Going HAM
What’s this? Wizard doesn’t want to sing a literal song at the table? Even with a fabulous, Freddy Mercury-fueled lyric video playing on Bard’s scryPhone? It’s almost as if trying too hard can be counterproductive.
This isn’t just about singing. It isn’t even about speechifying, or always speaking in character with a flawless accent. The lesson of today’s Handbook is knowing when and where to put your energy.
Take my sorry example. This biz happened a few years back in my “flying islands” campaign. It was a world of dragon riders and sky beasts. And having seen a particularly fun arts and crafts project in a similar setting, I thought I’d pull a copy cat. Hours were sunk into sanding little foam balls into floating planetoids. I painted that mess. Glued miniatures onto spiky bases. Did a bit of woodworking. I even broke out the hot wire foam carving tools for the occasion. Between the shopping and the crafting, it must have sunk 12+ hours into prepping this one encounter.
And then it bombed.
I hadn’t put enough time and effort into the encounter design. Between the “umms” and “uhhhs” and making ad hoc rules calls on the fly, my players walked away frustrated by a half-baked adventure.
Here’s where the point comes in. It’s the same deal if you’re trying too hard to be Same Riegel with improv singing, Tolkien with in-depth worldbuilding, Dwarven Forge with the terrain crafting, or any other “value add” activity that enhances RPGs without actually being RPGs. All of them can backfire.
Don’t get me wrong: These things can be a lot of fun. All of the above have been known to lead to unforgettable moments and cool campaigns. But you’ve got to cover the basics first.
If you’re a GM, you’ve got to have fleshed-out scenarios and solid mechanics. If you’re a player, you’ve got to share the spotlight and contribute to the flow of play. Because even if you’ve got a killer voice, I’d much rather get to my turn than watch you skip past the ads, search for the right part of the song, and belt out the bit about dynamite with a laser beam.
So what do you say, kids? Have you ever sunk too much energy into too little payoff? Did you create a mini-game that turned out to suck? Set up a spooky gothic horror atmosphere in your basement only to be asked, “Can we turn on the lights?” after five minutes of play? Or maybe you set up a badass 3D dungeon only to discover that your players wanted to stay in town all day? Whatever your trying-too-hard moment, tell us all about it down in the comments!
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Entirely unrelated to your actual question, I’d note that “what’s your perfect karaoke song?” is a great question to ask when creating characters for modern games… even though the subject may never arise in-game, the thought process around such trivial questions can be quite helpful in developing the character.
My favourite superheroine favoured anything Tina Turner — big, loud, and sometimes a bit angry, it’s a good match for her. Though since you mention it, Killer Queen would be dangerously fitting, and she had the voice to justice to a Freddy song…
I’ll add that question to the quiz:
https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/wizard-quiz
😛
Oh yes, I’d forgotten that Wizard was a fan of that approach to character building.
Wizard suggesting the fast-pass approach to RP seems a bit out of character for her. What doppelganger replaced her?
Singing is out of her comfort zone.
Wizard is here for the straight drama, not the musical.
That philistine.
There is a reason she is being called a sellout.
Thanks to that Oil of Slipperiness, we now have a quick visual means to tell the difference between Wimpy Bard and Cool Bard! Good job, Laurel!
I wonder if you could get a hair enchant to produce a dose of oil of slipperiness per day?
The Haute Coiffure?
Magic Item, Uncommon, attunement by bard only.
Advantage on performance checks. 1d3 charges of producing oil of slipperiness, localised on this item, lasting for 1 hour. When the Haute Coiffure is affected by oil of slipperiness, the wearer has the ability to cast charm person a number of times equal to their proficiency modifier for each charge expended. When all charges are expended, the wearer takes disadvantage on all Charisma-based checks until the item has regained at least one charge.
Item recharges on long rest, or if the wearer rolls a 20 on a performance check.
I’d do it just to hear the phrase, “Your hair is OP!”
Years ago, I had two or three paid DMing gigs that were a qualified success/moderate failure: everybody had a good time, but nothing went as planned.
1) REDSHIRTS!!! A D20 and Paranoia! influenced take on Starship Troopers and Star Trek, wherein your team of expendables is sent to investigate the latest mission (bug-hunt/escort/extraction/fetch quest). Everyone gushed over the funny and beautiful minis that represented each crew member type; nobody could quite follow the plot (beyond the basic premise); the first combat took forever, as my allegedly “simple” combat system was proved to be anything but intuitive.
2) 3.5 D&D: My starting village was far too interesting, immersive, and cool. The PCs spent 3 of our allotted 4 hours at the gaming venue buying things in the market, interacting with locals, and performing to adoring crowds (NAT 20 perform check, plus “aid another” bonuses) at the tavern. Eventually they explored the dungeon, but nearly as an afterthought.
After the Redshirts experiment/debacle, I’ve switched to using beads, bottlecaps, and assorted bits of whatever for tactical gaming (plus whatever minis the players bring). I know it’s a knee-jerk reaction, but no one seems to mind and it’s easier to supply.
I love terrain crafting as a hobby. But if I had it to do over again, I’d make one of those monitor tabletops. It takes less time, effort, and money than crafting the physical alternative, is far more versatile, and takes up less space in your home.
https://www.reddit.com/r/DnD/comments/iqazmn/monitor_flat_on_the_tabletop_few_questions_on/
It also has the added bonus of making your minis collection unnecessary.
Mini’s and a mat I can draw on. Good enough. Though I did have one mini-arc that I was planning on putting the group through that they literally cut up into pieces.
They would be good about following the clues or completing something they were supposed to do for a bit, then they’d hare off cross country to see what trouble they could get into. Come back and pick up the story arc for a bit, then head off across country again. Hell they spent three sessions visiting one of the characters grandmother. I think it took two months before I actually was able to get them to finish what was supposed to be a two session mini-arc.
I am familiar with the concept of the “five-session one shot.” Wild how that mess gets out of control.
One thing I learned quickly in the vaguely-Kingmaker-based campaign I ran was: don’t design your NPCs, or your world in general, with assumptions about who or what will be the key elements. It will be a better game if you take the people or events THEY find interesting, and work to make them even more compelling, rather than steer the spotlight back to where YOU thought it would point.
Conniving, switch-sides-on-a-dime bandit lieutenant who could be hella useful in all kinds of ways, and who the GM had lots of plans for? Hang him; he’s a traitor and a coward. Random orc bandit who tried to defend a downed friend rather than escaping? Find out who she is and why she’s a bandit (answers which the GM makes up on the spot), negotiate a parole that doesn’t require her to betray anyone she’s truly loyal to, and follow her lead on who else can or can’t be redeemed.
Valenar elven “diplomatic” party making up just enough trouble to draw the players’ attention? Antagonize them into a fight, crit their leader (who your GM totally expected you to ally with) to death, and leave the rest vowing revenge.
Whole tribe of kobolds making ACTUAL trouble? Realize that they’re just catspaws for tougher and smarter villains, befriend the kobolds, and earn their fanatic loyalty because a botched language check convinced them that your cleric is a polymorphed dragon. Years later, the kingdom (well, a republic now, come to think of it) still exports “My Little Kobold” merchandise.
The kobold example is funny… I’m running this thing at the moment:
https://www.abebooks.com/9781601254597/Pathfinder-Adventure-Path-Shattered-Star-1601254598/plp
It’s got a tribe of lizardfolk that can be redeemed. Their demon god has done nothing for them, and they’re about to be wiped out by an opposing faction of swamp dwellers. The adventure clearly has plans for the PCs to convert them to the ways of good, but my guys have shown zero interest in that path.
The best way I’ve heard it phrased is this: “Make what they’re interested in interesting.” When there’s adventure everywhere, choosing a direction becomes its own compelling exercise in exploration rather than “looking for the plot.”
> “Make what they’re interested in interesting.”
Nicely put. It’s not that I quit putting effort into world-and-npc-building…but I did learn to start by trying to make everyone and everything a LITTLE interesting, and then devote serious effort to the ones the players took the bait on.
Also, I’ve just been reminded that the export trademark was not “My Little Kobold”; it was “Hello Kobold”. Because, as the Dragon-Lady Cleric (whom every kobold would swear they had once spotted overhead in her “true form”) put it, “It’s not false advertising. We have actual kobolds who will say hello.”
> t’s not that I quit putting effort into world-and-npc-building…but I did learn to start by trying to make everyone and everything a LITTLE interesting, and then devote serious effort to the ones the players took the bait on.
This is the way. And I guess it’s a risk of relying on the shorthand version. “Don’t bother to develop anything until you know where they’re going to focus their energy” feels like a dangerous road to take.
I do lots of worldbuidling and lore that may not come into play, but i do it because i like those stuff so even if never comes into play i still enjoy it 😀
Only a problem when you focus on this INSTEAD OF running a good game. Imagine the 20-page packet of world info you’re expected to read about cosmology, then being told to go kill rats in the basement.
That I make the lore doesn’t mean I got to preach it 🙂
I make the lore, I make the world building, it’s the DM who runs the game and tells that stuff. Only if reading or explaining in-character I tell stuff. Or if they ask me outside the game about how stuff works 🙂
I think I‘m in the process of designing an overly elaborate BBEG lair.
the payers aren’t really supposed to even get there, but it’s a fun exercise.
How elaborate are we talking?
about 81x 12mile diameter hexes in landscapes as surroundings of a 4 mile diameter dungeon where I mapped out 5 significant levels plus topside.
Access via magic portal at one end and a portal to another BBEG dungeon from an AP at the other end.
I so far only mapped out the passages where a Gargantuan creature fits through. The rest is gonna be random maze of cracks for small creatures.
I‘ve got
1 page of excel sheet each for the layout of landscape and dungeon.
1 page to list the encounters in each hex of the surroundings
1 page to list the encounters in each square of the dungeon
1 page for the BBEG annual routine around his sphere of influence
1 page planned for the agents of bbeg in the surrounding towns
if my players never go there, I just might publish it as a pdf with generic wording; like „Hex 33 has a 20% chance to meet 6 headed hydra“ or „Hex 51 to 59 are roamed by a tribe of centaur“ or „dungeon square 45 is the home of a bee keeper (someone who holds bees as pets, wink wink, nudge nudge)“
„Use whichever SRD and IP you have access to. This is a sand box, allow your players to run away if the CR is way too high“
“Because even if you’ve got a killer voice, I’d much rather get to my turn than watch you skip past the ads, search for the right part of the song, and belt out the bit about dynamite with a laser beam.”
Yeah, but then how are you going to hear the Morale Officer’s rendition of Mr. Mister’s ‘Kyrie’ as “Carrying a laser-gun”?
The only time I’ve ever had “too much build for nor pay-off” is in some board and tactical minis games, where you can spend 2+ hours on setup and are done playing in under an hour. Just not worth the effort of all that building armies and setup nonsense to just get steamrolled by twinked out builds using completely unbalanced teams or rules.
Had some Axis and Allies sessions like that back in the day. All manner of frustrating to prep a world war only to have the Russians bungle it turn 1 by blowing their wad on “the red air force.”
Hard to say it didn’t truly pay off since I do this in full knowledge most of it will go unused…
But for the games I run, I make NPCs. Lots of NPCs. You want to talk to the guy in charge of the guard? He’s got a name and a token. You want to talk to a member of the guard? Several names and tokens, though I’m not insane enough to do that for the ENTIRE guard. The guy who sweeps up the guard’s stables? Name. And. Token.
Most also have a quick note-to-self blurb about a hidden motivation they might have on the off chance the party cares enough to go looking how to make friends/blackmail/etc.
Where do you hide the character blurbs for ease of reference?
I play over roll20, so I just attach them to the GM notes on each NPC’s character sheet.
Ah. Character sheets. The ones in Roll20. Right…
https://miro.medium.com/max/455/1*snTXFElFuQLSFDnvZKJ6IA.png
They look about like this: https://i.imgur.com/dCfaEaM.png
Those dots by the names of folks on the right panel show which PCs I’ve shown a character sheet to; the blue dot by Walter was “the entire party” since he was the shipwright they commissioned as a group. Most NPC sheets were handed out to them individually as “they should have met this person with a backstory like that…”
As you can tell from the complete lack of dots on the “gatherers” category, the party didn’t really care about farmers, fishers, etc. But if they did, they might have learned about the local vampire infestation much sooner than they did!
„lots of NPCs“ – also what I‘m working on
some names, voices and mannerisms are going to be taken from Discworld.
No way there isn’t a merchant who is „cutting his own throat“ when he gives the PCs a good deal.
And the guards that are easiest to bribe are called Fred & Nobby.
I stole names and token art almost entirely from a niche MMO I play because I’m creatively bankrupt, it helped a lot.
Probably I have, but nothing really comes to mind. I’ll say this though.
As a player, I often am more frustrated with that person at the table that doesn’t know what they want to do with their turn, so we come to them, and they spend six-ten minutes figuring it the hell out.
As a GM, that player also ticks me off, but directly adjacent to That Guy are rules and mechanics that make running the game harder than it needs to be. Things like optional rules that increase the “realism” of the situation are just the beginning of this pile.
Friend of mine made a Feint build in Pathfinder. I make ALL my own monsters, since it’s a lot faster for me to make a few macros, write down five lines of stats, and call it a day. The problem is Feint requires the GM to roll Sense Motive every time it’s used, and my friends build used Feint *every time he attacked.*
So… I had to drag out the rules, look this nonsense up, realize that his min maxing meant either auto success or immune, record another value on all monsters, *and make a check* for every target he attacked.
After some sessions of this, I requested him to not.
> I often am more frustrated with that person at the table that doesn’t know what they want to do with their turn
That’s its own problem:
https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/dithering
I have one friend trying to run Kingmaker and another friend trying to run The Jade Regent (Pathfinder modules) right now. Both support a… shall we say, ‘Extra’ rules system on top of playing of Pathfinder.
I think we’re all a little worried those extra systems are just a lot more for very little.
those „extra rules“ are a common theme in Pathfinder AP:
Harrow Cards in Crimison Throne to pass out hero points, Persona in War for the Crown (very little bonus), Kingdom & Caravan in the above mentioned, a rebellion in Hells Rebels.
All extra work, little benefit.