#RPGaDAY2020 Day 20 – Investigate

One of the questions I see a lot of DMs asking is how to run an investigation or a mystery encounter or adventure. Their biggest concern is usually what happens if the PCs can’t figure out or roll well enough to pick up on the clues. And the answer to that is actually really simple – don’t gate progress in the investigation behind a skill check.

Put another way, the PCs shouldn’t be able to miss “key” clues. If not finding something would stop the investigation dead in its tracks, then they should just find it. If you still want a roll, failure doesn’t mean they miss it. Instead in this case a particularly bad roll may simply cause them to take longer to find it letting the culprit I’ve their plans further along while the heroes bang their heads against the wall. Or maybe they find contradictory information and have to figure out what’s correct and what’s a red herring. Good rolls on the other hand can cut the time needed to find the clues or provide greater context for the clue. Or they could find additional clues that provide supplemental information or more evidence for what actually happened.

A great system you can look at for inspiration for your own investigation based games is the Gumshoe line of games originally by Robin Laws and published by Pelgrane Press. This is where I picked up the core tenet of the PCs always finding the main clues. Definitely give them a look – there’s likely a release in your chosen genre. It powers many great games from Night’s Black Agents to Fall of Delta Green to Trail of Cthulhu and many others.

That will do it for today. We’ll see you back here tomorrow with more #RPGaDay2020!

#RPGaDAY2020 Day 19 – Tower

One last day of product recommendations for you before we try to get back to game material. If you’re like me, you grew up with older editions of Dungeons and Dragons. One of the big things about those editions of the game was reaching your “name level.” At this point, you were a powerful enough adventurer that you had attracted a small amount of fame and notoriety. This came with a number of benefits, including a stronghold and a number of followers that came to learn from you. This stronghold took different forms based on your class – a keep for martial classes like fighters, or a tower for wizards. But the main idea was that while this was granted by reaching a certain level, it should be something that the character had to work towards. Maybe the fighter’s keep was an old garrison that has been taken over by monsters and needs to be cleared out for example.

Strongholds & Followers by Matt Colville

This idea went away with later editions of the game, but designer Matt Colville has brought us a great product for Dungeons and Dragons 5e with his release of Strongholds and Followers. Successfully Kickstarted a while back, this book contains all the rules you need to introduce establishing one of several types of strongholds in your game as well as all of the NPC followers you will need to keep it functioning. You can build a martial keep to raise armies and hone your fighting skills. Or you can establish a temple to summon beings from beyond to give you succor. If you have an eye towards researching new magic, the tower is up your alley. And then there’s the establishment, which allows for espionage and gold generation. These may take different forms such as a barbarian camp or a druid’s grove and they can improve various class features. The book also introduces a lot of new material including new monsters, several new class options, and some rules for large scale warfare.

If this kind of game play sounds like it would be up your alley, you would do well to check out this release. You can find it on his websitein PDF and a Hardcover and PDF bundle.

And that’s day 19! We’ll see you back here at the top of the next round for day 20! The end is in sight.

#RPGaDAY2020 Day 18 – Meet

Again, no new material today. Rather a plea for all you game masters or aspiring game masters – start the game with your party already knowing each other!

Seriously – unless it’s of dire importance to the plot that the PCs are perfect strangers to each other before the game begins, so many issues can be solved with developing a shared history along with developing the characters during session zero. I understand that “you meet at a tavern” is a trope for a reason, but it’s a tired trope and can lead to a lot of problems with party cohesion in the early stages of the game.

Thankfully, there are lots of tools out there to help a group develop such a shared history. Let’s take a look at a couple of them that I’ve got familiarity with. One that I’ve had experience with that is Galileo Game’s Backstory Cards. With this tool you develop some major events, people, locations, and groups that will feature in the following steps. Then the players take turns drawing cards and describing how the indicated characters and resources factor into answering the question asked. You play several rounds of this and then start the game with a shared history for the player characters.

Then there is Jason Pitre’s roleplaying game Spark. There’s a lot that can be taken from this game for other games – much of the beginning of the game focuses on developing a shared setting and a shared history for the characters in that setting in a collaborative effort. It’s definitely worth checking out for your own games.

And that’s Day 18! We’ll see you at the top of the next round everyone!

#RPGaDAY2020 Day 17 – Comfort

No original material today. Instead I’m going to take a brief moment to talk about something that is unfortunately considered controversial by a small but very vocal minority – safety tools at the gaming table.

No, I’m not talking about hard hats and steel toe boots – I’m talking about tools like John Stavropoulos’s X-Card or the Consent Checklist provided in Monte Cook Games’s Consent in Gaming. These simple tools are designed to create a welcoming and safe atmosphere for everyone at the gaming table to make sure that sensitive issues are not broached that would potentially ruin the experience for anyone. These are wonderful tools that can be introduced during a session 0 in order to make sure that anyone who may have trauma they don’t want to relive at the table can have that addressed in a safe and understanding way and workarounds can be brought up. It’s important for both established tables and new groups with people you don’t know.

Those that decry these tools are, more often than not in my experience, older gamers that have been in the hobby for many years. They claim that they’ve been playing with the same group for years and that they’ve never had to use these tools and those that need to use them are “soft” and “they aren’t needed by adults who know each other.”

Now the fact of the matter is that these people probably run or sit at toxic tables that I would not want any part in. But the fact is that whether or not they want to accept it, they could benefit from these tools and have probably used them at some point without realizing it. If you’ve been playing with the same group for decades, odds are that you know each other pretty well, and you have probably picked up on deeper things about the other people at their table and adjusted your own behavior, probably without realizing it. And also, there are things about your friends that you will never know, and it’s dangerous to assume.

And to those that think it’s simply a tool for “snowflakes” who need a “safe space” and crow that very sensitive topics belong in table top gaming because “it would happen in the setting,” I hope you know that your way of thinking is toxic and that you are a dying breed. It costs you nothing to realize that everyone deserves kindness and that it costs you nothing to implement some safety at your table. If you think it does, then it’s time for a lot of long introspection on your part.

And that’s it for today. It’s not exactly a “fun” discussion to have, but it’s an important one. I want to make sure that everyone feels welcome and safe at my tables, and I will consider most anything if it could help in that endeavor. We’ll see you back here tomorrow for day 18.

#RPGaDAY2020 Day 16 – Dramatic

While thinking about this prompt, I came up with what could be a fun little adventure hook for your party.

A playwright has hired the PCs to investigate what has happened to several of his star actors. He suspects they were kidnapped by rival actors who also happen to be in his show. In order to do a full investigation and have full access to the rest of the cast and crew, the PCs themselves must join the production and become a part of that very same cast and crew. But put them in positions that may run counter to their normal strengths – the low-Intelligence/low-Charisma barbarian is cast as the leading man because it requires physicality on stage that only they can perform. Meanwhile, the bard is thrust into a stagehand role because they understand the process and could help organize everything despite their desire to be front and center. But what actually happened to the lead actors? That’s the real question – it could honestly be any number of things. It could be rival actors who have kidnapped them in an attempt to get their big break. It could have been a rival playwright who kidnapped them to sabotage the play. They could have simply had enough with the playwright’s attitude and ran off together to get away from him. Whatever you as the DM would find most interesting will work.

I hope you have some fun with this hook. And if you use it, make sure to let me know what you decide to do with the ending! And that’s day 16. We’ll see you back here at the top of the next round. As always, you can check out any upcoming remaining prompts below. And I would encourage anyone that wants to join in to do so!

#RPGaDAY2020 Day 15 – Frame

Here’s a simple common wondrous item for you today. The idea most likely came from the soundtrack to Jason Robert Brown’s The Bridges of Madison County. In the number “The World Inside a Frame” Robert sings about the art of photography and how it’s about finding the shot and capturing the moment forever in an image. This one is designed as an RP enhancing tool, but I’m sure a clever party can figure out a multitude of uses for it.

Created with GMBinder

And there you have the entry for day 15! There’s still lots to come as you can see below. Feel free to join in the conversation! We’ll see you at the top of next round.

#RPGaDAY2020 Day 14 – Banner

When I think about banners, I think about heraldic standards that would have been carried into battle. What better way to represent this idea as a magic item for fighters and paladins?

I really like the feel of this item. Clarion call can be a very powerful ability in the right circumstances, especially if you’re fighting multiple opponents that all have abilities that can inflict negative status conditions for rounds at a time and gives the affected PCs an interesting choice of attempting the bonus save immediately or spending their next turn still affected to get advantage on the roll. The ability to take damage for an ally is also super thematic for this kind of character. And I just love the compelled duel spell, so I needed to include it into this item. The fact that using charges from the item requires you to hold it also presents an interesting tactical situation for the user – do they sheathe their weapon to use it? Do they forego their shield? What if their fighting style uses two-handed weapons?

Created with GMBinder

We’re two weeks in and almost at the halfway point of this year! I hope you’ve been liking the material I’ve been putting out. If you have please consider heading over to my Ko-Fi and throwing a donation my way! Every single one goes towards making more content for this hobby that we all love. Thank you so much for your support and we’ll see you all back here tomorrow.

#RPGaDAY2020 Day 13 – Rest

We’ve all been there. You’ve fought your way through the dungeon and you’re spent. You know the cultists conducting the world ending ritual are behind the next door, but you need that extra edge to ensure victory. But you don’t have hours for a short rest.

What do you do?

Xanathar’s Guide to Everything has you covered. Today we’re going to take a look at a spell that I think is slept on by a lot of players out there – the 3rd-level enchantment spell catnap*. 

Original credit unknown

 This spell is available to bards, sorcerers, and wizards (and by extension arcane trickster rogues). It allows you to target up to three willing creatures and put them into an unconscious state for 10 minutes. If you need to, you can wake them up early with no ill effects, but if they complete that full 10 minute duration, they wake up having gained the benefits of completing a short rest. A character can only benefit from the effects of this spell once per long rest. So if you’ve got a well-defended area and 20 minutes that you can spare, a couple of castings of this spell can get your party up to snuff in a fraction of the time that a short rest would take. Perfect if you’re pressed for time.

And the fact that this is a 3rd-level spell means that the rarity of the spell scroll version of this is only uncommon. It’s a scroll that the party should have at least a couple copies of at all times just in case of an emergency.

*Pun completely and fully intended.

No original material today. I decided to take a cue from the prompt and give myself a rest in that regard. We’ll be back tomorrow with more stuff from the new prompt. We’ll see you at the top of round 14.

#RPGaDAY2020 Day 12 – Message

Nothing to fancy with today’s prompt – being able to contact people who live far away has always proven to be something of an issue in fantasy fiction. Now, 5th Edition does have a way around that with the sending stones magical item, but that’s only good for one use per day and requires you to be able to speak for the sending spell. This just requires that you are able to write and has no limit to the length of the message. Options are good. Players like options.

Created with GMBinder

We’re rapidly approaching the halfway point of August. We’ll see you back here tomorrow for day 13.

#RPGaDAY2020 Day 11 – Stack

This week sees some strange prompts that have really made me think and stretch my thinking more than a little bit. However, I have been pleased with several of the things that I have come up with for them.

Today we go back to spell creation and draw some inspiration from Mutants and Masterminds and the ability to improve a reroll via spending Hero Points. I struggled a little bit with figuring out what level this spell should be. Given how flat the math is for this game, dropping 50% of the die results is a powerful ability to have, even for just a single roll and so I decided 3rd-level is not a bad place to start testing this spell.

This spell is available to bards, clerics, sorcerers, and wizards.

Created with GMBinder

We’ll see you back here tomorrow for day 12! There’s still plenty of time to jump in and be a part of this experiment.