it on here also.



Hey, and old member!  I take it you saw the link in the old foundation.


----------



## Rapida (Mar 20, 2005)

Yea, I saw it. I was wondering why I hadn't seen posts from that thread in so many months. Then I finally decided to check and come over here. Then a week or two later I registered... I kind of procrastinated.


----------



## LilMissKittyn (Mar 20, 2005)

^_^ Nice to see you again. I think almost everyone has made the move now.


----------



## DarrenGMiller (Mar 20, 2005)

Since the hosted forum seems to be password-protected, could you spread tsome passwords to the members?

DM


----------



## Y.O.Morales (Mar 20, 2005)

> Since the hosted forum seems to be password-protected, could you spread tsome passwords to the members?




Didn't noticed that one, probably due to the 'moderator privileges'. I now see what Morrus meant by saying "the password is: olsen"


----------



## Y.O.Morales (Mar 20, 2005)

Okay. I think the forums are ready. Happy posting.


----------



## BSF (Mar 20, 2005)

Y.O.Morales,
You should be able to remove the password and change color scheme.  At least, I was able to set some of that stuff back when I started my hosted forum.  Let me see if I can poke at it and remember how I did some of that.


----------



## Blade of Desecration (Mar 20, 2005)

How are we supposed to get into the forums?  We just supposed to use that password.
By the way, we should keep this place up and running for a little while, so that we can get some new people.

P.S.  All hail Y.O. Morales the Great!


----------



## Y.O.Morales (Mar 20, 2005)

BardStephenFox said:
			
		

> Y.O.Morales,
> You should be able to remove the password and change color scheme.  At least, I was able to set some of that stuff back when I started my hosted forum.  Let me see if I can poke at it and remember how I did some of that.




Morrus said that a proper hack/patch installation is needed to make those changes. Apparently the pre-server-move hosted forums had that patch.


----------



## LilMissKittyn (Mar 20, 2005)

But...we don't?


----------



## Nightcloak (Mar 20, 2005)

LilMissKittyn said:
			
		

> But...we don't?




If I'm reading things right, the code for this just needs to be added back in.

Edit: I just re-read Morris' post. A lot of things can be changed now including moderators and removing the password by Morris himself if we notify him.


----------



## Y.O.Morales (Mar 20, 2005)

Nightcloak said:
			
		

> If I'm reading things right, the code for this just needs to be added back in.
> 
> Edit: I just re-read Morris' post. A lot of things can be changed now including moderators and removing the password by Morris himself if we notify him.




Should we make things password protected? I think no, for the moment. Having the forum open to all makes it possible to have newer members now and then (that, and the fact that I just threw the password earlier in this thread).
But what does everyone else think?


----------



## Nightcloak (Mar 20, 2005)

Y.O.Morales said:
			
		

> Should we make things password protected? I think no, for the moment. Having the forum open to all makes it possible to have newer members now and then (that, and the fact that I just threw the password earlier in this thread).
> But what does everyone else think?




I agree. We want things to be open and easy.


----------



## LilMissKittyn (Mar 20, 2005)

Think of it this way. I doubt anyone will be around for too terribly long, at most, a few years. Do we want a self-perpetuating system or not?
If we do, I'd want to make it as easy as possible for people to join.


----------



## DungeonmasterCal (Mar 21, 2005)

A password to just access the DMF?  Personally, I'd prefer to not use one.  Just my 2 cents!


----------



## Nightcloak (Mar 21, 2005)

It's looking pretty overwhelming in favor of dropping the password option...


----------



## LilMissKittyn (Mar 21, 2005)

Lol. Idk, there could be a pull to the whole "secret society" thing....
(j/k)


----------



## Mordmorgan the Mad (Mar 21, 2005)

Secret societies are nice, but I don't have time for all those recruits. It was fairly easy on the WotC boards (back when I had all that time...stupid unemployment), but with the job and all, time gets crunched.

Anyhow, I'd vote for a greater dispel password.


----------



## DarrenGMiller (Mar 21, 2005)

Throw wide the doors to our hosted forum.  If they are smart enough to find it, they are welcome to post on it.


"Give us your tired, your poor..." and all that.

DM


----------



## Morbog of Ghetto D (Mar 21, 2005)

*Averaging 1 PC Deth Per Session*

Mwahahahha!...

Not only did the stupid 8th LVL elf ranger/Knight get himself turned into an Undead, but he just got himself Killed last night!!!.  (Uh destroyed?)

The players are actually dumber than their characeters...

The 9th LVL Barbarian Wolf Totem Spirit Warrior,  hears the distant growls and rumbles of "canines" or animals.. Instictually he is interested.  He asks the non sleeping/non living elf to go with him...  THe Elf goes right along....So they walk over 160yards to the tree line, Think Fangorn forest, and the Barbarian goes in.  Even though I explain, "you hear what must be 2 wolves, fighting probably for dominance or something, could be dangerous"

Barbarian -OK I go in...  
Elf-Me too.

Well quite quickly the 2 players are surrounded,  The barabrian uses a "carnivore empathy" feat, and attempts to change the DIRE WOLVES from  HOSTILE to "friendly".... Meanwhile the Undead Elf is getting shredded..  There were 10 Dire Wolves, which they and their party members could have killed (easily)....BUT THEY WERE IN THE HOUSE FAST ASLEEP...

So now the Dire Wolves are getting flanking and just pulling hunks off the elf ...CHOMP CHOMP CHOMP

I explained as his intiaitve was before the wolves in the 2nd round," You need to make a decision here and you'll only get one shot. what do you want to do, or attempt to do?"

PC Elf "i'll attack the wolf infront of me"

By round 3 the Elf is down to -4  and for an undead HE is KAPUT...

"Bryndaan (barbabrian) you make the wolves "indifferent" to your prescence, but you turn to see Solaris being torn in half by the giant wolves. They seem to break into frenzy and tear every part of the unnatural elf apart"...   (you know the scene in "Hellraiser" where the dude gets torn apart by Cennobite chains?...just like that)
         
Barb. "ok Im gonna withdrawl, Do I get XP for usning that skill?"


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## Nightcloak (Mar 21, 2005)

wolf70 said:
			
		

> "Give us your tired, your poor..."
> 
> DM




That would describe a few DM's I know. Tired from PC shenanigans and poor from buying all the supplements...


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## DarrenGMiller (Mar 22, 2005)

Nightcloak said:
			
		

> That would describe a few DM's I know. Tired from PC shenanigans and poor from buying all the supplements...




Actually, that was what I was going for.

DM


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## Blade of Desecration (Mar 22, 2005)

Everyone who hasn't had a chance yet should follow  this  link to check out our new, streamlined forum Y. O. Morales set up for us.


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## Nightcloak (Mar 22, 2005)

wolf70 said:
			
		

> Actually, that was what I was going for.




D'oh!


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## DarrenGMiller (Mar 22, 2005)

Nightcloak said:
			
		

> D'oh!




Well, you know what they say about great minds and stuff...

DM


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## Xen155 (Mar 23, 2005)

No, what do they say?


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## Nightcloak (Mar 23, 2005)

wolf70 said:
			
		

> Well, you know what they say about great minds and stuff...







			
				Xen155 said:
			
		

> No, what do they say?




They say that those with great minds post here.


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## Dyne (Mar 25, 2005)

Well, I know not to post there, then.


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## LilMissKittyn (Mar 25, 2005)

Lol. Sorry, I already took that title, and I'm not giving it back.


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## Dyne (Mar 25, 2005)

What title?


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## LilMissKittyn (Mar 26, 2005)

The one who has a less-than-great mind.
At least, I know lots of people who would tell you so.


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## Xen155 (Mar 26, 2005)

*The wanderer.*

Well the password will be going down soon. But we still request that anyone who wants to join ask at this thread.

East, always to the East...


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## LilMissKittyn (Mar 26, 2005)

(Assuming they can find it.)
Links in the sigs and all that...


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## Nightcloak (Mar 26, 2005)

LilMissKittyn said:
			
		

> (Assuming they can find it.)
> Links in the sigs and all that...




Hmmm...

Xen and LMK, you have just given me an idea on how to handle recruits and were to send them.

I'll post it in the council thread later tonight for review.


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## Kuld (Mar 26, 2005)

Hello all, I am interested in joining the DMF (GMF). I have been playing D&D for about 18 years or so and DMed for maybe 13-14. However, I am new to the 3.x edition. I still have questions now and then, and it would be great if I could have my fellow DMs lend me some of their expertise. 

Kuld

P.S. Also, I am pretty green about forums usage. I may need some help in that area as well


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## Nightcloak (Mar 27, 2005)

Kuld said:
			
		

> Hello all, I am interested in joining the DMF (GMF). I have been playing D&D for about 18 years or so and DMed for maybe 13-14. However, I am new to the 3.x edition. I still have questions now and then, and it would be great if I could have my fellow DMs lend me some of their expertise.
> 
> Kuld
> 
> P.S. Also, I am pretty green about forums usage. I may need some help in that area as well




Greetings Kuld! Welcome to the GMF. You'll find a vast array of DM styles and experience in the GMF. As we will be happy to help you I hope you bring your experiences and knowledge to the table for us as well. I've been at this for 26 years and I'm still learning   

(Especially about forum usage as well  )

Click here to enter - the password is 'olsen'


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## Kuld (Mar 27, 2005)

Thank you very much. I am honored.

Kuld


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## Mr_GrinReaper (Mar 30, 2005)

Hello, a friend, I belive his name was Chosen of the Dark Sun- on WoTC boards, directed me to this site, and asked if I wanted to join, so here I am, and asking to join... lolz, i sound like a fool... but anyhoo... hrm.... I still feel like a fool... hrm hrm... I'll just post this and see what happens now:\


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## Rapida (Mar 30, 2005)

YOU FOOL!!!



j/k
Yea I'm sure some important person will come in and give you relevant details and such. I just had to be the first to call you a fool, and by the way, nice to meet you


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## Mr_GrinReaper (Mar 30, 2005)

Rofl at that, and god dang it, how do u get the stupid quick reply to work, I like RPG chats quick reply much better (www.rpgchat.com) fun rping website, not under dnd rules but still fun fun fun

Well, yeah, I probably am a fool, so go right ahead... ... ...


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## LilMissKittyn (Mar 31, 2005)

However, your screen name is quite clever. *applauds*
I'm posted right here at the GMF headquarters (well...in the same town as two council members, anyway...), so I'll get someone to greet you ASAP.


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## Nightcloak (Mar 31, 2005)

Mr_GrinReaper said:
			
		

> Hello, a friend, I belive his name was Chosen of the Dark Sun- on WoTC boards, directed me to this site, and asked if I wanted to join, so here I am, and asking to join... lolz, i sound like a fool... but anyhoo... hrm.... I still feel like a fool... hrm hrm... I'll just post this and see what happens now:\




Greatings Mr. GrinReaper.

Welcome to the GMF. Don't worry about sounding silly, posting during random dialog is a little odd. This is only a stop-gap means of recruitment until we can get the code changed at the GMF forum.

Enough of minor details! Bring your advice, insight, and gaming goodness to the table and enjoy the same from others.  

Enter - the password is 'olsen'


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## Nightcloak (Mar 31, 2005)

Rapida said:
			
		

> I'm sure some important person will come...




Wrong...

You got me instead!


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## Captain NeMo (Apr 1, 2005)

Mind if I join?


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## Mordmorgan the Mad (Apr 1, 2005)

Jodjod said:
			
		

> Mind if I join?



Umm...If you (what's the word I'm looking for) *shorten* your sig, sure.


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## capnfro (Apr 1, 2005)

*Me too*

Hey guys. I'd like to join too. I've been playing for about 10 years now and DM'ing for 6. Mostly D&D and some White Wolf.


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## Captain NeMo (Apr 1, 2005)

It's the hiveminds fault, I tells ya. I'll do what I can to cut it out, though...


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## ChaosEvoker (Apr 1, 2005)

Sure welcome to the DMF both of you:

JodJod
capnfro

I am ChaosEvoker, founder and leader of the DMF and I'm glad to have you the passwrod is "olsen" (we'll be removing it shortly once Morrus works out some things for us)


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## Xen155 (Apr 2, 2005)

[SBLOCK]*looks around frantically* You mean he we do not speak of grants us a small parcel of hist time [/SBLOCK]
[SBLOCK]
Ha ha! you looked!
[SBLOCK] YOU LOOKED AGAIN! HA HA! [/SBLOCK]
[SBLOCK] Are you joking me? this is to easy![/SBLOCK]
[SBLOCK] I know you cant stop looking... and you hate it. I control you![/SBLOCK]
[SBLOCK] It hurts dosn't it? Not being able to stop.[/SBLOCK]
[SBLOCK] Happy April Fool's day![/SBLOCK][/SBLOCK]


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## Nightcloak (Apr 2, 2005)

Welcome gentlemen.

For posterity sake, here is the link: GMF


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## LilMissKittyn (Apr 2, 2005)

Xen....
*looks at him, shakes head and sighs.*
[sblock] You've [sblock] forgotten [sblock] who [sblock] the [sblock] REAL [sblock] master [sblock] of [sblock] spoilers [sblock] is. [sblock].[sblock].[sblock].[sblock].[sblock] (Post [sblock] completed, [sblock] point [sblock] proven. [sblock]  [/sblock][/sblock][/sblock][/sblock][sblock][/sblock][/sblock][/sblock][/sblock][/sblock][/sblock][/sblock][/sblock][/sblock][/sblock][/sblock][/sblock][/sblock][/sblock][/sblock]


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## TheSilentBlade (Apr 2, 2005)

*It Is I!!!!!!*

It Is I!!!!!!!! The One!!!!! The Forsaken!!!! Me!!!!!!!!!!! I would like to join your foundation. I was sent by the one known as Xen. I have plans for this foundation, GREAT PLANS!!!!! AHAHAHAHAH AH AH AH AH!!!!!!!!!!


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## Xen155 (Apr 4, 2005)

Greetings TheSilentBlade. 
[SBLOCK] Do you know me RL? If so and as you say I directed you here, contact me at school.[/SBLOCK]

Welcome to the GMF! We have some big things rolling and I hope you will be a part of it.


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## Xen155 (Apr 6, 2005)

[sblock]Freinds, Romans, Countrymen, lend me your ears.
I come to bury CE not to praise him. 
The evil that men do lives after them, 
the good is oft entered with their bones.
So let it be with CE. The noble CotDS hath told you CE was ambitouis.
If it were so it was a grevious fault, and greviously hath CE answered it.
Here under leave of CotDS and the rest
(for CotDS is an honerable man, so are they all, all, honerable men.)
come I to speak at the DMG MK.II.
He hath brought many captives home to the GMF, who's posts did the GMF fill.
Was this in CE ambitious?
Yet CotDS says he was ambitious, and CotDS is an honerable man.
When the poor hath cried CE hath wept, ambition should be made of sterner stuff.
Yet CotDS says he was ambitious, and CotDS is an honerable man. 
You all did see that I did thrice on the GMF hosted forum present him a intresting post
and he did thrice refuse it.


Ok im bored.[/SBLOCK]


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## Nightcloak (Apr 7, 2005)

Xen:

That was pretty sweet. Do another one!


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## jcfiala (Apr 7, 2005)

Hi folks!  Been a GM since the 80's - love to join in on the fun.


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## Catavarie (Apr 7, 2005)

Hiya, I'm a realativly new GM despite that I've been GMing for about 3 years on and off with Various Games.  I seem to have many ideas but not sure on how to flesh them out to make them truely enjoyable for my players, my players seem to enjoy what i come up with although I don't feel that they are being "sucked into the story" while playing.  I hope that through this forum I can learn better ways to bring my players into the story.


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## DungeonmasterCal (Apr 7, 2005)

The best campaign I ever ran lasted for 10 years, and I completely lay its success at the feet of the players.  In order to help them get involved, I encouraged them to help flesh the setting out, even when it was something as simple as the name of their favorite tavern.  This helped the players feel like they owned as much as the setting as I did.  When the campaign began to really become a living, breathing thing was when one of the players discovered he was the long lost son of a very prominent merchant-noble, and the Machiavellian hi-jinx began.  I regularly polled the players to find out what they had in mind for their players, and made sure to incorporate opportunities for them to exploit.  They didn't always take them, and just like in real life, they saw what happens when you ignore that knock on the door.


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## ChaosEvoker (Apr 7, 2005)

Welcome to the GMF...
jcfiala
Catavarie

The password is "olsen" glad to have you. I am the benevolent leader of the GMF   Good to have you guys!


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## Blade of Desecration (Apr 8, 2005)

Xen155 said:
			
		

> [sblock]Freinds, Romans, Countrymen, lend me your ears.
> I come to bury CE not to praise him.
> The evil that men do lives after them,
> the good is oft entered with their bones.
> ...




Despite the fact that you used my name thirty-bajillion times, I have NO idea what-so-ever what you are talking about in ANY part of that post.  Something about me being an honorable man and CE being a ambitiously evil blight upon the land?


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## Mr_GrinReaper (Apr 8, 2005)

Xen155 said:
			
		

> [sblock]Freinds, Romans, Countrymen, lend me your ears.
> I come to bury CE not to praise him.
> The evil that men do lives after them,
> the good is oft entered with their bones.
> ...





Here Jon, Ill translate 4 u:


[sblock]
I come to lose CE
Once something evil is done- it lasts, and good, it is remembered in the very fibre of the being
So leave CE alone, CotDS the cool said the CE was ok,
Which is ambition is a horrible thing, and so CE did a horrible thing back
with permission from CotDS+ rest of GMF
CotDS+ GMF is honorable
I am speaking in the DMF mk. II
CE recruited many people who posted a lot on the GMF
Was CE cool and evil (ambitious=bad) CotDS is cool (honorable=good)
Poor people cried, and CE cried too (Implies that CE is poor)
So if your ambitious, don't cry, or be poor
Cool CotDS said CE was cool (ambitious=bad) and CotDS is right cause he's honorable
CotDS was talked to 3 times by Xen and refused the Idea's three times- or that could be CE who it is about---

Thats a rough- but decent translation, thank god I know a lil about english lit. But that was still rather contradictory...[/SBLOCK]


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## Xen155 (Apr 8, 2005)

Look not to deep into the words of Xen for he is really really REALLY smart.
But CotDS knows the true meaning of apple suace. Neither Shard nor SotM new. aND BEHOLD God created CE and was like oh crap i've created a monster! Fo ShIzZeL mY tRiZel im L33T yall no no betta, W007iiiiiii!!!!!iiiii!!!!!iiiii!!!!!iiiii!!!!!iiiii


My God he finally snapped...


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## Blade of Desecration (Apr 8, 2005)

I'm scared... 
Very scared...  
Very very scared...


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## LilMissKittyn (Apr 9, 2005)

Oh, don't worry. He's harmless. Crazy, but harmless.


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## Nightcloak (Apr 9, 2005)

Xen is surely not mad but acts in harmony with a universal truth that is beyond the scope of any modern mortal language. 

You see, the scientists of the GMF have taken each post of Xen's, assigned a numeric value to all characters in the post, added said numbers together, divided by the 155 he tags his name with, places the result in a hexidecimal based logrithim, computed the resultant equation, and have reassigned the letters to the resultant total. Each time the same answer came up: "Xen".

Coincidence. You be the judge...


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## LilMissKittyn (Apr 9, 2005)

Just what is it you do for a living again, Nightcloak?


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## Nightcloak (Apr 9, 2005)

Why, my dear LittleMissKittyn, I live for the game itself and the previlage to post with the wonderful people of ENWorld


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## LilMissKittyn (Apr 9, 2005)

Lol. Nicely evaded, I'll give you that much.


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## Tymothi (Apr 13, 2005)

I would like to join and be noticed by the rest of the gaming world.. I have been playing since 1979 and I believe kobolds are really the masterminds behind the scenes. I also have a theory about halflings being midget hippies..but I shall not get into it.


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## Nightcloak (Apr 13, 2005)

Greatings Tymothi! Welcome home, please sign in  here  

and join the conversation here

A wonderful combination of fun and serious dialog to serve the creative soul.

Don't blame you on those Halflings. I'd keep an eye on them too.


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## Xen155 (Apr 18, 2005)

Kobolds eh? I always thought it was those sneaky goblins. But halflings are MOST DEFINENTLY hippies... long haired hippies. This reminds me:

Hardy Har Har NightCloak, you have discovered a secret of the numbers. But the last numbers in my SN hold a deeper darker secret than any GMF scientist, even one of your calibur, can discover.

Brought to you by the l337 Xen155!


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## ChaosEvoker (Jul 30, 2005)

what are you talking about you SN Xen255?


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## Nightcloak (Jul 30, 2005)

OK, I'll bite.

What is the big secret? Us scientists are to lazy to pursie the matter intellectually


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## derbacher (Jul 30, 2005)

Massive thread necromancy! Chaos Evoker and Nightcloak have combined to revive a completely dead forum!


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## Nightcloak (Jul 30, 2005)

derbacher said:
			
		

> Massive thread necromancy! Chaos Evoker and Nightcloak have combined to revive a completely dead forum!




Oh No!

CE is the necromancer around here. I'm just along for the cheese dip


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## Blade of Desecration (Aug 14, 2005)

Damn, that's some powerful magic.  ChaosEvoker scares me sometimes.


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## Mr_GrinReaper (Sep 21, 2005)

CHEEESE DIP:>!>!!!! I WANT SOOOOOMMME!!!! ^^

XD

Im semi back for a while..... Decided to post here momentarily> XXXX_XXXX


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## Macrovore (Oct 4, 2005)

*new applicant*

Hello, My name is Macrovore, and I wish to become a member of the DMF
Blade of Desecration told me to come here
I've been playing for a year, and I've spent the better part of that sponging as much as I can 'bout DnD, and working on my campaign setting
I've created 2 classes from scratch, and a halfling subrace, and wish to become a better DM


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## Nyaricus (Nov 5, 2005)

*Accept me! Please oh mighty ones!!*

hey everyone!

I've been a DM since this Feb, and have been playing D&D for 7 years since i was 11. I love the game, and would like to partake in the happenings in this GMF forum. I simply *love* the idea of it. So please take this as my application


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## DouchtheBag (Nov 10, 2005)

*I join*

I may be a douch bag but i still be joining!!!


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## Catavarie (Nov 6, 2006)

Bump




Spoiler



Why? Because I need to post numbers


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