Category: DM Notes

How to Avoid a TPK

Total Party Kill is when the party of adventurers are defeated in a single event, be it combat, a trap or an unfortunate accident. For the players it can be humiliating and for the Dungeon Master, the story ends here. Of course a TPK has its place; the Player Characters are mortal after all, and there are some modules where everyone is expecting a blood bath going into it and will roll multiple characters before the end.

For most cases, however, the Players grow attached to their character and the DM wants to create the story around them. That’s why I decided to create a book that gives the DM an option – a literal last throw of the dice – to determine what happens to the party if they are faced with elimination. And of course, that dice had to be a d20.

The TPK categories I created are:
– Combat encounter
– Construct encounter (being a combination or combat and trap)
– Ensnared by a trap
– Punishment from a geas or through a deity’s decree
– Abrupt end, such as falling from a great height or a spell gone wrong
– Life drain, such as a disease or a cursed wound.

The twenty options apply to each of these categories and in many cases I created multiple options that can be rolled, meaning there is a huge variety of possibilities to play out. Will a party gain help from allies, a magic item, or will there be a malfunction or will opponent in-fighting give them the chance to escape? It’s been a lot of fun to create an provides a solution to the age-old problem, how to avoid a TPK.

TPK Last Resort is available from DMs Guild.

100 Pre-Generated NPCs

After creating the NPC Creator, I set myself a challenge. I enjoyed creating the product, but I wanted to see what NPCs might be created from it. I was intrigued to see what juicy combinations might arise.

The challenge was really useful in terms of tweaking the original NPC Creator, because I could see if there were any errors, but just as significantly, I could see if the stats boosts and options it created made sense.

The first things to change were the stat boosts. The mental stats (Intelligence, Wisdom and Charisma) were far more likely to come up compared to the physical stats (Strength, Dexterity and Constitution). Secondly some of the options in a table produced the same results (for example, boosting Intelligence by 3 and Wisdom by 2), making the description for the chosen word in the table meaningless. I was able to manage this as I created the NPCs.

The remaining changes were all minor, such as changing an ability’s range or strength, but because there were 100 NPCs to create, it took a long time. As part of the process, I made sure to balance the frequency that each creature came up, and to make sure that no creature type ever had two of the same character class.

I am extremely pleased with the outcome. The final flourish was using midjourney for the character art and including the eight animal companions. Now that the product is complete and released, I really hope the NPCs get to play out in the wild. The idea that Nevi could be a kick-ass companion, or a dangerous villain excites me. What will Grenla find in the woods when she goes looking for the flower in her dreams? Can Kourtan be trusted, or will he use the adventuring party?

There are so many NPCs to interact with, and so many plot hooks to explore. It has been a labor of love, and hopefully a lot of fun for groups out there!

The NPC Centesimo and the NPC Creator are both available on the DMs Guild website, in PDF format.

NPC Creator joins the Series

The concluding part of the Creator Series has been the most intensive of the lot. I’ve released the series as a trilogy, as I will be taking a D&D break to work on my other ideas. But there’s an NPC-related product in the works…

I love creating systems, combining my creativity with a methodical structuring of the material. Providing rollable tables, to me, is bliss. It challenges me to come up with plenty of options for the DM in an overall theming that makes sense.

Testing

For this module, I rolled up the results for 100 different NPCs, including their upgrades and possession (equipment). This was so useful, because I caught a lot of changes either for grammatical errors, or because the result didn’t work as I had originally intended. I also balanced the stat increases, which is big part of the NPC creation process.

Modern applications

I found that two new tools were a massive help in creating this module. The first was midjourney, which gave me so much scope in terms of creating experimental art at an affordable price. The second was Chat GPT. I used it to come up with category lists and character backstories based on my rolls for the characters’ personality and background. I always had to tweak it, but it gave me something to work from.

There’s lots to play with in the NPC module. New actions, character traits and backgrounds combine with classic character classes and creature builds. It becomes an extension of the existing DND experience and will hopefully give DMs another tool when creating their world.

The NPC Creator, and Creator Series Bundle are both available on the DMsGuild website, in PDF format.

DANGERS – Volume One

The Danger Series now has five modules, with a combination of twenty-five individual adventures! There are five more environments I have in mind for future adventures, but for now, I am pausing production to focus on other creative projects.

With this in mind, I thought it was time to celebrate the series by bringing out a bundle. The twenty-five adventures contain many of my creations from the Deck of Foes collection and many more new creatures and NPCs to suit the adventures I created. Each encounter has a scalable mechanism that means it is suitable for low (levels 1-4), mid (levels 5-8), high (levels 9-12) and epic (levels 13+) parties.

The adventures are themed by five different environments: jungle, city, woodland, wilderness and kingdoms. With this theming, expect more weird and mysterious monsters in the wilds and woodland realms, and more corruption and plotting in the city and kingdom-based adventures.

Focussing on one-page adventures was such a brilliant exercise in creating concise, atmospheric content. I think it shows that a little goes a long way and I’m sure that the usability is intuitive and simple for a DM running the adventure.

Treasures and Magic Items

Each module in the Danger Series didn’t just come with five adventures, it also came with twenty minor magic items and twenty non-magical treasures, which the DM could add to any adventure as they saw fit.

Now that I have published five separate parts in the Dangers series I have 200 magical and non-magical items, so it felt like the perfect time to focus on these treasured items and give them the spotlight, and I am delighted to have published a separate module for each! Within these products I wanted to add further instructive and descriptive content, as well as tables that order the objects alphabetically and by category. Most importantly, I created a table that ranks the magic items by power, and the non-magical items by value. This means that a player can get that sense of excitement when rolling a d100.

Finally, I was able to do what the one-pager adventures didn’t allow, illustrations. It was fantastic fun finding and choosing graphics to complement the items. It gives the modules much more flavour. The cover and most of the item art come from digital AI sources. I know this is a contentious topic, but as a writer and hobbyist I feel it is my best and most viable option at the moment.

Minor Magic Items is very specific, as I know there are many powerful items already out there. This isn’t what this module is about. The idea in adding additional items to the Dangers Series was always to create items that were unique, strange and useful rather than game breaking. Each items still needs the player to use their ingenuity and cunning.

Treasures: 100 Non-Magical Items aims to add more flavour to the trinkets and jewellery that players find. Rather then depending on the DMs Guidebook and avoiding finding the same purse of gp and ammo on each enemy, there are plenty of useful items here, that are interesting in appearance, application or value.

Above all, these modules are another useful item in the DM’s toolkit. If you include these 200 items, I hope you enjoy sprinkling them into your games!

Critical Roll Options

Critical hits and misses are the blessing and curse of a roleplayer. They can provide classic moments when a character shines in combat, or fails so atrociously that the scene runs like a slapstick action scene from a silent film.

Often though, the results can be underwhelming, with critical hits still doing less damage than expected or a critical miss that passes by without comment.

I enjoy improvising critical miss effects but the decisions are inconsistent, so I wanted to create a system that the player could roll to determine the outcome. I also read comments online about how critical miss consequences were unfair to fighter classes who are more likely to suffer from these effects.

This set of simple rules using a single d6 die aims to add the possibility of an awesome critical hit as well as provide rollable consequences for a critical miss. By doing both, the combat system remains balanced but adds exciting possibilities to the mix!

Each table has a 50% chance of not adding any effect, meaning the critical hit doubles the dice damage as usual, or the critical miss does not affect the player’s actions beyond missing their opponent. If they roll the other 50% though, things get interesting…!

The tables are available for free from DMs Guild. Why not spice up your criticals in your next session!

Character Diaries – Honour

Character image created by brianvadell.

I recently had the pleasure of reprising a character for Part 3 of the Jungle of Nocturnal Madness – a very inventive roleplay taking place in a land where chaos has taken hold and many ancients secrets lie in the jungle. Here is my character’s take on the events:

Extract from The Diary of Sir Rengar

Karunam is a curious city, built like a societal pyramid with the poor inhabiting the outside sector (sector 3), those with good financial and social status in the second sector, and the masters of the city at the very top, literally, of the city in Sector 1.  I appreciate the hierarchical order of things as it means everyone knows where they belong in order for society to function.  This is good so long as the foundations are strong.  However, we have heard strong rumours of corruption and have witnessed the poverty and slavery of Sector 3 with our own eyes.

Since I have arrived, I have helped the two Drow siblings Missiozin and Nel handle matters with their Father, who is the leader of some sort of order.  He has the same chaotic but kindly spirit of his offspring.  He appears to want change for the good of those around him and at the expense of the Masters who run the place.  I feel very conflicted working with him, as although he tries to improve peoples’ lives, he takes on contracts for unnamed clients to rescue prisoners.  This sounds distinctly dodgy to me!

Still, they needed my strength and I am very lowly thought of in this strange place, so I took it on.  Working with a mage, we allowed ourselves to become gaseus forms and squeezed through gaps to get into this prison.  Once in we found a heavy door barring our way.  I attempted to use my strength and started to force the door open, only for the wee mage to finish the job with one hand!  My feeling of inadequacy was complete!

We didn’t find our target (Someone called Gabbot) but instead found a large Earth Genasi who I vaguely recognised, as if from a past life.   He was chained up and seemed unhinged.  We decided to break him out and hoped that he could help us navigate the mines.  Once released, he took to wearing his chain as a sort of garment and called himself ‘The Unchained’.  What had we let ourselves in for?!

We followed him as he wondered through the tunnels, attacking anyone he came across.  His thirst for vengeance made for a busy journey but eventually we found a chamber with many bound prisoners.  They claimed that they didn’t know what they were meant to be digging for.  The whole operation seemed very suspicious!  We released them and deciding they were our burden now, we looked for a way out.  We also found a ‘death room’, and my wizened colleague recognised Gabbot among them.  We wondered further up the passageway, but my comrades were blown off their feet by a well place fireball!  They spoke of three ogres and a deep pit.  I prepared a spell of my own, but upon my gaze the image melted away and only a mage was left.  Our mage took the bull by the horns, if I may say so, and polymorphed the chap into a snail!  I made to snatch it up, but it disappeared and suddenly I felt a blade cut my leg.  An invisible fiend!  The Unchained launched his ranged metallic rings and they wrapped around the sneak as if it were a Christmas tree!  I sat on him whilst they finished him off.  As for the snail, we named it Sally. 

We reported our mission to the client, who thought it was an utter failure.  Not so!  We rescued many slaves and recruited the services of ‘The Unchained’!  Back out in the open,  Sector 2 was celebrating the Festival of the Orb.  The orb is an object kept in the middle of the city (in Sector 1) and is said to be incredible.  I have already felt a strange euphoric feeling more than once that is uncommon for me outside of dealing out righteous justice.  We stopped at a tavern to allow The Unchained his first drink in many months.  In this premises, I learned that the Beast Games were being held at this time, where warrior and beast would do battle for glory.  Interesting but not relevant to our current mission.  Then, a keen young man in a guard’s uniform approached me asking if he could join us our party.  His name was Mano and it seemed he wanted to redeem his honour after he was acquitted for a crime he didn’t commit.  My heart went out to the chap and I felt I had found a kindred spirit in this strong city.

We entered the Beast Games taking on creatures found in the jungle.  Mano was a very useful fighter, striking well with every strike of his longsword.  Finally we faced off with a giant lizard, which could fire a strange chained weapon from a distance.  We quickly closed the gap between us and dealt with him from close range.  Through the blood and the sweat, it was warming to hear the crowd shout our names as if we were worthy of their support.

The best was yet to come.  We were escorted through the city by Mano’s fellow guards and handed off to special guards in Sector 1.  There we entered the palace, which was magnificent with its shiny marble domes and archways.  All the while the euphoric sensation was growing inside of me that was much greater than winning a bout with a beast.  Finally we were in the presence of the orb itself… word cannot describe the joy and majesty of the thing.  Let us just say that I have been positively scarred for life!

I left the rejuvenated Mano as he re-joined his regiment and sought out my adventuring companions.  I found them as guests in the house of a rich merchant in Sector 2.  It seemed he wanted our services to discover some artefacts from the jungle.  This wasn’t all that strange, as gold and steel were uncommon in the town but could be found in the ruins and temples beyond.  My companions didn’t seem to trustworthy especially when we were to be ‘escorted’ by five rough-looking mercenaries. 

On our way to the docks, we stopped by the market for supplies.  Nel made a break for it, setting a chain of events in motion.  A fellow paladin in the party stood up to the mercenaries whilst the others made a run for it.  I decided to drink a gaseus form potion and disappear from view.  I admit that I didn’t want my newly-boosted reputation to be tarnished by being seen to be fighting in the marketplace.  I feel ashamed by this – it was not the act of a brave paladin, more the excuses of an egomaniac!   Fortunately for me, the others dealt with the mercenaries and we were able to get away.

And so we find ourselves in the jungle once more.  I am delighted to renew my travels with Sgt Pepper, the loyal Water Genasi soldier from Karinspire.  I am also here with two highly intelligent scholars who are keen to get to the bottom of why the original society that built the temples crumbled.  We are looking for a little-known temple that may hold the answers we seek.

Story-Noir

For a recent one-shot, I was co-GM and we wanted to provide a 1920s setting.  The idea was always going to be gangsters against cops in America during the prohibition on selling alcohol.  There was a twist, however.  What if a new gang was active in town, one that had grander plans…

This was the challenge we set ourselves.  So I came up with a system inspired by other one-shots I had watched, including Dungeon World, Impulse Drive and the one page roleplays created by Grant Howitt.

The idea behind the system was to keep the structure simple.  I structured it around two types of dice.  A d12 for carrying out an action, and an additional d6 if the player has a Skill they can apply to that action.  Each player has a Life Force score, representing the number of hits or attacks a character can take.  Then there are five Core Stats that are added to any action, depending on how mentally strong, knowledgeable, charming, agile or physically strong the character is.

The players made their characters beforehand and quickly learned their way around the system, asking to apply skills and rolling their actions in turn.  This enabled them to carry out their teams objectives whilst investigating the new gang.  The final twist took them by surprise however.  They tied a cult leader to the fiancé of a nouveau riche gentleman and made their way to his mansion.  The chemical effects of the spiked drinks and the tragic history of the building brought into being the summoning of an otherworldly monster who tore at all in his path.  They managed to send the alien beast back to the furthest planes from which it came from, but not before it could drag one of the gangsters with it. 

The system proved successful, being both easy to use and working with the theme; that of 1920s America.  As for a sequel, it’s difficult to follow that plotline and I think we’ll pick a different story and a different theme for next time.

If interested, Story-Noir is available to use on a ‘Pay What You Want’ amount.  If you do play, please let me know what you think.

The Inspiration of Chance and Improvisation

Dice roll tables and rolleable options can make up a great deal of the choices in Roleplaying sessions. The results of a sea voyage, chance encounters on the road to the next town, loot found in the room of a dungeon. The random element keeps things exciting. For a Games or Dungeon Master it can mean the plotline changes or lengthens, but so long as they are comfortable with that, then great.

Another crucial part of roleplay is the interactive story-telling. If you take part in a roleplay you are actively improvising. Worldly examples include the TV show Whose Line Is It Anyway and Robin Williams when he was creating characters like the Genie from Disney’s Aladdin.

I am lucky enough to take part in an improvisation session every fortnight. This is good for my vocal performance work but also complements roleplaying perfectly. The sessions with Rag and Bone Arts are such fun and so good at keeping you on your toes. Not only that, but they teach collaboration. If you are not working together then the story will go nowhere or one person will dominate and the story will suffer. In one scenario you might be a shop owner only speaking in questions, the next a gang of ex-pop stars in a dystopian future under an authoritarian regime. Maybe you are trying to sell beer dregs and cat hair marketing it as the new trendy drink or perhaps you find yourself as Juliet in a modern retelling of the classic tale. Yes, we played all these scenarios out and many more!

Roleplaying is about interactive storytelling and it includes all the above ingredients.

Making Combat Challenging

A lot is made of level-appropriate material.  In D&D combat, this term is referred to as CR (Challenge Rating).  A level 4 party will be roasted alive by an ancient dragon, but will also make meaty fries out of a similarly-sized party of goblins. To avoid Total Party Kill (TPK) or Total Party Boredom, the GM/DM has plenty of options…

Find a suitable opponent
The Critical Rating is made for this.  For example, a few Manticore will provide a good battle for five level 4 adventurers.

Add more fodder until they are dangerous
A band of goblins are easy to kill off, but not so easy when they can attack 3 times more than the players can.

Strategic advantage
Weaker opponents on a flat field or dungeon floor will be easy.  But what if they are ambushing the party and get surprise attacks?  Perhaps they have the high ground and ranged weapons or you are on uneven terrain that only your opponent can move across easily. Increase the odds against the players even further by having them stealth so as not to wake even more opponents or you could have traps in place in case they charge in unprepared.

Modified creatures
If the monsters are too weak, why not give them an extra arm, a magical weapon or poisoned arrows to increase their abilities. If the monsters are too powerful, then make them aged, young or mentally addled in some way, giving them disadvantages on their rolls.  Want the creature to have a special move not in the rulebooks?  Go for it!  If it makes the combat interesting, then why not!

Playing loose
This option is fun, if played right. Create creatures with only a few stats and hit points firmly decided, and be flexible with the rest, such as their moves and attacks.  This option is a way of keeping the players on their toes and making combat challenging. However, this option can backfire is done too often; especially if it appears to directly counteract the player’s moves (e.g. “aha, it is actually immune to damage by your fireball and your ranged weapons!”).  The important thing is to have an idea of what this creature is capable of and then improvising how it might react in a fight.

As always, the most important thing is for the players to have fun.  So long as the combat element of the game is varied then they will have plenty to sink their sword or arrows into.