#gm guide

Post offices. Wild, I know. But give me the unhinged kind. Pingeons and little postal dragons all over the place. You enter. The most disgusting smell fucking assaults your nostrils. You know what it is. Letter in hand, you go up to the counter. The postal worker is just a slightly bigger pigeon. You shed a tear.

PLAYGROUNDS!! Create the most dangerous kinds of playgrounds, the ones suburban moms would TRIP if they ever saw one. Monkey bars that are way too tall, swings that go full circle... The metal slide stays the same, it's already painful enough.

PARKS!! MAKE IT ALIVE!! Show people going on walks, reading beneath trees. C'mon most of them are already hundred years old (And are going to die after that CR 15 creature wrecks the town) anyways!! Show couples and picnics, show a family enjoying the sunday, give me someone picking flowers for their loved ones.

A bakery! Do you know how much these places are underrated? And do you know how much plot potential they have? Every good story starts with food poisoning or granny's recipe! Give me a place your players/readers are going to treat like home and, for once, it's not a tavern or a guild.

Government buildings! Give me a town hall that has a kilometric line in front of it. Give me a registry that is as old as this town. Give me police stations! Give me courtrooms! Make one of your players get arrested and now all of the party has to go through burocracy like a bunch of normal people!

(Who am I kidding? You don't need to make them get arrested. They are going to do that for you.)

Touristic attractions! Give me a full-on statue of the country's leader! Give me museums! Give me streets, ruins and whatnot that attract thousands of tourists everyday! Give me an annoying city guide that tries to get the party's attention everytime!

Magazine stands! Magazines don't exist? Newspaper stands! From the Queen's Journal to the most questionable new piece of Fox's Tailtracker, you have it all! Make your players doubt what's actually happening, sprinkle a little fake news... Or is it fake at all?

...Toy stores. OK HEAR ME OUT. Make magic toys; miniature skyships that actually fly, metal toy dragons that expel fire, little wands that make little light spells, wooden creatures that can move and make noises... Make children happy! And your players too because they will waste their money on these stuff.

Instrument store!! Make your bards happy with special instruments or just weird ones! Give me a battle in one of those that is just filled with funny noises and the worst battle soundtrack ever!!

Not exactly a place but... Cleaning carts!!! Show me people cleaning the streets, picking up the trash, cutting trees!! Make the town look clean!! Give me an old man that is really proud of his work!!!

Europe as a Fantasy Map

A little ways back, I took a look at Black Flag Roleplaying, Kobold Press’ evolution of 5e. And to be honest, it was alright. Its chief issues came from the fact that it was an SRD, and not a polished game. Well, now the team at Kobold Press is releasing their Tales of the Valiant game, so let’s dive in! NOTICE: Kobold Press provided me an electronic review copy of the Tales of the Valiant Game…

A total of 160 5th Edition monster cards with awesome artwork on the front and a stat block on the back to make DMing easy!

In the recent session I ran for Limbo, we were in a situation where I had a modified storm giant matriarch attacking the party.  The Bloodrager, as always, drew a lot of threat in the beginning because he is size large and heavily armored.  He missed almost all of his hits, though, and the giant soon focused instead on the wizard, who was flying above combat control casting.  After a single attack, she cast invisibility on herself.

During all of this, the ninja was by far dealing the most damage.  She was, of course, invisible.  I gave my modified storm giant matriarch the ability to cast dispell once per combat, however.  The rest of the party succeeded on their will saves, the ninja did not.

I was placed in a situation, then, where my boss could not attack the wizard, didn’t care about the bloodrager, and had a perfectly clear shot of the ninja who was drawing the most aggro anyway.  Ninjas are fragile, and I knew she probably wouldn’t be able to survive the shot.

I had him take it anyway.

When designing combat, it’s important to make it survivable for your players.  They have to have a chance to live.  So you lower the boss’s AC to something they can hit, you make sure they can survive at least one attack.  You hit the tank before the caster, until the tank stops doing damage.

But as a DM, it is important that you let bosses try to kill your characters.  And the boss, like your players, needs a chance to win.  If there is absolutely no reason it would not attack that specific character, even the fragile ninja already at half health, you HAVE to be able to let them attack.  Campaigns without the risk of death begin to feel boring.  Easily winning over and over again is no fun.

I let my boss attack my ninja.  And he rolled (without any bluffing on my part) his lowest possible damage, leaving our ninja with two health.  Her player exhaled deeply when the boss was defeated in the next attack, and I saw more emotional attachment and engagement there than ever could have happened without taking that risk.