Tag: Dungeons and Dragons

  • Integrating pop songs into the five-room dungeon system

    Integrating pop songs into the five-room dungeon system

    You have limited time for gaming. Pulled in so many directions, you need to find ways to reduce prep time and focus the game on action.

    Two innovations help those efforts quite a bit when playing a D&D style game.

    But, you’re still left trying to be creative within those techniques.

    Take the five-room dungeon, the short essay of dungeons. It’s an introduction/guardian, puzzle/social encounter, trick/setback, climax/big bad, and the resolution or plot twist.

    This generally follows the basic plot graph in literature. It’s familiar, fast and can be done in one sitting if you time things well.

    How do you fill that out? What’s the source of creativity?

    Use pop songs!

    No, really, they often follow a similar arc, but have a chorus that echoes the main theme of the song. This idea first sprung to mind with Apollo, by SYML.

    Rather than five-rooms, we’re going to go with seven events because of the chorus. The song provides the creative prompts to fill these out.

    Introduction/Entry — on the steps of a temple the party sees a golden altar being shined, hears talks of other wonders when a dark cloud blots the sky. A raven and a wolf rush to the altar, tossing it aside, fleeing to the countryside.

    Note: after the intro the PCs determine the order of approach.

    Social encounter — Interview the group talking of other wonders and the goals for the faith. Secrets and clues include a song that is unsung and a build up of a military force by the faith.

    Choral echo — Tracking the raven and wolf leads to a moonlit glade with an empty space framed by 7 monoliths.

    Setback — The huntress on wolf back, she rides with bow drawn, ready to fight. If the party sings the unsung song there is an attack. She only appears at night, under a full moon.

    Choral echo — If the party rights the altar themselves and shines it to bright gold they discover a medallion that prevents the poison on the arrows from taking effect on the group (immunity from the poison condition in an emanation of 10′ from the one wearing the medallion).

    Climax — The songmaker arrives when one of the party bends their knee (falling unconscious qualifies, as does voluntary submission)

    Resolution (always last) — When the songmaker and huntress are both defeated a flock of ravens blots out the full moon. The wonders fall and a song echoes at their altars “I am. I was. I will be.”

    Yes, that’s quick and dirty. Tuning that to a party shouldn’t be too difficult. Maps and expanding on the secrets can turn it into a decent short adventure facing off against avatars of gods in any D&D world.

    Sure, that works for Apollo, but what about other songs?

    Quicker and dirtier with Last Great American Dynasty by Taylor Swift.

    Intro — In history there was a party with many attendees scheduled at any outsider’s home. Celebrations are held in town honoring the host and diminishing the current leaders

    Chorus — One of the hosts dies, their partner is blamed in efforts by the current leadership to reduce influence

    Puzzle — How did the person die? Clues include a neighbor’s dog, poor health, a nearby sea, a long drink together prior to the party

    Chorus — The commoners in the community ignore the other surviving families, focusing instead on the surviving partner as both suspect and hero

    Setback — Both partner-hosts haunt the house, interfering with ideas at solutions, causing the group to collect extra clues that may or may not be relevant.

    Climax — PCs discover that the old money in the area is the reason for the death, as they didn’t want the new money to interfere. If the PCs share this with the commoners there is an uprising.

    Resolution — The house remains haunted, after the PCs solve the mystery of the death, though the group can live there undisturbed.

    Did you just use a Taylor Swift song?

    Yes, I did.

    Not every pop song will work

    Just like not every TV show, movie or book is a good inspiration for a D&D adventure or campaign, not every song is.

    But, if you find out at 9 in the morning that you’re DMing in the afternoon you can adapt the five-room dungeon using the chorus to help with theme and secrets.

    Playing the song that inspires you on repeat can help you focus your energy. Sketch out the quick map including notable fantastic elements, make certain your secrets and clues work in a multi-nodal fashion.

    Fill the monsters or opponents that fit the song (ravens, wolves, ghosts). The NPCs are in the song as well (commoners from LGAD or clergy in Apollo).

    Connect a couple events to the characters and/or past adventures.

    The chorus can either be tucked into various other scenes, can be dream sequences, portents, or speeches from various NPCs rather than specific events.

    Have fun gaming

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  • Capturing the magic of the mundane Utilize action

    Capturing the magic of the mundane Utilize action

    The rules for the 2024 D&D Utilize [Action] are rather simple per the Free Rules and the Player’s Handbook. The magic is hidden in the siege engine blurb in the Dungeon Masters Guide.

    Simply, Utilize lets you use non-magical items that take more than a bare moment to activate.

    You normally interact with an object while doing something else, such as when you draw a sword as part of the Attack action. When an object requires an action for its use, you take the Utilize action.

    Free Rules

    Within the siege equipment rules, you can see the potential for Utilize. There, each engine has a different number of utilizations that it takes — frequently these are things like aim, load, fire. Each engine requires between one and five rounds for a single person to use these massive elements of war.

    What’s the magic in a catapult? Nothing, normally.

    But an enterprising DM will realize that there is an implied crew in siege engines. Full staffed these can be used within a normal combat round.

    Also, and probably more intriguing, is the implication of time pressure.

    Imagine now an opponent using mangonel. It takes two Utilize to load, two to aim and one action to fire. In our example we’ll use a crew of three, which lets the mangonel fire every other round and the crew do some other annoying things.

    Our heroes are on a mission to take out the emplacement of the siege engine.

    The weapon itself has an AC of 15 with 100 HP. It could take a long time to damage it.

    Taking out the crew is easier, of course. And thanks to the number of Utilize [Action] required the DM and PCs know the time it takes to make the mangonel no longer effective at attacking their allies. Each loss of a crew member slows down the enemy and grants your allies time to act in other ways.

    It’s a clock, without a clock.

    You can also use this technique for a chase scene!

    Let’s say your PCs run to the docks, board a sailing vessel and need to get going fast. Maybe it’s a ketch, with a main mast and an aft mast and foresail.

    Quick and speedy let’s say that setting the sails requires two at the aft, one at the foresail and three at the main, plus there are two utilize actions needed to release the lines. Yes, this is highly gamist, but allows a scene to develop.

    That’s an eight segment clock for the party to escape. Maybe they have an artificer with a servant, or a familiar that can help. Maybe the rogue uses Fast Hands. These can speed things up, for sure.

    The group knows, quickly that while under assault they need eight actions in order to be undersail and then the enemy will be behind them.

    No need for fiddly rolls, unless they take a wound or condition that would limit the ability to succeed at these mundane tasks.

    Building ad hoc clocks from the Utilize [Action] can also be done with traps (the number required to disarm or the number before the flooded room no longer offers room for breath).

    Photo by Egor Kamelev on Pexels.com

    Maybe do similar with rituals and the Magic [Action]. Is the group raiding a grove where evil druids are conducting a multi-step ritual to bring the mushrooms to life in order to choke out a local farm?

    Come up with a number of Magic actions that are required for success. Now the two groups both know the timing of success.

    If there are seven druids that need 14 Magic actions to succeed they can choose to all ignore the PCs and perform their magic or some can address the PCs. The solution is up to them and creates an interesting balance of choice.

    No, these aren’t the clocks of Blades in the Dark. They still create a sense of timing and urgency within your game.

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  • Making it easier to DM

    Making it easier to DM

    Being a Dungeon Master is intimidating. At it’s biggest level it can seem like you are supposed to run an entire world, know all the rules to the game, spotlight every player-character equally and help everyone have fun.

    There are many ways to make it simpler than that;

    • Focus only on the world with which the PCs interact
    • Skip rules that aren’t meaningful at the time
    • Rotate the spotlight as appropriate to the table
    • Get feedback from players in order to improve

    There are other ways too. I’m a big fan of the Lazy GM series.

    2024 Dungeons & Dragons helps make it easier in their Dungeon Masters Guide by incorporating some, but not all of SlyFlourish’s ideas. One notable thing is the tracking sheets — theirs and different from his, but that’s fine. Not everything needs to be the same.

    The Game Expectations tracking sheet features space for the DM's name, player names, theme, flavor, sensitive elements and more

    The layout of the new book is much better for new DMs. It also has excellent examples on how to spiral out from the characters while building a world, using Greyhawks as an example. There are micro adventures, which may not give enough information, but they do show that one doesn’t need a lot of notes to run a session. My sessions are usually a single notecard for example.

    Overall the ’24 DMG is a good to great book for Dungeon Masters early in their experience. It’s also handy that those tracking sheets are all available for free!

    But, (sorry WotC), there is a flaw in how easy it is to be a DM in this modern era.

    Those wonderful tracking sheets aren’t really part of DnDBeyond.com

    They exist, but without integration.

    What could make it easier to DM in the DnD Beyond era?

    When you Create a Campaign on Beyond it should start with that Game Expectations sheet. The notes should be replaced with the Campaign Journal.

    These are wonderful tools, and they are completely unsupported.

    Adding the sheets or similar fields to the campaign page would help a DM as they introduce the players to the game-to-be. They’d all be able to see what the story is about.

    Right now those pre-session one-sheets and the like need to be shared on the web, via email, Discord, at the table, or other tools rather than in the platform that Wizards of the Coast owns. It’s a silly gap in integration.

    Make it easier to share variant rules and setting information

    Currently, Beyond lets you share all of your books or none of your books. But that doesn’t help for a specific campaign.

    Currently, Beyond lets you share books in a deeper layer of content sharing, but doesn’t let you pick and choose rules (like attributes, extra feats, no feats, encumbrance)

    The above was updated at 8:57 pm on Nov 27, 2024

    My current Age of Myths campaign would make sense to permit Strixhaven, Theros and Dragonlance rules. It’s absurd for it to include the Illrigger, Ravenloft, or Lord of the Rings (TM).

    Imagine how much easier it would be for a DM and the table to say “these are the rules we are using for this campaign” and then toggle those rules and books either on our off.

    Currently that’s a player-by-player decision within the character creator.

    But what type of encumbrance a table is using isn’t a player-by-player decision. That’s a table decision. The appropriate setting and adventure rules aren’t most or none, but a delicate basis that sets the tone for the next several months or years of hanging out with your friends.

    Wizards of the Coast and the D&D team can make it even easier for DMs by changing some architecture of their semi-walled garden in such a way that they already believe works, because it’s in their brand new book.

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  • Inspiration is everywhere: Floating islands

    Inspiration is everywhere: Floating islands

    Creating memorable scenes and adventures is easier when fantastic elements are included. Many of these fantastic elements can simply be things from the real world, but amplified or expanded. In this case we’ll walk through the concept of floating islands and make those even more mythical.

    First off, yes, floating islands are real. In Lake Chippewa one is large enough it has to be pushed by motor boats so it doesn’t damage bridges.

    A floating island that drifts about on a lake or sea is already pretty fantastic. How can we up the fantasy to make it more memorable in D&D when the players are getting together every few weeks?

    This example is going to be for Sheljar, the bog-city once ruled by an intending-to-be-good necromancer, but could apply anywhere. Sheljar is a city of 100s of islands.

    Simple map of 100s of islands in a sea with a large waterfall in the south and mountains to the south and south east.

    What if a few of those islands floated like the bog-island of Chippewa?

    Rather than be moved by motorboat, they were moved by water elementals during the Age of Myths. The largest of these, Reylerel, at the time was the home of a power school of mages that integrated water, animals that live in and along water, and the peoples.

    As the Age was crashing they attempted to flee the city. The school wanted to isolate itself from the riots, to hide the dolphins, elementals, beaver and ducks that worked together to help the Kin survive. Reylerel went adrift, into the Sea of Sheljar.

    Now, thousands of years later the Free City of Sheljar is no longer ruled by the Necromancer. It is regrowing, discovering some of its influence from the Age of Myths. This bog-city isn’t a city of fog and depression, but a city of hope and humanity integrating gobkon teknology, love of animals and the lost magics.

    The leadership knows this is possible. Myth said it happened before, and drifting towards them is the Floating Island of Reylerel. At sea it moves with the swells and storms. The towers and buildings are rundown. Someone is going to need to go to Reylerel and find a way to prevent it from crashing into the docks.

    And that’s how you take a small trending topic on the internet and turn it into an adventure.

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  • Sharing your world: The power of co-DMing in the same space

    Sharing your world: The power of co-DMing in the same space

    This is a story about The Dragon.

    Which is a moon, not a big dragon. I don’t know why I called the biggest and slowest moon “The Dragon.” It was probably in honor of The Wheel of Time, one of my foundational fictions in the world. But the name never really came up in play.

    The 21-year cycle did come up. That generational marker (key for many goliaths and the Crinth Confederation) marked a cycle from the Born Generation to the present era.

    But, by expanding play in the world to a second DM The Dragon also finally became a point of clear fiction. It’s named that because during the Age of Myths that’s when the leading dragons on the Council retreated from society — Draakenmoten.

    That’s about to come up in the campaign I’m playing within my own world.

    Playing in the world I’ve invented has expanded the stories in ways I never expected. While I’ve included player concepts in world development in the past, including DM concepts in the world requires trust and grants wonderful opportunities for story-threads to be pulled into new places.

    Other things added to my world through sharing the experience;

    • Evil fungal druids that dabble in necromancy
    • Dragon Council, a ruling body of dragons and their magical allies who control the continent in a federal system.
    • Les Remoden Eisha, the intelligence and security branch of the Council.
    • Necromancy as the forbidden school of magic.
    • Elemental airships. Unlike the era where I DM, magic is common enough that it powers the airships, unlike the clackety, smog xips of the goblins.

    Those first four elements seem to be growing into the major division that leads to the sundering of the world, separating the continent with the Everflow on it from all the magical spaces in the rest of the planet. Those councils and forbidden magicks could grow into the dragon-founded schools with their abusive Proctors, supplicant Scholars and limited magic in a world that has merely love for companionship, healing waters and hope.

    Tips for Sharing a World

    First, have the creator DM and non-creating DM talk about history and key elements. Discuss where the foundational elements of the world are necessary in each campaign. Unlike Uprising & Rebellion (and the other ‘modern’ campaigns set in the World of the Everflow) the current campaign doesn’t have a foundational element about animals as life companions for example.

    Understand that things that happen in history don’t have to be understood in the future. Did Xabal discover tar-trees? Maybe someone else claims that 3,000 years later. Unless the details are vital to a plot point minor differences in the way myth-legend-history are known aren’t important. They can even both be true!

    Second, play and act with trust. Going back to point one, the details don’t matter if they don’t matter. Does the now co-DM get the name of a city wrong? That doesn’t matter. Keep playing at the table. Don’t even bother to correct it. Many cities in the real world have multiple names. That’s the way worlds work.

    Borrow heavily from each other. This is part communication, but also because you’re seeing each set of stories (every table is a set of stories that is some combination of the total number of people playing and their interactions) from different angles.

    Is there a new nugget dropped that you want to be permanently part of the tale? Take note in heavy ink and add it to your own version of the world document. Just like when a player adds something new to the world let the co-DM do the same thing.

    Be a player — you aren’t the DM, so don’t be a co-DM at the table, unless asked. The only time to speak up about some out-of-character element related to previous campaigns or lore is when the DM asks. Then you answer.

    Bonus points if you can work that into something that your character would know/do/say. I didn’t do this most recently, but wish I had. The current DM asked me what Sheljar, the bog-city, was like in the Age of Myths. I gave an encyclopedic answer rather than the answer Xabal would give.

    It’s been so much fun opening the world to more tales set within. We’ve added fantastic spaces, myths and histories that wouldn’t have existed if the World of the Everflow was merely my setting with nearly two dozen players. Adding a second DM to the world has changed the story dynamics in an exponential rather than additive fashion.

    My hope is that after this Age of Myths campaign we return to the modern era with new tales too.